IOWA STATE FAIR - SOME IMPRESSIONS

While a concert with the band Foreigner and special guest Melissa Etheridge in the Grandstands (stage in the background) was just about to start, many people still enjoyed a ride with the sky glider across the fair grounds into the setting sun.

Let me start with a quote from the website of the Iowa State Fair. Most Iowa readers of my photography blog probably know this already, but I’m writing this also for my family and friends in Germany, South Africa, India, Switzerland, and wherever else in the world this is viewed.

The internationally acclaimed Iowa State Fair is the single largest event in the state of Iowa and one of the oldest and largest agricultural and industrial expositions in the country. Annually attracting more than a million people from all over the world, the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines is Iowa’s great celebration, a salute to the state’s best in agriculture, industry, entertainment and achievement.

I just received a note that last Saturday the fair had a new single-day attendance record with 128,732 people coming to the fair grounds. It’s impossible to catch all aspects of this experience with only a few photos but I like to give you a few impressions from our visit last weekend.

Visitors can watch the judging of many competitions from farm animals to agriculture products or fine art and photography.

Food is available wherever you go and some of it you may find only in Iowa. Iowa is the number one state for egg production and home to approximately 45 million laying hens which produce around 15 billion eggs a year! A good reason for the Iowa Egg Council to serve ”Egg on a stick” to everybody who wants one. The gentleman was very busy to add some salt with spices to the fresh hardboiled eggs.

The young lady fixes her dress before entering a horse riding and shooting competition.

This is TEDDY BEAR, the World Super Bull. With 3,060 pounds (1391 kg) a respectable animal!

Well, when a sign is attached to a pumpkin that says ”Please do not climb on pumpkins”, they must be really big. The winner is the one in the back with a weight of 1,294 lbs (587 kg). The pumpkin in the front won only the third price but I thought it looked nicer. The girls give a great sense of scale.

At the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines you will see things you have never seen before. This artist sculptured a swine with his chainsaw from a block of ice. After he was done the kids put golden chocolate coins into the saving slot on top.

Let me introduce you to Finnegan, the Champion in the Big Boar competition. The little girl was as much impressed as we were by this 1,420 pound (644 kg) pig.

NIGHT SHOT AT THE PORT

Port of Newport, Oregon, March 29, 2024

This photo is from the same night as yesterday’s sunset image, except it was shot after dinner. Ports and harbors had always a great fascination for me and I love to watch the business around ships, boats, or on the docks.

I guess it helped a little bit having a bottle of wine with our seafood dinner to handhold the camera and make a sharp picture at 1/13 of a second 😉.  And this still required an ISO setting of 12800. A few years ago this was unthinkable with any previous camera I owned, but the technology for noise reduction we have at our hands today, while shooting and in post process, is just amazing.

Nikon Z6II, Nikkor Z 24-70, f/4 S,   @ 62mm, 1/13 s, f/4, ISO 12,800

WAY TO END A DAY

Beach after sunset, Newport, Oregon, March 29, 2024

A minute earlier a small sliver of the sun was still visible. Of course, a few clicks were made with the sun above the horizon, but it was the glow that follows I was after. The people on the beach at low tide below our apartment give the scene a sense of scale.

What followed was a short drive to a restaurant at the harbor of Newport and a dinner with fresh seafood and wine. You can’t find a better way to end a great day at the Oregon coast…

Nikon Z6II, Nikkor Z 24-70, f/4 S, GITZO tripod GT2931 Basalt, KIRK BH-3 ball head    @ 24mm, 1/100 s, f/10, ISO 100

YAQUINA HEAD

Yaquina Head Lighthouse, Newport, Oregon

One of my favorite locations we visited at the Oregon coast last week was Yaquina Head with its lighthouse and rocky sea stacks all around. It is a great place for bird watching and offers many different angles for having some photography fun.

Colony Rock is a great habitat for thousands of seabirds. We saw Common Murres, Pelagic Cormorants, lots of Western Gulls, and some other species.

Western Gull on a rocky cliff

The lighthouse guides ships and their supplies along the west coast since the light was first lit on August 20, 1873.

View to the North Coast from Yaquina Head

REFLECTIONS AT LOW TIDE

Reflections at low tide in Rockaway Beach, Oregon

On our first day traveling along the coast of Oregon we scouted and explored the northern part and finally unpacked our luggage in Rockaway Beach, a small but somehow charming community. During a short walk at low tide on the beach we finally saw the sun and lots of color replaced the gray that made most of the day. What a photo can’t transmit is the smell of the ocean, but I hope you get the idea that we had a marvelous time. Fresh cod and other seafood, combined with a local India Pale Ale, are hard to beat for a dinner that followed this walk on the beach… 😊

Nikon Z6II, Nikkor Z 24-70, f/4 S,   @ 40 mm, 1/400 s, f/10, ISO 200

ALWAYS ASK FOR A HIGH FLOOR

I made it a long time ago a habit to take the camera with me when I travel, even if a very tight schedule during a business trip may not allow to spend time behind the viewfinder. If nothing else, there is always a chance to have a view from the hotel window and one good reason why I always ask for a room on a higher floor. This time it was only the second floor but it was still high enough for this shot across a busy road in the foreground.

A FAVORITE VIEW

Fischerpforte (Fisher gate), Bautzen, Germany, Nikon Z6II, Nikkor Z 24-70, f/4 S

I wasn’t sure if I get this shot sharp enough because a tripod wasn’t with me that evening in my home town Bautzen in Germany. This over 1000 years old city holds many interesting views for the photographer but this stairway from the Spree River up to the old town is among my favorites. The place where the photo was made is called Fischerpforte (Fisher gate). Back in the old days the fishermen living down below used these stairs to bring their fresh catch to the market in town. Part of the old city wall is visible at the right hand side and at the upper end of the stairs was a gate that could be closed in the matter of defense.

