Way back in 2010 we visited Vroman’s Nose when there was snow on the ground, so what better place to strike out for during spring? I expected a mild, gorgeous day full of baby bunnies and nesting pairs of birds flitting about; I got a sun-baked, windy cliffside with no trace of Peregrine Falcons. Not a problem though, a perfect day for a picnic, and you know what I like almost as much as birds that eat other birds? Moss. Maybe it eats other moss, I don’t know.

Packing a macro lens, I was looking down more than I was looking up. Anywhere a bright patch promised enough sunlight for a decent exposure, I stomped off, heedless of deer ticks, for a close up view. When you’re looking for details, the world changes in a way, and you notice things you’d never noticed before. Quick note: you can click on any image to go to the flickr page, where you can see larger versions, which have much more detail. I suggest it.

Like this moss. Guess what, I am really bad at identifying moss. I can point out club moss, because that’s easy and relatively nonspecific. This is not a club moss. This is a fruiting body, I think; you can see the bed in the slightly less magnified photo below.

This amazes me, it looks like some alien forest. Avatar? Don’t need that, looking close enough at what we already have is crazy enough.

This, another moss, looked to me like a rolling sea, or acres of grain being blown by the wind. I’m repeatedly surprised by how our world on a small scale can often look like our world on a large scale. Then again I always thought the orbits of electrons around an atom’s nucleus resembled the orbits of planets around stars and satellites around planets, plus I didn’t pay a lot of attention in chemistry class.

These curly little mosses were near the ones above (actually you can see one of the above mosses at the bottom). Both blanketed a large rock, most likely successional species after lichen colonized it. I explained this phenomenon in an earlier post about Dyken Pond.

Most interesting were the above… I don’t know. This must be some kind of fruiting body, but to me it looks more like the Sarlacc that swallows Boba Fett in Return of the Jedi. That’s at a little over 1:1 (see below), so that central green stalk is about 1cm tall, for reference.

The vegetation near the cliff of Vroman’s Nose is adapted to punishing winds and relatively cold temperatures. The macrobiology consists mainly of hardy trees; twisted krummholz near the edge, with some hardier deciduous varieties mixed with evergreens a little further in. Those trees are uniformly covered with (what I believe are) liverwort, along with some mosses. The liverwort is the dull, leafier structure above; they’re easily mistaken for lichen (by me). Liverwort tends to thrive in moist conditions, which makes sense here when you realize that the rough tree bark collects moisture in the form of dew and may secrete its own moisture as well. The moss seems to be along for a free ride, conveniently.

So many leaves were budding, they made excellent closeup subjects. I have no idea what kind of plant this leaf is attached to! But it looks awfully nice and fuzzy, right?

Like other high-altitude, competitive local environments, Vroman’s Nose has lush beds of wild blueberries (or these may be huckleberries, hard for me to tell), which should blossom soon and produce tiny, amazingly flavorful fruit in late summer. If you camp in the higher elevations of New York, collect some of these for breakfast pancakes. Trust me. For now, they give some pleasant ground cover.

I’m coming to grips with my own issues with heights; as I’ve said before, it’s not heights I’m afraid of, but falling. It’s not uncommon for rescues to be performed, and I don’t want to know how painful it is to fall far enough to need a rescue. Still, I went near the edge for a few photos, which is more than I did last time.

To get into gear talk for a minute, I’ve discussed inexpensive macro solutions and macro photography while hiking before. Since this was a low-impact hike, I brought along a dedicated lens and packed an all-purpose zoom. The macro photos here were made with a Canon FD 50mm f/3.5 Macro lens, adapted to the modern EF mount (think of it as the granddaddy of the current EF 50mm f/2.5 Macro). The trick here is that unless the adapter has an optical element, slowing and degrading the lens, you cannot get full infinity focus with an FD lens. For macro photos, I’m not concerned about infinity focus, which makes it a perfect inexpensive solution; $30 or so for the lens and $15 for the adapter. Since the adapter then acts as a thin extension tube, at maximum magnification (including the original dedicated FD25 extension tube) this gets just over 1:1 reproduction. For dedicated macro shooting, this is the setup that I’m happiest with after three years of experimentation — but it still doesn’t quite match up to a modern lens designed for the Canon system.

