Fine Art Gallery - "Lushness"

 

Time to start something new here in my blog. From now on I will publish once in a while an image under the roof of a Fine Art Gallery. These will be photos that will not fit necessarily into my usual blog posts about nature observations but that have an esthetic appearance that I like to share with you.

As always, I welcome your opinions, critique, and questions about any aspects of photography and nature. I like to share the information about "the making" of an image or about wildlife locations and will continue to do. Please feel free to contact me if you think I can help you with your own photography or wildlife related questions.

Easter with wildflowers

Yesterday I thought it was time for a different kind of adventure and location. The White Pine Hollow State Park near Luxemburg, Iowa is not very far from home and I haven't been there for a while. What I always liked about this rugged area is that you can't drive in. It bares a tranquility I haven't found in any other area around here. Gorgeous spring weather with fast moving clouds made for constantly changing light. It was the right time of season to revisit this wonderful area again because thousands of wildflowers were blooming. From the little parking lot on the East side of the park you can walk down to the river. The walls of the canyon and the fresh green of the surrounding trees were mirrored on the water. I put the tripod legs in the sand of the river and made this "artsy-fartsy" picture. I remembered that I had tried this before but never caught the light as today.

Spring Beauty

My lens of choice today was the Sigma 150/f2.8 with a 1.4x teleconverter attached. Why this combination? In the White Pine Hollow State Park is always a good chance to see some White-tailed Deer. I knew I would mainly focus on close-up pictures yesterday and the Sigma 150/f2.8 is a sharp lens for this kind of photography. With the teleconverter attached it still leaves the door open for a deer or other wildlife shot. I also love the shallow depth of field it can provide.

In the most parts of this forest are no trails but it is not difficult to move around. However, it was hard not to step on a wildflower. There were huge patches of Spring Beauty all over.

Many flowers, like Hepatica and Dutchmans Breeches, that are gone behind our house already, were still blooming here. Different kinds of violets and anemones were in full bloom on the forest floor.

Rue Anemone

Cooper, our little dog, was a patient companion when I laid on my stomach and tried to get a low angle for the picture. He probably thought, what a silly guy...

Tool for file organization, maintenance, and analysis

It doesn't happen very often that I don't find the time for making any click during a whole week. Too many other things had to be taken care of during the last few days. I have to admit that I wasn't really sad about this because I found the time at night to do some maintenance in my picture data base. I'm a strong believer in a good file organization and I assign keywords to all of my images. Not only that finding a particular photo is so much easier, I believe it also helps me to analyze my work by comparing older shots with my actual creations. For instance, before I went in November for the third time to the Bolsa Chica Wetlands in Southern California I viewed my photos from the previous visits carefully. With a simple click in the keyword data base I can pull up every photo from a particular bird species. It helped me to see where I have room for improvement and to set new goals for the next shooting event in the same area.

During my nightly sessions this week I realized that I had neglected nature close up shots during our time in the Smokies this fall. A single click on the keyword "Fine Art" made me aware of this fact. This photo with the leaves in the crystal clear stream and the sun reflected from the minerals at the bottom of the creek was one of the few.

I use Adobe Lightroom for organizing my photos since four years now (version 3.6 was just released a few days ago). It's library module with all the features for searching, selecting, and file handling is awesome. Lightroom has many strongholds that I like but the library module is one of the best tools in my digital darkroom. If you have someone who is still asking for your Christmas wish, hey, here is a gift idea… ;-)