And now I look around and change is happening again.  Summer always seems so lazy and constant - and green.  Now there are hints of color all over the place but really still not enough to indicate a changing season.  Today, though, I came across definite indicators that fall is coming.  Not only is the temperature cooler but the prairie colors are getting more monochromatic yellowish. And the sky seems bluer as the green starts to fade a bit.  The signs of harvest are showing up as well, just to reinforce the calendar moving toward October.

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Before that exhibit, though, I looked back over some summer excursions to see what colors there were in spite of the weather.  Quite a bit, as it turns out.  With winter on the way it's easy to forget how much showing off the plants did during the year.  Here's just a sample of what I was able to see.

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Our rainfall this year is significantly below the average and the millpond depth shows it.  Not only have water lilies taken over a sizable percentage of the surface but herons and cranes are hanging out more since the shallow water makes it easier for them to wander around looking for food.  They must think the foliage provides some type of cover because they don't seem to mind people walking along the shore.

I was out the other day looking for any interesting photo compositions and noticed a tan spot among the green lily leaves.  The 300mm on my Nikon D800 gave me plenty of telephoto power and sharpness, and the full frame sensor allowed quite a bit of cropping to zero in on a sandhill crane doing some afternoon grazing.  It's hard to know if they are bothered by people watching them since they seem to move at the same speed whether they are "running away" or taking a stroll.  One benefit of being a big bird, I guess - not much to be intimidated by in the world.

Nikon D800, 300mm, f/5, 1/320 sec., ISO 200

We see monarch butterflies passing through the local parks this time of year.  They usually check out the milkweed that's in bloom and the other summer flowers in the prairies.  At a glance the bit of orange drifting by on the wind usually triggers "monarch" in my brain but the other day I saw one that seemed not quite right.

Mimicry is a great natural defense, as this butterfly shows.  This is a viceroy butterfly, not a monarch.  What attracted my attention was the size - it didn't seem large enough and by this time of the year monarchs have reached their adult size.  I wasn't sure until I got to my computer for a comparison.  Here's a monarch.

A monarch doesn't have a line along the lower wing connecting the thinner black lines whereas a viceroy does.  Also, the average size of a viceroy is smaller than a monarch, just enough to be noticeable.

Monarchs feed on milkweed, which imparts a bitter taste to anything trying to feed on them.  It's why you don't see birds with monarch butterflies in their bill.  They've learned that orange and black color means "this doesn't taste good."  Viceroy butterflies evolved to mimic this warning, meaning birds and other predators leave them alone.  It is odd, though.  Birds have shown good eyesight and pattern recognition skills. You'd think they would have figured out this subtle difference in appearance between the two butterflies.  Guess better safe than sorry for the bird, and a benefit to the viceroy.

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One of the easiest tools is to simply have a single subject located away from any other elements that might conflict with it being the subject.  The eye goes first to elements that are out by themselves, probably as a way to simplify the pattern recognition in our brains.  I'm always on the lookout for these composition opportunities.

Not only does the tree stand out in a grass field by itself but the light hitting the right side increases the contrast between it and the line of trees behind it.  I increased the clarity (mid-range contrast) in the grass to give it more texture and to make the roll in the terrain more obvious as it passes by the subject.  I wanted it in B&W because it gives me more control over the tonal values without having to worry about the impact on color values.

It's a simple image but a good example of giving the viewer something to notice almost immediately with just a glance at the photograph.

The variations on red and white were expected - it's what you see in the yards around here.  What was a surprise were the yellow ones.  Not a color I've seen in peonies before but hope to see more.

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Another technique discussed is one I've used in the past but not lately - motion blur (or intentional camera movement).  I'm sure my quest for very sharp images has resulted in pushing this technique to the background so it's good to bring it out to see what I can get with it.  This ones even simpler.  You just move the camera around while clicking the shutter.  The longer the shutter speed the more motion blur in the image.  Moving the camera in different ways results in different perspectives, even if the composition is of the same thing.  It's one way to ensure a unique image because two people standing next to each other with the same camera and settings will get different images based on how they move their cameras around.

One instructor showed some nice images of trees made with this technique and noted that vertical motion is best for straight, tall trees.  Here's an example of that:

This is very overexposed because my shutter speed was still not long enough to get good motion, even at f/22 and ISO 100.  You really need a neutral density filter on the lens to cut down on the light so the shutter speed can be over a second (this one is at 1/20th second).  It certainly shows some blur but it's not a very interesting image.  So I wondered if making it darker would help.  Easily enough done, just inverse the image.

Ghost Forest

Now it's much more interesting.  The combination of contrast in the trucks, motion in the limbs and the bluish blur in the middle really gives a sense of mystery.  Almost like a ghostly fire running through a dead forest.

Sharpness is not needed here and would probably distract from the mood.  I'll keep playing around with both these techniques and see if I can get as excited about the outcomes as I am with sharp images.

I ride by this farm scene each time I'm on the trail and only pay it a passing glance.  There was good lighting today and plenty of clouds so I made this image.  I like the basketball goal mounted on one of the silos.

There's a small pond next to one of access trails and today there was this one goose just sitting out in the middle.  When I got out of my car to walk over to the trail, though, it came paddling over to the edge to check out what I was doing.  Obviously there is feeding going on with the people who come by this spot.

I liked this dead tree trunk that's been stripped of everything but the basic patterns and colors remaining.  The form is all twisted up from the elements and today the light was playing nicely on the texture.

I see these birch trees all along the trail but just noticed today (the benefits of slowing down) how at this particular spot they form a type of gateway leading down the path.

Always good to reduce  your pace and look at the details around you.  The world has a lot to offer at the "micro" level that whisks by at our usual speed.

