Anyone with an autofocus camera usually can focus on a landscape. Anyone with Photoshop or Lightroom2 or similar software can manipulate the image.
But there’s one part of outdoors photography that relates to the eye like no other factor: light. The subject doesn’t matter if the light’s not right, and a minority of nonprofessional photographers are experts at capturing the right light with the right scene.
Fine-art photographer Elizabeth Carmel takes on the challenge of light and landscape and excels with her coffee-table book, “The Changing Range of Light: Portraits of the Sierra Nevada” ($50).
“Changing” is a three-part creation: a photographic essay, a textbook on light, and complementary observations of the role global warming may play with the landscape, possibly altering it forever.
She gives us bristlecone at sunrise, autumn morning at Mono Lake, sunset on Horsetail Falls (not what you expect) and a winter palette.
This is one of the best books I’ve seen that truly captures the range of light.
“Wild Animals” ($25) is a stereo book that introduces children to the sounds of wildlife with 15 scenes.
Press a button that corresponds to an animal and clearly hear the calls of the wild. Downside: The battery cover on my copy tended to fall off. Be creative.
The more sophisticated version for adults is bird expert Donald Kroodsma’s “The Backyard Birdsong Guide: A Guide to Listening” ($30), published by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
Kroodsma packages bird description, habitat and art for dozens of birds. More importantly, he focuses on sound in 75 percent of the text.
In the first section of the book, Kroodsma discusses why birds sing, where each bird gets his song, songs and calls, and the practice of deep listening.
It’s a great package.
Counting bills: Bird bills, that is. There are two Christmas bird counts in Snohomish County.
The south county count is scheduled for dawn to dusk Dec. 20. The north county count will be from dawn to dusk Dec. 27.
To join either outing, call Mike Blackbird, president of the Pilchuck Audubon Society, at 425-670-2491.
Love those hummingbirds: Our wintering hummingbirds have been through a rough week, but there are folks out there offering sustenance and reporting on their visitors.
Gary and Dawn Clark of Camano Island have hummingbirds visiting their feeders all year.
Glenn Freudenberger, who lives near Silver Lake and has been feeding hummingbirds for six years, has had at least two hummingbirds that insist on territorial disputes despite the room at the restaurant.
“The feeder will freeze at 26 degrees. I bring it in at night and put it out as soon as we get up. In the winter they are more apt to sit on the rim of the feeder than in the summer.
“The feeder is 8 inches from our sliding glass door, so I get excellent photos of them. Their unpredictability is a challenge.
“Generally I have a camera on the table close to the door, but recently it has been a video camera,” Freudenberger said in an e-mail.
Barrett Campbell, who lives in Lynnwood, has an Anna’s hummingbird feeding in his back yard plus a different kind of hummingbird. He wanted to know the name of the other hummingbird.
I’m stumped without seeing a picture of it. It’s possible that one of our most prevalent hummingbirds, the rufous, has stuck around.
Is anyone seeing a hummer other than Anna’s at their feeders?
Columnist Sharon Wootton can be reached at 360-468-3964 or www.songandword@rockisland.com.
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