Dead Wood

Here are some photos of some dead wood I have encountered on the trail. I like takiung pictures of dead wood, tree stumps and assorted branches. But some times the color of the dead wood blends in to much with the dry dirt and other bland colors or the trail.

Debris

"Debris or débris (UK: /ˈdɛbriː/ or /ˈdeɪbriː/; US: /dɨˈbriː/) is rubble, wreckage, ruins, litter and discarded garbage/refuse/trash, scattered remains of something destroyed, discarded, or as in geology, large rock fragments left by a melting glacier etc. Depending on context, debris can refer to a number of different things."

"One mans trash is another mans treasure"

Well these photo's may not be anyone's treasure but I did have fun taking them. I started my hike earlier than normal to see the trail in the early morning light. I am enjoying working with the softer light and shadows of the morning light. It has been difficult getting up early enough on the weekends due to having to go into work early the last two weeks. Most likely I will have to go into work early all this week too. After that who knows.

I am going to try to start even earlier next week. I had not traveled very far before I lost the best light. I would like to see the "beach" in this light sometime. It takes close to a couple of hours to get there. Maybe I will try camping out there sometime. It might be far enough ways from the city to see the Milky Way. That would be awesome!

The Goodyear Blimp

I had just finished my afternoon exercises.  As I walk near the back door I hear an unusual motor sound come from the sky. I step out on the porch and look around and I see the the Goodyear Blimp! I run back inside to grab my camera. The lens I had on it would not do, so a change the lens and run back outside.

I can no longer see if from my house, but can still hear it. So I start running down the street and around the block. I am wearing my beat up sandals, so I am not moving very fast. I quickly figure out that I am not going to catch up with it. So I run back home, sort through the kids bikes to find one that still has air in the tiers and ride off after it.

I do catch up with it, but only slowly. For one reason it has been a long time since I have ridden a bike. The other reason is that the bike's chain keeps slipping! After riding a few blocks I realize what I am wearing. I have on an old ratty, paint splattered t-shirt and fairly small paint splattered shorts. Hopefully no one from work will see me I think to my self.

After I lose track of the blimp the later due to not being able to get across a busy street quick enough. I start riding back. And sure enough I ride past the library where I work. It is just after closing and three people see me. Oh well.

Turkey Run State Park Again!: Part 1

Last Labor Day I did not have to work and the work week before was a real bad one. I needed some stress relief. So I decided to go to Turkey Run State Park again!. I did not get there until a little after Noon. So the light was more intense than I would have liked. Also it was very busy!

We have had a dry summer this year, so the Sugar Creek river that runs through the park was much lower than the last time I was here in the spring. Much more exposed rock and quite a few sand bars.

The one disappointing part of the day was that one of my favorite parts of the trail, Bear Hollow was all dried up. In the spring there was a nice small waterfall, and a small water course running through the canyon. There are 3 sets of ladders leading down to the bottom of the canyon.

Last time I sat on some boulders in between the first and second ladders. It was a very restful spot. I almost did not recognize it. With it all dried up it felt like the energy of the place was gone. But the rest of the park was still very enjoyable.

Since it was a holiday weekend the park was packed with people on the trail and on the water. These pictures were taken near the the covered bridge. The suspension bridge is still out.

I took a lot of decent pictures this time, so I think I will break them over several posts. If you can't wait, here is a link to All the Turkey Run photo's I uploaded to Flickr for this trip.

Saturday Morning Hike

This Saturday I started my hike earlier than normal. I was planning on going outside and finding a good spot to photograph the sunrise. My backyard is OK but there are a few obstacles have have problems shooting around.

Well, not being a morning person I did not get out in time to find a new spot. I walked around the neighborhood to find better vantage point but the sun came up before I found one. Next time I will hop on one of the kids bikes and ride around to see what I can find.

Here are some photo's from the trail.

While I was crossing the bridge to walk on the south leg of the Wabash Heritage Trail I heard some shouting. I could not understand what was being said or where it was coming from. Then I happened to look over the side of the bridge and saw this.

Purdue Crew Team

The southern portion of the trail near the bridge is very sandy. In some area's the sand is very deep and hilly. It can very tiring to walk through on the return trip.

