Tracks in the sand... 2014

 

The year comes to an end and as always in late December I spend some time cleaning and organizing my photo library. There are always photos that have never seen the public light but they are important to me, and as far I’m concerned deserve to be shown somewhere.

One of the best landscape shootings in 2014 happened on top of the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado one early morning in September. If you missed that story feel free to click HERE and see some of the magic that unfolded during sunrise.

The photo I show you today was made during the ascent to the ridge of the sand dunes. My tracks in the sand left an interesting pattern that inspired me to push the shutter button…

Nature clicks #251 - Trumpeter Swans

 

I did not want to end this year without having another visit in my favorite wildlife area here in eastern Iowa, the Green Island Wetlands. I have not been there since July and it was good to be back. It is the most quiet time of the year now after the duck hunting season is over. Due to the mild temperatures lately there was only a thin layer of ice and even spots with open water. With some patience you may see a few Bald Eagles and some hawks flying over. I could tell that I’m out of practice shooting birds in flight. It is probably a little like playing golf, if you don’t practice all the time your results suck, and my pictures of two hawks and an eagle were definitely just good for the trash can today…

The best surprise was the encounter of a “school” of 27 Trumpeter Swans. They were in company with 16 Canada Geese. These numbers are a great example of successful wildlife restoration. I remember when I wrote here in the blog about the first pair of swans that raised successfully a cygnet a few years ago. They all seemed to enjoy the sun today and I watched them for an hour and a half at the same spot.

Beside resting on the ice the swans moved slowly around and you could hear how they cracked the thin layer of ice in order to keep the water open and feed on aquatic plants.

As soon as the sun disappeared behind the hills all Trumpeter Swans got out of the water, lined up in a queue, and finally took off towards the Mississippi River. The river is not frozen over at all, although the temperature dropped quite a bit last night for the first time in weeks.

I strictly exposed for the highlights and rather let the shadows go instead of having the white feathers blown out completely or in part. I do not like the look of wildlife pictures where the shadows are overly restored like in an HDR image. A little bit is ok but too much looks unnatural to me. Unfortunately it is a trend these days to make photos look like paintings… Well, I’m glad trends come and go… ;-)

Mild Christmas

 

This was the mildest Christmas since I have been in Iowa during the holiday season. As every year we spent the holiday at Joan’s parents in Cherokee, a small town in northwest Iowa. Over the years it became a Christmas tradition to have at least once a walk around a lake in one of the city’s parks. I remember years when this walk took no more than maybe fifteen minutes, because the temperatures and icy wind were just brutal. Not so much this year. Almost no wind and temperatures above freezing made for a different experience. Our little dog Cooper didn’t mind that we stretched it out to over an hour on all three “mini hikes” this year.

It was Christmas morning when the sun finally appeared from behind the clouds and lifted all the gray. The lake was covered partially with a thin layer of ice and that’s where I tried to find a photo that tells the story. While working on this image I became aware again how important white balance can be for the story telling. Most of the time when snow and ice is part of my photo I make sure that some blue, at least in the shadows, transmits the message, “it’s cold here”. My first trial with this image was a conversion to black and white with a slight blue touch on the final photo. It looked good but it was just not what this Christmas day was about. The photo was originally made with a white balance set to cloudy and this is how I finally left it. The warm touch of the sun in this image reflects a lot better what I saw and how it felt that morning…

Nature clicks #250 - European Starling

 

Surprise number three during this week’s backyard observations was the presence of several European Starlings. I counted up to ten starlings. We see a starling occasionally during the summer but never had them as a visitor during the winter months. They seem also to flock together with the American Robins in order to have bigger survival chances. The behavior of the birds shows that there is more than one hawk in the area. If a hawk or Bald Eagle is detected, the birds fly panicky into the higher trees or just freeze motionless, for example the woodpeckers, at their current position. Starlings have a bad reputation in my home country Germany as “cherry thieves”. There are just so many over there. I never realized actually how pretty they are until I started photographing them here in eastern Iowa.