Here’s the thing; I am generally dismissive of macro photography. It’s often a cheap thrill, photos of flowers simply for the fact of the super closeup, not for any real consideration of the subject. A very “look at me” kind of photography. I consider myself a (very) amateur naturalist, so I justify these photos as studies of local flora and fauna. Do I know what the insect above is? No, but I’m fascinated by the way it’s adapted to blend in with trees in its habitat. Look at the very large version and the antennae look like tiny individual beads strung together. I am not into macro photography simply because it looks cool, but because I’m trying to examine and understand the world around me.

So that’s another trip to Vroman’s Nose. My last note is this: if you’re coming from Albany, don’t take I-90 or Rt 88. Those are the easy ways to get to Middleburgh, but if you spend some time with a map and look at Rt 146 or any of the other backroads, you’ll drive through some quiet country with amazing scenery. Get a gazetteer and enjoy New York!

If you want someone who is much better at finding and describing the small, seasonal things in our Capitol Region, check out Saratoga Woods and Waterways. If you want to know things about microbiology you will subsequently not want to know, I heartily recommend The Artful Amoeba. You can also see a slideshow of allll my Vroman’s nose photos.

Yesterday a hole in the world opened that will never be filled again. Tom Genovese, a dedicated, loving, and passionate son, brother, and friend to many, was killed in a collision while riding his motorcycle.

There are few people out there like Tom. I got to know him a little over a year ago, when I wrote an article for All Over Albany on the opening his cafe. I came to call him a friend shortly after, drawn in by his warmth, magnanimity, and sense of humor. I imagine that happened to most who met him. Tom was an engineer, environmentalist, swing dancer, wonderful owner of two of the best dogs ever, entrepreneur, community builder, great guitarist and singer, and most importantly an excellent friend.

He was also passionate, the cafe being a prime example. He devoted the last two and a half years of his life to realizing this dream, and celebrated the first anniversary of its opening just a few days ago. Not many people would endure the struggle and hardship he saw during that time, and even fewer would would smile as much as Tom did throughout. He had an extraordinary ability to shake off whatever bothered him, always finding a way to laugh.

In the short year that I knew him, Tom left a trail of fond memories. Friendly arguments over which chips to serve with sandwiches. Watching his dogs try to eat the ice on the puddles at the top of Buck mountain in December. The slightly awkward “loincloth” pouch he wore on a hike up Roostercomb, and the mean campfire pancakes he made in the morning. So many visits to the cafe, with odd stories about customers, his unique open mic hosting talents, and the comfortable, homey feeling he nurtured there so quickly. More than once I ran into him on the street, Danny and Bosco offleash but always glued to his side. In fact, that’s how many people knew him, “that guy with the dogs”.

I spent a few hours last night at a friend’s house where many of us had gathered, to console each other and try to understand and make sense of what had happened. The number of people there and the mix of emotion are a testament to who Tom is. Yes, there were tears, but there was plenty of laughter too. To say that his closest friends are devastated is an understatement; without warning, they lost an irreplaceable gem of a human being.

Tom’s official obituary has more details. He touched so many lives, and will be remembered and missed in all of them. This has been mostly my own way of grieving and coming to grips with reality, so thanks for reading.

Bye Tom.

2012 marks the third year I’ve visited the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival, only named the #2 Winter Carnival in the world by National Geographic. Beating out parties in Canada and Japan is pretty impressive considering the town’s population hovers around 5,000. Who knew we had a world-class event tucked away in the frigid Adirondacks? Answer: National Geographic, but now you know, too.

Each year has a theme, and this year’s was Alien Invaders. You can see a few of them above, abducting terrestrial life forms. As usual I accompanied my friends in the carnival group the Gimps, best known for never participating in the yearly theme. This time they were killer bees. As in the classic SNL skit, complete with sombreros, which raised concerns they would be interpreted as illegal aliens (they had been permanently banned from the carnival years ago for gratuitous use of “EAT ME” in an Alice on Wonderland theme). Bright yellow stripes and bee antics seemed to do the trick and there were no international incidents.

In 2010 and 2011 I went with something of a photojournalistic angle, focusing on the parade, the costumes, the ice castle and winter events. This time I decided to use the warm welcome my extended family of Gimps gives and come at carnival in a more documentary style. You may be asking, what’s the difference between photojournalism and documentation? Well, it’s quite simple: obviously I’m just using impressive words to sound like I know what I’m talking about.

Instead of staking out a spot on the parade route and shooting every float going by, I followed the swarm of killer bees to their staging area. Since they had the second to last float, this was perfect, passing by all the other groups on the mile or two walk out and making it back to the finish line about halfway through the end of the parade. Hanging out while the gimps were getting prepped was much more interesting than being roped onto the sidewalk and waiting for the parade to pass by. Maybe because they are pretty interesting. Bees on a frozen lake? Why not.