Looking through my landscape images over the years I do see a trend toward darker, slightly more moody photos.  I used to underexpose slide film to improve the saturation and I think that tendency has followed me into digital.  It's either that or a fear of blowing out the details in the highlights, even when there aren't any highlights!  I've come to accept this nature for my images and usually work on using it to the best effect for the "story" I'm telling with the image.  Here's an example:

This is just a scene in a local park.  The light is from a slightly overcast sky with the sun behind the subjects in the image.  When I looked at the scene I felt there was a story there - empty picnic table waiting for the season to progress and people to sit down and enjoy the outdoors.  For that the color actually gets in the way because it takes away from the mood i was "seeing" in the setting.  I liked the forms of the trees and table, as well as the texture of the grass and the blurred out background so the composition was what I wanted.  However, to get the feeling I wanted to convey would need post-processing.  Here's what I came up with:

Not so benign a view as the color image, but not so ominous as to turn the viewer away.  The promise of the approaching season is still there but with a tinge of sadness that it isn't coming along fast enough.

It's not landscape art but it has given me an opportunity to practice the visualization process in a minor way.

Even the trees are getting with the program, sending out new leaves and buds that will change the world from grey and brown into the overwhelming green we expect for summer.

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So of course the Easter bunny is out and around, probably catching a breath after a busy weekend.  I saw this guy lounging in the shade down at the park.  Didn't seem perturbed by me walking around.  Nice to have a long lens so I could make this portrait without disturbing his day.

What I found wasn't that surprising although it is interesting.  I'm comparing the Nikon 300mm PF lens on a D800 to an Olympus 300mm f/2.8 on an E-5.  The sharpness of cranes standing in a cornfield is OK but it is inferior to the sharpness of the same cranes flying against a clear sky.  It's almost as if the camera has a harder time finding a plane of focus when the image is messy and has a narrow tonal range (tan cranes standing in a tan cornfield) but when the image is clean and contrasty (tan birds alone against a solid blue sky) the focus is sharper.  Maybe it's just my imagination but it is frustrating - hard to know just what quality of shot I'll get at the time. 

Anyway, I did find some good subjects.  Here is a pair rooting around for insects in a mowed field.  This is with the 300mm Olympus lens from about 20 yards away, shooting through the window (they don't wander off as fast when I stay in the car!).  I don't have a comparable image using the Nikon 300mm because I overexposed too much for the images to be useful.  Still, it's a nice shot, don't you think?

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This is another image using the Olympus 300mm, from about 100 feet away.

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And here's the same subject using the Nikon 300mm, about the same distance.

Maybe it's just me but it seems the Olympus is slightly sharper than the Nikon.  Or it could be I'm just being picky.  Here's a different subject. First, the Olympus lens:

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Then the Nikon lens:

For both I was focusing on the left steeple, meaning my subject was a different color than the background with high contrast.  Here the difference in sharpness doesn't appear that great.  Zooming in on details, though, there is a noticeable difference.  The Nikon lens is on the left, the Olympus on the right.

Granted, some pixel-peeping is needed to see the difference but it is there.  I'm still pleased with the Nikon 300mm given its ease of use and sharpness most of the time, especially when photographing flying birds while hand-holding the camera.  For critical sharpness at a distance where I expect to crop the image quite a bit and use a tripod the Olympus will be my first choice.

Always good to know the limits of equipment so surprises can be lessened.

Great to see them.  All last year I wandered around all sides of the marsh and never caught a glimpse of them.  Hopefully this year there will be more opportunities.

Got me to thinking about my film images.  Here are a few of my favorites.  These are all from a 4x5 view camera, Ektachrome or Fujichrome slides that were scanned to digital.

Glacier SunriseGlacier National Park, St. Mary's Lake

St. Mary's Lake, Glacier National Park

Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe

Palouse Region, Eastern Washington

Lower Yellowstone Falls, Yellowstone National Park

Clay Flower Arrangement

Devil's Tower National Monument, Wyoming

Red River Gorge, Kentucky

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One display in particular was very different.  individual orchids were placed in front of concave mirrors with the bloom facing into the mirror.  Like a carnival fun-house mirror these magnified the bloom with only a little distortion.  What I found interesting was the idea of an orchid admiring itself in a mirror.  Wonder what they thought?

Lighting is always an issue at this venue.  The indoor arrangements use dramatic mood lighting of various colors so my ISO is around 1600 and aperture wide open just to get a shutter speed I can hand hold.  Then in the conservatory displays the full sun was out, giving either way too bright light or dark shadows.  It's not the best place to photograph orchids without additional equipment to control the lighting and exposure but it's great to see the colors and shapes resulting from grower's hard work.

These gables are part of a larger Victorian-style building full of decorative elements.  To glance at the building it's easy to be overwhelmed by all the intricate design features.  The roofline of this building contains lots of gables, almost like a frieze around the top of the building.  Another detail that's easy to miss is the pattern of colored shingles.  In passing it almost appears they are randoming placed but on closer looking it's obvious there's a structure to their placement.

The Calatrava designed art museum in Milwaukee is famous for the bird-like form it takes when the "wings" are extended to filter light into the halls.  A closer look reveals the engineering details that go into supporting and moving all those shafts.  Each one has its own bearing for rotation while they are all connected to move in parallel.

The contrast of the geometric repetitiveness of the domes with the curvelinear entrance structure has a futuristic look that would look quite at home on another planet.

Telephoto lenses are also great as a way to get a closer look at wildlife that is shy around crowds.  This red-breasted merganser wasn't interested in joining the seagulls looking for a handout.  Instead it was slowly cruising by the docks on its way to some other destination.

Doesn't mean there was nothing there, though.  Lots of good shapes to use in compositions.  Here are a couple I liked:

Here are images of interesting versions.

