Chasing angel rays

 

Yesterday evening was pretty much the last time we saw the sun. It rained here almost all day long and more rain is in the forecast. I drove home from another visit at the nest of the Great Horned Owl when I saw that the sun sent some "angel rays" through the cloud cover. Shots like that are not always easy to get. It is sometimes difficult to find a place to park the car safely along the narrow roads between the valleys and ridges here in Eastern Iowa. In addition the electrical grid is still very old fashioned here and almost all cables are above the ground. This is probably not only a nightmare for the people who have to service it in every weather but also for a landscape photographer who tries to make a clean unobstructed image. With other words, it takes some efforts and sometimes the good light is gone before you have all your ducks in a row. However, the landscape with all the little valleys, ridges, and hills here along the Mississippi has its charm and in combination with some cool clouds and great light it is always worth to go out and try to make the click.

Easter on the farm

 

We spent Easter on the farm with our family in Northwest Iowa. Thank you to Don, Shelly, and Shelby for having us again and for being such wonderful hosts! Beside eating a wonderful Easter dinner we spent quite some time outside and despite a snow shower coming down we had a nice fire going.

It is an exciting time on the farm. Eight calves were born in the last few days and a few more are expected soon.

I always like to walk around on the farm with my camera and look for interesting subjects. This time I was on a mission. I have made many pictures of the more than 100 years old barn before but this weekend was probably my very last chance to work with this old farm building. It will be replaced by a new barn very soon because its shape may bare a safety risk and repair is not really an option anymore. The barn is still in use and everybody is a little sad about the fact that it has to go. It was the first time that I made pictures of the barn at night. There is a lamp post right beside the building and its position is just perfect for this shot. The fresh snow solves the problem with the muddy foreground and shoots some extra light towards the barn.

Bird migration week

 

I have been at the Mississippi River almost every evening this week. Bird migration is in full swing and the interested bird watcher has a good chance to see many birds that are only here for a very brief stop. The distance is quite often too big for a good quality image and many shots were made only for my own documentary and records.

This shot of the Greater White-fronted Geese is from last Saturday. It was made in the Green Island Wetlands and is heavily cropped. I was back there on Monday and they had moved on already on their journey to Greenland or Northern Canada. Instead I had my first sighting of four Snow Geese but they were even further away and no picture will be published this time.

The Northern Shovelers are really good looking ducks and a few stay even here during the summer. Beside them I saw Buffleheads, Canvasbacks, Lesser Scaups, Blue-winged Teals, Green-winged Teals, Common Mergansers, Hooded Mergansers, Wood Ducks, and the first pair of Killdeer.

Good places for bird watching are the John Deere March at the Mississippi River behind the big Deere factory here in Dubuque as well as Mud Lake Park, just north of it. The main channel of the river is free of ice, only the remains of some ice floes on this little island tell still the story about winter. There is still ice in the shallower backwaters but this may change during the next few days.

I will be in different parts of the country for the next seven days but I'm glad I had the chance to see the birds going north. I wish all friends of my blog a wonderful Easter weekend. Go out and make some clicks and let me know what you find!! :-)

Feeling of accomplishment

 

I spent the last two evenings down in the valley of the Little Maquoketa River. The sun is already very strong and melts the snow we had lately very quickly during the day. Beside giving our little dog (and of course ourselves ;-)  ) some badly needed exercise I wanted to use the fact that there was still some snow on the ground in combination with the nice weather for making some clicks. There are an awful lot of bare trees and branches along the trail in the valley that make it difficult to get a clear view over the river and the valley. But when I saw the light hitting this tree against the dark background of the lime stone rocks I knew I had a shot. Nothing spectacular but it left me with a feeling of accomplishment while driving back home...

Winter in Eastern Iowa, part 2

 

I come back today with a few pictures from yesterday's hiking and driving around trips.

Snow and ice are wonderful elements to reveal the beauty that can lay in a landscape. Look at this image to see what I mean. Without the snow cover and the broken ice floes in the river the muddy walls of the river bed would just blend into the color of the harvested fields at this time of the year. The snow and ice gives the river and the fields in the background some structure and creates depth in the photograph.

This old church near the little town of Graf is built from lime stones that were probably quarried locally. Their color was pronounced by the evening sun and made for a nice color contrast to the blue sky and the snow in the foreground. The German inscription above the church door tells the story about who attended the service in the old days.

Earlier in the day I went to lock and dam #10 in Guttenberg, Iowa again. I worked on a picture of an eagle in a tree but I thought this image of a returning fisherman, who had a hard time to get his boat back to shore, was much more story telling about the conditions on the Mississippi yesterday. These ice floes below the dam were jammed against the old, solid ice on the river and the water was just freezing over again.

Laziness never pays in photography. Instead of walking over to the car and get a lens capable for good landscape photography out of the bag I just used the short end of the Sigma 50-500 for this view across the river. It was mounted to the camera for the eagles but as you can see the photo lacks detail, especially in the background, and it was therefor not a good choice. Well, next time... ;-)

I hope you enjoy my impressions about the Iowa winter. It's supposed to snow 8 - 10 inches (20 -25 cm) tonight again...

