2013 – Looking back, part 6

 

Without any doubt our vacation trip to the coast of Maine in October was something I really have looked forward to. It is a wonderful landscape with many facets and endless opportunities for photography. I have loved boats and harbors since I was a little boy. Watching the lobster boats going out or coming back from a catch and all the busy activities in a wharf still fascinate me. Getting up early or staying late in the evening is the key for catching the boats in best light.

Many of the lobster boats got very “colorful” names by their owners. I talked to this lobster man after he landed his catch. I told him I liked the name of his boat “JUST BITCHIN”. He said that it was his two sons who told him to name it this way, because that’s what he is doing all the time, “just bitchin”… I thought that was a funny little story, worth to be told here in the blog.

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…

Going for the good light

It is this time of the year when I like to look back and see if there was any evolution in my photography. Working with the available light in low light situations was one of the things I wanted to focus on in 2013. I’m still not done reviewing all photos in detail from our trip to Maine this fall but I'm getting there. A day with heavy overcast and nothing but dull light, like we had today, is the perfect time for sitting in front of the computer and do nothing but post-processing. I dug up a few images that I like to share with you. I hope you enjoy.

The first one was made at 8AM, just after shooting a lighthouse all morning long (see my last post). The light was about to loose its “morning quality” but still good enough to work with the reflections on the water, the fall colors in the upper left corner, and the beauty of this little wharf.

Exposing strictly for the highlights by compensating with -1EV was the key for this image. All clutter in the water or elsewhere is left behind in the black that surrounds the boats. The photo tells the story that everybody shares the same dock, the lobster man who needs his dingy to go to his lobster boat as well as the tourist, who uses his kayak or canoe for recreation.

One of my favorite things to do in Maine was to watch the lobster boats going out very early in the morning. If the harbor faces East, like New Harbor, there is a good chance to photograph the boats while the first rays of sun light strike. It doesn’t get any better than this and there is no light for the next 10 hours that comes even close to this quality.

Every lobster man can identify his lobster traps by a unique color pattern on his buoys. After they are out of service the buoys are quite often used for decoration, like here at a restaurant right beside a lobster wharf. I left my dinner alone for a couple minutes when the last sun of the day made the colors even more pop on these old buoys.

Fine Art Gallery - "Pemaquid Point Lighthouse"

 

Back to our trip to the coast of Maine in October. Joan and I were up very early that day. We had scouted the location of Pemaquid Point Lighthouse the evening before and had already some good ideas about how to shoot the lighthouse in the morning. I have posted here before some photos of the lighthouse that were made around sunrise. The fact that there was almost no cloud in the sky forced me to rethink my ideas for some black and white photos. This building has some strong graphic elements, like the conical shape, the window, or the fence, and this is what I was going for in this image. This is my first approach but I have a lot more photos to choose from. I like to try different things before I consider to make a final print on paper. I like it but I don’t think I’m there yet…

Second thoughts

 

Sometimes it needs a kick from someone else to realize the potential a photo may have (or may not have) and to make us thinking about it a little more. Since four years I publish every week a photo in a gallery called “20XX - 52 WEEKS”  over in my web gallery at www.pbase.com/deadmoon . I’m a little behind at the moment and just posted the image for the 45th week, which was in early November. It was the photo above and It was the only image I thought it was worth to publish for this particular week, However, it got immediately a couple comments on the website. I actually thought the photo wasn’t that great because the wind moved the leaves and therefor it lacks a little detail, but it is the lines of the tree trunks, the golden fall colors of the leaves, and the light in general that make it obviously acceptable. I’m very thankful for the comments on that photo, not just because they were positive, but they made me thinking about that day again and the circumstances that made me push the shutter release button.

It was probably the only day during 2013 to make this photo the way it is. The location is a campground near Bellevue, Iowa that is located right along the Mississippi River. The campground hasn’t been open all year long because it got flooded earlier this year and the ground was covered with an ugly layer of mud. The days before this photo was made the temperature dropped into the freezing zone at night and as a result all the trees, mostly maples, started to get rid of their leaves and covered the mud completely.