Here are a couple of finds from this afternoon.

These are typical silos found around local farms but unusual to see them all lined up like this.  The composition seemed too plain with the grey lighting so I ran it through some filters to accentuate the lines and colors.

Drove by this scene and had to turn around to see if it was as interesting as it appeared in the corner of my eye.  Turned out it was.  The line and color of the grass, along with the stubble left in the field, made a nice comparison to the blue sky in the distance and the jagged shapes of the trees.

Sometimes the whole structure isn't actually needed as there are interesting compositions to be made using just a small portion of what you see in front of you.  I like to explore these details after working on the whole building, and sometimes while working on these more intimate images I find aspects of the building I'd simply missed.  Textures, shapes, colors, etc. are all around us if we just pay attention.

Although it might seem redundent to photograph one barn after the other once you spend some time at each location it's apparent the differences among the buildings.  Most of the barns in this part of the state are similar in construction - stone foundations for a "first floor" with the wooden structure built on top.  Some are large while others are more moderate in size.  And although the traditional red barn is the typical appearance you see while driving around the county, there are other color options.  In the end it's a functional building but farmers have a variety of perspectives on how to adapt the structure to their business.

Here are a few of the properties we visited, and some of the details I liked.

Not all our travel was to barns.  This was an interesting church sitting in a cemetery.

And there was this old grist mill.

This is simply two layers.  The bottom layer is the original image and the top layer is the image put through a Filter that renders a sketch version of it.  I chose a blending mode (Darken) to combine the two and then ran the final image through a couple of NIK filters to lighten it up and bring out some details.  I like how it delivered a sort of pastel look to the image along with some false colors.

Playing around with photographs it's easy to forget there are other visual means of portraying a composition.  In the early days of photography some painters would paint over their prints to give color (the days before color photography) as well as bring out specific details they felt were important to the composition.  Today I saw some examples of city skylines that were enhanced with this technique and it really gave dimensionality to the image.  Something to keep in mind for other types of photography.

Thanks.

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There were painted cows all over town, reflecting the influence of different businesses and artists.  Dairy is also an important part of the region, mainly for its contribution to award winning cheeses.

Here are some quick images of our short visit there.

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The Christmas cactus is starting to bloom.  Amazing how fast the little buds turn into these complicated floral displays.  This image was made using light painting techniques.  I held the shutter open and waved a small LED flashlight over the bloom from different directions.  Then in Photoshop I stacked two of the images with the most interesting lighting and blended them together to create this image.  The texture, color and dimensionality of the bloom makes it look like a strange insect was caught in flight.

The image below was a surprise, fall coming much earlier than expected.  I'm walking along a path under a green summer canopy only to look down and see this yellow leaf on the ground.  Looking up I see many other yellow leaves waiting to drop.  Fall here already?  Where did that come from?

The dappling sunlight caught the leaf in a spot of light, highlighting it against the grass and ground.  I elected to put everything not in sunlight into dark shadow, keeping as much detail on the leaf as possible.  The resulting image is what I wanted - a mostly dark, shadowy image with just a few points of light, the main focus being on the leaf and its color.  With this effect it's almost as if the leaf is illuminated from within, providing light to the surrounding ground and objects.

Fading SummerFading Summer

This is becoming one of my more favorite B&W images.

Details in light and darkDetails in light and dark

It's a crop of a larger composition and as I look at it I understand why I selected this version.  First, the details in the flower are very nice, with plenty of texture and dimensionality in such a bright object.  As a subject, it is balanced by the curve of leaves in the upper left, its brightness countered by the dark area the curve encircles.  That curve has a nice light on it, bringing out the edges of the leaves to display their shape and depth.  Both of these subjects, the flower and leaf curve, stand out against the darker, less detailed background.

When I saw this setting (around springtime at Heron Haven in Omaha), I liked the light/dark contrast and the arrangement of the subjects.  For me it constitutes one of those intimate landscapes I've been pursuing.

I usually expect to get this amount of dynamic range with B&W film so I was pleasantly surprised to find it is a digital image.  The capture contained enough information for post processing to bring out details in the light and dark areas I wanted.  I haven't printed this one yet because I'm concerned it will never look as good on paper as it does on the screen.  It would make a very nice large print, though.

Close behind on my list of B&W favorites is this image:

Organic architectureOrganic architecture

This one was made intentionally to be infrared (special filter, long exposure, specific post-processing).  In addition to the typical IR cues, what I like about this one is the detail in the bright leaves in the center and in the shadow of the post above them.  The gradual change from very bright to deep shadow, all while displaying the details in each, is a very pleasing effect.  It's very close to what your eye would see standing there at the time.  To me a great photograph, especially B&W, looks so natural in all aspects that you start to forget it's a photograph.  Many of my images don't have this natural transition from dark to light and end up looking like a photograph posing as a natural scene.

Another aspect of this one is the vine curving along the surface of the pole, casting a shadow on the pole that looks like another vine.  I didn't notice this in the original composition but am glad it's part of the final scene.

I have to admit this image starting becoming a favorite as I was processing it.  The infrared image is hard to really see on the back of a camera, or even on a computer screen.  By that I mean it's hard to realize the potential until you work on it and bring out the IR nature.  I knew I'd exposed it well and had everything in focus, but once I saw how the tones were developing it really started to grow on me.

The lesson I'm learning is how B&W can elicit emotions about a composition.  Rid of the colors our brain is so used to seeing, the image seems to act on our perception in an alternate way, causing a reaction to an un-natural scene that is different than what we encounter all the time.  Not shocking or jarring, just odd enough to make us pause and consider.  Still not sure what I'm considering but it feels pleasing.

