Posts Tagged With: photography

Having Fun or Not, Time Flies

Posted on June 7, 2012 by Quill Gordon

WWQGD?

What Would Quill Gordon Do?

When the workday is through, and he has a choice, do you suppose he would choose A):

or B):

The correct answer, of course, is “B” but sometimes it is “C” which involves falling asleep in a large, comfortable recliner like normal people.

***********

Q & A

Question: “Quill, if I just give you some money will you take me out and show me how to fish this darn lake?”

Answer: “No.”

Question: “Quill, would you like to go fishing with me?”

Answer: “Oh, yes! That would be delightful.” Continue reading →

Categories: Fly Fishing, nature | Tags: Fly Fishing, ghoti62, Loons, nature, photography, quill gordon | 15 Comments

A Big Old Dose of Spring

Posted on March 25, 2012 by Quill Gordon

At Town Meeting, back on the 6th, I was told Mud Season would begin on the 7th.

It did.

A protracted spell of unseasonable warmth made it even deeper and more tenacious than usual and, two and a half weeks later, it’s still not over. Entire dump truck loads of stone continue to disappear in the slop.

While several feet of saturated road bed thawed in the warm spring sun this week, the ice on the lake remained thick, but not to be trusted.

Continue reading →

Categories: Humor, nature, Vermont | Tags: ghoti62, Humor, ice, mud season, nature, outdoors, photography, quill gordon, Rural Life, spring, Vermont, warm spring sun, weather | 20 Comments

The Lazy Naturalist

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Quill Gordon

My recent post, The Cry of the Sapsucker, consisted mainly of photos taken while drinking coffee in my blind, which is cleverly diguised as a house. Mike, who keeps the blog Mike’s Gone Fishin’…Again, commented that he, too, has a blind cleverly disguised as a house. Click that link. You’ll see that Mike does a lot more than take pictures out the window. The link to Mike’s Gone Fishin’…Again is a keeper.

Another friend, who lives in New Hampshire, almost all the way to Maine, sent a series of photos taken from his house of a bobcat he saw the other day.

It’s always a treat to look out the window and see something like that, and it’s great that the internet makes it so easy to share the things we see. I know it is appreciated by others because they leave comments, like the one on my post The Cry of the Sapsucker, calling it some “lazy-ass nature reporting”.

That comment came from Marc Fauvet, who keeps the blog the limp cobra (because fly lines are like wild snakes that need to be tamed …). Marc lives in Sweden, but that’s okay. His blog is beautiful, and a lot of fun. His “lazy-ass” nature reporting comment got me to thinking and, you know, Marc might be right. Maybe my pictures of a bluejay being disemboweled on the lawn were kind of lazy-ass.

Well, “kind of” ain’t good enough. We’re taking lazy-ass nature reporting to the next level by bringing you the first set of photos from our brand new concept, “Pictures Taken While I Slept”.

Continue reading →

Categories: nature | Tags: bobcat, fisher, fisher cat, ghoti62, nature, pekan, photography, quill gordon, Rural Life, Vermont, wejak, winter | 12 Comments

The Cry of the Sapsucker

Posted on March 4, 2012 by Quill Gordon

If any bird has a made-up sounding name, it has to be the yellow-bellied sapsucker. They are woodpeckers, named because of their habit of drilling holes through the bark of trees in late winter, and feeding on the oozing sap. The rings of holes they leave become an important food source for other animals, including early hummingbirds and butterflies that arrive before the first flowers appear. The call of the sapsucker has been compared to that of a hawk but the sapsuckers are active before the hawks return and I’ve learned to look to the trunk of the crab apple instead of high in the sky when I hear it this time of year.

But sooner or later, the hawks return, and I am not the only one who should remember to look up.

Many nature photographers sit in a blind, for hours and hours, hiding and waiting for something to happen, and I am no exception. My blind has been cleverly disguised as a house. Continue reading →

Categories: nature | Tags: bird feeders, bluejays, death in the woods, feeding birds, ghoti62, hawks, nature, photography, quill gordon, Vermont | 24 Comments

When Art Imitates Art, Good Fish Die

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Quill Gordon

Before color photography (and the ability to print it cheaply), outdoor catalog and magazine covers featured the work of illustrators. Never receiving the same attention as their contemporaries who did “fine” art, and certainly never able to command the same prices for their works, those illustrators created lasting images of our sport, using paint, crayons and pastels.

Their age alone evokes nostalgia, but there is a rich quality to the illustrator’s art — like the cover above, by Lynn Bogue Hunt — that other media just can’t match. Of course, if a similar image were to appear today, not only would it be a photo instead of a painting, but someone would probably be wearing a bikini.

Any image imaginable is possible today, with modern digital photography and editing software. Advertisements have become more absurd than ever, with talking reptiles and flying trucks; pixel by pixel manipulation of photos has become the norm. Where photography once provided an interpretation of what the artist saw, it is now used to create what the artist wishes us to see and, to me, much of what passes for “photography” these days should more properly be called “digital art”. By the time some of these “photos” are published, not much of the original image remains, and we seem to take for granted the inclusion or complete fabrication of elements that may not have existed before. It takes skill and a keen eye to produce such false images that look so nearly real, but what happens when a modern, 21st Century photographer uses his chosen medium to reproduce one of those iconic images from the past?

