MISSISSIPPI RIVER STORIES 2022 #1 - WINTER AT A CONFLUENCE

Little Maquoketa River, only a few yards away from meeting the Mississippi River. Nikon Z6II, Nikkor Z 24-70, f/4 S,   @ 70 mm, 1/200 s, f/11, ISO 100

You bet, I will post my little photo stories from the mighty Mississippi River here in eastern Iowa, or from the Wisconsin or Illinois shore on the other side, again in 2022. Today’s photo was made during a really late “lunch walk” with our dog Cooper. At 2PM the sun is already getting low during this time of the year, creating shadows and reflections that would not be there any other time. John Deere Marsh, the wetland preserve behind the big Deere factory, north of Dubuque, Iowa, was mostly created by the powers of two rivers, the Mississippi and the much smaller one that has carved out the valley below our house, the Little Maquoketa River. The image was made just a few yards/meters away from the confluence of these two streams. We love to paddle the Little Maquoketa River upstream with our kayaks during the summer. Here, near the confluence in the Mississippi Valley, it is twice as wide as it is below in the valley of our residence, only a few miles west. The river is mostly calm and just a wonderful place to be at any time of the season. I know, “high noon” and the hours around it, are not a great time for landscape photography. Quite often I do the “noon walk” with Cooper without even taking the camera strap off my shoulder, but sometimes there is a click to make, as it was today…

MISSISSIPPI RIVER STORIES 2021 #12 - STUDENT OF LIGHT

Mississippi River at Mud Lake Park and Marina, Iowa

I found a book under the Christmas tree, “Light on the Landscape” by William Neill, one of America’s most respected landscape photographers. It is a coffee table-style book with 128 wonderful photographs and comes with lessons incorporating photographic fundamentals, like light, composition, or exposure, but also other aspects, including nature stewardship, inspiration, self-improvement, and others. I just started reading but I’m already fascinated. One of the chapters talks about becoming a student of light and in particular at your own favorite locations over a long period of time.

For me one of these locations would be the entrance to the little marina down at Mud Lake by the Mississippi River. I have published many pictures from this vantage point on a dike and wrote about in the blog more than once that the light is never the same. There are times when I’m not even bother to take the camera out of the bag and others when I run to the end of the dike with the camera after getting out of the car, because light can change very quickly. I go to Mud Lake Park with our dog Cooper at least once a week, but even if no pictures are made, I always try to analyze why some things work and others don’t.

Same vantage point as the photo above but looking south. The main channel is behind the dike on the left. The backwaters of Mud Lake are one of our favorite places to paddle the kayak during the warm season.

William Neill writes about becoming an expert on a particular location. This may not fit a description about me yet, but any time I’m there I study the lighting conditions that occur, and absorb the beauty of the mighty Mississippi.

Today we had a pretty uniform overcast with no directional light but the different patches of snow, ice, and water created patterns that reflected the light in different ways and that we can see only at this time of the season when the river freezes over.

Nikon Z6II, Nikkor Z 24-70, f/4 S

THE ELEMENT OF SURPRISE

John Deere Marsh, Mississippi River, Dubuque, iowa

The trees at John Deere Marsh, down at the Mississippi River, had a white coating after yesterday’s snowfall. The temperature had dropped quite a bit overnight (-14ºC / 7ºF) and the snow was clinging to almost everything. Part of the marsh is still very dry and doesn’t have much water, due to little rainfall last summer. Normally we wouldn’t see that much vegetation still standing and ice would cover the area up to the tree line. As so often, I document weather and climate related changes but still try to do it with an artistic touch.

I focussed on the dead tree in the middle ground with a wide open lens, knowing that foreground and background would render just graphic impressions out of focus, when suddenly the element of surprise came into play. While looking through the viewfinder and zooming with my feet, back and forth, left and right, a male Northern Harrier came buoyantly gliding into the frame. I can’t think of another bird of prey, except for certain owls, that is a better representative for the marsh and wetlands than the Northern Harrier. Their owl-like facial disk helps them with directional hearing to locate their prey. At this time of the year they rely mostly on rodents and birds

The Nikon Z6II is capable to combine multiple shots into one picture but the time was way too short to make a change in camera settings of that magnitude. However, I made three clicks, with the second one the photo you see here. In Adobe Photoshop I copied just the bird from the two other images into the final picture, at the same spots as in the originals. Now you have an idea how this story developed within one second in my viewfinder.

The detail obsessed viewer may see more in the photo. At the tree line in the back is a huge Bald Eagle nest. An eagle is guarding it and maybe we see them breeding again next year at this location.