Rock Ghosts

While in Colorado during a photo tour for sandhill cranes we took an afternoon to explore a local canyon, looking for some interesting sunset exposures.  I was hiking back to the vehicles when I saw this grove of aspens next to the rock wall, the mottled surface of the trees mimicking the various tones of the granite and the trunks complementing the cracks in the stones.  There's no direct sunlight here as the sun had already set behind the canyon walls - the bright areas are reflecting the clear sky above.  When I saw the scene I knew it would be a black and white image, that any color would be superfluous to the scene.

As much fun as photographing wildlife can be, given the challenges of finding, approaching and composing quickly while managing the right gear, much of my most pleasant times behind the camera are with the quiet, unassuming areas of the outdoors.  The grand landscape is awesome and breathtaking, but the smaller, more intimate views can be equally thrilling if you slow down and search them out.  I could have easily walked right by this scene - it's just a few trees next to some broken rocks - but there was enough glow and depth as I glanced at it to stop me and make me take a longer look.

My quest for dimensionality in my images requires this type scene with layers of tones and textures I can use to compose intentional foreground and background subjects.  The even lighting with just the right amount of shadows and highlights isn't as dramatic as a Grand Canyon sunset; it provides a less - shall we say - jarring impact when seen and offers a gentler invitation to the viewer to look around and explore all the aspects of the scene.  As I worked on the composition and final image I saw how emphasizing the various textures found in the image really helped explain all the smooth to rough textures, why they were important to the overall image and how they describe such a world.

I used to wonder why the black and white images of the early masters were so compelling to people.  I was fascinated with high contrasts that would scream out the detail in an image and the colors that dazzled the viewer.  I've learned these were effects I wanted to have in order to hide my image's lack of content or story or character.  The masters are teaching how the simpler images are harder to create, how you really have to study a scene to find the meaning that attracted you and that can be turned into a photograph equally enticing to other viewers.

It has never been an interest of mine to create startling or provocative images, much less photojournalism images of war or crime or terror or drama.  My desire is just the opposite - the scenes people turn to in order to remove themselves from the startling or jarring or agonizing.  To show there are still parts of the world we can turn to in order to find our balance once again.

Waking Giant

Part of the enjoyment I get from the mountains is the awesome immense presence they have, a permanence that requires you to acknowledge they have seen so much more than you will ever imagine.  Capturing this in a two dimensional image has always been a challenge for me.  I used to think a composition showing their size or span conveyed that spirit but I've come to realize it's not that I'm admiring.  It's the details of their construction, the ridges and columns that go on forever to make up the whole. 

We were out early one morning in the Tetons waiting for the sun to come up and the fog over the cliffs was just breaking up, revealing this ridge line.  As the sun peeked through the breaking clouds it swept across the face of the rocks, lightening some and leaving some in shadow.  I suddenly realized this was the three dimensional look I wanted to capture and that the light was almost perfect to convey that in two dimensions.

Watching the sunlight play on the mountain was like a private light show as nature showed off one spectacular sight after another.  The fog would reveal a part of the ridge and the sun would spotlight it, then the show would move to a new part of the mountain to repeat the sequence.  it was a great revelation for a photography student, a wonderful lesson right where the application could be made.

Window on Wood

I am fascinated by the texture of natural things.  Our world is three dimensional at all levels of size and our senses are well adapted to immerse ourselves in the varied textures around us.  Walking in the woods one day aching with no other reason than to play around with a new lens I noticed this scene.  The snow was very new, just fallen that morning and the sunlight was slicing through the woods at a very low angle.  A single sunbeam opened through the tree trunks and put this log in the spotlight, revealing not only the hidden world under the snow but also the fragile texture of the powder itself as it blankets and softens the objects where it accumulates.  With only light and shadow we change our perspectives and see the world from a different frame of mind.  Although I knew the snow was covering a limb in front of the log it appear instead as if the snow blanket was wrinkled as it draped over the tree.  Although I realized the warming sun found a dark patch of the log and was melting snow away it looked like some fairy creature had pushed open a window in the white wall covering its dwelling in order to look out on the winter world.  A picture window to allow the warming sun to come in and start lighting up the inside for the short day.

Fuzzy Trees

I set up my gear on the edge of last year's corn field and worked the composition to get the right elements in the scene.  Then I waited for the right sunlight to come back, to revisit the impact that had originally intruded on my consciousness.  The wait was worth it.  Behind me cars were whizzing by on the highway, drivers as intent as I'd been on reaching their destinations safely, or at least quickly.  But I was entranced by the scene, the mystical nature of how water can transform the basic elements of life on the plains into a wonderful portrait of the season.  I was thankful to the settlers who had the foresight to plant these trees and marveled at how well they performed their function.  Wind brought the ice and snow to them and they received it effortlessly to provide me with a fairy tale image.

Winter Tree Farm

Just about any photography book describing composition will talk about leading lines or other design elements.  These are tools used to guide your eyes as you scan an image and explore what it's showing.  These tools help bring order to an image, helping it fit into our need for symmetry and boundaries.

The park near our house was simply agricultural fields years ago, rolling hills of furrows and crops.  As it has been converted to a public space trees have been planted in various areas to provide a sense of forest.  Following the sensible nature of Plains land managers, the trees are all planted in rows.  There's no productive reason for doing it this way; these aren't fruit trees that need tending or harvesting.  I think it's just the way land managers here think.  I doubt the deer and turkeys mind - they are just happy to have some shade and hiding places.