Photographer Randal Ford took on just such a task when he signed on with L.L. Bean to recreate the cover of their Spring 1933 catalog as part of L.L. Bean’s 100th anniversary celebration. Continue reading →

Categories: +Uncategorized, Fly Fishing, Humor | Tags: brook trout, fishing illustrators, ghoti62, lady gaga, ll bean, llbean 100th anniversary, llbean catalog covers, lynne bogue hunt, old catalog covers, outdoor catalog, photography, photoshop, quill gordon, randal ford, trout | 17 Comments

A Story of Life and Death, Written in Snow (19 Photos)

Posted on February 19, 2012 by Quill Gordon

(Important Disclaimer: There are places where ice forms many feet thick and travel on frozen lakes is perfectly safe for a good part of the season. In other places, especially during a winter like this one, ice conditions can change from day to day, even hour to hour.

The strengthening sun creates soft spots as melt water collects in the dips between expansion cracks, and a route that was safe in the morning merits a second look after lunch. Faint tracks mark yesterday’s trail, which puddled up and froze over last night, leaving a thin veneer over a foot of nothing but slush and at least a bracing dunk.

If asked, Quill Gordon will tell you no ice is safe, but if you do find yourself crossing a frozen lake, check ice thickness often and be aware of changing conditions.)

¦¦¦¦¦

An overnight skiff of snow on the ice is like a clean slate. Any tracks or other signs of activity I see are recent, laid down only hours before my morning rounds. Otters, mink and squirrels are common, and I saw the tracks of a fisher cat last week but, far and away, the most common tracks I come across are those of coyotes.

It’s the time for pairing off and denning up, asserting dominance and proving worth, and the coyotes have been plenty active. Most are travelling in pairs, but a big, lone male has also been out and about.

Continue reading →

Categories: nature, Rural Life, Vermont, Winter | Tags: coyote poop, coyotes, frozen lake, ghoti62, ice, nature, otters, photography, prey, quill gordon, Rural Life, Vermont, winter | 21 Comments

They Call Me Mr. Sandy Pants

Posted on February 5, 2012 by Quill Gordon

After a week that consisted largely of time spent lugging sand bags as cold winter water took an unauthorized route downhill, it was nice this afternoon to sit on a rock and watch the water go where it was supposed to.

With a little telephoto action, the area below the spillway of Fish in a Barrel Pond is what you might call a picture-rich environment. Continue reading →

Categories: nature, Vermont, Winter | Tags: ghoti62, ice, nature, photography, quill gordon, Vermont, winter | 7 Comments

In Pursuit of Something or Other

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Quill Gordon

“Many anglers at least pretend to aspire to perfection in the things they do, even though they may not be able to pin down exactly what perfection is. Most of us don’t have the slightest inkling of the consequences should one actually attain such a state of being but, still, we try. It seems we learn well through repetition, doing things again and again until we get them right, even if it takes all day, a whole year, or even the rest of our lives. It’s okay. We’ll get it. Practice makes perfect.”

That’s the opening paragraph of a piece I wrote for The Backcountry Journal, a relatively new site featuring the work of outdoorsy writers like myself. Okay, not just like myself; the talented writers featured at The Backcountry Journal are not all tall, have long hair, or sport large moustaches, but they each have a way with words as sharp as their eyes for the world.

When you have finished my piece, “Making Perfect”, you should spend some time browsing the other work Ben Smith has chosen to feature on The Backcountry Journal. You’ll be glad you did.

Categories: +Uncategorized | Tags: backcountry journal, ghoti62, ken hall, outdoor writers, photography, practice makes perfect, quill gordon | Leave a comment

As Long as Winter Holds Its Breath

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Quill Gordon

Clear arctic air came screaming in from the north this week, riding a penetrating, relentless wind. A swirl of damp, mild air made a brief appearance, a lost visitor from warmer climes, but it was quickly torn to shreds, squeezed dry by winter’s cold bony hands, and sent back southward with a mighty blast. For hours and hours the wind blew until, somewhere in the middle of the night (it’s hard to know exactly when because the power was out), it stopped.

The fullest, deepest, coldest part of the season was here and, in the morning, it seemed to be resting. Not a breeze stirred. The sun shined bright but the blue sky was deceptive — it was cold out there. I usually say it ain’t cold if your boogers ain’t froze, but I didn’t feel like actually checking myself. I did notice, though, as I drank my coffee and watched the birds at the feeders, that a little puff of steam came out every time a blue jay pooped and that’s good enough for me.

With surface temperatures matching that of the still air, at well below zero (that would be well below zero to our metric friends), and the extra moisture left behind by that silly warm front, there was only one appropriate thing to do.

I got dressed, went out, and looked for frost.