I didn't have to go very far for today's 'nature click'. The larvas of the Black Swallowtail butterfly were feeding on the parsley in the herb garden behind the house. The sky was overcast and I used the Nikon SB600 flash light off camera, with a diffuser head attached.
Here are two more from the steam show in Sycamore, IL. Both taken in the late afternoon. If you like to see some more have a look in my gallery COUNTRYSIDE .
They had a parade of all the steam engines and old tractors. Very nice to see all the machines actually running and moving. It started at 1:30PM and the sun was really beating down on us. Well, I haven't even worked on those pictures yet and I know it will be a lot of work to deal with the high contrast and pale colors. However, it got much better in the last hour of the show on Saturday. This is when the fun of taking pictures really came back…
More to come...
About a year ago I discovered pictures from the 'Sycamore Steam Show and Threshing Bee' on another photographer's gallery. I learned on their website that this year was the 54th show in Sycamore, Illinois. I wanted to go there in 2010 because these old steam engines and tractors are an interesting subject for photography, but than I almost forgot about it. Thank you Dan for reminding me of this event!The light was harsh as it can get here in the Midwest on a hot and humid day in August. Despite the heat I decided to stay until evening and hope for better light. More to come...
That was fun! July 24th I was able to participate at the Worldwide Photo Walk in Dubuque, Iowa. According to the official website 33497 photographers in 1111 locations worldwide participated in this event. We walked for about two hours through downtown Dubuque, stopped at the Farmer's market, and everybody was shooting pictures like crazy. I can tell you, a late morning on a hazy Iowa summer day is not the best time to go out and shoot, but I have really enjoyed watching other people's approach to master the challenge. Not everybody posted their pictures but some of the results can be seen by following the link below.
Because of the hazy weather, with bright sun and without any remarkable clouds in the sky, I decided to keep the sky out of the frame. I tried to focus on details that I saw during the walk. Some of the pictures were taken with B&W in mind already. For some others I applied a split tone to give them an antique touch.
Beside looking for the best light and shooting angle it was really interesting to walk and talk with other photographers. The exchange of ideas, opinions, and thoughts continued afterwards during a common lunch. Thanks to Dave Updegraff, who did a great job leading and organizing the Photo Walk 2010 in Dubuque.
Click HERE for the Dubuque Photo Walk website.
All images: Nikon D200, Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 35/f2 ZF
Today was a day full of excitement. The young House Wrens left the nest box for the first time in their life. The nest box is right in front of our house and it is fun to watch them during the whole breeding season.
11:59 AM: The parents had called them from a nearby tree several times already and bring finally the last food to the young wrens.
12:03 PM: The second juvenile squeezes its wings out of the hole and flies over to the parents (I missed the first one).
12:12 PM: This is number four. His first flight ends on the lower part of a tree trunk.
12:13 PM: Number five, the last one, just dropped into the flower bed below the nest box. After several attempts he finally joined his family in the tree.
We hope they all will grow up and we may see them again.
In the US Independence day or the night before can always be marked in the calendar if you want to take pictures of fireworks.
Going out early to find an unobstructed vantage point is essential. You don't want to be within a big crowd and because of longer exposure times the camera needs to be on a stabile tripod. I always dial in the long-exposure noise reduction mode. My Nikon D200 does not handle higher ISO values very well, so I leave it at ISO 100 and extend the exposure time as needed. With a newer camera you might be able to crank up the ISO value a little more without producing grainy and noisy pictures. I tried different combinations of exposure times and f-stops. For the most part the pictures turned out good with the camera set to 5-6 seconds and f8-f11. However, the image shown here is a little out of this range. We were just near a small town in Iowa and the fireworks is probably not as gigantic as in some of the bigger cities. In order to catch multiple fireworks explosions in one frame I had set the f-stop to 16 and extended the exposure time to 13 seconds.
Did I mention we had a lot of fun? In any case, please let me know what your experience with this kind of photography is. The next opportunity will certainly arrive soon.
Yesterday I went across the Mississippi river to a boat landing near Potosi WI. I have been there before and always came back with some macro shots or pictures of the river. As already last year at the same time, there were thousands of black mayflies in the air or hanging at plants. I was really glad to see these wonderful insects since their adult life stage is only 24 hours or less.
It was windy and not very easy to obtain good focus. I got the best results with the camera mounted on a tripod and by waiting for the short moments when the wind calmed down. After checking different sources I believe these are Hexagenia bilineata. I would appreciate if any expert can confirm or correct my analysis.
These old wheels from a hay rake have long been retired from work on a farm in Northwest Iowa. The late afternoon sun was shining on them and the color version of the picture I took was not too bad. But I thought it did not really carry the "rotten charm" of the farm equipment and the old barn. I converted it to B&W, worked with the contrast but was still not happy with the result. I use Adobe Lightroom for quite some time to develop my images but I have never done anything with the split tone panel so far. I tried out several things with different colors for the highlights and shadows in the split tone panel. Finally I ended up with a duo tone setting (Highlights: Hue 52, Saturation 25; Shadows: Hue 52, Saturation 44; Balance: 0). It works for me! I hope you like it too.
I love modern architecture and I like to take pictures of it. Living in the country side does not always allow to play with this kind of photography. But that does not mean we can't try it at all if there is a chance for. The Milwaukee Art Museum is one of my favorite places and offers of course great potential for this kind of photography. The architecture created by Santiago Calatrava is just amazing.
It was a day with overcast and there were not really any colors. I chose B&W and just tried to work with the lines.
