In search for the right perspective

 

We discovered the story telling potential of this setting immediately after getting out of the car in Potawatomi State Park along the Sturgeon Bay. The track of broken ice from the island to shore, the reflections, and the overall mood just had an effect on us. However, I scratched my head shortly after starting to work the subject. I just could not find a perspective that satisfied me totally. One of the reasons is that I’m not a big fan of bare branches sticking into the frame from any direction. The canoe needed to be within the picture, because it is an important part of the story, and the curves in the ice are the lines in the story telling. I used my feet for zooming and ups and downs, but sometimes it is just a little detail that makes the difference between a great image, just a decent one, and a goner. (I have not seen Joan's photo's yet. She may have kicked my butt... ;-)   )

The blue toned black & white seems to reflect the mood of this gray winter day better than any other finishing I tried. Sometimes it takes me a year or two to find the final version of a photo. But this is ok, it is part of the artistic process and part of the learning curve…

Iowa landscape: Upper Iowa River

 

Joan, Cooper, and I went out for another paddle adventure last weekend. This time we explored the Upper Iowa River, northwest of Decorah, Iowa. This is a very popular river among paddlers and people that just want to drift downstream in an inner tube. We used a shuttle service on both days that brought us and our kayaks to an access point of our choice upstreams and then we paddled several hours back to our campsite in Bluffton, Iowa.

I didn’t take the camera with me on Saturday because we had never paddled a river with partly fast flowing water and ripples before. After the first tour I felt more comfortable and really wanted to make some images of this gorgeous river valley and the rocks and bluffs. Sunday was also a lot more quiet and we saw more wildlife than the day before.

Creating the photos was a little like making lemonade out of vinegar. The wonderful sunny weather created of course some very harsh light, but this was the only challenge that I had to face beside keeping the gear dry.

My subject is the landscape and I used the canoes and kayaks on the water mainly to create some scale for the image. Since we paddled part of the river the day before I had already some ideas where to stop. By using the reflections of the bluffs and rocks on the water as part of the composition I tried to give the scene in these photos a romantic touch.

We have paddled only a few sections of the Upper Iowa River yet, but there is a lot more to explore and we really want to go back there. And the dog? Well, Cooper “The Kayak-Hund” decided to jump out of the boat into the water a couple times, always at moments when he was not supposed to do it… But this is the fun you have when a dog is on board… ;-)