Back from the Great Smoky Mountains

Big Creek, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina

I have not been able to keep the promise of blogging during our vacation in the Great Smoky Mountains and other National Forests around them. We tent camped most of the time in the wilderness with no or little access to phone, internet, and electrical power. Thank you to all of you who kept clicking in the blog even during the time without a new post!

We just came back home a few hours ago and had a great time being outdoors for the last eighteen days. Hi to the kids, Anke, Seraphine, and Andre, who spent the first ten days together with us in the woods, and who are now back in Germany. We enjoyed to have you on this trip.

Nice weather for the most part and wonderful fall colors made for good photo opportunities. Lots of pictures have to be sifted and I will hopefully find the time in the next few weeks to share some of the beautiful nature impressions with you. The image above was made near our last campsite from a small wooden bridge over Big Creek in the eastern part of the Smokies, and not far from the border to Tennessee.

Rediscoveries

As I mentioned yesterday I try to make the best out of the fact that my camera is currently out of order. I'm going through my digital archive and sort out images that shouldn't be there in the first place. I can tell that my quality standards have improved over the last five years. Some pictures just make me shake my head, others put a smile in my face, and there are some, I believe, that deserve it to see finally the light of the day.

July 24, 2007, Port of Dubuque, Iowa

One of the rediscoveries is this photo from July 24, 2007. Two Mississippi River boats had anchored in the port of Dubuque, the "Twilight" and the "Celebration Belle", and the setting sun painted them with wonderful warm light.

Murphy's law

 

It's quiet here again. The reason for not blogging is simple and sad. I dropped my camera this week. No mechanical damage on the outside because it hit a grassy ground, but it quit working completely. What really makes me sick is the fact that our vacation trip is less than two weeks away. Murphy's law!!!

 I had it checked in with FedEx two hours later and I just hope now that the people at the Nikon Service Center can fix it and that I have it back before our departure. My Sigma 50-500 was attached when it happened and I don't even know yet if the lens has been damaged too. At least it looks OK.

I try to see the positive side (even if I'm not really sure there is any… ). Since no new images are made right now I find the time to clean up my archive. Oh no, I still can't laugh about the adversity… :-(

Time of transition

Nikon D200, Nikkor 24-120 mm f/4G ED VR

I did not really have a plan for my photography last weekend in Dodge State Park. I just thought I look for the light that the transition between summer and fall provides. The leaves haven't changed color yet, only slightly. Green and the yellow of the wildflowers were dominating and I tried to capture this late summer mood in my pictures.

Nikon D200, Nikkor 24-120 mm f/4G ED VR

I treated each of these three images a little different to make the important elements stand out. The Woodland Sunflowers (at least that's what we believe they are) have just some darkening around the edges applied. I used a very subtle 'Glamour Glow', one of my favorite filters in NIK's Color Efex Pro, for the back-light maple leaves. This gives it an almost ethereal touch.

Nikon D200, Nikkor 24-120 mm f/4G ED VR

This meadow of Golden Rod was very beautiful and in order to get some depth of field I dialed in f/9.5. This left at the other hand too many distracting details in the background. The application of a neutral graduated filter in post suppressed most of them and separates the flowers from the background nicely.

These are all little things that don't take much time but they helped me to create the images as I want them to be seen.

Rain, light, and colors

Nikon D200, Nikkor 24-120 mm f/4G ED VR

It has been quiet here in my blog during this Labor Day weekend. Joan and I went camping into Governor Dodge State Park in Wisconsin. It is a very nice park that offers a lot of recreation opportunities and is only an hour away from home. We went swimming, hiking, bird watching, and enjoyed some great vistas with beautiful clouds in the sky. Despite the rain on Saturday I was hoping for some good photo opportunities and I can tell you, I was not disappointed.

The rain was still drizzling on us when I made the picture above. The light reflected by these boats and canoes and the colors of the kayaks caught my attention. The green of the duck weed in the water and the gray asphalt on the right framed the whole scene nicely. A minute later the light had changed again and I was happy that I didn't miss this chance.

