Americana

 

Tomorrow is Independence Day here in the US and most people will enjoy a four day holiday weekend. Reason enough to post something different as usual and that's why I show a few car details that I shot last night at the Hot Summer Nights Cruise-in at one of the casinos in Dubuque, Iowa. The owners of vintage cars meet there ones a month during the summer to socialize and show their cars off. I like the beauty of some of the old cars and enjoy pointing my camera at car details if the existing light emphasizes them nicely. Nothing spectacular but it is fun to do different things ones in a while... ;-)

I wish all my friends and family here in the US a wonderful holiday weekend!

Vintage cars, great subject for having some fun...

 

Are you tired of seeing wildlife photos? Well, I'll never be but I still like to work other subjects in my photography ones in a while. Yesterday I crossed the bridge over the Mississippi into Illinois. During the summer every Thursday the owners and drivers of cars, built before 1972, meet in East Dubuque and enjoy to display their cars and socialize with each other.

I have a strong technical background and may understand most of the technical talk I heard yesterday but the reason I'm drawn into an event like this is the sheer beauty of some of the old cars on display. I enjoy watching people that have passion for the things they do and that was definitely the case yesterday evening.

Nobody complained about the bare blue sky and sun, except for the photographer. ;-) Our vision can differentiate, according to a Stanford study, up to 15 stops of light in one glance but most digital cameras are only able to handle a five-stop-range. My friend Dave Updegraff has a Nikon D4 and this great camera is able to handle six f-stops. Well, no matter what digital camera you hold in your hands, it  doesn't solve the light challenge we were facing yesterday evening. How can we handle it and bring some images home that look halfway decent? I looked for the cars that were parked on the westside of Main Street in the shade of the buildings and just tried to keep the sky out of the frame for my detail shots. The third image is an HDR, made from five different exposures that were merged in NIK HDR Efex Pro. Two different ways to go but even if I'm not a big fan of HDR processing, (mostly useless in wildlife photography), I do not exclude it from my tool box and see it as a valid tool for light situations that are hard to overcome.

As I said, I do stuff like this only occasionally, ones in a while, but my photography friend Brian over in Germany has a "led sled" that would be allowed to park in an event like yesterday without any doubt. In addition he is a very talented photographer who has some great car images in his blog. Check it out HERE!

No airplanes but great light

A couple more shots from yesterday's visit at the Dubuque Airport. While waiting for the return of the "war birds" not much happened, except for the landing of a small jet. And then the light changed and it became really golden and warm . Still no airplanes in sight and the best I could do was to snap a few "Iowa landscape pictures". All what it needs is a farm and some dark clouds in the background, a corn field in the foreground, some lines that keep things together, and did I mention great light?... ;-)

Lack of practice

Today's blog post of my photographer friend Dave Updegraff reminded me that the air show in Oshkosh next week is just right around the corner. That means for us here in the area around Dubuque we may have a chance to watch some of the airplanes at the Dubuque, Iowa airport. They use this airport as a base for their practice before the big event.

Murphy's law was applied again this afternoon. During my first hour in the late afternoon it was very busy, with lots of take offs and landings, but the light was very dull. Later the clouds thinned out and we got some great light but there wasn't as much action anymore.

I can tell my panning skills need some refinement because I didn't have much practice recently. I trashed much more images than usual because they were out of focus (It would be great if the air show would be right after the Bald Eagle season in the winter..., just kidding... ;-)  ).

All of my pictures from today have a big flaw. The props look like they would stand still. This is due to the fact that I was simply not able to handhold the camera at 1/60s while panning, which is necessary to show the motion of the prop. I tried hard but lack of practice can't be made up within two hours. The good thing is that today's practice may help my wildlife photography in the near future. That's one of the reasons I gave it a try today...

More from Arizona, part 4

 

I'm still working on my images from last week's trip to Arizona and I like to show you a few more.

The little miner town Jerome has a very interesting attraction. The Gold King Mine and Ghost Town is just a mile north of Jerome. A fascinating place, hard to describe with words (at least for me).The location of the Gold King Mine was originally the community of Haynes, a suburb of Jerome in 1890.   If you like to read more about it click HERE. This will lead you to the Sedona Verde Valley Tourism Council website, which has a pretty good story about this place and its owner.

As a photographer you may get lost. It is not hard to make up your mind where to point the lens first. Lots of good old stuff. As an engineer, I just got carried away by looking at all the old mechanical wonders of the past. From old mining equipment, to probably more than a hundred old trucks and cars, machines and tools, and of course the old buildings of the ghost town.

The museum closes at 5PM and light is harsh during the day. But hey, we have HDR these days and subjects, like you can find them in a historical place like this, can bare quite a bit of "HDR-retro-tweaking", as I like to call it. Nothing to loose for me... ;-)

Red Rock Country, part 3

A wonderful place to be is the Slide Rock State Park, located in the Oak Creek Valley between Flagstaff and Sedona, Arizona. I stopped there yesterday morning. The colors of the surrounding canyon walls were still not washed out, like later during the day, and I tried to capture the essence of this lovely landscape.

The house at the entrance of the state park caught my attention. I love how the white trim and the stairs speak a clear graphic language and emphasize the design of the house in its natural setting.

3413 + 2164

Today, on my way back to Phoenix, I stopped at several interesting locations. One of them was the train depot in Clarkdale, Arizona. Unfortunately the passenger train had already left for a tour with visitors, but those two diesel locomotives were parked at the depot. The puffy clouds made for a nice  background and nobody was there to bother me while I took the pictures between the railroad tracks. More to come...

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.

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… :-)

Stop at the local airport

Nikon D200, Sigma 50-500 mm f/4.0-6.3

On my way to some of the places I visit frequently for wildlife shooting I drive by at the Dubuque airport. It is a small local airport and unfortunately served only by one commercial airline with flights to Chicago. Most of the time there is not much going on.

Nikon D200, Sigma 50-500 mm f/4.0-6.3

This weekend was different. Many small World War II aircrafts were there in preparation for the air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin next week. They were flying in formations of four and I had fun to watch the starts and landings for quite some time. Not that I want to switch my focus towards aviation photography but the aircrafts provided a great opportunity to practice shooting technique that is also essential for wildlife photography.

Nikon D200, Sigma 50-500 mm f/4.0-6.3

In order to get sharp images of a moving subject it is important to know how to pan with your camera, with or without tripod. It sounds easy but it isn't, and the number of blurred images this weekend showed me that I still have a long way to go....

Hot Rods in the heat

Nikon D200, Sigma 10-20 mm, f/4.0-5.6

As everybody knows who stops by at this blog regularly, I focus on wildlife and landscape photography.  But sometimes I like to do something totally different. Last weekend I brought some good friends from Germany back to Chicago. Despite the awful heat here in the Midwest we stopped in Galena, Illinois for some sightseeing. I didn't know that Galena had their 34th Annual Pre-49er Car Show and Rod Run this weekend. The cars were parked along the Galena River. Many had a lot of distracting "junk", like coolers, lawn chairs, and all kinds of signs around, but a few were in a nice setting with just the beautiful city in the background. I hope you enjoy!

Nikon D200, Sigma 10-20 mm, F/4.0-5.6