T.G.'s Photography Blog

  Looking straight down at the snow-covered trees.  With a fresh coating of snow on the forest near my house , I sent the drone up to capture some photographs. This view is looking straight down at the snow-covered trees from about 200 feet above the ground. The trees are all around 100 feet tall.  Photograph taken on December 12, 2022, near Syracuse, New York.

  The last time I captured a view looking over the forest in my neighborhood, the trees were bare, the ground covered in snow, and more snow was falling. This week with spring in full bloom and the sky filled with some great-looking clouds, I sent the drone up again to capture the view. Looking northward toward the Seneca River at an above-ground-level altitude of 225 feet. Ash Trees and the Emerald Bore   A lot of the trees in this forest are ash trees. Many of them are infected by the Emerald Ash Bore (EAB) and are either dead or dying. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the EAB, a type of beetle, is an invasive insect that most likely arrived in wood packing materials from Asia approximately thirty years ago. The EAB, as its name implies, bores holes throughout the tree, resulting in the tree's death. When the ash trees become infected by the EAB, an increased presence of woodpeckers occurs. The beetles are a food source for woodpeckers. The ...

We've had snow almost continuously on the ground here in the Syracuse area since just after New Year's. The snow has melted off a bit at times, but new snow always seems to fall. The day before I took this photograph a significant amount of the snow on the ground had melted off so that one could actually see the grass in places. However, that was short lived, and more snow fell overnight and the next morning.  Looking north over the forest behind my house. With a break in the snowfall and some sunshine breaking through the clouds, I set up my drone to practice using it some more and capture the forest behind my house again. As I was sending the drone up, the sky clouded up again and snow started falling. I quickly snapped a few shots and brought the drone back down to the ground. The river seen through the trees on the left side is the Seneca River. Photograph taken on February 18, 2022, near Syracuse, New York.

On Saturday, parts of the Western and Central New York regions had a snow squall blow through. The squall came through from the west to the east and only lasted about ten to fifteen minutes. It brought white-out conditions and wind gusts up to 40MPH. It hit the Syracuse area just before 10AM EST. Typical snow falling at the start of the snow squall. The snow squall started out with what I would call typical snow fall for the area. However, within minutes of the snow starting to fall the squall brought white-out conditions. The tree line of the forest is fifty feet from my vantage point. According to the National Weather Service, a snow squall is an intense snowstorm with high wind gusts that is much shorter in duration than a blizzard. They are often accompanied by a sudden drop in temperature which can cause the snow to freeze, leading to dangerous driving conditions. The snow and winds were so intense during this snow squall that the visibility of the forest behind my house, which ...

Being curious as to what the view was like looking over the top of the forest near my house , I sent my drone up into the air to capture the view.  A view from about 100 feet above the ground looking over the top of the forest. This view is due north from about 100 feet/30 meters above the ground. The tree  lying on the ground , near the bottom right of the photograph, is about 70-80 feet tall. In the middle-left of the photograph, through the trees is the Seneca River. The river is about 800 feet away from the camera. At the time the photograph was taken the river was mostly frozen over. Image details:  Captured in DNG format, using a DJI Mini 2. Edited in Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop. Drone altitude, 420 feet/128 meters above sea level. Photograph taken on February 8, 2022, near Syracuse, New York.

 With a forest behind my house, I see quite a bit of wildlife from time to time . In addition to the wildlife there are a couple of cats in the neighborhood that like to sit at the edge of my backyard and the forest, and hunt for food. Earlier this month I looked out my kitchen window and saw one of the two regular cats sitting on a tree stump watching the forest, presumably for lunch. A cat sitting on a tree stump at the edge of the forest. Photograph taken on January 13, 2022, near Syracuse, New York.

 Earlier this month the area got some lake effect snow, off of Lake Ontario to the north of us. The snow came down fast, and by the time it stopped there was four to five inches of snow on the ground. This photograph was taken early, during the first wave of snow fall, and was the view from my kitchen window. When the first wave of snow fall slowed, I headed out to catch Amtrak's Lake Shore Limited in the snow . By the time I got to the location where I photographed it, the snow had picked up again. Photograph taken on January 7, 2022, at Syracuse, New York.

      While looking out of a window during a rain storm, I had an H.P. Lovecraft vision flash through my head. It seemed that the following quote fit well for this photograph. “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown” - H.P. Lovecraft, Supernatural Horror in Literature.