I do like photographing in this park and one reason is the way the trees line up.  I can use these lines for a variety of purposes in my compositions but mostly they give a clear indication of this being a park, not a forest.  Sometimes in the few real forests around the area I find myself searching for a way to bring order to the composition.  Trees in real forests have no need to line up nicely, dropping their seeds at random around their roots.  Or having their progeny spread by birds and animals to farther reaches of the woods.  They thrive on chaos, creating chaos with each spring.  Survivors are those able to grasp sunlight, nutrients, rainwater from among all the competitive siblings.  How to order that struggle in a single frame?

No, parks are much better behaved, where each tree has its allotted space with no need to wrestle with a neighbor for survival.  Clones all growing at the same pace, each mimicking the other to provide a graceful span for the observant photographer.  What attracted me to this scene is the way each trunk leads to the next one, creating a horizontal line of vertical elements.  And how this orderly flow moves upward in the image to the chaos of limbs tangled one among the other.  So much like our plans for living - we start out so clear in our direction and then later find ourselves bent this way and that as life happens to us.  But isn't success in life predicated on a firm foundation, an anchor in the soil of our heritage, culture and ethical instruction?  The tangle of limbs above wouldn't exist without the ordered line of trunks below.  And the truck is dependent on the limbs (and leaves) to capture sunlight and convert food into energy for survival.  Our past directs our future, and our present rests on our prior growth.  Who knew that could be captured in a photograph?

The Barn Next Door

Part of a local workshop a couple of years ago was an opportunity to visit a farm where barns and work buildings are being refurbished, the intent to offer visitors a view of what life there was like when it was a working establishment.  We photographers were granted permission to wander around the grounds and buildings without other visitors being present.  There were maybe half a dozen of us so each got plenty of quiet time in the buildings and on the grounds.  As you see in the image there was plenty of snow around that really muffled any sounds present, giving the impression we were far out in the rural area.

Since the refurbishing was in progress, many of the buildings retained a worn look to them, years of service showing in their joints and beams.  The scene above came after I glanced out the window across the yard and noticed the contrasts in the barn across the way - white surrounding all the openings and edges against a dark painted surface.  I made the image from here because I liked how the dirty window gave a sense of utility, that this isn't a museum yet where surfaces have to be pristine and protected.  It could be a scene from many working places across the Plains and upper Midwest, and anytime in the past century. 

As well as dirt on the window there was the haze formed by the condensed, warm air hitting the cold glass plate.  Looking through that gave me a sense of comfort, of being in a construction designed to keep the winter weather out and protect all that was inside.  Part of winter's challenge is how you deal with it, whether it be synthetic fabrics, stone walls or roaring fireplaces, and farmers have probably tried just about all of them in order to secure their families and livestock against the northern assault of winter's elements.

Eliciting a sense of coziness is probably easier with a fireplace scene or candles in the windows of a cabin in the woods, but I like using this type of contrast, looking out from inside and letting the viewer arrive at the same feeling when they realize keeping "out there" where it should be is the purpose of our search for shelter, home and hearth.  Peering through a frosty window where the cool air drafts across your face can offer a cozy feeling as you realize that by turning around you can walk into shelter and away from the harsh conditions just outside the glass. 

Shadow Blooms This image was made on a cloudy, slightly rainy day right on the edge of the woods.  I liked how the flowers were bright against the dark background so I composed this and pushed the shutter.  How amazing to see on the back of the camera these glowing pieces of spring jumping out at me.  I liked the intensity of the composition.  Then when I experimented with turning it into black and white, the combination of flowers and leaves against the darker setting was almost three dimensional.

What drew my attention to this scene initially was the light color of the flowers and I knew that could be a prominent part of the image but I was very taken aback with the leaves.  Their soft light against the deep background.  Their smooth surface, some dotted with raindrops.  The way their veins dimpled the surface to show just a little shadow and relief.  It's an image that helps me realize the beauty black and white photographers talk about when an images is stripped of color and relies only on the shades of grey to produce the appropriate shapes and luminosity.

Through the years I've looked at photographs the appeal of grey shades has eluded me but I realize now I was simply bemoaning the lack of color and ignoring the subject shape and textures offered by this way of creating images.  I'm understanding how it distills to the essence of the subject, forcing the photographer to pay attention to the details that make or break wonderful images and not hiding lazy technique behind vibrant colors.  This is an OK image of white flowers on what is essentially a sea of green, the original contrast that caught my attention.  But now I see it as a true subject standing out from the blurred background and taking center stage for the viewer to admire and examine.

And what else but that could have been the intent of those giants of photography all those decades ago?

Mountain Sailing

I've talked about this image on my blog (melmannphoto.wordpress.com/2012/09/25/blazing-photography-trails) so I won't repeat the story of my efforts to make it here.  Suffice to say I'm not good at pre-visualization but this image resulted from my doing just that, knowing what I ought to get when the conditions (light, weather) were what I wanted them to be, seen from a specific location.  Mostly, though, it's an image attempting to capture the emotion of the moment when everything came together.

Light playing across mountainsides is magic to me as it brightens some areas and darkens others, revealing the definition of the slope, rocks and vegetation.  The right light, pointing out features and bringing depth to an image, enables a photographer to think like a painter, pointing out certain features with brilliance or outlining others with the negative space of shadows.  And where the two contrasts meet - light and dark - defining lines and shapes intrinsic to the landscape.  Light playing across a seemingly static landscape can take your breath away at the beauty of the location.

By the way clouds were sweeping across the sun it was obvious there was potential for such a scene once I reached the spot where I decided to shoot.  But would the fickle wind place the clouds where I needed, allowing the sun to spotlight the island, sandbar and cliff faces while keeping the other elements in the dark as a background canvas?  Frustration and joy are the landscape photographer's devils and angels.  The inability to make the light do what you want means long moments watching, waiting, stamping feet and clenching fists in resentment at the spirits preventing you from simply getting the composition you want.  But then, as you see what you envisioned starting to emerge in the scene before you, all those negative emotions turn to rapture as you revel in the creation you have been waiting on.  Will it materialize complete as you've seen it in your mind?  Will some elements be out of place?  Will you accept only 80% of what you want or wait for the 100% complete scene?  Are conditions getting better or worse?  Am I in the right place? 