MISSISSIPPI RIVER STORIES 2021 #11 - FREEZING OVER

Mississippi River, Brownsville overlook, Minnesota, Nikon Z6II, Nikkor Z 24-70, f/4 S,   @ 70 mm, 1/640 s, f/8, ISO 100

Finally some much colder nights hit the Driftless Area along the Mississippi River. I drove back from a customer visit up north on the Minnesota and Iowa side of the river today. The bays and backwaters with no or little current freeze over very quickly and I saw some people even ice fishing, which seemed a little risky. I stopped at the Brownsville overlook, Minnesota, the same spot where I watched and photographed thousands of migrating tundra Swans less than four weeks ago. If you missed these pictures you can click on the link HERE to still see them.

The swans have of course moved on to the Atlantic coast and the bay is frozen over. It was the sunlight coming through the clouds and reflected on the ice that made me stop. As you can see, we don’t have snow on the ground and it looks like for the first time in 18 years we will not have a white Christmas…

COMPROMISE

Moonrise over Green Island Wetlands, Iowa, Nikon Z6II, Sigma 150-600mm / f5-6.3 DG OS HSM S, FTZ adapter,  @ 340mm, 1/1000s, f/8, ISO1600, 4 images merged in Adobe Photoshop

Last Saturday the moonrise was less than half an hour before sunset. While I was out in the Green Island Preserve, hoping to get a glimpse on some Short-eared Owls during dusk, the almost full moon illuminated the landscape, with a little bit of light left from the sun that had just disappeared behind the horizon line minutes ago. Unfortunately no owl showed up this time. An ISO setting of 1600 would still have allowed to freeze some owl action at about 1/1000s but some luminance noise in the picture was inevitable. The trick was to shoot 4-5 subsequent pictures while handholding the long lens. Later at home, in front of the computer, the 4 pictures were merged (stacked) in Adobe Photoshop into one image. Since luminance noise is randomly distributed in each picture, it would disappear in the final photo. I liked how the vertical lines of the tree trunks at the bottom were emphasized, but overall the impression of a dreamy landscape was still left. Shooting this from a tripod is probably the better way to do, but how would I have caught a Short-eared Owl in case I had seen one? Photography is often about compromise…

AFTER A LONG DAY

Liberty Lake, Oklahoma, Nikon D750, Nikkor 70-200mm / f4, @ 92mm, 1/2000s, f/4, ISO100

It may not be the last picture from our recent trip through New Mexico that I will post here in the blog but it was one of the last photos of the journey. On our way home we stopped for the final night at Liberty Lake, just north of Oklahoma City, OK. A peaceful sunset like this was the perfect moment to unwind after a day with nothing but long distance driving.

THE ESSENCE

Sand ripples, White Sands National Park, New Mexico

It is easy to get carried away by colors, shapes and details, or the beautiful vistas of a landscape as we can find it in White Sands National Park, New Mexico during a first visit. Sure, I make my good share of documentary shots, like any other tourist, but at the end of the day I’m always asking myself, what did I miss, what is the story that can be embedded into a piece of photography art? Having this in mind while going back to a location another day always helps to get a little bit closer to an answer and maybe to a result that gives more satisfaction than anything captured during the first visit.

I know, many viewers today can’t find anything in a black & white photo anymore, but for me it often boils down to the KISS acronym, keep it simple stupid. The wind shaped dunes are always in motion, shadows can be different from one moment to the next in the ever changing light. What more do I need to photograph the essence of White Sands?

WHITE SANDS

White Sands National Park, New Mexico, Sacramento Mountains in the background, Nikon D750 + Carl Zeiss Distagon 35mm f/2 ZF T*

As further south we drove in New Mexico last October as more grew my excitement about a destination we had pinpointed on our route. White Sands National Park preserves half of the worlds largest gypsum dunefield, located in the Tularosa Basin, between the San Andres and Sacramento Mountains. It is a fascinating landscape that offers so much for any photographer and nature lover.

Colors in the desert, Nikon D750 + Nikkor 70-200, f/4 , @70 mm

I took only two lenses with me while we walked and hiked in the dunefields during two late afternoon trips in the national park. Most of the time I had the Nikkor 70-200, f/4 on camera. Without switching lenses I was able to make quick decisions between scenes that included the curves and structures of the dunes or detail shots, like solitary trees or yucca plants. The other lens was the Carl Zeiss Distagon 35mm f/2 ZF T*, a manual focus lens that I love to employ in landscapes like White Sands NP because of its excellent sharpness and color rendering. The lens changes were not so critical as in other desert areas we have been before. Compared to other dune types the gypsum dunes remain moist even during a long drought. However, we avoided to go there during a sand storm the day between our two visits. Sand in the gear is bad news!

