BACK IN THE GREAT SAND DUNES

Dunefield at Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado

Hard to believe it has been seven years ago that we visited Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado. We always wanted to go back there and made the Piñon Flat Campground at the foot hills of the Sangre de Christo Mountains our base camp again this year. It is at an altitude of about 8200 ft (2500 m) and the dune field to the west is about 700 ft (215 m) higher. It is a fascinating place where wind and water move sand to continually form North America’s tallest dunes. The times around sunrise and sunset are the best to create photos of the sand dunes with shapes that are sharp and rich in contrast. Wild fires somewhere in the west gave the sky what I call a “dirty look” but the clouds over the horizon are priceless.

Nikon D750, Nikkor 24-120mm / f4,   @38 mm, 1/160 s, f/10, ISO100

MISSISSIPPI RIVER STORIES 2021 #6 - DIFFERENT SUNSETS

Mississippi River with Dubuque, Iowa on the other side

The wildfires in the west and in Canada seem to be far away when you live in the Midwest but the impact effects all of us. We deal here maybe only with bad air quality at times, but it is heartbreaking to see how people loose their life and their homes. Since the big fires burn we see the sunsets differently due to the smoke that crosses the continent in the upper atmosphere. A couple days ago I made this image across the river, over in Illinois, with downtown Dubuque, Iowa in the background. The sun was partly hidden behind a hazy cloud.

A 3-stop soft split-graduated neutral density filter was used for the upper part of the photo. I underexposed by -0.66 EV for the foreground and brought back some of the details of the city in post process.

Nikon D750, Nikkor 70-200mm / f4, Induro GIT 404XL tripod, RRS BH-55 ball head, Breakthrough GND filter 0.9,   @82 mm, 1/200 s, f/10, ISO100

NATURE CLICKS #264 - HORNED LARK

It wasn’t an easy task to make the photos I show you today. There was a reason why I never was able to make any decent shots of the Horned Lark here in Iowa before. They live and breed in the open country, where no tree or bush can hide a desperate photographer ;-) I have seen them in a field just outside of the Green Island Wetlands many times before but never came close enough to make the image work. Yesterday evening I found a pair of Horned Larks foraging along one of the levees that separate the ponds in the wetlands. I maneuvered the car, which as you know serves as my mobile blind, several times in position. Many birds seem to accept the presence of a car quite often, while opening the door and getting out of it, may spook them away immediately. The two larks didn’t show much interest in me this time, but getting close was only one problem I had to overcome.

All images: Nikon D300s, Sigma 50-500mm / f4.5-6.3 APO DG HSM

Most wildlife photographers are familiar (or at least should be) with using the peak of action, the short moment between movements, for the shot. It has been quite often best described with a bouncing basketball. The brief moment when the ball reaches its highest point and the speed is zero. This is the moment when you have your chance to make a sharp shot, no matter what your shutter speed is. The only way to make this work for your photography is trying to predict this moment a tad before and then use the ability of the camera to shoot several frames per second (the Nikon D300s does 6 fps). The Horned Lark gave me a hard time. Both were foraging, head down, and with high speed and intensity. Yes, there was peak of action but it occurred very irregular. Sometime the birds didn’t stop for more than ten seconds. Other times I thought I nailed it, but the lark had their eyes closed. Well, as you can imagine I had my good share of misses yesterday evening…

The good thing was that the light got better with every minute while working with the birds. You may ask why some of the grass and background looks black. The DNR (for my German friends: Department of Natural Resources, similar to Naturschutzbehörde) had a controlled burning in the area the week before. This is a way to keep prairie and marsh land in good condition. Wild fires have always played an important role for the health of these ecosystems and landscapes.