Back to the exposure time for this image. It was shot at ISO3200 but still required an exposure time of 0.4s. Despite image stabilization in cameras or lenses, stabile handholding and exhaling the air from the lungs is still mandatory for a sharp picture at night time.

WORLD PHOTOGRAPHY DAY

Today is World Photography Day, the day whereby we pay tribute to the incredible art form that is photography. For me it’s a good reason to dig out some photos that were made earlier this year while spending time with good friends over in Germany. This was in the Margraviate of Brandenburg, a lovely area just north of Berlin. We went on a paddle trip with kayaks and stopped at a little lake shore bistro, where the fish they caught went right into the smoker and was served with fresh ”Brötchen”. Of course, we added some beer to the meal!

And that’s what I like to point out today. There is the image we make with an artistic intent and there is also the shots we make just for the memory of a great moment in life. Sometimes it can be all in one picture and sometimes it’s better to keep them separated. I’m sure all camera owners can tell a story about their photos today. Let’s keep it coming, not just on World Photography Day…!

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

THE ARCHWAY

The Archway, I-80, Kearney, Nebraska

On Memorial Day we returned from a wonderful trip through several parts in Germany. I like to say thank you again to family and friends for hospitality and for helping in many ways to make this journey as fantastic as it was.

Live doesn’t stand still and so I left for a business trip just a day later. This time in the other direction, out west again to Nebraska and tomorrow to South Dakota. My hotel today isn’t far away from the Great Platte River Road Archway Monument (also known as The Archway or Kearney Archway), a bridge structure that spans across Interstate I-80 in Kearney, Nebraska. It houses a historical experience that tells the story of Nebraska and the Platte River Valley in the development of America. We drove under it several times while heading east or west during vacation trips in the past but have never stopped there.

Unfortunately the museum was already closed this evening but nice light from the west and puffy clouds can’t be ignored by the photographer and the wide angle Nikkor 16-35, f/4 was used for a few clicks.

The Archway is actually not such a peaceful place as it looks in this image. A steady stream of heavy trucks and many cars in both directions make it actually a noisy place and it was not so easy to get a shot without a big vehicle in the frame.

MISSISSIPPI RIVER STORIES 2023 #5 - ABOVE FLOOD STAGE

The good news first, the water level in the river fell slightly today.

While I was out of town last week the water level in the Mississippi River kept rising and was at its peak yesterday. The gauge is located at the Lock & Dam #11 in Dubuque, Iowa and some of the numbers from there are quite impressive. The flow from yesterday was 263730 cubic foot per second, which is equal to 7.4 million liters of water that pass through per second! The gauge was at ~23 ft (7 m), which is about 13 ft (~4 m) above historic normal stage. The river reached its flood stage of 16 ft in Dubuque on April 20.

Riverwalk, Dubuque, IA, Not much space underneath the old Railroad Bridge was left.

They had a lot of snow up north in Minnesota this winter and floods are a normal occurrence during spring time. All flood gates in Dubuque were closed but several areas north and south of town (i.e. Mud Lake Park or Finley’s Landing) are under water.

How can the story about all this be told with our photos? I decided to include at least some green in the picture. It’s easy to document the flooding and the high water level, but I thought it was also important that the colors in the trees say ”spring”, even if they are on the other side of the river.

Mud Lake Park, 4/24/2023, Campground, parking lot, boat ramp, and playground were already flooded a week ago.

MARVELOUS ARCHITECTURE

Milwaukee Art Museum

It doesn’t happen very often that I have the chance and time to visit an architectural landmark during one of my business trips. However, a week ago I was able to stop at the Milwaukee Art Museum while traveling with a German business friend. I knew the museum was closed that day but the design by Eero Saarinen, David Kahler, and Santiago Calatrava has always fascinated me and there are many architectural highlights to admire while walking around the building complex.

It was the first time that I photographed the museum with snow on the ground and not a single cloud in the sky. While in most of my landscape photography I’m not thrilled about a bald blue sky, here I like the fact because the beautiful lines of Calatrava’s Quadracci Pavilion stand out nicely against the background. The Burke Brise Soleil, a moveable sunscreen with a 66-meter wingspan was unfortunately folded down during our short visit.

View towards Lake Michigan and across the Reimann bridge, a pedestrian suspension bridge that connects the museum to the city.

Milwaukee Downtown, looking west from the same viewpoint as in the picture above.

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

OZARK MOUNTAINS (1)

Old barrage at Alley Spring Roller Mill, Ozark National Riverways, near Eminence, Missouri

Hi everybody, we are back from a road trip that led us through parts of the Ozark Mountains in Missouri and Arkansas. Not a time when most people travel with a tent as their daily shelter for the night, but despite a few cold moments we managed it well. Photographically spoken it wasn’t a trip with a lot of great vistas but finding interesting details in the landscape was the challenge I tried to take on every day. I hope you may enjoy some of the photos I share here in the blog during the next weeks.

THE OLD RULE

I had an early flight yesterday morning from Las Vegas to Chicago. The sun wasn’t even high enough to touch the desert and mountains below after we had crossed Lake Mead, but its first light was reflected nicely by the clouds north of us and the inlet cowl of the jet engine nacelle on our aircraft. The Nikon Z6II was safely stored in my luggage in the overhead compartment and so the old rule, that the best camera is always the one you have with you, was confirmed to be true ones again. I shot this quickly with my iPhone camera before this brief and magical moment was over.