I like if an image tells a story by itself, but sometimes there is a little background story that can’t be told by the picture but that makes the circumstances of its making memorable. I hope you enjoy…

A little more from Germany

 

Things were not in my favor  this week regarding any of my ongoing photography projects. Lack of time because of other things that came across was the main reason. I hope you don’t mind that I show you a couple more images from the recent hiking tour with my son André in the mountains of Saxon Switzerland over in Germany.

The view goes from the sand stone rocks of the “Rauensteine” over to the “Lilienstein”, one of the big buttes of the National Park region. The Elbe River cuts deep  into the sand stone and its water created a horseshoe shaped bend around the Lilienstein.

Finally, as we came back into the Elbe Valley some great light touched the rock formation of the Bastei again. Needless to say that a hiking tour in this region does not end without some great food and beer in one of the numerous restaurants or country pubs… ;-)

Stavkirke - but not in Norway

 

The third day up on the Door Peninsula was a gray one, and I mean a real gray one with no sun at all. That didn’t stop us to take an early ferry to Washington Island in Lake Michigan and explore this charming area. In this part of the country live many people with a Scandinavian heritage and therefor it was no surprise for us to find a Stavkirke (stave church) on the island. Almost all original stave churches are found in Norway and this one is a replica of one in Borgund, Norway. I have seen many of the Norwegian Stavkirkes during my frequent travels to Norway and the architecture is always awe-inspiring. The church belongs to the Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church on Washington Island and their present stone church is just across the road.

With no quality light present and the high contrast between the snow and the dark parts of the church I decided to bracket five different exposures and merge the images in NIK HDR Efex Pro. I know, it doesn’t substitute good light but the result is better than any of the single shots under these circumstances.

The two photos of the interior were made with an off-camera flash light that was directed into the ceiling. Joan assisted me with the flash light so I had both hands to hold the camera steady at 1/15 s. After a couple test shots I liked the results and didn’t even bother to use the HDR method.

Beauty in ice

 

I don’t think there is much to write about today’s photos made at Lake Michigan up in Door County, Wisconsin. Ice sculptures are a wonderful subject for nature photography and if the light is right their beauty can be revealed easily. We had a great time working these wonderful ice formations from different perspectives and angles. I hope you enjoy!

Schneegestöber and winter light

 

Joan and I went again up to Door County, the peninsula in the northwest corner of Lake Michigan, for Thanksgiving weekend. With us came the snow and made for a beautiful white Thanksgiving. We used the holiday for a hike in the snow along the shore of the Green Bay. The weather changed constantly from plain gray sky to heavy snow showers, to short sun light breaks, and back to clouds. There were times when the camera needed to stay in the bag because of too much snow falling from the trees. And then suddenly we had some moments where the sun sent some light through the clouds and the snow seemed to glow. It was just nice to be outside and try to catch the mood of weather and landscape.

We were already at Eagle Bluff Lighthouse on Thanksgiving last year. I thought I had a decent photo already but I love today’s quality of light on the lighthouse and snow much better. Have a look on last year’s image by clicking on the link HERE and build your own opinion.

Before we went back to our cozy little cabin, where Joan finally prepared a wonderful turkey dinner, we went to Bailey Harbor on the east side of the peninsula. A nice band of clouds and the last light of the sun made for some drama over Bailey Harbor Light in the background. The clicks were made quickly, the dinner was calling… ;-)

Wonderful foggy day

 

My last full day in Germany was a typical gray November day with fog and a little rain but nevertheless a very wonderful one. In our state of Saxony it was a holiday and my best friends had invited me to participate in a hiking trip through the Lausitzer Bergland, the mountains south of my hometown Bautzen. We were a group of twelve people and beside some great exercise we enjoyed wonderful conversation and awesome food at the end of the tour. The fog was hiding the landscape most of the day but when we stopped at an old granite quarry (the area is famous for its granite) I saw the potential for a good click.

Thank you to Gabriela, Claus, Petra, Lutz, Martina, Götz, Annerose, Uwe, Ecki, Micha, and my son Andre for making this a very special day!!