BRIDAL FALLS

Bridal Falls, Pikes Peak State Park , Iowa

I’m picking up where I left almost a week ago. Being on the road for another business trip prevented any contribution to this blog from a photographic standpoint. Not that I wouldn’t take the camera with me, but light and schedule haven’t been in my favor.

Last Sunday, Joan, dog Cooper, and I took a hike in Pikes Peak State Park, Iowa, which led to Bridal Falls (Deutsch: Brautfall). With the sun behind the ridge and waterfall, not much could be gained from the light on this side of the slope (facing east). 

I have seen this waterfall before and at that time it was nothing but a trickle. With things in place, I guess the photo that tells a powerful story about winter in Iowa was within the range ….

AT THE CONFLUENCE

The Wisconsin River meets the mighty Mississippi. Pikes Peak State Park, Iowa

One of the best places here in eastern Iowa to have a great view over the driftless area, the landscape that wasn’t shaped by the glaciers, is Pike Peaks State Park. Here, just above the confluence of the Mississippi River and the Wisconsin River you get the idea what a gem the area is we live in. When we have visitors from Germany, we always try to make Pikes Peak State Park part of the program (Hallo Claudia, Susanne & Andre St. 😊). I have shot here several times before over the years but never managed to tell the story of this great vista with just one photo.

This Sunday was a gorgeous warm winter day. Joan and I took our little dog Cooper for a ride and a short hike in the woods of the state park. The blue sky didn’t make for a lot of drama, but with the low sun behind us it was ideal for a panorama photo. I turned to a six-shot pano, trying to bring this great view all together in just one image. No tripod, just hand-hold upright clicks, with about 20-30% overlap and then simply assembly in Adobe Lightroom, using its panorama function. The result is a photo with almost 17,000 pixel on the long side, which would allow to print it 1.5 - 2 m wide without loss of detail. The small version of the picture here in the blog doesn’t do it much justice, but if you click on the photo and use the full real estate of your computer screen, you may get why I’m happy about the outcome of this probably 150 degree view.

TONTO NATURAL BRIDGE

Tonto Natural Bridge, Arizona

There is one photo I still like to show you from my trip to Arizona three weeks ago. Not because it is overly pretty, but it took a few extra thoughts and efforts in the making. On my way back from Petrified Forest National Park to the airport in Phoenix I took a little side trip and visited Tonto Natural Bridge State Park. The bridge is located a few miles north of Payson in the mountains of Central Arizona. It is believed to be the largest natural travertine bridge in the world.

With very limited time on hand (never a good thing) and being there around 2PM, with the sun high in the sky, made me wonder if there was even a decent photo opportunity as I was driving down into the deep valley to the state park area. Another bummer, the access to the observation deck below the bridge was closed due to some high water damage. I had to make the best out of the circumstances at this visit for getting a photo but at least I wanted to see it.

The only way to manage the very high contrast scene was to bracket each image with five handheld shots (-2,-1,0,1,2EV). I’m really not a big fan of HDR but it is amazing how the technology inside of Adobe’s software has improved during the last years. Within a minute the five shots were lined up and merged into a DNG file in Lightroom. It still took some dodging and burning to balance the exposure locally.

I wanted a picture that made it clear that this was a natural bridge, with a little light from the other side, and showing some of the travertine structures. The cactus in the foreground and the pines, or their shadows in the canyon, give a better idea about this place. First I was tempted to remove the safety reeling on top of the bridge but than I realized that it gives this geologic wonder a sense of scale.

PAINTED DESERT (7)

Painted Desert, Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona

Thank you to everybody who came out last night, despite the freezing cold, to see my presentation in the EB Lyon Center. It was a nice audience who had great questions at the end and I had good conversations with some people afterwards.

Here is another photo from my recent trip to Arizona. Desert landscapes have always fascinated me and arranging the elements with the play of the light can be a challenge but is also simple fun. Have a great weekend!

10 YEARS

Petrified Forest National Park is only a small part of the Painted Desert. From here goes the view over the seemingly endless badlands of the desert. (If you view this photo on a computer, click on the image for a wider view.)

This week marks the 10th anniversary of my blog. February 5th, 2010 I posted a photo from Cerro Gordo, an old miners ghost town in the Inyo Mountains, California. Much has happened since but the blog was always about “Nature and Photography”. I wanted to tell the stories behind some of the photos and by writing about it, also improve my English language skills. As I evolved as a nature photographer over the years my focus shifted more and more towards the goal of creating awareness about the nature, animals, and landscapes that surround us. I still believe a storytelling photo or blog post can help to create attention for conservation and protection needs of our natural heritage. And yes, it is still fun to use a camera and try to make a good image, even if the attention span for a photo in social media seems to drop a little more every year.

