HISTORY IMAGINED

Missouri River between Nebraska and South Dakota

It’s hard to believe that when someone travels across the fields, grasslands, and prairie here in the Midwest that there was only one valuable photo opportunity during the whole week. Sometimes things just don’t line up the way we photographers like…

Coming from Nebraska I crossed the Missouri River into South Dakota yesterday afternoon. Well, I guess it was photographers ”luck”, with not a single cloud in the sky (sigh!!!).

While standing there I imagined the time before the mass slaughtering of bison during the 1870s, long before this modern bridge was built, and bison crossed the shallow river at this place. Maybe the people that owned the land, the Native Americans who depended on hunting bison and lived along the Missouri River, may have enjoyed the same view from this hill above the river banks. Who knows?

Another historical moment happened already in late summer of 1804, when the famous Lewis and Clarke Expedition came up the river by boats during their journey to the Pacific Northwest. Their over 8000-mile expedition trip for the US government took two years, four month and ten days. When this expedition moved upstream, most of the difficulties were still laying ahead of them.

DIFFERENT WETLANDS, DIFFERENT SMELL

Tauerwiesenteich, near Förstgen, Saxony, Germany,

Nikon Z6II, Nikkor Z 24-70, f/4 S, Panoramic image created from 4 single photos,

This photo is best viewed at a computer. Click on the picture for a larger image on screen.

No, this is not any of the backwaters along the Upper Mississippi River here in Iowa. A week ago, back in my home town Bautzen, Germany, I had the chance to make a short trip to the biosphere preserve ”Upper Lusatian Pond and Heath Region”. This area stretches to the north of town, away from the mountains, and is a mix of woods, heath, wetlands, agricultural land, and includes 240 ponds. Many of them are used to raise fish. One of the treasures in the preserve is the high variety of plant and animal species. This all happens in harmony with agricultural and fish farming.

Today, over there, they received the first snow in the ”Upper Lusatia” (so did we here in Iowa), but a week ago some fall colors were still present in the woods. An observation tower that overlooks this part of the wetlands was used as a shooting platform. A single image seems not to do justice to the wide view from the tower and therefore I took five overlapping photos. I used four of them for the final image and stitched them together in Adobe Photoshop. This used to be a time consuming, sometimes tedious task but with today’s computer power and state-of-the-art software capabilities it is only a matter of a few seconds to obtain the panoramic view.

I love it here in the Driftless Area along the Upper Mississippi River Valley, with its deciduous forests and wildlife, but I definitely miss the smell of resin from pines and mushrooms in abundance, as it was present in my old stomping grounds a week ago…

MINNESOTA NORTHWOODS - #14

Split Rock Lighthouse, Lake Superior, Minnesota

The last day of our trip through the Northwoods of Minnesota in September came with strong winds and rain. Big waves broke into the rocky shore of Lake Superior and it was a challenge to find moments with the camera when gray was not the only color visible at times. Split Rock Lighthouse is probably one of the most photographed landmarks along the north-shore and even in not so popular weather conditions, lots of people liked to see it.

No, this wasn’t my model, posing for pictures below the lighthouse, but I couldn’t resist to ”steal” some color on this gray day from the person who took pictures of this young lady in front of rough water.

I know this blog post comes ”a little late” but life stood in the way too many times lately. I hope you enjoyed my photos about some of Minnesota’s beautiful and wild places and maybe it inspired you to get the camera out of the pocket more often…

WEEKEND IN WISCONSIN’S NORTHWOODS

Popple River, Forest County Wisconsin

I spent the weekend in the Northwoods of Wisconsin at a friend’s cabin, to be more precise, in the woods north of Crandon and Laona. With every mile I drove further north fall colors appeared more sparsely. In addition gray skies dominated the weekend’s weather. I still tried to find ways to tell the story with the camera about the changes at the end of the fall season.