Nature clicks #249 - Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

 

The second big surprise this week was the presence of a juvenile Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. I have no doubt about that it is the same that was raised this summer here in our woods by its parents. A look into all of our bird guides (iBird 7.2 PRO app; Smithsonian Handbooks - Birds of North America, Eastern Region; National Geographic - Complete Birds of North America) reveals that this woodpecker spends the winter usually south of central Missouri. What’s going on? Don’t they know the rules? ;-) We will see what happens if the temperature may drop much deeper sometime later this winter…

Nature clicks #248 - Eastern Bluebird

 

One of the first things I did after my return from Germany was to attach the long lens to the camera and mount the whole rig onto the tripod. I noticed a lot of bird activities in the “backyard-studio” and some of them are so unusual for this time of the year that I like to share my encounters with you.

To my surprise we had up to six Eastern Bluebirds visiting the bird bath on the balcony this week. I have never seen so many bluebirds here at the same time and our records show that we never saw a bluebird in December before. They are in company with a flock of American Robins and several other species, which I will talk about here in the blog soon. The reason we see them is probably the mild weather without any snow on the ground.

I do not like to photograph the birds sitting on the edge of the bird bath. I have placed several perches nearby but the Eastern Bluebirds don’t do me the favor and use them. They rather fly straight to the water source. Well, still better than no birds… ;-) I hope you enjoy!

Dresden - photo walk at night

 

I like to show you a few more pictures of the nightly Dresden. Rebuilt after the city was nearly destroyed in World War II, it is a pearl among European cities. Drizzle made for some interesting, but unwanted effects on my lens during this photo walk at night.

“Der Goldene Reiter”, the statue of “August II the Strong” was on my shooting list since a long time. The Elector of Saxony and King of Poland has established Dresden as a major cultural center and is probably best remembered as a patron of the arts and architecture.

Christmas market time - at least in Germany

 

Hey, I’m back from my trip to Germany, where I visited with family and friends and met my granddaughter Tarja for the first time. I spent a little time in my home town Bautzen, in the city of Freiberg, and as well in the city of Dresden. They are gorgeous places but you probably can’t go wrong with any old town in the state of Saxony during Christmas time. They all have a Christmas market and each is a little different and has its own character. The “Wenzelsmarkt” in Bautzen goes back to 1384 and is possibly the oldest Christmas market in Germany. According to the city’s website 90 traders and restaurants offer their goods, food, and drinks on the market this year.

Dresden, the capitol of Saxony, has more than one market and the most famous one is of course the “Dredner Striezelmarkt”. The photo above was made at the “Weihnachtsmarkt an der Frauenkirche”, which takes place around the monumental Baroque building of the rebuilt Dresdner Frauenkirche.

Big waves

 

I was supposed to sit in an airplane to Germany while I’m writing this but a strike of the Lufthansa pilots grounded me for another day. Take off from the American continent will be hopefully Friday night instead…

Time to post another photo from our Thanksgiving weekend on the Door Peninsula in Wisconsin. Saturday we had another proof that Lake Michigan is not just a pond… ;-)… Strong winds created big waves that could compete with any ocean in the world at one of our favorite spots on the peninsula, North Pierhead Lighthouse…

In search for the right perspective

 

We discovered the story telling potential of this setting immediately after getting out of the car in Potawatomi State Park along the Sturgeon Bay. The track of broken ice from the island to shore, the reflections, and the overall mood just had an effect on us. However, I scratched my head shortly after starting to work the subject. I just could not find a perspective that satisfied me totally. One of the reasons is that I’m not a big fan of bare branches sticking into the frame from any direction. The canoe needed to be within the picture, because it is an important part of the story, and the curves in the ice are the lines in the story telling. I used my feet for zooming and ups and downs, but sometimes it is just a little detail that makes the difference between a great image, just a decent one, and a goner. (I have not seen Joan's photo's yet. She may have kicked my butt... ;-)   )

The blue toned black & white seems to reflect the mood of this gray winter day better than any other finishing I tried. Sometimes it takes me a year or two to find the final version of a photo. But this is ok, it is part of the artistic process and part of the learning curve…