Well, today I tried something new. This is a photo from my recent trip to Arizona. The panorama is stitched together from 6 handheld photos in portrait orientation. A few years ago this would have been a tedious task in Photoshop and without using a tripod, good results were not necessarily guaranteed. Using Adobe Lightroom Classic these days makes the process of merging the photos a breeze. It took less than a minute until the panorama was on the screen, ready to be finished to my taste. Almost 15,500 pixels on the long side will allow to print this image 60” (~1.5 m) wide without any loss of detail.

I like to thank all friends and readers of my blog for the time they spend here. Your encouragement and support keeps me going.

PAINTED DESERT (5)

On the Blue Mesa, Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona

When you visit a landscape and your time is limited, you have to make the best out of it if you like to come home with some decent photos. In Petrified Forest National Park I had clouds only for a short period of time and tried to incorporate them in my images. In addition they helped a little bit to mute the sun and lower the contrast, although in January the sun is still not really high. Without a polarizing filter the glare on the rocks and sand would overpower everything. Shooting at 16 mm focal length the use of a polarizer is a little tricky. It is easy to produce a totally uneven blue in the sky that is difficult to fix in post process, but without a polarizer… well, the glare just takes over. 😉

PAINTED DESERT (4) - ROUTE 66

Petrified Forest National Park is crossed by three other traffic pathways beside the park road. The major ones are Interstate 40 and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway. Not so visible anymore is the historic Route 66. A line of telephone poles parallels the alignment of the former road through the park. This part of Route 66 was open from 1926 until 1958. The remains of this 1932 Studebaker sits where the famous highway once cut through the National Park and is probably one of the most photographed sites.

Probably many of those old Studebakers have used Route 66 in the heydays of this road. Today a photo helps us to imagine it…

When I took the picture of the telephone poles in the afternoon, the nice clouds from the morning were gone and with them all dynamic in the sky.

PAINTED DESERT (2)

Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona

The two photographers from the Netherlands in the picture below and I entered the National Park right after it opened its gates for the public at 8AM. This is of course too late for sunrise all year long. The park closes at 5PM, too early for the “killer light” we all like to use for our photos. It is understandable that the resources of the park, like the petrified wood, need to be protected but it is a little bit of a bummer for any landscape photographer.

Here is a quote from one of the signs at one of the overlooks: As you look over the Painted Desert, you see only a small portion of it. The Painted Desert extends over 7500 square miles (19425 km^2) across northeastern Arizona. Because Petrified Forest National Park lies at its heart, the entire park contains the colorful rocks of the Painted Desert. These particular mudstone and sandstone rocks are called the Chinle Formation and were deposited from 227 to 205 million years ago during the late Triassic Period. During that time the supercontinent Pangaea broke apart, eventually forming our present continents. Over the next 180 million years, the rocks of the Chinle formation were deeply buried, uplifted, and eroded into the badland topography you see today. Approximately 20 million years of late Triassic rock and fossil history are recorded in this geologic kaleidoscope.

With almost two days on hand I wanted to explore and capture the essence of this landscape. Petrified wood is scattered at many places and revealing its beauty was part of my plan. More to come…

Out there as early as possible .

All images: Nikon D750, Nikkor 70-200mm / f4

PAINTED DESERT (1)

Colorful geology at the Blue Mesa, Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona

After a busy week in and around Phoenix I spend this weekend in the Painted Desert, and in particular in Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona. It is a wonderful place to see the fossil record from the Late Triassic Period, 225 million years ago. Trunks of petrified wood are the most obvious remnants of this former tropical landscape. The National Park covers about 230 square miles (~600 km2).

Unfortunately for every camera owner, who likes to take advantage of the light around dawn and dusk, the park doesn’t open before 8AM and closes already at 5PM. I tried to make the best out of it and like to share a few photos over the next weeks with you. So, please stay tuned…

MISSISSIPPI RIVER STORIES 2019 #16 - ICE FLOES

Lock & dam #11, Mississippi River, Dubuque, IA

Going to the same places over and over again and coming back with a photo that tells a story a little different than the last one can be a challenge. Even more true if the sky has nothing to offer, either being plain blue, hazy, or just gray.

A week ago I stopped briefly at the lock & dam #11 in Dubuque, Iowa. The commercial barge traffic is of course closed for the season. A photo with the closed miter gate in the foreground and the ice slowly drifting down the Mississippi would have told this story, but something was missing. When the man in his bright overall crossed the lock on top of the miter gate, I knew immediately I had a better shot. The person gives the eye something to hang onto and to return to after the rest of the image is explored.

