OFF THE BEATEN PATH

View from Sheep Mountain Table, Badlands National Park, South Dakota

We spent the weekend in one of our favorite areas, Badlands National Park in South Dakota. Spring is a great time for wildlife photography in this area, but I like to start with one of the landscape images from this weekend to give friends and followers of my blog that are not so familiar with the Badlands an idea about this rugged terrain. The photo was made at the edge of Sheep Mountain Table, in the Stronghold Unit of the park, which is also part of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Most visitors of the national park will never go to this part in the southwest, because it is off the beaten path and a bit away from the easily accessible North Unit. Its beauty is nevertheless unsurpassed.

Nikon D750, Nikon Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm, f/4,   @70 mm, 1/250 s, f/10, ISO100

LUCK WAS ON MY SIDE

On my way back home from the Green Island Wetlands I always drive by at an elevated point of the road that overlooks an old oxbow lake of the nearby Maquoketa River, a U-shaped pool that forms when a wide meander of a river is cut off. Most of the time the oxbow pool isn’t even visible because the water level is too high and the surrounding marsh land is totally submerged. Last Saturday I hit the brakes hard when I saw the light unfolding over this part of the landscape. Out of 24 quick shots this one was the one I like the most. The clouds moved rapidly and every picture was a little different than the next one. I missed great light opportunities like this before, just because I simply found no place to stop and park the car safely. This time the luck was on my side!

Nikon Z6II, Nikkor Z 24-70, f/4 S,   @ 70 mm, 1/320s, f/9, ISO 200

DOWN IN THE VALLEY

Little Maquoketa River Valley, Iowa

A photo left over from last week. When I left the house and drove down quickly into our valley it still looked like we would have an interesting sunset to watch. It didn’t happen, the cloud in the background was faster and changed the scene. I wasn’t too sad, the sun sets 365 days every year somewhere in the world… The houses down there are not that pretty but can tell certainly a story about a little village that has seen better days.

I actually like the muted light on the landscape and tried to keep it for the final image. It was important the bright roofs of the buildings do not overpower the soft colors in the sky and I underexposed by -0.66 EV. In post process the shadows in the trees and also the field in the foreground were brought back slightly, and that’s how I envisioned the final photo when the shutter button was pressed.

Nikon Z6II, Nikkor Z 24-70, f/4 S,   @ 39 mm, 1/400s, f/8, ISO 400

WITH A LITTLE IMAGINATION

The snow is almost gone and it takes a little imagination to make a photo with bare trees and vegetation from last year that is more or less brown and grey. When the sun sets above our ridge and the wind has calmed down, it’s time to pour a glass of wine, sit down in a chair on the porch, and enjoy the first evenings of the year with mild temperatures. With at least one f-stop underexposure and white balance settings at 6000 Kelvin or higher, the colors of decaying grasses in the front yard don’t play a role anymore. The setting sun and the backlit silhouettes of grass, swaying in the wind, are enough to let us forget about the dull colors that dominate the landscape after the winter…

YELLOWSTONE - 150 YEARS

Black bear mother with her two cups, October 2007, Nikon D200 with Nikon 80-400-D VR

On March 1st, Yellowstone, the world’s first national park, was created 150 years ago. I had the pleasure to visit the park with its beautiful mountains, over 10,000 hydrothermal features, and abundant wildlife, together with my wife Joan in 2005, 2007, and 2018. In 2005 I still used mainly a Nikon N2020 35mm film camera but played a little with a 3.2 Megapixel, Minolta Dimage Xt digital camera. At the second visit I just had started with serious digital photography and little did I know how to create an image with some impact. But it is nice to have these old images as a memory. It was interesting to see in 2018 how the National Park had changed and how the park administration tried to deal with the vast number of visitors that pour in the park every day, even in the off-season. It still remains a magnificent place to visit and to photograph. Yellowstone National Park has inspired conservation efforts around the globe since its inception in 1872 and in order to celebrate this event I pulled a few pictures from the library and like to share them with you.

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River, September 2018, Nikon D750 with AF-S Nikkor 70-200, f/4

Wolf watchers, Lamar Valley at Slough Creek, October 2007, Nikon D200 with Sigma 18-50, 2.8

Mammoth Hot Springs, September 2018, Nikon D750 with AF-S Nikkor 70-200, f/4

RESULTS WITH LONG EXPOSURE

Whitewater Creek in Whitewater Canyon Wildlife Area, eastern Iowa

There is a chance that this could be my last winter photo of this season that includes snow. What it’s left on the ground melts rapidly away right now and warmer temperatures are in the forecast for the next days. After we left the cave with ice formations ,you perhaps saw in my last blog post, we went down to Whitewater Creek at the bottom of the  canyon. When I saw the pristine field of snow along the creek, with no animal or human tracks on it, I felt the urge to make a photo.