Walking back up the route, through the crowd, gave me a chance to shoot some of the other paraders and the spectators. I wanted to give a sense of what it’s like to be in the crowd, instead of the slightly antiseptic results I came back with in years prior. There’s a certain energy and enthusiasm we don’t get here in Albany at, say, Tulip or Lark Fest.

My impression of the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival has been one of high alcohol consumption, which may just be a byproduct of the people I hang out with while I’m there. After the parade there was some hotel room drinking, some food and drinking at the Moose Club, some drinking and very noise-tolerant dogs at the Rusty Nail, and drunken bee bowling. I called it a night before the swarm invaded the Waterhole, a popular local establishment I had been forcefully ejected from last year.

By the time we were near the ice castle, with ice UFOs gorgeously lit up, I was looking forward to getting horizontal. So, no photos of the castle for me this year, but honestly, it will be hard to ever top Mark Kurtz’ shot from that Nat Geo link. If you’ve never been to the carnival, you owe it to yourself to check it out at least once, see the official website for details. Think about reserving a room sometime around right now. I highly recommend checking the slideshow for larger photos, more not shown here, and a better idea of what it’s like to hang out with the Gimps for a day.

Special thanks to all of the hospitable residents of Saranac Lake, especially the police and fire departments who maintain a semblance of order. Until next year, happy carnival!

Dyken Pond was a surprise. I’ve visited most of the environmental centers in the area but had no idea Dyken Pond existed or was as interesting as it is — and I sort of grew up in Rensselaer county. Totally my fault. I didn’t visit at the best time, but I’ll blame that on the weather, there should have been some snow already. It looks like a great place to snowshoe and I’m eager to visit again in the spring for the vernal pond and fall for what should be an impressive color show. Some stuff that didn’t make it into the AOA article:

This is a “pufball” mushroom, likely Morganella pyriformis. Pyriformis is one of the few puffballs that grow on wood, in fact decomposing the wood as part of their life cycle. I can’t be absolutely sure of the classification but it’s a safe bet. These are smaller than they seem, only about a centimeter across — I was using a 35mm lens on tubes for ninja macro performance.

This was by far more interesting to me, maybe because I’m easily amused. On the right you see a quartz vein, all over you see moss and some lichen. This tells a story, albeit a long, protracted, and uneventful one. Under all the moss to the left is likely granite, though I didn’t scrape it off to check. Lichen and moss are known as pioneer species and in cases like this one are successional. See, lichen is a symbiosis of algae and fungus — basically something you really do not want on your feet. The fungus gives the algae a hospitable place to live and in return the algae photosynthesizes and provides the fungus with some food. As someone way smarter than me once said, lichens are fungi who’ve developed agriculture.

But fungi eat more than just algae poop, they can actually slowly decompose minerals, and being extremely hardy they can colonize and live on mineral deposits — what we usually call “rocks”. So lichen actually turn rocks into soil over a long period of time, and eventually mosses are happy to call that soil home. So long lichen, thanks for all the hard work. So, why did I find the above quartz and moss interesting? Lichens are able to colonize and break down certain rock types much more easily than others, and this is a perfect illustration. Lichens can live on quartz, but it’s much easier for them to live on the granite in which we often see quartz veins. The boundary you see is there because of the particular adaptability of the lichens paving the way, and if that doesn’t quite blow your mind, this colonization likely started hundreds of years ago. It takes a long, long time for lichens to turn rock into a suitable home for moss.

There’s lots of other geeky sciencey naturey stuff at Dyken Pond, like glacial erratics. These are massive boulders that ice sheets just decided they didn’t want anymore so they just kind of left them all over the Northeast. It’s glacier trash that gets in our way, which is kind of funny but not really seeing as our trash is sort of destroying what’s left of glaciers. Whoops.

The Snow Train, now that was fun. As the AOA editors mentioned at the end, this was a media junket, which I’m not completely comfortable with. You just can’t honestly evaluate something you’re not paying for, but I took the time to talk to the poor schmucks who did pay (okay, that’s unfair, they were really nice), to help get an idea if riding in the dome car was worth it or not. When the train stopped over a mist-covered river lit with the golden Adirondack sunrise and everyone jumped toward the windows to take photos, I had my answer.

