Eleven-Years Ago (08-October-2007) — New Jersey

Autumn Nature in New Jersey.

Monarch Butterfly. Eleven-years ago while driving home from work I saw purple wild flowers on the side of the road at an abandoned golf course in Hillsborough. I pulled over to see if there was a picture. The purple wildflowers attracted dozens of Monarch butterflies providing more colors.  I took this image with my favorite 80-400 mm telephoto zoom lens. The hard part was working at the minimum focus distance for the lens (~ 7 feet). I needed to keep stepping back to get the image in focus. One more reason I always have a camera with me.

Every year after that I would check the place at the same time of the year, but never saw as many wildflowers or Monarch Butterflies. The last several years the place became a construction site for a highway bypass and interchange. Now that the construction is complete and the bypass open, it looks like wildflowers may come back. We will see if the Monarch Butterflies come back in the future.

Monarch Butterfly. Late Fall Nature in Central New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D2xs and 80-400 mm VR lens (ISO 100, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/250 sec). (David J Mathre)
Monarch Butterfly. Late Fall Nature in Central New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D2xs and 80-400 mm VR lens (ISO 100, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/250 sec). (David J Mathre)


Individual images in the slideshow can be viewed here.

Thursday (18-August-2016) — New Jersey

Summertime in New Jersey.

This carnival requires a lot of power. Image taken with a Leica T camera and 23 mm f/2 lens (ISO 100, 23 mm, f/5, 1/1000 sec).

This carnival requires a lot of power. Image taken with a Leica T camera and 23 mm f/2 lens (ISO 100, 23 mm, f/5, 1/1000 sec) (David J Mathre)
This carnival requires a lot of power. Image taken with a Leica T camera and 23 mm f/2 lens (ISO 100, 23 mm, f/5, 1/1000 sec) (David J Mathre)