Wait, look, it's all coming together!  That shaft of light is moving right into place on the mountainside, the shadows around it taking their position to envelop their assigned spots.  The wind is picking up nicely and whitecaps forming on the wavelets around the island.  The sun is penetrating the water enough to bring out the deep blue color that complements the sky and clouds.  Finally a beam of sun spills down onto the island, just wide enough to spotlight the trees while leaving the surrounding lake somewhat darker.  Another ray glances on the white beach behind while a small streak touches the peak of the mountain to brighten the edge against the sky.

Wow, it looks just like I expected, a marvelous symphony of wind, water, light, rock and foliage.  What a great place to be and to enjoy and to capture so it can be shared with others.  It's the perspective I wanted, worthy of the struggle to find and capture it.

Perhaps it is just another photo to many, one to be glanced at and moved aside.  For me it's a memory of a place and time and effort that merged into a creation of my own.

Table Salt

My immediate question was why?  Not why this desert is here but why does it exist?  Apart from the geological and meteorological explanations, the science of the salt desert, I wondered why would the planet need such a place to happen.  A reservoir of salt in anticipation of some biological need?  Nature's gift to dining tables the world over?  A raw material for integral chemical reactions feeding a myriad of life sustaining processes?  There's no immediate answer while standing there on the glistening surface.

I made this particular image to reflect the contrasts I saw that day:  clear blue sky with clouds hinting at rainfall, the distant mountains laughing at the flat, salt surface, the ridges in the incrustation pointing off into the distance as if to entice the naive traveler to visit far away destinations that could never be reached.  At a glance all the elements seem to belong together at this place; a longer examination ponders the question of how they actually co-exist.

Much of nature seems to make sense in how it all fits together but every once in a while you stumble upon a small enclave that managed to stand apart from the perceived structure, a rogue environment defiantly making its own way through the world around it.  Sometimes for a landscape photographer it's the rogue element that gives the most interesting images.

Awaiting the Harvest

I drove around one afternoon looking for a sunset composition that gave a sense of this bigness but in a context appropriate for this part of the country.  I saw the cloudless sky starting to give this range of colors from warm to cool at about the same time I spotted these grain bins.  It was the type of image I was thinking about.

So here's the scene.  A field that has been harvested, shown by the furrows empty of crops.  Grain bins that ought to be full but are empty - why?  The leafless tree, leading role of a windbreak line stretching behind it to protect the fields, just as man-made as the bins and plowed field.  The huge bowl of sky that everything is silhouetted against with two contrails sketching across it, emblematic of people who consider this the fly-over territory.  It's a cooling, autumn evening anticipating the time when all I see will be snow covered, crisp with the understanding of its role between summer and winter.

I got all my equipment set up and then waited for the light, wanting the last rays to just cut across the top of the ground.  As I paused for those minutes urging the sun to position itself to my designs, it was a moment of Zen as all the elements in the image came together in my mind to deliver an understanding of both the vastness I could see and the connection I was making.

Shore Patrol

After a couple of days photographing Lake Tahoe I realized all my images were looking the same - the grand landscape of water, mountains, trees and clouds.  It was time to stop doing that and start looking for a new perspective.  I decided on the more intimate view.

There's not many truly sandy beaches around the lake, just pebbles resulting from the water pounding large rocks into smaller ones.  I sat down on one of these shorelines just to watch the water lapping and noticed the larger rock just away from the water's edge.  As the different sized waves came up, they would roll over this rock and coat it with a glistening layer of water.  The waves were coming fast enough for the rock to almost always be encapsulated in this watery sleeve, smoothing out the remaining irregularities in the rock's surface and making it glisten in the bright light coming from the sky.  Each little wave would lap over the rock on its way to shore, leaving a little of itself behind to cloth the rock in a transparent coat.

In contrast was the smaller rock on the shore.  Above the line where waves consistently covered the shore, it showed me a dry surface, a view of what its partner further in the water would look like were it not for the constant rolling waves.  A contrast of conditions - the rock in the waves would feel the continual impact of water whereas the one on the shore would be preserved from it.  An that difference would make all the difference, as Frost would say.

I watched this action for a while, marveling at how the simple movement of water on the large rocks would eventually catalyze a change in size and shape, delivering the smaller pebbles of which the beach was composed.  It was a gentle action (little wind that afternoon), rhythmic and consistent that didn't seem to delivery much power against the sturdy, solid nature of the rock but there I was sitting on the result from many waves working on many rocks.

The grand landscape awes and amazes at its size and scale; the intimate one shows us how the two are related through time and space.

Prairie Rainbow

Photographers love rainbows.  What a great way to accentuate what would otherwise be a dull, grey sky.  It's almost as if rainbows were made to help landscape photographers create images on dreary days.

Traveling in the Great Plains means two things:  the odds of a spring thunderstorm is pretty good most of the time and predicting where a rainbow will appear is easier than you think.  For this one, driving into the sun away from the dark clouds meant all I had to do was turn around and look behind me to see the rainbow, and then drive to where the composition would be interesting.  With the rain and clouds off in the distance, and the foreground in the sun, the colors come through nicely.  I remember the day every time I look at this image.