As I mentioned in the piece, if you aren’t hitting the runs you aren’t getting your full money’s worth, but I enjoyed riding the gondola up and stomping around. Way in the past I took three snowboard lessons and decided careening down a mountain in winter was not for me, so I’m fascinated by ski/snowboard culture and particularly life at the top of the run.

I tried to get as many candid, street-style photos as I could, but even a breakfast Bloody Mary didn’t loosen the pressure of being on assignment, so stuck mainly to what I knew would run. We were also on something of a schedule, but I tried to get an honest look at life on slopes. It’s definitely something I want to go back and spend more time with.

I like North Creek more than it may have seemed in the AOA piece. It’s a small Adirondack town that’s kept its individuality in the face of being a tourist destination — Gore may not be nationally known but it’s one of the more popular mountains in the east. Compare that to somewhere like Lake Placid, which is a blatant tourist trap. The people are great and honestly happy to see you. We stopped at Marsha’s, advertising the best burger in town, for lunch. We were the only table, but the burger didn’t disappoint, especially for the price. Medium rare came out perfectly medium rare and it was not just a preformed Sysco patty. As we walked out, the staff were playing cards on the bar, and after leaving I knew I should have stopped and taken a few photos, even if it meant switching lenses and mounting a flash. But once the idea came to me, I felt too self conscious to go back and ask, so I filed it away in the endless folder of “things to remember for next time”.

After some shopping and sightseeing we whiled away another hour or so at the Barking Spider, which I absolutely, 100% recommend visiting if you’re in North Creek. This is the townie bar. We were mostly ignored — probably because I’m not the most outgoing person — which I respect. The pickled eggs were fantastic. PBR cans are $2, and there’s a giant fish with a clock hung at one end of the bar and a huge wooden spider with a couple hundred dollars of small bills signed by patrons behind it. I love that place.

Unfortunately, as you can read in the article, the trip didn’t end as well as it could have. The vast majority of my traveling companions, most of whom had paid for the thing, were still in good spirits. I used that as further anecdotal data (hah) that the trip is worth it, and had I spent $80 I would still feel that way. Riding in that dome car is great, giving a view of the Adirondacks that’s impossible otherwise. If we get some more snow I’ll probably take the $55 dome car round trip and just chill in North Creek. And if they continue the service year-round, it’ll be a great way to get up to to some rafting, hiking, and camping.

I know posts have been few and far between. I’ve got a few things up my sleeves, stay tuned. Thanks for reading.

Ever repeat a word so much it loses it’s meaning, becoming gibberish? That’s where I am with “occupy”, it’s only a lingual click and kiss, though I’m no less sympathetic than I was at the start. The last time I mentioned Occupy Albany was in October, politically that’s prehistory, so what’s happened since then?

In October, it did in fact snow, something most of us in Albany forgot about because we didn’t see it again until just a few days ago.

November brought little in the way of inclement weather, easing the occupation’s namesake. As I understand, most of the tents were actually not occupied at night; the vast majority of occupiers, having jobs, families, and other responsibilities, erected them both as a statement of solidarity and to provide shelter for those who needed it and did want to stay the night.

The daily protests and regular meetings continued, and I stopped by when I could to see how things were going. One popular anti-occupy narrative claimed the camp was attracting the homeless who were causing problems. When I visited on the 5th, I saw some people I would knee-jerk classify as homeless, which I can’t confirm, but everyone was friendly and I didn’t hear of any reported issues. The man on the right, below, was nice to me and everyone else, and tried to get his reluctant friend into the photo.

November 11 is Veterans Day. I visited during the parade expecting some clashes; the occupy movement has been branded by the right-wing media as a leftist movement to rival the Tea Party, and the nationalism associated with Veterans Day should be likely to stir tensions, I thought. Aside from some dismissive comments overheard at the parade itself, the occupiers were left to respectfully express themselves, and they were even represented by marching with the Veterans for Peace.

On November 15, a splinter group led by Bradley Russell began challenging the invisible city/state boundary between Lafayette and Academy parks. This repeated nightly several times including arrests. On the 17th, Occupy Albany organized a rally and daytime march to the capitol building, with representatives from across the state including New York City joining.

By the 23rd, all arrest charges had been dropped and the protesters agreed to stop encroaching on Lafayette Park.

December brought unseasonably mild weather to Albany. Occupy Albany had an easy go of continuing their stay in Academy Park. But on December 2nd, the city inspected the camp levying 15 heath and safety violations, giving until December 22 to vacate. The protesters accepted a permit that lasted until the 22nd, but worked to improve conditions toward allowing them to stay beyond.

