Colorado landscapes: Maroon Lake - after the rain

 

Back to the Colorado stories. I read somewhere that Maroon Bells are the most photographed mountains in the US. I have no idea if this is true or not, but they are definitely worth a look or two, even if the sky is not blue and the fall colors of the leaves just start turning.

As you probably have figured out I’m not so much a fan of the “postcard views” and rather make photos that use subtle light and clouds to tell a story. The purists under the landscape photographers may also not like that the water of Maroon Lake has some ripples but for me this is part of the story telling. Everybody who has been more than a couple times in alpine mountains knows by looking at this photo that there is some dynamic up in the sky, that the clouds moved fast, and that some wind played a role in this game. Yep, the editor who has to select the next postcard for print will refuse this photo, but have you seen many postcards that tell stories beyond a great vista? …. ;-)

Colorado landscapes: Greeted by clouds

 

You guessed it, my absence here in the blog was due to our vacation. This time I gave myself a break and did not touch any social media. Most of the time we didn’t even have access to internet and that wasn’t a bad thing. We spent the last two and a half weeks in the mountains of southern and central Colorado. Joan and I had some good opportunities to shoot the gorgeous landscapes of Colorado and to chase the light. I hope I can stir up your interest during the next few weeks while I will work my way through the images that made it onto the hard drive.

It was a 2-day drive from Eastern Iowa to our first destination, which I will reveal shortly. While still on the wide open plains, Colorado greeted us with some impressive clouds and dramatic light. The avid reader of my blog knows about my obsession with clouds already and so it may not be a big surprise that the first clicks had to be made while still heading southwest…

Friday night "conclusions" ;-)

 

What do have these two photos in common? Not much, they weren’t even made the same day, except they were taken from the same vantage point. But, let me explain…

The first photo was made right before take off at the Chicago O’Hare Airport last Tuesday. The sky was gray, except for a few small blue slivers. While looking out the window I could see this composition coming just a second before. I made the click and I like it. All the lines lead the eye to the airplane. The clouds, the terminal building in the background, and of course the painted lines on the concrete. However, the overcast made the image look “blaahhh”. Some local saturation and overall contrast improvements in Adobe Lightroom and NIK Color Efex Pro 4, plus adding a “glamour glow” effect, and a slight vignette spawned the final result.

The second photo was made Thursday on my way back from Los Angeles to Chicago. It doesn’t happen very often but I had exactly the same seat in a Boeing 737-800 as two days before. It wasn’t exact the same airplane but the window was as dirty as on the way to LA. As I said, same vantage point… ;-)

But what a difference, the light was great and coming from behind the plane as we flew east. There were some beautiful storm clouds to the south. This is nothing extraordinarily but the key for this shot was again composition. The eye may wander between the puffy clouds in the foreground and the AA-logo with the reflection on the wing but it will always return to the interesting cloud formation that was illuminated by the setting sun.

No, it doesn’t need a big camera and lens. You can make a similar image with the camera you probably have always with you, your phone. You can’t change your position much, the pilot takes care for that, but watching the scene, the light, and the lines that unfold in front of your eye will lead you to the photo you may have always envisioned…

Let the weather dictate what to shoot

 

This post was supposed to be published last night already but another line of thunderstorms rolled over the country and I rather preferred to unplug the computer. We have the typical June weather with intensive periods of sun interrupted by thunderstorms and rain. The best way to deal with it from a photography standpoint is to go for the right subject, clouds when a storm is near or wildlife during overcast and sunny periods.

There are two ways to attract hummingbirds to a yard, you either hang feeders with artificial nectar (sugar dissolved in water will do it) or you plant flowers that the hummingbirds like because of its nectar. We do both. Joan has done a great job of planting a patch with Monarda, better known as Bee Balm. This flower attracts the little birds not just because of its color but it is obviously a good source for the liquid food they need.

Making a sharp image of a hummingbird in flight is kind of a challenge. Their wing beats can go up to 100 beats per second. The key is again using “peak of action”, the short moment when the body is not in motion while they hover and drink out of the flower. I’m using a fill flash for the colors and therefore do not shoot in continuos mode. As always, the eye has to be sharp in wildlife photography. The motion blur of the body and wings tells the story about what kind of dynamic these tiny birds have…

Iowa Landscape: Storm chasing

 

Yesterday was a very muggy day. In the evening some thunderstorms moved though our area. We only got a few brief showers and some thunder was rolling but it was a great chance to chase some clouds and thunderheads.

I gave myself an assignment for this storm chasing trip. First, I wanted to use only one lens, the Carl Zeiss Distagon T*, 35 mm, f/2 ZF. This lens has manual focus only. And second, the main subject had to be a cloud, cloud formation, or thunderhead. Any other element in the picture had to be there only to complement the main subject. Except for some slight straightening of the horizon line in some images no crop has been applied. The goal was to get it right in camera.

