RETROSPECTS 2020 - #6

Barn Swallows, Dubuque, Iowa

The month of June was again filled with good wildlife sightings but one great opportunity came with an invitation from my photography friend Kevin. He owns an old barn near his house and we were shooting Barn Swallows that had their nests in the building. We did that already two years ago and I didn’t hesitate a second when he invited me again this year. Kevin has produced some amazing photos with swallows in flight and approaching their nest during this summer. I used my chance that afternoon and focussed on two spots at the barn and tried to catch some nice gestures while the birds interacted with each other. Time well spent again and definitely a highlight for me in June 2020.

AT THE BARN SWALLOWS

I had again the pleasure to follow an invitation of my photography friend Kevin this evening for shooting at an old barn he owns at the edge of town. The main attraction is several pairs of Barn Swallows that have their nests under the ceiling and feed their offspring. I heard the young birds when parents arrived with food, but they were obviously still too little and we couldn’t see them. The barn doors are open and the building is surrounded by meadows, grassland, and some weed patches. With other words, there is an abundance of insects and enough food for the little birds.

This location requires a lot of thinking about the light. Shooting in the barn required a flash as the main light source. With the open doors light pours in also from the outside and the question is, how can we use flash and ambient light solely or in combination for telling a story about the swallows and their summer habitat?

The first photo was shot through the open barn door. The swallow sits on an old rusty gate and the only light source is the low sitting sun. The trees behind the meadow are far away and provide a lovely soft background.

This bird sits on another one of the open doors. The grass in the back is in full sunlight and makes for a good background as well. A hint of flash takes care for the dark side of the swallow inside the barn.

Same location as photo #2 but for a brief moment the sun was hidden by a cloud and I chose a much shorter exposure time for the ambient light. The flash doesn’t overpower the bird and with 1/800 s I was able to nail the gesture the Barn Swallow made at that moment.

Kevin had photographed in the barn earlier this week already and today he tried to make a picture of a Barn Swallow with open wings, approaching a resting place. That is quite a challenge! He pre-focussed on a particular spot and waited for his chance but the birds did not use this place as often as earlier this week.

My thanks goes to Kevin for inviting me! I had again a great time!

OUT WEST #28

T.A. Moulton Barn, Mormon Row, Grand Teton National Park

Before the year ends I like to finish my little series about our trip to the mountains and grasslands out west in September. It was the third time Joan and I visited the Grand Tetons together and it was totally different than during our last visit eleven years ago. In 2007 we were lucky to have the first fresh snow of the season while the trees still had their fall colors. This made for some great photo opportunities. This time the leaves just started changing and we were too early for new snow.

I’m almost sure every photo enthusiast pays a visit to Mormon Row for a classic shot with the T.A. Moulton Barn in the foreground and the Teton Range in the back. This did not work very well this time. There was a smoky haze all the time in front of the mountains, due to some wildfires in Bridger-Teton National Forest to the east. At all close-up shots of the barn the mountains were hardly visible. But I thought the smoky clouds were part of the story this time and went for a focal length of 24 mm. I took more of Antelope Flats into the frame, showing how the smoke impact the whole scene. The image is cropped quite a bit on the bottom, leaving the illusion that this was shot as a true panorama. The foreground was shady from a tree behind me and not that interesting. Well, even a midsize print would reveal the truth but I’m not unhappy with the photo, even without snow and fall colors…😉

CHARMING SWALLOWS

Barn Swallow

My photography friend Kevin invited me for a late morning shooting in his barn on the south side of Dubuque, Iowa today. The barn is actually the home of a couple horses but it also gives shelter to several Barn Swallows. While we watched one of them still sitting on the nest, others were feeding their offspring already. There was a lot going on and we had plenty of opportunities to experiment with our camera and flash settings in order to get some good shots. We both had a great time to work with the birds.

The barn has a few windows and the upper half of the doors were open, allowing some day light to enter the room. The challenge was to incorporate the ambient light while our speed lights were used to freeze the action without making the flash too dominant. I wanted to preserve the warm feeling and colors that we found inside the building and pair it with the charming gestures these beautiful Barn Swallows have shown to us. The current warm weather provides plenty of insects and it never took very long until the adults returned with a bill full of food for their nestlings. What a fun morning! Thank you again Kevin for this great opportunity!

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…

2016 RETROSPECT / 3

Cloud over corn crib, Northwest Iowa, March 2016

Clouds are one of my favorite subjects in landscape photography. I like it when they are in some context with the rest of the image. Here the corn crib on one side and the barn on the other side frame the bright part of the cloud. The eye can actually wander in a triangle between the bright spots in the picture, the cloud, the trailer in the foreground, and not so obvious, the illuminated barn in the background. It doesn’t matter where you start exploring this photo, the eye will come back to the cloud and how it unfolds in the background.