It is easy to forget everything around if you have an interesting subject in the viewfinder of the camera, like the Eagle Harbor Lighthouse at Lake Superior on the Keweenaw Peninsula. This pine on the cliffs just below the lighthouse wasn’t less captivating and it was the puffy clouds over the bay that made for a balanced composition.
Eagle Harbor Lighthouse, Lake Superior, Upper Peninsula, Michigan
All images: Nikon Z6II, Nikkor Z 24-70, f/4 S
Prairie near Whitewater Canyon, Iowa -------
I think photographers know better than a lot of other people how to take the song of the Rolling Stones, “You can’t always get what you want!”. Sunday afternoon I hiked down to the bottom of Whitewater Canyon, one of only three true canyons in Iowa, and highly interesting for people interested in geology, wildlife watching, and nature in general. (for location and more detailed description please feel free to use this link: http://www.mycountyparks.com/County/Dubuque/Park/Whitewater-Canyon-Wildlife-Area.aspx ) It is surrounded by prairie land, rolling hills, and fields.
So why don’t I show pictures from the canyon? As said, you can’t always get what you want! The truth is, the light really sucked. A big field of gray clouds started covering the sky while me and our dog Cooper were on our way down to the canyon. With the dull light of an overcast, well photography in a canyon can suck too! Back on the way to the parking lot and up on the prairie I saw the edge of the clouds moving east and towards me. And here is the point I’m trying to make. The next opportunity for a decent photo is just around the corner.
I sat down on a big boulder that marks the border of the parking lot, let our dog Cooper do what he wanted to do, and watched the development of the weather for about 45 minutes. As soon the edge of the gray clouds passed the sun, the camera was out of the bag and the shutter was clicking. All the blossoms of the wildflowers in the prairie are gone, but the prairie grass in the fore- and middle ground adds texture to the image, and the “crying” clouds are just lovely in my books. Well, no canyon pictures today, but next time I may get what I want… 😊
An Orange Sulphur on a blooming Alfalfa plant is something pretty common here in Iowa. In order to make the picture stand out composition and background can’t be neglected. Color contrast helps to make the subject pop but sharpness has to be on the spot, no matter what.
Nikon D750, Sigma 150mm / f2.8 APO EX DG HSM, @ 1/4000s, f/4, ISO200
High Falls, Magpie River, Ontario, Canada ------------
Nothing really new today. I have been on the road almost all week and the camera has been used only for business purposes. The good thing is that I still have a lot of photos from previous shootings on my hard drive that have not seen the eye of the public yet.
Lake Superior is considered the world’s largest freshwater lake by surface area and the third-largest by volume. The lake is fed by over 200 rivers and as you can image there are numerous waterfalls that are accessible for visitors.
Middle Silver Falls, Magpie River, Ontario, Canada
Probably almost all landscape photographers are attracted by waterfalls and I’m no exception. They are a good subject to hone the technical skills and it is just fun to find a good composition and to manage exposure and sharpness. All three images were made near the town of Wawa, Ontario.
Middle Silver Falls, Magpie River, Ontario, Canada
Beside the story telling in my wildlife photography I like to make photos that are esthetically pleasing. I admit, not every picture that tells a story complies with this criteria. At the other hand, not every photo that is a piece of art tells a story about the critter or the environment it lives in. I guess there is an in between and a demand for either side.
Get it right in camera and be done with it is a high bar that I like to jump but this is quite often easier said than done. Here are three pictures from yesterday’s shooting at the Mississippi. Each was made with a pleasing composition in mind but the outcome required more or less correction.
Focussing on just one Canada Goose and panning with the lens led to this shot. No crop, the bird’s position in the frame tells the story of a direct overflight, and the light reflected from the snow on the ground make for a pleasing picture in my books. I wished it would be always that way 😊.
More geese flying by at the same location. The light is again just great. I tried to capture the typical V-shape of the formation and integrated it as a triangle in my composition. Everything worked out good, except for the fact that one goose was cut by the edge of the photo on the left hand side. There was no remedy for that beside removing the bird in question. I didn’t get it right in camera obviously but this small correction made me keep the image.
Over the years I made thousands of photos with a Bald Eagle in flight and I keep still several hundred in my photo library. So, why another one? The shape of the cloud in the background and the way the eagle holds its wings at that moment make it an esthetically pleasing photo for me. Well, but I missed the composition completely by having the eagle dead center. I would not have a problem with that if the eagle would fill most of the frame, but here the cloud is an important part of the photo. It just didn’t look right to me. A small crop on the right and at the bottom came to my rescue. Again, not right in camera, but the photo is much better balanced after the correction in post process.
My fascination for great clouds, especially big thunderheads, is unbroken. A few days ago we had plenty of them. All what it took was going down to the big river and find a composition. There is some water between me and the reeds in the background but I kept it out of the frame. The eye has no choice but going straight to the cloud, and that is how it was meant...