I have photographed from this bridge, crossing the Popple River, several times in the past. My older photos show it mostly frozen, with a layer of snow on top. Most leaves were gone already but the patches of grass lead the eye to the background, where some fall colors tell us, it’s not all over yet.

Full moon revealed, near Double Bend Road, Forest County, Wisconsin

The rain had moved out of the area and the almost full moon started peeking through the clouds. The light and mood of the scene reminded me of paintings by German Romantic landscape painter Casper David Friedrich (1774 - 1840). A light at the cabin to my left gave the tree trunks some structure. It is very subtle, but made the difference instead of rendering the trees just as a silhouette and nothing but black on the lower part of the photo.

Most of the maples had lost their leaves already but I found this young maple on an island in a bog. I removed carefully everything bright below this branch to keep the background as dark as possible. After this little bit of preparation it was an easy click.

I’m always amazed about the variety of different tree species up north. On the small island in the bog near the cabin we found pine, fir, spruce, maple, birch, arborvitae, and others. With the absence of popping colors, even in the sky, the camera was set to black and white with a red filter effect applied, making the shape of the trees the subject of the image. Although the arborvitaes are evergreen trees, the may shed some of their leaves. Here they covered the forest floor and gave me another reason to make this photo.

Cascade in the Little Popple River, Forest County Wisconsin

The tinted water at this cascade is a good indicator that the river flows through a boggy and peaty landscape, shaped by the glaciers a long time ago. This was shot handhold at 190 mm focal length and 1/20 sec. exposure time. I wanted movement in the water but also keep some of the details and not making it just some ”chocolate milk” flowing over the rocks.

WAITING IS NOT ALWAYS BORING…

Sunrise at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport

Yesterday morning I was waiting for my next flight in the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport in Texas. The glass of the airport window was not very clean, to say it mildly, but so close to the lens it worked like a diffuser. The light was ”killer” on the fuselage of the plane parked at our gate. The second photo was taken 2 minutes earlier, just before the sun came up at the horizon. I thought that shot works as well, with three airplanes in the sky at the same time and gorgeous light. Waiting for a connection flight is not always boring…

MINNESOTA NORTHWOODS - #11

Fall colors, Road in Superior National Forest, near Schroeder, Minnesota

This photo was made on our last day up in the Northwoods of Minnesota. We had moved to a campsite at Ninemile Lake in Superior National Forest, not far away from Lake Superior. It was raining almost all day long but we still went out and tried to capture some beauty along Lake Superior, the worlds largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area. If nothing else can be done on a very rainy and almost stormy day, searching for interesting looking stones along the shore is still an option…

This was two and and a half weeks ago and while we drove back to camp, we enjoyed already the colors of fall. Well, we had to stop for this view to soak it all in and make a few clicks, but fifteen minutes later we entered the TRESTLE INN, a saloon and restaurant in the middle of nowhere, not far from our campsite. Great food, good beer, and just an incredible friendly staff! A great way to beat the rain and to end another wonderful day in the Great Outdoors!

MINNESOTA NORTHWOODS - #9

Sunrise over Lake Shumway, Savanna Portage State Park, Minnesota

I climbed out of the sleeping bag before sunrise and walked over to the lake. A band of clouds covered the rising sun and it became clear I wouldn’t get the light on the lake as I was hoping for. It was very quiet, no noise from any traffic, neither cars nor airplanes, just a deep silence. When the sun came up above the tree line a few gaps in the clouds started to open and suddenly sun spots were reflected on the lake. I knew I had my photo, carrying the mood from this gorgeous and quiet morning.

MINNESOTA NORTHWOODS - #3

The light tells the story, Lake Shumway, Savanna Portage State Park, Minnesota

Nikon Z6II, Nikkor Z 24-70, f/4 S,    @ 56 mm, 1/50 s, f/22, ISO 1600

If you had an interest in my photography before you know already that I’m not looking much for the ”postcard view” in my landscape work. But when the light unfolds in front of me, the smallest detail of a landscape will draw my interest immediately.