Dunefield near sunset, White Sands NP, New Mexico, Nikon D750 + Carl Zeiss Distagon 35mm f/2 ZF T*

Soaptree Yucca, Nikon D750 + Nikkor 70-200, f/4 , @130 mm

A DAY ABOVE THE DESERT

Rabbit Ears, 8,050 ft / 2454 m, Organ Mountain - Desert Peaks National Monument, New Mexico

I have been traveling for a few days last week but I didn’t forget about my promise to post some more pictures from our recent trip through New Mexico.

We pitched our tent on the east side of the Organ Mountains in “Organ Mountains - Desert Peaks National Monument” for a few days. The campground is located just below the “Rabbit Ears”, two magnificent summits. The facility overlooks the Tularosa Basin, home to White Sands National Park and White Sands Missile Range. A stormy day with very high winds was in the forecast and we decided to hike in the mountains near the campground. This high area is home to a number of plants and tree species not seen on the desert floor. Everything looked still very clear in the morning and we were blessed with gorgeous light on the Rabbit Ears above our tent during sunrise. Later during the day the harsh light makes you think twice before you hit the shutter release button of the camera…

Ornate Tree Lizard, a morning guest at the breakfast table

Prickly Pear Cacti, yucca, agave, grasses, and shrubs dominate the desert floor below the mountains

Most wildflowers were gone already but Rabbitbrush doesn’t look bad either between the rocks in higher altitude

Bizarre trees overlook the Tularosa Basin. A sandstorm hides the details of White Sands National Park and all the military installations of the missile range that surrounds it.

WILDLIFE IN THE VALLES CALDERA

Valles Caldera, National Preserve, New Mexico

About 1.25 million years ago, a spectacular volcanic eruption created the 13-mile wide circular depression now known as the Valles Caldera. This National Preserve is known for its huge mountain meadows, abundant wildlife, and meandering streams. The area also preserves the homeland of ancestral native peoples and embraces a rich ranching history. (source: park website) 

The Valles Caldera is not far from Bandelier National Monument and we spent a couple evenings in the area, hoping to see some wildlife. A herd of grazing elk was in the distance, but too far away for any decent photo. Near the visitor center we were lucky to see this coyote roaming around. With its wonderful fur the animal blent well in between grass and sage brush. A prairie dog colony was not very far and the coyote knew probably where to find them.

A day earlier these two Common Ravens enjoyed the rays of the last sun on top of a metal structure. I always think it is the most difficult bird to photograph. Although they sat pretty still, finding the right exposure and a point to focus on their black feathers seems always to be a challenge. Well, they gave me plenty of time to try out different settings in the camera…

GUADALUPITA MESA

Guadalupita Mesa, Jemez Mountains, New Mexico

From our camp at Bandelier National Monument we explored other areas nearby. One of them was Jemez National Recreation Area in the Jemez Mountains with its valleys and canyons. As we drove back from Gilman Tunnels through the box canyon and along the Guadalupe River, the canyon suddenly widened and we had a grandios view at Guadalupita Mesa. I saw the swirling cloud above the mesa and knew immediately that this would work for a black and white photo. Sure, the colors in my RAW file are brilliant too, but the deep shadows and bright vertical rock bands made for a nice contrasting image.

BANDELIER NATIONAL MONUMENT

The village of Tyuonyi on the floor of Frijoles Canyon.

Bandelier National Monument protects over 33,000 acres of rugged but beautiful canyon and mesa country as well as evidence of a human presence here going back over 11,000 years.  Petroglyphs, dwellings carved into the soft rock cliffs, and standing masonry walls pay tribute to the early days of a culture that still survives in the surrounding communities. (source: park website).

We camped in the park for three nights but trails are open only from dawn to dusk. Beside history and culture the park offers also much for any nature lover. As we wanted to see as much as possible we couldn’t be choosy about the times and some of the photography had to be done, well, at the height of the day. I hope these five photos give you still an idea about the beauty of this place.

COLORS IN THE CANYON

Cimarron Canyon, New Mexico

While traveling in the fall the eyes are always open for some fall colors. One of the places we found them was Cimarron Canyon in the northern part of New Mexico. The light has a different quality in high altitude environments and although we have experienced it before, I’m still amazed about how deep the blue in the sky is rendered in certain situations.

These cliffs are cut by the Cimarron River and are formed from fine-grained porphyritic dacite sill, called Palisades Sill. A spectacular canyon!