You see these types of photo all the time as people capture them and share them widely.  There's obviously some sort of collective joy at seeing rainbows, for the individual at the time and for people the images are shared with.  For me such pictures give a positive sense of the place and time.  Maybe it's because of the colors splashed onto the dark, ominous clouds, or the way the arc connects sky with earth, or maybe it's just all the good stories that surround rainbows in general.  We haven't seen our fair share of them this year, unfortunately, as the drought just keeps the rain away where it's needed most.  Odd, just when we need their positive presence the most they stay away from us, gracing other places with their energy.  I hope they come back soon.

Wood Grained Fields

The usual photographs of the Palouse show it in spring, verdant hills covered with multicolored crops in bloom, a velvet landscape of illuminated hilltops and shadowed valleys.  I'm an autumn person - browns, reds and yellows are my preferred palette.  Being in Montana one fall I took the time to visit the Palouse to see what that season would offer.

Harvest season, that's what.  The cut fields show off the rows where crops once stood, following the curvature of the hills like a relief map.  It's as if someone laid a topological atlas on the ground and you could see the rises and falls in three dimensions.  Wait for the right light and it jumps out at you.

There are only a couple of places you can get high above the farmland, ancient buttes left by volcanic activity thousands of years ago whose cores are resistant to the erosive force of rain and wind.  These are gathering places for photographers, much like the California beaches are havens for sunset watchers.  Pick a spot, pick your lens, compose, set exposure, and wait for the light to paint your image.

Sometimes, even standing there, it's hard to not believe it's all a painting, the creation of an artist working at the junction of realism and impressionism.  Broad strokes interleaved with fine details, with the occasional man-made structure to provide perspective.  Notice the barn on the left casting a shadow onto the field?  It would house two of those great big tractors you see in corn, wheat or soybean fields on the Plains.  I placed it there, along with its shadow, to give a sense of size for the surrounding fields.

I love the way the late afternoon sun highlights the crest of each hill, drawing a bright line right at the top as a way to distinguish it from the valley behind.  I love how the fields are variegated, even where the same crop was growing, showing the differences in soil types across the hills.  I call this image Wood Grain Fields because it reminds me of the items you see at art fairs, the product of the woodworkers who laminate different woods and the cut, carve and polish them into fascinating shapes.  An example of man's mimicry of nature.

Joyful Noise

I love to photograph birds.  It's an extension of the feeling I've had for them as long as I can remember.  They seem to be so complete in themselves - going where they want, living where they want, taking things as they come.

Prairie birds are always on the go.  Looking for food, mates, nesting sites, finishing a migration or getting ready to go on one - these guys have a full day and rarely sit still.  A typical songbird of the prairie, this dickcissel is in full mating plumage and letting females know he's available through the sharp sounds he makes from his perch.  It's apparently the only time he takes a break from hunting for seeds and insects.

The prairie being restored at Homestead is small, just a part of the 160 or so acres representing the original homestead.  I found simply wandering through the tall grasses, watching the wildlife around me and listening made me familiar with the more common residents.  Of course it helped to have a staff biologist to tell me what I was seeing!  Frustratingly the vast majority of birds are pretty small and very skittish - getting close was mostly out of the question.  Like much of life, however, it turned out if I stood still and waiting, they would get close to me.

Out in the field away from the visitor's center (that's the brickwork in the background) I watched this guy flying around singing.  He'd stop on one twig and give voice for a short time, then fly to another and start over, never spending more than a couple of minutes in any one place.  Even with my longest lens it seemed there would never be a composition close enough for the details I wanted.  Nonetheless, it was relaxing to watch him make his rounds through the grassland.

I guess he decided I wasn't going to be a threat because his pattern of landing sites started getting closer and closer.  Maybe he was getting some positive feedback from potential mates in that particular area or maybe he thought the acoustics were better nearer to me.  For whatever reason, he landed on this branch not more than ten feet away and started his song again. 

One lesson I'm learning with wildlife photography is you can be excited later - at the moment it's time to get the technical stuff right and make the image.

The sun was behind him providing a wonderful rim light on his body and the clear sky was radiating plenty of light to make him easy to expose against the darker background.  I had my settings on open aperture because I wanted a fast shutter speed and that gave me the shallow depth of field that would put the background out of focus and make him the obvious subject in the frame.  He pretty much ignored me as I fired off several shots while he sang, then hearing something attractive over by the tree line he left me looking down at the back of my camera to see what I'd made.

This was the best of the bunch.  A little cropping to make him the star of the image, a little sharpening and here he is - another guy in the world just happy to be there and letting everyone in the area know about it.

I never got a better opportunity the rest of the time I was there.  Perhaps he took pity on me as I hopelessly watched his colleagues zip around me or maybe he just one of those animals that loves to have his picture taken.  I can't say for sure but I do know it was a great experience to be there and share the moment with him.  After seeing the final image I felt like throwing my head back and singing as well!

One day the weather report indicated a front moving slowing across the area so I drove away from the city to find a place where I could see the "big picture" away from the close proximity of houses, trees, etc.  There was this small country road running by cornfields that gave the best perspective so I set up and waited.  Watching the clouds moving and the sun setting I believed there would be a time when the light and shapes would be very interesting.  A great dance slowly happening above me as i waited for the players to assume just the right positions.

There's something grand about weather formations.  It's a scale we just about can't grasp as county-wide clouds stretch to the horizon and light plays around in areas bigger than sports stadiums.  From airplanes you get a sense of endless architecture; seeing it in the context of more earthbound structures you realize immense can often trump endless!

A great photographer once told me to wait until the scene "clicks" into place, where the elements reach positions that seem right for the composition.  I fear sometimes waiting too long, delaying my shutter action until the moment passes.  It means I end up taking a lot of images but in the end he's right - looking back over them all only one or two truly seem right for the moment.  With experience hopefully I can anticipate those moments and reduce the number of images I have to cull through!