I walked on a trail along Lake Shumway in Savanna Portage State Park, Minnesota late in the day and watched the light the low sun created in the woods along the lake. Closing down the aperture to f/22 creates the star burst around the setting sun between the woods. That part was easy and would have made a picture somehow. But as a bonus the lake right behind me bounced back some of the light onto the leaves in the foreground, and that made me push the shutter release. Lovely light, lovely light…! 😊

MINNESOTA NORTHWOODS - #1

Daybreak at Lake Shumway, Savanna Portage State Park

Nikon Z6II, Nikon FTZ adapter, Nikon Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm, Induro GIT 404XL tripod, RRS BH-55 ball head,….@75 mm, 1/200 s, f/10, ISO200

We just returned from a wonderful 10-day trip to the Northwoods of Minnesota. We were rewarded with pristine lakes, clear streams, beautiful forests, and numerous wildlife encounters. Paddling our kayaks almost every day allowed us to explore the boreal forests of northern Minnesota and enjoy the solitude away from noise and other people. The temperatures were still quite warm but the intensifying fall colors reminded us that winter isn’t that far out anymore. As time allows I will post a few photos I like to share with you during the next few weeks. I hope you will enjoy.

Wolf Lake, Savanna Portage State Park

Nikon Z6II, Nikkor Z 24-70, f/4 S,    @ 28 mm, 1/250 s, f/10, ISO 100

MISSISSIPPI RIVER STORIES 2023 #10 - BLUE MOON, A FOURTH FULL MOON DURING THE SEASON

It was a little less haze in the air today and I decided to chase the full moon, the second one during the month of August, also called a ”Blue Moon”, due to the fact that it is the fourth full moon during a season. As mentioned in my last blog post yesterday, the moon would rise even further to the east and having a photo with the moon low above the water of the Mississippi River wasn’t really an option around here. I wanted to do something different and chose the location for the camera much closer to the city of Dubuque, and just a bit above water level this time. Moonrise was exactly half an hour later than yesterday, sunset about fifteen minutes earlier, and making the click and process the image in post was a different kind of challenge as I found out in front of my computer. What you see in the photo is the romance I felt when the moon showed up above this island in the river. The green of the leaves in the trees is still lush, despite the heat we had recently. There were quite a few boats making a ”full moon river cruise” on the Mississippi. I was happy to keep them all out of the frame and enjoyed having the end of the dike, that protects Dubuque, Iowa from flooding, just for myself…

MISSISSIPPI RIVER STORIES 2023 #9 - MOONRISE, SUNSET, AND AFTERWARDS

Mississippi River, Mines of Spain, Dubuque, Iowa

It wasn’t full moon today, this will be tomorrow night, but the waxing moon was at 98.3%, good enough for making photos over the Mississippi River. The overlook on top of the bluffs at the Julian Dubuque Monument in the Mines of Spain, just south of downtown Dubuque, was the place where I put the legs of the tripod in the ground. The moon was supposed to rise at 7:26 PM over ”Island Two hundred Twenty Eight” on the left side of the big river. Sunset was 7:42 PM and my hope was to have a hint of daylight on the water at moonrise. The photo below was shot exactly at sunset time but the moon just became visible from behind some haze at the horizon. Moody, but not dramatic.

The photo above was shot at 7:53 PM. It is important to change the white balance to a colder temperature for the feeling of the blue hour during the time after sunset. I underexposed up to 2 f-stops so the moon is not blown out and brought the shadows in the foreground back a little bit.

At sunset time, the moon just became visible in the haze.

As already mentioned, tomorrow is full moon. Sunset is 7:40 PM and the moon will raise at 7:56 PM. It will have its largest size 39 minutes later. The moon will raise 9º further to the east, which means it will be much higher above the water from the same vantage point in the Mines of Spain and I’m not sure if the reflection on the water will work the same way.

