Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - Bosque Birdwatchers RV Park, San Antonio NM
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Mallards, Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, San Antonio NM, January 24, 2011
I have a few things to learn
After posting yesterday's picture of the Mallards and Wigeons I waded into my pictures from yesterday's shoot looking for some I could zoom in on to show off the bird's wonderful green iridescence that caught my eye in the reflected morning light as I was snapping away.
Well, the glow I thought I was capturing came out a little flat and mottled. Flat because the nature of digital photography doesn't capture the glow? Maybe, I'm not sure. But mottled by the sunlight reflecting off water droplets clinging to what looked from afar to be glistening smooth feathers. These guys were dabbling for breakfast and the droplets broke up the sheen I thought I was capturing.
But I got a few interesting shots anyway. It's such fun to shoot some pictures, only to find something entirely unexpected and wonderful in the images. Like this guy's reflection.
Iridescence is an optical phenomenon of surfaces in which hue changes in correspondence with the angle from which a surface is viewed.
Iridescence is often caused by multiple reflections from two or more semi-transparent surfaces in which phase shift and interference of the reflections modulates the incidental light (by amplifying or attenuating some frequencies more than others).
Conventional photography only records the specific effect of iridescence (not the phenomenon itself), just as it only captures the effect of three dimensions (representing them with two)...
Source: Wikipedia
Night camp
Site 10 - Bosque Bird Watcher's RV Park, San Antonio NM
- This is a basic, small Mom & Pop RV Park with full hookups.
- Verizon cell phone and Broadband service are available here with a strong signal.
- Locate Bosque Bird Watcher's RV Park on my Night Camps map
- Click for Google street view
- Check the weather in San Antonio NM
Fit In Better
We Americans hail from families of immigrants newly arrived, seeking approval from better-established immigrants deposited by the previous boat. Even the best adjusted of us have inherited a message of social inferiority from generations of moms telling generations of kids to fit in better, speak English better, display better manners, etc. I suggest that this heritage weighs on us more than we want to acknowledge at levels we don't want to address.
Britt Blaser, Escapable Logic 2/20/2003