May 2014
A Saturday Morning Sunrise - East Central Minnesota
It was lost, but now it's found. Winter 2014 was a wild ride, but I'm glad have bid it a final farewell...
Fern Dreams - Tamarac Nature Center, Minnesota
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Another Strange Year - St. Croix River, Minnesota
Canon 5D Mark iii + Canon 17-40L
Call this one wishful thinking... I made this photograph on May 19, 2013. It's one year later and we're still waiting for the buds to burst throughout the St. Croix Valley. It's another strange year here in East Central Minnesota, but as the seasons come and go, I've begun to realize that "strange years" have become the norm around here.
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Dutchman's Breeches (Dicentra cucullaria) : Fairy Falls Trail - Stillwater, MN
It is a rare opportunity to see a forest ephemeral. This species holds its bloom for about 48 hours and them begins to lose its integrity. To produce this image, I lowered the tripod down into a muddy river bank and set my 100mm macro lens to f4.0 in order to minimize the depth of field and reduce the detail of distracting leaves in the background. By focusing on such a tiny portion of the flower, the bloom takes on a 3-dimensional character.
©2000-2014 BTLeventhal.com / Bruce & Tamy Leventhal. All rights reserved. No image on this site may be used without permission.
Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) - St. Croix River Valley
One of my favorite spring subjects. I used my Canon 7D and 300mm f2.8 IS lens to photograph this heron returning to its nest on the St. Croix River. The shot was made from a canoe with the aid of my good friend Brian Collins. You can see his amazing photographs of nature at: http://saintcroixbirds.blogspot.com
This one will be a bit of a stretch this year!
Winter took a long time to end, and it appears that spring is taking even longer to begin. Buds are just now beginning to burst, and migratory flocks are finally moving through the St. Croix River valley. Today, like most of our recent todays, is overcast and threatening to rain. With high's barely touching 60 ℉, May 2014 could be confused for September or October. Yet, life resilient, and signs of spring are finally beating back the bleakness that winter has left behind. Looking for a bit of green?... Check out this blog throughout the next few days if you're looking to feed your spring fix.
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MacCaw Conservation Center, Costa Rica
It’s been a tough couple of months in the photo-blogging world for me. As an artist and writer, I have been thoroughly uninspired. While my travels to Costa Rica and California have contributed many new images to the portfolio and my work with snowy owls made for an exciting winter, I, nonetheless, have slipped into an artist’s funk. My many rants throughout the past twelve months clearly articulate the frustration I often feel. What was once a lonely pursuit, has now become a crowded field. Finding a bit of solitude in nature now seems as rare as the ivory-billed woodpecker. Maybe it’s just an April/May issue, but this season of renewal rarely leads to little more than disappointment.
May is the last full month of the school year. It is testing time, and student frustration is at its peak. My AP students mill about like zombies, often distant and detached. Wearing the stress like baggy clothes on a gaunt frame, the anxiety is palpable. Spring activities extract my young scientists from the lab, deprive them of learning opportunities and add more angst to a population whose being is defined by an ever present angst. Meanwhile, large numbers of students are preparing to leave the certainty of their high school life for an unstructured summer or post-secondary unknown. This is an interesting time to be the fly on the wall.
Dr. Adrian Pinto working with student researchers in Costa Rica
So this morning when students began to populate my room an hour prior to the start of the academic day, I was pleasantly surprised by a bit of discourse. A crowd gathered to make up exams, complete labs and study in the solitude of a familiar space. As I typed away on a lesson for the day, the conversation began... “When does consciousness begin in a fetus?” she asked. I took the bait like the Socratic teacher I pretend to be, and volleyed back, “When do you think?”
Michael Sevilla discussing the biology of tropical bats, Costa Rica
The discussion meandered about as others joined in or tuned-out in favor of their intended task. We discussed the essence of being and the intent of life, but this was not the burning question. She held it tight like something precious and finally offered her real thought with a bit of trepidation... “Is there any hope for humanity?” This one hits me like a ton bricks, as it is the one question that haunts me every day. It is the question that inspired my career and my avocation. I’m too honest to offer a comforting response, paused, and revealed the fear I have about our collective existence. “I’m not sure,” I say. “We are biological beings, programmed by our DNA to manipulate the environment and proliferate.” As I now write this, I realize that I did not paint a very pretty picture of humanity... so much for protecting the innocent. Yet, in my limited years on this planet that has witnessed 4.6 billion of them, I have watched the human population double, environments shrink and indigenous populations disappear. I care about these things, things that I could choose to ignore or define as irrelevant.
Children reaching out, David Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage, Kenya
Yet, I believe there is a reason for hope. I have students who dream of a sustainable planet with a sustainable population. While some might claim them to be naive, nothing could be farther from the truth. There is a great awareness about our global predicament that includes anthropogenic climate change, diminishing resources and overpopulation. My generation feared a nuclear holocaust, they fear an ecological one. But unlike this GenXer who felt like the Boomers already did it and there’s nothing left to do, the Millennials are empowered by their social media and the ability to speak out. While courts equate money with speech, the influence of the big donor can be marginalized by many small voices sharing environmental realities throughout a web that is more democratic (with a small d), than is the traditional media of the big spenders. A few well organized Millennials working the web have the power to diminish the loud voice of denial that emanate from a wealthy few. As long as there are people who care to see and speak the truth, there will always by hope for humanity.
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The Illusion : Rincon de la Vieja National Park, Costa Rica
An illusion is the purposeful or inadvertent distortion of reality. Like a mirage perceived along a hot desert highway where the sun’s rays are bent to produce a displaced image of the sky, the photographer is an illusionist who plays with light. The distant desert puddle is illusory, a misdirection of the senses that suggests something that is not. The capacity to distort or define a false reality separates the photographic artist from the journalist seeking to portray the truth. Yet, this same journalist is as guilty of framing the reality in a moment as is the photographer. The photojournalist defines a personal truth by choosing a specific lens, omitting distracting elements and defining the final composition. Very little is real when it comes to making a photograph. Ever since optics have been used to focus light onto a photosensitive emulsion, artists have employed whatever means possible to suggest something about a moment that is more personal than is real.
Just a little something to think about when you gaze at someone’s selfie, a beautiful landscape or that stunning wedding album.
Blue Pool : Rincon de la Vieja National Park), Costa Rica
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