All images: Nikon Z6II, Nikon FTZ adapter, Nikon Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm, Induro GIT 404XL tripod, RRS BH-55 ball head,

1.   @ 170 mm, 1/8 s, f/8, ISO 100

2.   @ 112 mm, 1/13 s, f/8, ISO 100

BRENTON ARBORETUM, WITH AN EYE ON THE SKY

Summer sky over Brenton Arboretum, near Dallas Center, Iowa

We were introduced to an Iowa nature gem by good friends last weekend. The Brenton Arboretum near Dallas Center in Central Iowa is not just about trees, but also prairie, grasslands, ponds, and wetland areas. There were plenty of opportunities for macro photography, but as the avid reader of my blog already knows, I’m not so much into that field. Clouds were moving all around and I had my eye on them, hoping for some interesting light and maybe drama in the sky. Almost at the end of our short hike a picture unfolded, as the light hit the wildflowers in the prairie on this hillside, the clouds formed a pattern, and the sky took care for some color contrast.

Nikon Z6II, Nikkor Z 24-70, f/4 S,   @ 47mm, 1/1250 s, f/8, ISO 200

MISSISSIPPI RIVER STORIES 2023 #7 - UNHEALTHY EFFECTS

Smoke over the Mississippi River, Lock & Dam #11, Dubuque, Iowa

It’s not really a ”Mississippi River Story” only, large areas in the country are under the effect of numerous wildfires burning in Canada. It’s not unusual to have some haze in the Mississippi Valley, due to high humidity, during the summer, but since a few days we experience haze on a much different level. We can even smell the smoke at times and with an air quality index of over 200 it’s not a good time to be outside for everybody.

When I made this photo downstream from lock and dam #11 in Dubuque, Iowa today a turkey vulture just landed on the reeling in the foreground. I hope it is not a bad omen that there is more to come… Right now a storm further south moves some of the unhealthy fine dust to the east, but I feel sorry for everybody who will be effected in other parts of the country.

VISIT DURING ”MOON WHEN THE GRASS IS UP”

View from Sage Creek Rim Road at sunset, Badlands National Park, South Dakota

The month with daylight longer than in any other one comes slowly but surely to an end. The Sioux called this period of time ”Strawberry Moon”, ”Moon of Making Fat”, or ”Moon When The Grass is Up” (source: Saga of the Sioux, by Dwight John Zimmerman). The visit in Badlands National Park, one of my favorite places to be, was certainly a highlight in June for me. In my younger years I read a lot of books about the Native Americans that called this place home. Their stories about dealing with all aspects of nature, surviving in all kinds of weather, and hunting for bison and other wildlife to make a living have always fascinated me. The tragedy how they were conquered by white people still touches me and this is one of the reasons why I feel very emotional when I’m out west in these places. This time I finally was able to visit the site of the infamous Wounded Knee Massacre, just south of Badlands National Park.

Although more than 130 years ago there was certainly no road here on top of the Sage Creek Rim, but I’m sure the view to the southeast wasn’t much different for a hunter or warrior who came up here.

WARM LIGHT, FRIGID WATER

Baltic Sea, Zinnowitz, Germany

It was a great day back in May this year at the Baltic Sea on the island of Usedom. Our family celebrated my moms 85th birthday and after dinner some of us went out for a walk on the beach and to enjoy the sunset. Of course I took the camera with me and had just started to capture the reflections on the sand when these kids stormed the beach and entered joyful the frigid water of the sea. I believe they belonged to a youth soccer team and were in a training camp nearby. I couldn’t ask for better actors in a scene like that. I underexposed up to two f-stops, having the kids sharp and just as a silhouette, still maintaining some color in the sun, and also capturing the glow on the water.

I can tell you, these girls and boys were brave. Most people made their walk on the beach in a warm coat or jacket…

Nikon Z6II, Nikkor Z 24-70, f/4 S,   @ 62mm, 1/1250 s, f/20, ISO 1250, image slightly cropped