The crystal-clear water flows slowly but still had a few ripples on the surface. Long exposure and the BREAKTHROUGH X4 10-stop neutral density filter eliminated any glare on the surface, made even the bottom of the creek visible, and still retained the reflections from the other side of the creek. It was magical and I love the outcome with any of my Breakthrough filters. By the way, to calculate the exposure time for a photo with the 10-stop or 6-stop ND filters, I use an app on my phone, called ND Timer. It’s free and does the trick just fine. After a test shot without filter you dial the normal exposure time (for this picture it was 1/80s) into the app, choose the grade of your filter (10-stops), and the app displays the required exposure time. I use it usually as a starting point and make corrections up or down to find the best results for the image I have in mind, especially with fast flowing water.

Nikon Z6II, Nikkor Z 24-70, f/4 S, Breakthrough X4 ND filter (10-stop) GITZO tripod GT2931 Basalt, KIRK BH-3 ball head  @ 37mm, 15s, f/20, ISO 100

MISSISSIPPI RIVER STORIES 2022 #3 - WINTER RESTORED

Click the photo for a larger view of the panorama.

I went over to the neighbor state Illinois today and drove up to an overlook in Palisades State Park. There, high up on the rocky bluffs, you have a great view across the frozen river. At the horizon on the left is the Iowa side of the Mississippi Valley and to the right we look upstream towards the Northwest.

The image is the result from three single shots that were merged in Adobe Lightroom. I didn’t use the tripod, just handheld the camera and twisted my upper body for each shooting position. The software does an amazing job if you have components with a clear graphic shape, like these islands in the river, and the pictures have a big enough overlap with each other.

The ice was obviously melting already last week but a drop in temperature and a thin layer of fresh snow last night restored the look of winter to the valley again. As you know I write quite often about the wildlife in the Green Island Wetlands. The lakes and marshes of this preserve are located pretty much in the center of the photo, just behind the trees near the horizon line.

Nikon Z6II, Nikkor Z 24-70, f/4 S,   @ 70 mm, f/10, ISO 100, 3 images

MISSISSIPPI RIVER STORIES 2022 #2 - ACROSS THE ICE

Another trip today, heading south along the Mississippi River. No new snow recently, some warmer weather last week, and now real cold temperatures again made the ice everywhere looking different than a couple weeks ago. I watched a number of hawks again and had some of them even in the viewfinder. Distance was too big for my taste and instead coming up with a picture that is cropped to death, here are a couple landscape photos I shot this afternoon.

The direction of the sun reveals that I crossed the Mississippi down between Sabula, IA and Savannah, IL and pointed the lens towards the Iowa shore on the west side. With all the ice in the frame no negative exposure compensation was required to obtain this look with the silhouettes of reeds and the remains of water lilies.

Nikon Z6II, Nikkor Z 24-70, f/4 S,   @ 66 mm, 1/800 s, f/16, ISO 100

On the way back across the river to Iowa you drive through Sabula, Iowa’s only town on an island. I’m always intrigued by their old style water tower and today light, clouds, and reflection of the tower on the ice were perfect for making a photograph.

Nikon Z6II, Nikkor Z 24-70, f/4 S,   @ 70 mm, 1/100 s, f/16, ISO 100

WINTER IN THE VALLEY

Little Maquoketa River Valley, Eastern Iowa

Last Sunday we used the Heritage Trail for a hike into the Little Maquoketa River Valley, not far from home. A couple miles from our starting point the steep limestone rocks bordering the valley give way to a more open slope. The Sundown Mountain Resort, with lifts and snowmaking equipment, is only a quarter mile to the right of this image. During the summer cattle graze in this part of the valley and in the woods along the trail we can find good spots for bird watching.

Sun and wind had eroded the hillside quite a bit already and I should have visited the valley a week earlier when we still had more snow on the ground. I liked how a snow mobile trail crossed the slope on the other side of the river and how the long shadows of the trees fall on the hills. This is by no means a perfect landscape photo, but it gives me some ideas what can be done with more snow on the ground and in the trees. The forecast says we still have plenty of cold weather ahead this month but I’m not so sure about a good snowfall followed by a sunny evening with some clouds. I may have to wait until next winter saison…

Nikon Z6II, Nikkor Z 24-70, f/4 S,   @ 70 mm, 1/400 s, f/13, ISO 100

“DIRTY SUNSET” BEFORE THE STORM

Whenever I book a hotel for a business trip I try to get a room on the highest floor, which here in most smaller cities is only third or fourth floor. As soon I enter the room I check out if there is a picture opportunity from the window. Maybe not immediately, but perhaps the next morning before sunrise. It doesn’t happen very often but yesterday night I was able to see a magnificent sunset just shortly after arrival in my hotel in a small town in central Illinois. I call this a “dirty sunset”. Clouds and colors just tell you, something big and bad is coming. A winter storm warning has been issued for the areas south and southeast of here and I was happy to head back home this afternoon before it all starts.