In post I just gave the color contrast a very slight boost with one of the filters in NIK Color Efex Pro 3.0. More to come…

'God Beams'

My neighbor and friend Boris and I went on a short hike into Whitewater Canyon in the late afternoon today (Yes, there are canyons in Iowa!!!). Boris is not a photographer but enjoys being outdoors the same way I do. I didn't snap any pictures in the canyon today. There wasn't really any good light left because clouds had moved in and we even caught a few raindrops.

The showers were only short and I was hopeful that the sun would break through the clouds again on the way home. My hopes were not dashed. Clouds in front of the sun created wonderful crepuscular rays, better known under photographers as 'God Beams'. It doesn't get much better for landscape photography, especially here in Iowa. We are not spoiled with great vistas like so many places in the west of the country. Boris was very patient with me and didn't mind that I pulled off the main road several times for a good perspective. Thanks Boris!

Nikon D200, Nikkor 24-120 mm f/4G ED VR

The first image is an HDR made from four handhold pictures. I didn't go for the 'grungy' look and tried to keep it natural. NIK's HDR Efex Pro keeps it simple. Love this software! It is a really nice tool that helps me to develop my style of landscape photography in new directions.

Nikon D200, Nikkor 24-120 mm f/4G ED VR

The second pic is a single click that I underexposed by one stop. I went for the silhouette of the farm on the left hand side. The light was magical…

Hunting for the last light

Nikon D200, Nikkor 24-120 mm f/4G ED VR

The parade was over. People were gathering in front of a stage in joyful anticipation of a local band, that later would play the music for dance and entertainment, and a man was sneaking around the blog hunting for the last light of the day. I found it reflected on the windows and walls of this tall grain elevator beside the railroad tracks. I dialed in 1/160s, f/8, -½ EV, ISO 100… click… Done deal!  Liked it better than any of my images from the parade in the afternoon…

The image can be viewed in a larger version in my Photo-A-Week gallery "2011 - 52 Weeks".

How long for post process?

Nikon D200, Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 35 mm f/2 ZF

Here is another picture from last weekend's "driving-around-and-looking-for-clouds-tour". Landscape photography isn't always easy in Iowa, especially in the summer, but if the big clouds move in or out you have your chance for some drama, even if you just stand between corn and soybean fields… ;-)

This time it was not done with HDR processing and it is just a single image. I did my usual adjustments in Adobe Lightroom. I increased the highlights with the tone curve so that the white in the clouds showed its full potential. After the export to Photoshop, where I do usually the fine tuning and downsizing of the picture for the web, I realized that the image was still a little too hazy for my taste. Bringing up the contrast in the clouds with an adjustment layer and a layer mask took care of the problem. I think I still take too much time processing my images in post. I guess I still have to fix too many things that aren't done correctly while taking the image. But it's getting better. This one took less than five minutes to finish and to output three different copies (1x original full size, 1x jpeg 948 px long for my web gallery, and 1x jpeg 620 px long for this blog). It would be nice to know how long it takes you to process a RAW file and to create an image that you like. I'm just curious…

Nothing special today?

Nikon D200, Nikkor 24-120 mm f/4G ED VR

Nothing special today. I just enjoyed the wonderful day and evening in particular. Temperatures were much more moderate than during recent weeks. A good reason to go out shooting and having some fun. I stopped at the Mississippi River in Dubuque today when a towboat with barges was approaching the lock and dam. The last rays of the sun created great light on the vessel. Nothing special today? Ok, not really true, great light is always special… :-)

Clouds again, but also color contrast

Mississippi River at McGregor Marina, Iowa

This would have been another candidate for B&W but I decided for the colors. The color contrast between the boat cover on the left and the sky give the picture the punch that I like. The clouds provide drama, no matter what. The image was created from four bracketed shots in NIK's HDR Efex Pro. I actually had five pictures but didn't use the one with the longest exposure. I may try a B/W version as well but for now I hope you enjoy the colors.