I wanted to try an inexpensive mirror lens with a 2x extender for nature photography. It’s not bad, but not great either. The acuity is not as good as I’d like, and the depth of focus is paper thin. But when it works it’s pretty good.
These seagulls were hunting shad on the far side of the lake, about 700 meters away.
The flat field of focus can be really nice. I like this back-lit grass and weeds.
all photographs (c) 2015 Robert W. Harrison
George Gordon Byron
I.
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
II.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.
III.
And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
(c) 2014 Robert W Harrison
To my favorite walking partner, seen above in the beauty of the New Mexico dessert.
Henry David Thoreau
Low-anchored cloud,
Newfoundland air,
Fountain-head and source of rivers,
Dew-cloth, dream-drapery,
And napkin spread by fays;
Drifting meadow of the air,
Where bloom the daisied banks and violets,
And in whose fenny labyrinth
The bittern booms and heron wades;
Spirit of lakes and seas and rivers,—
Bear only perfumes and the scent
Of healing herbs to just men’s fields.
Fog in Henry Coe State Park,
a wild place barely 20 miles from San Jose.
(c) 2010 Robert W Harrison
These sketches make it look like I’m one heck of an artist, don’t they?
Ha! There’s a very good reason I write books. These were done using a bamboo pad and photographs (albeit ones I took). The images are from the UK, on various trips, and other than Jess (the dog) are what you find on footpaths.
I drew on top of the originals, in a separate layer. Neat.
By the way, beware of the cows.
Claude McKay
At night the wide and level stretch of wold,
Which at high noon had basked in quiet gold,
Far as the eye could see was ghostly white;
Dark was the night save for the snow’s weird light.
I drew the shades far down, crept into bed;
Hearing the cold wind moaning overhead
Through the sad pines, my soul, catching its pain,
Went sorrowing with it across the plain.
At dawn, behold! the pall of night was gone,
Save where a few shrubs melancholy, lone,
Detained a fragile shadow. Golden-lipped
The laughing grasses heaven’s sweet wine sipped.
The sun rose smiling o’er the river’s breast,
And my soul, by his happy spirit blest,
Soared like a bird to greet him in the sky,
And drew out of his heart Eternity.
From a trip to the Lafitte wilderness, just south of New Orleans. Well worth braving the mosquitos.
Henry David Thoreau
I saw the civil sun drying earth’s tears —
Her tears of joy that only faster flowed,
Fain would I stretch me by the highway side,
To thaw and trickle with the melting snow,
That mingled soul and body with the tide,
I too may through the pores of nature flow.
But I alas nor tinkle can nor fume,
One jot to forward the great work of Time,
‘Tis mine to hearken while these ply the loom,
So shall my silence with their music chime.
Trumbull Stickney
It’s cold abroad the country I remember.
The swallows veering skimmed the golden grain
At midday with a wing aslant and limber;
And yellow cattle browsed upon the plain
It’s empty down the country I remember.
I had a sister lovely in my sight:
Her hair was dark, her eyes were very sombre;
We sang together in the woods at night.
It’s lonely in the country I remember.
The babble of our children fills my ears,
And on our hearth I stare the perished ember
To flames that show all starry thro’ my tears.
It’s dark about the country I remember.
There are the mountains where I lived. The path
Is slushed with cattle-tracks and fallen timber,
The stumps are twisted by the tempests’ wrath.
But that I knew these places are my own,
I’d ask how came such wretchedness to cumber
The earth, and I to people it alone.
It rains across the country I remember.
It is a little early yet, but the Sandhill Cranes overwinter near us. They love hunting bugs, frogs and other such small deer in the cotton fields at the Georgia Alabama border near Centre. We’ve even seen, once, the Whooping cranes fly through.
This shows what a 200mm lens does. I’m just waiting to try with a bigger one.
Helen Hay Whitney
Dear, did we meet in some dim yesterday?
I half remember how the birds were mute
Among green leaves and tulip-tinted fruit,
And on the grass, beside a stream, we lay
In early twilight; faintly, far away,
Came lovely sounds adrift from silver lute,
With answered echoes of an airy flute,
While Twilight waited tiptoe, fain to stay.
Her violet eyes were sweet with mystery.
You looked in mine, the music rose and fell
Like little, lisping laughter of the sea;
Our souls were barks, wind-wafted from the shore—
Gold cup, a rose, a ruby, who can tell?
Soft—music ceases—I recall no more.
Slapton Sands
photograph (c) 2015 R. Harrison
R. Harrison, Creative Enterprises 