I shot this through four panes of glass, not even clean on the outside, and was amazed how little flare or ghosting I had even when the sun was still visible. The Z 24-70 did a great job for these images. Sure, all the glass in front of the lens may soften the image slightly but it is at the end not very noticeable. The only question that was left, what photo should I use for this blog post…

Nikon Z6II, Nikkor Z 24-70, f/4 S,   @ 68 mm, 1/160 s, f/8, ISO 100, WB 6000 K

NOT AT SUNSET TIME

3.20 pm isn’t really sunset time at the end of January but it kinda felt like it after a big cloud had moved in front of the sun. I’m glad I went out to the Green Island Wetlands yesterday and made the click. We didn’t see the sun today at all…

Nikon Z6II, Nikkor Z 24-70, f/4 S,   @ 70 mm, 1/1250 s, f/10, ISO 200

DEALING WITH THE WIND CHILL (II)

A second round of photos from last weekend’s trip to the Northwoods of Wisconsin. Our friend Bryan built his cabin near this remarkable tree. I have photographed it, but never during a snow storm before. Actually I wasn’t really motivated to go out and wade through the deep snow to get the tree from this angle. Instead I just played with the camera and shot this image through the glass of a window. 

As mentioned yesterday already, no snow stuck to the trees for long due to the high winds, but I think with its toning and long shadows the photo still tells the story about a very cold winter day up north on the frozen tundra.

The question came in, “how was the ice fishing?” I guess, this picture tells it all. What you see is the black tip of the flag that goes up when a fish bites. The orange stick is just for safety, so no stranger drives over your fishing hole accidentally. The photo was shot with an iPhone 12 after I had already removed my three tip-ups from the ice. Our friend Doug had his fishing gear still out when I snapped the pic. We all cleaned the drilled holes in the approximately 15” (38 cm) thick ice quite often to prevent them to freeze over, but the drifting snow covered the depression and the tip-up within minutes. It was faster then I have ever seen it in 17 years of ice fishing fun. We had a few flags going up and it was never because of a serious bite, just triggered by the icy winds. Yield of the day, one Bluegill, caught by Bryan’s son Clayton with a jigging rod at a hole next to his truck. Experience means nothing while ice fishing… 😆

DEALING WITH THE WIND CHILL

Frozen Popple River, Forest County, Wisconsin

Last weekend was the annual ice fishing trip with friends in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. Very cold temperatures are not unusual up there but due to an icy wind we actually limited our time on the ice to only a few hours. Instead we scouted some lakes we had never been before and checked them out for future ice fishing adventures. Beside all the other fun we had I used this opportunity for some photography while driving through the woods and across the frozen land. Our host Bryan, who has a cabin up there, knows the area very well. I was happy that he stopped at a location I had been before several years ago and always wanted to revisit for some better images.

Both photos were made from a bridge across the frozen Popple River. Fresh snow fell the night before but unfortunately the wind blew most of it off the trees. I liked how the shore lines lead the eye into the backcountry. The Nikkor Z 24-70, f/4 S lens was used the whole time and I was very pleased how the Nikon Z6II performed under sub-zero conditions (-4ºF, -20ºC). A considerable wind chill made shooting quite a challenge and everything had to be done fast. There are of course gloves in my pockets that would allow shooting for a while, but I still prefer to use bare hands while operating the camera. Nice to have a warm pickup truck as a backup when the fingers start to get frozen stiff…😉

LATE FIND

Medicine Rocks at sunset, Montana 2020

Streamlining and maintaining my photo library is always an ongoing project, especially during winter time. Some of our images just beg to be processed and we publish them immediately, and that’s great. Others need some time before we discover the potential of the image. And last not least there are always photos, mostly older ones, that can’t hold the quality standards I have today and will just be treated with the delete key of the computer keyboard.

With today’s photo I go back to 2020. Medicine Rocks in eastern Montana was a mesmerizing place to pitch the tent and inhale the feeling of the beautiful Wild West. It has been a sacred place for native people since hundreds of years and it bothers me how some individuals disrespect the fact and carve, whatever they want, into the soft stones of Medicine Rocks. I usually never alter the context of my photos, but here I admit, the stupid carving of a name into the rocks was eliminated while processing the final image.

It was a beautiful evening and the setting sun put a nice glow on some rocks, while others were already in the shade. In one of my blog posts about Medicine Rocks from October 2020 I posted already a color version of this image. So this is clearly a “group 2” picture, because I needed some time to discover the potential for a black and white version. You may not agree but I like it actually better.