Sand and Shadows

What is making these tracks? I have seem them in the sand many times.

A few minutes later I was taking this first picture of the early morning sun reflecting on the river. Another couple Purdue Crew team passed by. None of my photo's of them from this vantage point came out very good. But the waves they made adde more interest to the second photo.

My destination today was the "beach" I have talked about before. It was nice to hang out there a while. The sun was not too hot yet. I took a few photo's and just sat in the sand for while. Here is flower that was growing in sand.

On the way back home I came across this pumpkin growing in the sand at the side of the trail. Not sure how I missed it on the way in I was growing very near where I had take my other sand pictures.

After I got home from my hike, I decided to begin getting my house ready for Halloween. I normally take two or three weeks vacation time to start build and repairing props for Halloween. But since someone in my department was let go last week I am not sure how much time I will be able to take off from work. So I decided to get started early.

While in the basement gathering all the needed tools I dropped a battery pack from a cordless drill on my toe (see below). I of course was wearing sandals at the time so I messed up my toe pretty good. I can walk around on it but going up and down hills is very unpleasant. I has to cut my hike short on Sunday. The only pictures I took were the sunrise from Happy Hallow Park. Again I did not find a very good vantage point, so the photo's were not worth sharing.

  

On my way to work

When I got out of the car to walk in side the building I saw this. I took this photo with my android device.

This past weekend

This past weekend was not so great photography wise. Saturday was OK (see photo's below), but Sunday was a total bust. I decided to take a hike around campus.

When I first started my hike Sunday it was very early in morning, about 100% humidity and very overcast. Then it stated to mist. So I kept my camera in by backpack most of the time. The times the weather was not to bad I was in an area where there was not much to photograph. I did see some interesting buildings on the campus I would like to photograph some time but they were very close together and had lots of tree around them. I did not see very may good vantage points to photograph from. Maybe with a wide angle lens. Something I have been thinking about getting.

The best thing about this weekend was it was a 3 day weekend, so I went someplace special on Monday. I will leave that for the next post.

I started Saturday's from Trail Head Park and walked north towards the Battleground side of the Wabash Heritage Trail.

The next three photo's are of and around Blue Heron Island. It is a small island on the Wabash. I have seen a few Blue Heron's on my hike's but have not been able to take a good photo of one. I mostly notice them as they are flying away. The sand bar is normally under several feed of water.

I have walked by this island many times, but have not been able to take any pictures of it from the trail. There are to many trees in the way. But right now the river is very low so I was able to climb down on to a sand bar to take some photo's.

Blue Heron Island

A long dead in the sand next to the island

It took me a long time to find a way to cross from the sand bar connected to trail and the sand bar connected to the island. But I figured it would be worth it. I would the be first one over. I tried jumping across, but I aborted each time. I am not much of a jumper. I look around for logs or branch's I could use to lay across the water. I eventually found an old board and used it to make the jump shorter.

When I got across I found these foot prints in the sand of bare feet. Someone much smarter than me took their shoes off and walked across the water.

Foot Prints In The Sand

The turn around point for the hike was at Davis Ferry Bridge. This was the only photo of the bridge worth showing. The sun was to intense by this time. I will bring a polarizing filter next time.





One of my goals on this trip was to try to photograph with a wider depth of field. Many of my flower and mushroom photo's only show part of the plant or mushroom in focus. My understanding was that higher f-stops would give greater depth of field. So that is what I tried. Since I was using a higher f-stop I needed to use a slower shutter speed and tripod.

Most of the photo's were washed out or out of focus. I guess I will need to do some more reading to find out what went wrong.

Photo's From The Archive: Santa Punpkin

This photo is was taken in December of 2010. One reason I choose it for the archive was a way to introduce you to my other hobby. Halloween! It will be featured in my photo's in the coming months. I am an avid Yard Haunter. I spend a considerable amount of time decorating my yard for Halloween each year.

I am looking forward to using my new skills with the camera to taken much better pictures of my yard haunt this year.

Dried up Jack O Lantern from Halloween with Santa Hat