Mississippi River, John Deere Marsh, Dubuque, IA

The second photo is from today. It was taken at the end of the dyke at John Deere Marsh, just about three mile upstream of lock & dam #11. The dyke reaches deep into the Mississippi River, all the way to the main channel, and during the barge traffic season you can watch the boats coming by very close. Compared to last week not much has changed. Ice still floats down the river, gets jammed at some places, and breaks loose again. The sky was again nothing but boring. Without any boats there is really not much that would give a photo across the water much scale, except for this marker. The story is the same in both pictures (river not frozen over yet, floes coming down the river, no snow on the ground…) and the marker on its little island is just my anchor point.

Nikon D750, Nikkor 70-200mm / f4

MISSISSIPPI RIVER STORIES 2019 #15 - ICE PILED UP

Mississippi River, Mud Lake

When I took our dog for a walk to the Mississippi River this morning I was almost tempted to leave the camera at home. It was just a gray and cold day. I hardly ever go without a camera to the river and I was glad I didn’t change my habit today. The photo was taken from almost the same spot as the one in my last post, which I called “Dynamic in the sky”. Well, there was no dynamic in the sky at all today, but the cold temperatures we had earlier this week, followed by some warmer weather, had broken up some ice upstream and a lot of drift ice was piled up. The river is about 2.2 km (1.375 mi.) wide at this point, but the Wisconsin side looks much closer due to the compression effect of the 200 mm lens. 

Another occurrence that had an impact is heat shimmer. The cold air above the ice is mixing with warmer air and makes it impossible to see the ice on the other side of the river really sharp. I shot this with f/8 and focussed on the piled up ice on the Iowa side of the river. A smaller aperture, like f/16 wouldn’t help a bit in this matter. 

Snow, ice, and a gray overcast don’t go very well together and in order to make this image work I left the white balance a little more on the colder side. 

Nikon D750, Nikkor 70-200mm / f4,   at 200 mm, 1/320s, f/8, ISO100

MISSISSIPPI RIVER STORIES 2019 #14 - DYNAMIC IN THE SKY

Storm cloud over the Mississippi, Mud Lake, Iowa, June 2019

Here is another image from earlier this year. A thunderstorm had just passed our area and moved across the Mississippi River into Wisconsin and northwest Illinois. The storm was moving very fast and I made quite a few shots. The light and shape of the clouds in every photo looked quite different from the one before. I have photographed the Mississippi River at Mud Lake many times before and in every kind of weather. Rarely was I able to capture such a high dynamic in the sky.

TWO FROM THE BLUE RIDGE

Shenandoah National Park, Virginia, October 2017, Nikon D750, Nikkor 16-35mm / f4, at 16 mm

As always towards the end of a year I do some housekeeping in my image library and sometimes I find another photo that I think deserves to be published.

This photo was made during our last morning in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia a couple years ago. There are some great views from the Blue Ridge in either direction, east or west. Here it is the morning light that gives the landscape on the east side some depth and reveals the beauty of these mountains.

Nikon D750, Sigma 150mm / f2.8 APO EX DG HSM

A few days earlier we watched the sunset at a different spot along the Skyline Drive. The staggered arrangement of at least eight mountain ridges, separated by the mist in the valleys, tell the story about a great evening on the Blue Ridge in Shenandoah National Park.

A FAVORITE SUBJECT

Railroad bridge across the Mississippi between Sabula, Iowa and Savannah, Illinois

Almost any time I drive south from the Green Island Wetlands to the little island town of Sabula, Iowa, in the middle of the mighty Mississippi River, I take a picture of the railroad bridge that crosses the big river. It is one of my favorite subjects along the river.

According to the bridge documentation on historicbridges.org , this is an unaltered example of a historic railroad bridge over the Mississippi River. Nearly all the historic railroad bridges on the Mississippi River are at a general risk for demolition or severe alteration. The bridge has a variety of pin-connected truss designs, and most noteworthy has a 365 foot (111 m) swing span. The engineer in my blood gives me always a great pleasure to look at this wonderful bridge and I see it almost as a duty to capture this interesting piece of our historic heritage whenever I have a chance. I’m afraid the day will come and “new economists” will win the claim that it is less expensive to built a new bridge than rather preserve the historic structure and find the money to built a parallel solution that can keep up with increasing loads and traffic. The old road bridge, 2.8 miles up the river, was blasted away not very long ago and is lost forever. I think my worries are not unreasonable…

Photographically it was not a big challenge, although with a blue sky it is easy to make a boring picture. A few flurry clouds and using the highlights on the turbulent water in front of me brought some dynamic into the frame. The color contrast between the bridge and all the blue does the rest…