As it turned out, the image below is what "clicked" for me.  It has dimensionality as the light draws the eye along the stream of clouds to the back of the image only to return through the cornfield to the fence and near grass.  It has detail throughout - from clouds to grass to distant trees.  The arrangements of elements looks natural and the lighting portrays objects as I saw them.  I look at this one and can immediately recall the moment. 

Storm Front

One thing I've learned with digital photography is to shoot in RAW, capturing the information that comes right off the sensor without any processing in camera.  The second thing I've learned is that RAW images will look flat when properly exposed so judging the image at first glance is not a good idea.  You have to "develop" the image to get the look you intend.  When the above image first came up on my computer it was pretty flat with little contrast in the clouds and not much drama in the lighting.  But with a little work you see what came out.

I started developing the image by separating the part above the horizon from the part below.  Different software handles this in different ways - in Photoshop I selected all the image above the horizon and created a mask.  A mask is a device that lets you selectively process parts of the image rather than the whole image.  For my mask I blocked off all the image below the horizon so I could work on the upper part.

By increasing the contrast I brought out details in the clouds and also increased the difference in appearance between the lightest and darkest areas.  This immediately gave me more drama, especially in the part of the image near the horizon where the clouds are trailing off into the light.  I also decreased the brightness of the sun in the upper right to bring out some detail in that area.

I reversed the mask so I could work only on the part of the image below the horizon.  Here I increased the brightness just a little, to bring it more in line with the brightest part of the sky.  I also increased the contrast some to bring out the texture in the grass and cornfield.

Light and dark - those are the hallmarks of dramatic weather and usually what our eye notices immediately in such a scene.  My goal was an image that looked very realistic, just like what I was seeing when I made the image.  This one is pretty close.

Shy Spy

Near our house there's a local park that surrounds a flood control lake and the whole thing is big enough a herd of deer pretty much make it their home.  They're only partially wild - carloads of people cruise the park roads in the evening to watch the deer graze on the edge or up on the hills and they rarely give the vehicles a passing glance.  Stop and get out of the car, though, and they will trot away pretty quickly.

Which made me feel very lucky this day.  I'd parked at one of the picnic areas to just walk around and see what might show up.  It was autumn and the prairie grasses were very tall, almost over my head.  I was literally standing at my car getting the camera gear together when I saw this doe slowly sauntering along the edge of the parking lot, periodically glancing through the grass to see what I was doing.  She wasn't particularly perturbed at me being there as long as I stayed by my car.  Fortunately I'd mounted my long zoom lens first so I was ready to reach out and touch her - the focal length was around 250mm for this shot.

This was before my summer in photo school but I did know enough to set a somewhat wide aperture (f/5) to get most of the grass in front of and behind her to be blurred.  My shutter speed was 1/30 sec. and I was concerned she'd not stop - that's not fast enough to prevent blurring of a walking animal.  Lucky for me as I rested the lens on my open car door she stopped to see what I was doing.  I made 4-5 images and this one was the best, catching her eyes through the stand of grass with just a hint of the rest of her body fading into the prairie.  I remembered to place her face in the upper right third of the frame.  As her eyes are at one of the "power" spots of the composition and about the only element sharply focused, the viewer's eye goes right to her face first.

It was a late fall afternoon and with my white balance set to sunlight the original image was pretty cool in appearance.  I warmed it up in Lightroom to give it a more natural appearance, did a little sharpening and very little cropping to make sure the doe was the obvious subject (no more small animals in my photos!).  And that's all that was done.

What a joy to download the image and see it on the computer screen.  I'd intentionally purchased a camera system to photograph wildlife such that the subjects would be a big part of the composition and now here in front of me was the fruit of those decisions.  I felt putting my camera on the shelf out of frustration would no longer be happening.

Emerald Bay Summer

Emerald Bay is located in the southwest corner of Lake Tahoe, one of the few completely enclosed inlets around the lake.  It's probably one of the more photographed scenes of this area because it is easily accessible from the road circling the lake.  I visited this area at least three times during the week spent photographing the lake and realized quickly I would be unable to get a truly unique perspective.  Not that I didn't have options.  Behind where I've set up here is a steep, rocky slope I could have climbed for a perspective looking more downward, but the gear I used for this shot is clumsy and difficult to hike with.  There is an easier trail leading down from this spot to the bay's edge but I wanted this seen-from-above perspective.  All in all this was the best spot for the image I wanted, which was to be more of a postcard view of the bay. 

I wanted the full view all in focus, from rocks in the foreground to the distant mountains.  I especially wanted to get the color of the water, which is why this was made in the early afternoon.  With the sun high in the sky it's light penetrates deeper into the lake, reflecting back as this deep, cobalt blue.  And this perspective gives more layering than the more traditional view looking right out the bay.  Here I've got the foreground, then the bay, then the sloping shoreline beyond, and finally the distant mountains.  The perfect final element for this image would be big puffy clouds in the sky but the whole week all I got was clear, alpine air.

What probably made it unique for the people around that day was the equipment.  I got several intrigued comments from the tourists milling around - you don't see many people with view cameras these days, photographers with a black cloth draped over their head and a magnifying glass in hand to check the focus on a ground glass screen.  You actually don't see many photographers using film - digital is the convenient tool of choice for the casual image maker.  I use film because I know it forces me to think more about a scene (do I really want to haul all that gear out for this?), it provides a tactile connection to the process of photography (setting up, focusing, adjusting exposures, etc.) that helps engage the creative side of my brain, and the resulting image provides me more detail than I would ever get from my digital equipment.  It also connects me to the photographers of the 19th century, people who designed and developed the craft we so casually take advantage of today.  Being a part of that heritage is important for my photography.