A few days ago I reported about a couple Northern Flickers that showed up here around our house (see Nature clicks #188). A day after I posted the photo of the female bird I was lucky enough to have finally the male Northern Flicker in front of the camera. You can clearly see the mustache stripes in his face that make it easy to distinguish the males from the females.
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.
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…
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…
As much I like to spend time outside watching and photographing wildlife or just chasing the light, sometimes it is necessary to do maintenance or take care of the hard and software that helps to create the images we like to show to our audience. Yep, I got my Christmas gift already. A new 27” iMac is since a few days the machine for all my post processing and picture administration. I don’t get paid for saying anything good or bad about any product that I use but I can tell you I have never looked back after I abandoned five years ago the whole PC and Microsoft c%&p. I will still use the MacBook Pro and my SAMSUNG display, that both have served me very well during the last five years, for my day job and as a backup machine while traveling. To make this already long story shorter, I spent the last few days migrating software and adapting the new computer to my needs. It is time consuming to make the changes but I already enjoy the much faster speed of the iMac and the incredible quality of its big display.
We had fresh snow on the ground every other day and lots of birds hang around in the woods here. The camera is always mounted on the tripod and whenever I see an interesting bird or some good light falling on one of the countless Gold Finches I stop what I’m doing and go and make a click…
OK, before someone gets too excited about today’s photo I like to make clear that this image of a North American River Otter was not made out in the Great Outdoors. The photo was taken in May 2011 in the Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium in Dubuque, Iowa. It is the only photo in the new web gallery about the wildlife here in Eastern Iowa that is not really a wildlife picture. Yes, after several months of postponing this project I have the gallery about mammals finally online. In addition the gallery about birds has been updated with new species and photos. 2013 was a great year for me with many first sightings of bird species along the Mississippi River and the surrounding areas. The pictures in the web gallery are now smaller and allow for faster loading, especially for those of you that have a slower internet connection. Please feel free to click on the link EASTERN IOWA WILDLIFE in the sidebar on the left and explore the variety of birds and mammals that I had the pleasure to have in front of my camera during the last six and a half years. Come back any time and use the photos for identification of a species that you may have encountered and photographed. Share your own sightings with us and please let me know if you find a mistake in these galleries.
So why do I show a photo of the North American River Otter if it wasn’t actually made out in the wild? Joan and I have seen the otter in the Little Maquoketa River not too far from home some time ago but despite many efforts I never had a chance to make the click. These web galleries are meant to be a resource about the species that live in Eastern Iowa or stop here briefly during migration. I also display some older photos that do not meet my quality criteria anymore but they are the only ones that I have at the moment about some particular species. It is about goals that we need to set for our photography. If I can make a better image of a critter, you will be the first ones that can see it here in the blog. And believe me, the North American River Otter is on my MOST WANTED list… :-)
It is this time of the year when temperatures may go below zero, both, in degree Celsius and Fahrenheit. It is also a great time for bird photography for two different reasons. First the birds come close to the house, to feeders, and most importantly to places where they can get some water to drink. If you make the efforts to provide food and water, by means of a heated bird bath for instance, you can create a good environment that draws the birds close to your camera. The second reason is the light. The snow that covers the ground works like a giant reflector and helps to make decent images without fiddling with additional light sources. Yes, a fill flash coming from a little softbox might be very helpful, especially if the sun is hidden behind clouds, but with sun light the “snow reflector” does a pretty good job.
I had written before here in the blog that we have seen up to six different woodpecker species on our ridge above the Little Maquoketa River Valley. The Northern Flicker is one of them but usually we see them only briefly during late autumn or from late winter into early spring. However, this season we watch a couple of them every day. This is the biggest woodpecker that comes to our feeders. They are slightly bigger than an adult Red-bellied Woodpecker. The Northern Flicker is only outsized by the Pileated Woodpecker but these big birds do not visit the suet feeders or even come near the house.
Today I had a chance to make a few clicks on this female Northern Flicker. Both sexes are easy to distinguish. The females resemble the males and have a black half moon shaped spot on their chest but they lack the black moustache stripes in their face. The Northern Flickers seem to be a lot more cautious and nervous than the other woodpeckers that are here all year long and so I’m very happy to share this image with you today.
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… ;-)
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.
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!
