Janet Worne - Thoughtful Photography

Hummingbird Mystery

I saw a young visitor out my kitchen window this morning. It made my day. She sat in a yucca tree and groomed herself meticulously--long enough for me to run and fetch my camera and fire off 31 frames. Most of the hummingbirds in our yard are the black-chinned variety. This one had a prominent yellow spot on her beak that I hadn't noticed until I was looking closely at the images blown up on my computer.

I was stumped. A hummer with a yellow spot on its beak? Never heard of one. I looked further. She was cleaning her needle-thin beak with her feet.

A few frames later cleared up the mystery. The yellow must have been pollen, now washed away by the bird's hygienic habits. I'm still not sure, but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that this young female is, indeed, a black-chinned hummingbird.

It's definitely adorable.

Keyword Inspiration

Our July/August monsoon season seems to have arrived ahead of schedule. Not that we have been getting a lot of rain--especially by my old Kentucky standards--but our typically blue, cloudless skies have seen small storms rolling past periodically each day. For us that translates into cooler afternoons and evening light shows. What rain there is to be dropped, is usually unleashed on the Sandia Mountains within sight of my camera.

I took these pictures during Mother Nature's after dinner entertainment while sitting on our patio. Looking at them I am still awed by what I see. My mind runs through the list of keywords I attached to the metadata. I start with the literal: mountains, weather, wind, clouds, sunset, sky, Southwest, Sandia, storm...

Somehow that seems inadequate. I move on to the more descriptive: alpen glow, pastel, orange, intense, scenic, strength, grandeur, big sky...

Then I unleash my feelings and add a few larger concepts for good measure: Enchantment, dreamy, faith, spirituality, passion, perfection, surreal, vitality, dreams, goals, Zen...

Can't you just see one of these photos on a poster with some inspirational message about reaching for your goals with passion? The point is, if they were languishing in some stock agency with only the literal keywords, the buyer looking for an image to illustrate a concept or inspirational message would never find them.

Awe-inspiring. I never tire of looking at that mountain. I need to come up with more words to describe it.

The Dawning of a New Year

It begins with a gentle lightening of the horizon. No more than a hint of what is to come. So subtle and gradual is the beginning that it is not always recognized for what it is. It could be the lights of a nearby town or the harsh beacons of a highway. It couldn’t be the dawn. Could it?

There is something magical about the moment when night changes to day. That precise moment is calculated and published in newspapers. The longest and shortest days are celebrated as solstices. Even birds become silent in reverence for that moment. 

Then it pounces. Minute by minute the sky evolves and suddenly a new day is born. Each one begins in a different way. Sometimes it’s a symphony of light and shadow blending brush strokes of crimson and pink over a dark, dusky blue. Always changing, never waiting until the camera is in the right place, never hesitating for “just one more picture”.

And sometimes the dawning is cold and dreary. Black drains from the sky to reveal a gray, monochromatic world, as if it were veiled to the eye. Trees float into focus as the minutes silently pass.

When enough of the new light filters through, the day begins in earnest. The wind picks up, birds begin to sing, and people move about. Suddenly, it’s another day.

The dawning of the New Year has always been a time of hope, a new beginning. There is the feeling that no matter how dark and dismal the past has been this day is the first day of the rest of your life. It is a chance to start fresh. Past mistakes don’t count.

But why this day? Why do we not celebrate it on the first day of spring? Or on the day of the first new moon? The fact that different countries and religions celebrate it on different days tells us that it’s not the particular day that is important. It’s the feelings we associate with it. So wouldn’t it be nice if we made a fresh start every morning as the sun slips past the horizon to banish the dark corners of our lives?

Happy New Year. Happy new day.

Snow Day

Winter is here. It's snowing in the mountains today. Anyone who has ever worked for a newspaper has spent lots of time chasing down weather pictures. Even during blizzards when most people get to stay home from work news photographers not only have to work but are often called in on a day off.

I thought I would share a couple of my favorite snow pictures from over the years.

The antenna farm peeked out through the clouds on top of the Sandia Mountains after a snow storm.
Thirty minutes later the setting sun turned the snow a peach color.
Years ago a Lexington sign provided a measure of the city's snowfall.

Balloon Fiesta

It's that time of year again. Which means I've lived here in Corrales for a year now. Wow.

The Balloon Fiesta Starts today. I can see the whole thing from my backyard from about five miles away. This year the economic state of affairs has pared the number of participating balloons down to under 700 for the first time in many years. On top of that, we are due for a storm to hit tonight or tomorrow. So in case we are denied the Balloon Glow tonight I'll post a photo from last year. The good news is that the Fiesta lasts all week so there will certainly be other days with cooperating weather. And if I'm lucky, on at least one of those days, the wind will blow the hundreds of balloons my way so I can sit in my backyard and wave as they float by.

Canine Couch Potato

This is to show all those who have met my dog, Tessa, and believe her to be a little wild and crazy---yep, she can be a couch potato at home...

More Backyard Entertainment

At the risk of being redundant, I present yet more pictures of the view from my backyard. Sorry—can’t help myself. The monsoon season has arrived in New Mexico—I laughingly call it that because the rain we get from it is a fraction of what we saw in Kentucky throughout the year. Anyway, the positive spin is that the clouds keep the heat down and provide a nightly light show guaranteed to make even the most seasoned photographer go weak at the knees.

On this one particular night last week, I sat outside and watched the event unfold. Every time I thought I was done, the light shifted and I was compelled to take “just one more.” So I will post a series here in the order that they happened with the times listed.

8:07 PM

8:13 PM
8:15 PM
8:17 PM
I can relate this easily to photojournalism or any other form of picture-taking. The art of photography seems to boil down to three things: stalking the light, stalking the moment and crafting the composition.

Summer Storms

We are in the middle of the summer storm period where the sky puts on a light show for us nearly every night. In the past week we have had rainbows over the Sandia Mountains five times. And last night Mother Nature turned on the electricity.
To get pictures of lightning strikes over Albuquerque I used a tripod and a slow shutter speed. Specifically, my settings were: 250 ISO at f 10, with a shutter speed of 5 seconds. I kept the ISO low to keep the digital noise down and the aperture stopped down so that I could shoot at a slower speed. I wanted the shutter open for 5 seconds to make it easier to catch the random strikes. Unfortunately, the storm was over the city instead of the mountain. The city lights are nice but lightning over the mountain might be a bit more dramatic. I'm sure I'll get plenty of chances to try again.

Light Show

Friday, on the Fourth of July, we will be watching fireworks from a friend's backyard. Earlier this week we watched a different kind of light show with friends from our backyard.
  This was a magnificent double rainbow over the Sandia Mountains that lasted long enough for me to grab my camera and shoot to my heart's content.

Looking Beneath the Surface

The more time I spend in my backyard, the more I see that fascinates me. We have a pond that I have photographed before but only for what was on the surface. This week I discovered another world beneath the lily pads. Nothing new, I realize. What photographer hasn't already discovered the magic of the underwater universe? Saturated colors, crooked perspectives, rippled shadows--all contribute to beautiful imagery.

But today I thought about how those images can be a metaphor for the best way to approach people photography. Most photographers, at least initially, make surface photos of people. The best photographers dive beneath the surface to discover the real person below.