THE LEARNING CURVE

The buildings and structures I photographed a week ago at the Motor Mill Historic Site are a great subject for experiments with the new software plug-in, Macphun’s Luminar. One of the best parts of the old NIK collection was Silver Efex Pro 2, the software I have used for all black and white conversions since many years. Knowing that SEP 2 will not work in the future, because Google has decided not to support and update it anymore, I needed to find a new solution for my B&W work. I like the results other photographers get with Luminar so far and I try to find a workflow with this software that works for my style of photography. The key for a fast post process is creating presets that can be used as a starting point for other pictures. It is a little time consuming in the beginning, but it is part of the learning curve and with every image and stored preset the process becomes faster and is more fun. I rather spend time behind the camera than in front of the computer screen…😊

STABLE AND SMOKEHOUSE

Stable, Motor Mill Historic Site, Iowa --------

I was running out of time last night, hence my blog post with photos only. So here is a little more information that I found in the brochure of Motor Mill Historic Site.

The Inn at the town of Motor I showed you yesterday provided rooms and offered meals to farmers waiting overnight for their grain. The mill was finished in 1869 but was actually in operation for only 13 years. A farmer, Louis Klink, purchased the land in 1903 and farmed it for nearly 80 years. During that time the Inn served as a home for the Klink family.

My first image today shows the stable that is next to the Inn. It housed the animals of the patrons of the Inn. Native limestone from a nearby quarry was used to construct it. The hip-type roof was added in the early 1900’s when the building was changed to a dairy barn. We can still see the original straight roofline below.

Smokehouse and bridge

This building was long thought to be the icehouse. It was recently discovered that it was actually a smokehouse where meat was cured during the mid-late 1800’s.

The bridge in the back across the Turkey River is a 2012 replica of the 1899 pin-and-truss iron bridge, which had been destroyed by floods in 1991 and 2008. As mentioned in an earlier post, we have been at Motor Mill a couple years before and I had already seen the potential for some good photos at this location. Finally I got what I was hoping for. It is the light before and around sunset that really reveals the charm of these old structures.

So, what about the little bunny sitting in front of the smokehouse? Well, it was just sitting there, not the subject of the photo, but making the smile in my face even bigger that evening…

TURKEY RIVER, NORTHEAST IOWA

Turkey River, Motor Mill and bridge ---

As mentioned in a previous blog post I usually don’t take the camera with me while paddling a river with a good chance of whitewater passages. The Turkey River, and as well the Volga River in northeast Iowa, had a good water level last weekend. We didn’t feel like it would exceed our paddling skills and we went down with our kayaks safely and without any incidents (except our little dog Cooper jumped out of the boat a couple times when he wasn’t supposed to do it… 😆).

Today’s photos were taken at the Turkey River, at the old mill of Motor, a rural Iowa community that is now a historic site on the National Register of Historic Places. I always like to provide the sources of information that I use, so please click the following link if this is of interest for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor,_Iowa

We have been at Motor Mill a couple times before and I always make a mental note if I want to come back to a particular site and shoot with the right light in place. Camping at the primitive campsite nearby allowed just doing this and working around sunset with the old buildings of Motor, and of course the Turkey River, led to some new photos that met the expectations . More to come…

TURKEY RIVER (THE ONLY SHOT)

I’m sorry, it does not happen very often that I can’t choose from many pictures during a weekend filling event. Joan and I paddled the Turkey River here in Northeast Iowa, and of course, “kayak dog Cooper” was in the boat too. For the local visitors of my blog, we did the stretch between Elgin and Motor Mill, Iowa in three stages. Our last take out was at Motor Mill, between Elkader and Garber, and that is the location the photo was made. The Turkey River isn’t really difficult to paddle but I decided to leave the camera at shore this time. We stopped counting Bald Eagles sitting in the trees along the river after a while. They are here in Iowa in abundance and I think it is one of the best stories about bird restoration that is worth talking about. Many other birds, like Belted Kingfishers, Eastern Kingbirds, Cedar Waxwings, and several unidentified flycatchers drew our attention. We saw the biggest White-tailed Deer buck I have ever seen and many fawns told the story about a new generation of deer growing up this summer. With other words, wildlife in abundance.

Sure, this sounds like a lot of missed opportunities but in reality shooting out of a fast floating kayak, with hardly any way to stop, may most likely not lead to a good photo.

However, here is the shot I made after the kayaks were back on the roof of the car. Motor Mill is an old Wheat Mill, built in 1864, and in a very good state of preservation. It is listed on the National Register of Historical sites.