Many of these violations were on sanitary grounds which the occupiers previously responded to.

(from November 17)

On December 5, Occupy Albany removed unoccupied tents and other items in response to the inspection. This didn’t help and the December 22nd vacation (as in “vacate now”, not “go on a holiday”) proceeded. The protesters had a surprise for the Albany Police Department, physically lifting their large last remaining tent off the ground and parading it around the streets of downtown Albany for over an hour.

The APD were extremely lenient and helpful during this march, blocking traffic and escorting the protesters along their several mile path during rush hour. The occupiers attempted to set their tent back down in the park at the end, resulting in our very own pepper spray incident, over which both sides are still arguing. The Capitol Confidential blog has good coverage, I’ll give a shout out here to Jimmy Vielkind who’s been on top of this story from the start, he’s the hardest working person Albany.

In the meantime, on December 20, Occupy Albany released a demand, which did nothing to quiet critics who railed against the occupy movement for having no demand.

So, without a camp, where is Occupy Albany now? They have solidified their message and organization and are continuing to speak out in furtherance of their stated goals. In the early days I said give them time to learn how to effectively protest and organize, which they seem to be doing, yet this is not the endgame. I hesitate to inflate the importance of the occupy movement nationally, but with the GOP presidential nomination race in full swing I find some dots to connect between Occupy and, say, the attack on Mitt Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital. Has the message of the 99% penetrated even the staunchly pro-1% Republican Party?

Most recently, Occupy Albany protested the Citizens United ruling by marching at the U.S. District Court on Broadway, complete with a “democracy funeral march”. One of their chants is “the people united will never be defeated” giving an Orwellian doublethink to “Citizens United”. It was 22 degrees and breezy, I didn’t want to stay for more than ten minutes.

You can view my Occupy Albany Photos in slideshows, I’ve broken them down by month: October 2011, November 2011, December 2011, January 2012. Many others have been covering the protest photographically too; Dylan Boyce, Sebastien, Happy Accidents, Tim Raab, dwlcx, MikeCNY; Sotto Voce at Daily Kos has some good photos too. If I missed you, leave a comment with a good link to your Occupy Albany Photos.

I’ll keep documenting Occupy Albany as well as I can.

Ben K-N

Sticking with two stages instead of three makes it a lot easier to catch more of the music, but I did like the extra smaller stage for local acts in 2009. The organizers focused more on local music overall this time, which I would like to see continue, the area has a lot to offer. The only hiccup I saw was when Severe Severe stone cold stopped playing in the middle of a song because they didn’t like the sound setup. The most notable change this year was a revised beer policy; bars were not allowed to sell alcohol directly on the sidewalk. People got drunk as usual but to my knowledge there weren’t any major incidents. The ghost of Kegs & Eggs haunts.

Instead of spending most of my time trying to shoot the bands, I did a lot more candid work in the crowd, which I have talked about already; it’s a fun way to work at a big event like this.

Okay, enough, just some more photos. There’s a slideshow, and Sebastien has a few photos too.

We are Jeneric

Severe Severe

]]> http://www.bvcphoto.com/2011/10/17/lark-fest-2011/feed/ 2 http://www.bvcphoto.com/2011/10/06/rock-n-relief-at-valentines-angry-firemen-at-red-square/ http://www.bvcphoto.com/2011/10/06/rock-n-relief-at-valentines-angry-firemen-at-red-square/#comments Fri, 07 Oct 2011 03:03:12 +0000 B http://www.bvcphoto.com/?p=1869 Been too busy to keep up with this blogging thing. Following are some photos from a few local shows where I saw many friends, on and off stage. After a Google Reader conversation I vowed to see more live music in Albany; a way of putting my money where my mouth is. Can’t complain about the state of local music if you don’t contribute, right?

Rock n Relief was a benefit show at Valentines on September 9. Organized by Eric Halder, of Charmboy, several hours of music hit both stages with all funds going to local hurricane relief efforts. It was amazing. There’s a good review by Ed Conway over at Nippertown. The Angry Firemen played at Red Square on August 22, and that was just pure fun. Red Square is an impressive local venue, mainly because the bar area is well separated from the stage/floor, and there is some sidewalk patio space, so it’s easy to take a break from the music. If anything showing there sounds remotely interesting, go check it out — they also have a good selection of draught beer.

More photos from Rock n Relief and Angry Firemen.

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