I didn’t shoot with a tripod because of time. The clouds moved very fast and the scenery changed constantly. Sometimes it wasn’t easy to find a place to park the car safely, so it was key to be fast in and out in order to make the click.

As always, I made many mistakes and some shots where I thought I had nailed it turned out just to be, hmm, not so good ;-). It is the mistakes that can make us better photographers as long as we try to learn from them. I had great fun on this little storm chasing tour above the Mississippi Valley and down at the river. Can’t wait for another one… :-)

Iowa landscape: Loess Hills

 

I’m almost sure you like to see something different than little birds and I’m absolutely OK with that. Mother’s Day weekend we went to Cherokee in northwest Iowa to visit Joan’s parents. A little further west, right along the Iowa border, is an interesting landscape, the Loess Hills. I don’t need to repeat what other knowledgable people already have written down about the hills. You know how to use a search engine in your browser and here is a link that tells you everything about the Loess Hills (Click HERE)

I have been there once before and always wanted to come back to try some bird photography in spring. Well, this year I thought it’s time to do it, but it was very, very windy that Saturday and so I really didn’t have much luck with getting birds in front of my lens. However, there is always something to point the lens at and this time the clouds east of the Loess Hills made for a great subject. The Loess Hills are some of the last remaining stands of prairie grass in the region and have an interesting flora and fauna. Using the lines of the landscape was the key for both photos. A lot has changed since the white men has stolen the land from the Indians but including some prairie grass and the clouds in the photo may give us a sense about how the Native Americans and early European settlers may have seen the scene before all the changes took place (although the Red Cedar in the second photo is not native to the Loess Hills.…).

Evening at the big river

 

Joan, Cooper, and I spent some time down at the Mississippi at Mud Lake Park this evening. Some thunderstorm cells and clouds moved out of our area to the east, into Wisconsin and Illinois, and made for some nice subjects to photograph. We heard the calls of the Sandhill Cranes, saw pelicans and eagles, and got finally a great view to the young Great Horned Owl. This time the owlet didn’t retrieve back into the nest and we were able to make some good clicks. Time well spent!

Love them clouds...

 

The avid reader of my blog already knows, if a photo from high in the sky shows up after a quiet week that I was on a business trip with very few opportunities for using the camera. I came back from a conference in Dallas, Texas last night. These two photos were made shortly after take-off in DFW and the shape of the clouds indicate we were flying around some heavy weather. What I didn’t knew at this time was that the weather created many flight delays and cancellations. Needless to say that I, of course, was effected and instead of having a two hour stop I spent ten hours in Chicago O’Hare. At least I got home around midnight, other people were not so lucky…

Shooting through the window of an airplane can be challenging. Little space, reflections, vibrations, or dirt and moisture on the glass are some of the difficulties you may have to deal with. My window was relatively clean and had only minor scratches this time but dealing with the tint of the glass or plastic isn’t my favorite task in the post process. I still kept it simple and just finished the RAW file in Adobe Lightroom, except for the downsizing and export as a jpeg, which I always do in Photoshop by using pre-recorded actions.

I used the Zeiss 35mm f/2 lens, which can only be focussed manually, but even with any of my AF lenses I would revert to manual focus mode for shooting through two layers of tinted glass. I love shooting clouds and making them the subject of my image. It doesn’t always turn out but it is always worth to try, and hey, there is a delete key on the computer… ;-)

Fine Art Gallery - "After the rain"

 

Who says I have to show my actual work here in the blog any time I post something? ;-)  Yes, I made some new bird images during the extreme cold weather we have here since a few days but today I liked to browse through my archive and dig out some “unfinished business”. This photo was made in September 2012 in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was a rainy and windy day but the views were stunning and the dynamic of the clouds during and after the rain showers was unbeatable.

2013 - Looking back, part 3

 

One of the goals I had set for myself for this year was to work on my landscape photography and try to make some improvements. Sometimes life gets in the way and it wasn’t really until September before I was able to pursue my goal more seriously. No, it wasn’t that I didn’t do anything before September, and my blog may proof this, but the majority of the time behind the lens was dedicated to wildlife photography.

However, the image above was made the weekend of Easter in late March near Lost Island Lake here in Iowa. What I like about it, is the presence of a great sky above this small strip of prairie-like grass. There isn’t much prairie left in the Midwest but the image fires up my imagination how it must have been before this land was taken by the settlers. There isn’t really a subject in the image except for the sky. The group of trees? No, the trees are more like a rest point for the eye. The eye wants to go to this sky and then makes you want to walk over this ridge and see some bisons roaming … just kidding… ;-)

What I like about this photo is its simplicity and drama in a landscape that is not famous for landscape photography. I’m the only one who needs to like the image but maybe you can comprehend my thoughts…