Winter in Eastern Iowa at its best

 

As we drove out of this valley this evening, not far from home, I had to stop and make the click. I knew the final image would have something to do with lines and shadows in the landscape, and would hopefully tell the story about how a wonderful winter day in Eastern Iowa comes to an end.

Spring project

 

It is the time of the year when plans for photography projects in spring or summer have to be shaped and research for specific locations or critters needs to be done. It is hard to believe that is already six and a half years ago that we have been the last time in the Badlands, South Dakota. This landscape has already fascinated me long before I came to the United States. It played a role in books I was reading as a young boy. I read a lot about the Lakota, their nomadic life on the prairie, about hunting bison, and the fights between the Indians and the white men.

One of my spring projects is to spend an extended weekend in Badlands National Park and do nothing but wildlife and landscape photography. We stopped in the Badlands twice before on our way to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons but it was never enough time to explore the area in detail.

A first step of the planning was to look at my images from 2005 and 2007. In 2005 I was still shooting film (Nikon N2020) but also had a small Minolta point and shoot digital camera with me. Oh boy, little did I know about how to make a halfway decent image at that time! The photos I show here are from 2007, made with a new Nikon D200. It was about the time when I discovered that nature photography was really what I wanted to do.

The Badlands in South Dakota have a lot of wildlife to offer. We have seen bison, mule deer, prairie dogs, bighorn sheep, and pronghorns. The pictures of the Black-tailed Prairie Dogs you see here were made with a Nikon 80-400mm lens that I had borrowed from a friend of mine. It was my first experience with a focal length longer than 300 mm. One of the reasons I like to go in spring this time (we always have been there during fall season so far) is that I hope to see a lot more wildflowers and the grass a little more lush than it was after the dry summers. As more I dive into this project as more I get excited. If I can squeeze it in my work schedule you will be the first to read about it here in the blog. :-)

Inspired by a question

 

I follow the blogs of many photographers and the link list on the left side of my blog is only a fraction of all the websites I visit frequently. All of them provide education and inspiration, and most of the time it is just fun to read what other photographers have in mind. One blog I never miss if a new post is released is the one of Moose Peterson. He is certainly the photographer I learned the most from for my wildlife and landscape photography. His writing style is fun to read and he inspires me greatly.

One of his recent posts was titled "Can One Click Tell The Story?" and he answers that question with a great image of the Grand Canyon and a video sequence that makes you understanding his thoughts.

I haven't been able to go out and shoot during the last four days but I still have some unfinished business on my hard drive. The photo above was made last September in Rocky Mountain National Park during a rainy day and a fast moving cloud scenario. I have several shots of this mountain range and they are all ok, but this one, taken at a brief moment when the sun kissed the mountain in the foreground while anything around got really dark, is the image that tells the story of that day and it is the only one I like to show you. No, I haven't asked myself the question "Can One Click Tell The Story?" while I was making the click but I'm sure will in the future. Thanks Moose!

Adding to my previous story

 

It was a great day for being outside. It was chilly but the air was very clear and the light just perfect for all kinds of photography. Joan and I went on a road trip this afternoon. We followed the Mississippi north to Guttenberg in search for wildlife or just a good view over the river valley. But let me start with the final stop of our tour. On our way back home I wanted to show Joan the location from where I made the image you can see in my last post. The clouds were not nearly as good as two days ago. Not far away from the farm house we discovered an old graveyard, named Platt Cemetery. The light doesn't get any better for a photo like this. I tried different angles and views, and different depth of field settings by changing my aperture, but always included the farm in the frame. I wanted this image telling the story who might be buried there, probably farmers and their families that tried to make a living in Iowa after coming over from Europe. The date on the gravestone in focus is not 100% legible but the stone is probably from 1868, according to the website iowagravestones.org.

Landscape photography in Iowa?

 

Iowa is not so famous for its landscape beauty as some other states in the US are but I tell everybody who is asking me about this area that, if you go around with open eyes you may find some lovely spots. If the weather ingredients are right you can even get some interesting views out in the open farmland.

I took off from home in the late afternoon when some mixed clouds crossed the area and even the sun came out occasionally. I like to watch out for farm settings that don't look completely industrial yet. This is not easy anymore. Farmers need to have modern production facilities, no matter what kind of farming they do, in order to stay in business successfully. As a result the old farm buildings disappear more and more.

I found this farm house on the hill, surrounded by old trees, that probably have been planted by the Great-grandfather of the current owner. The remaining patches of snow tell the story about the still ongoing winter and the dark top soil in the foreground lets you know how fertile the land is here and why farming plays such a big role in this part of the country. It's my kind of photography when the photo tells a story and if you just add some clouds and subtle late-afternoon-light you may have a good landscape image, even in Iowa... ;-)