Backlog of tree stump in water

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The. Fall Collection

He's are some Fall photo's I have taken this year. Most of these were taken in the early morning. The Golden Hour of the early morning makes such a huge difference in the color of a photo. Add to that the Fall colors and you have colors that really pop.

A little something to brighten the gray we have now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black and White Photography, Part 1 (And some rambling talk about about Tea)

OK, I need to get these photo's processed and uploaded to my Flickr page. I am running out of space on my iPad. After each photo session. I upload all my photos to my ipad from the SD card, look through them all quickly, then go back through them again and delete the obvious bad ones. Then I try to decide which ones to post to my blog and/or which ones I want to keep on the iPad. All the other will be removed. Oh, don't worry all the originals are still on the SD card and I will back them up on my computer, eventually.

(I hold one a few minutes. I need to go make some more tea. Ceylon Sonata)

It has been really hard to decide what to keep and what to remove for the last few weeks. And now I just retuned from a trip to Turkey Run State Park (TRSP). I do not have enough free space on my iPad to upload the new pictures. I did take a few in b&w. If they are good enough I will post them in Part 2 or maybe a Part 3.

(Mmmm, good tea. Ice Tea can be made from Ceylon Sonata. I made a batch a couple of days ago. Last night after getting back form TRSP I made some Ice Tea from Raisberry Tea . It needed more sugar than I normally use to make the Raisberry flavor stand out.)

(Oops, i just poured my last cup of Ceylon tea. Since I made a pot of Irish Breakfast tea before I started this morning, I should not have three pots of tea in a row. I should to switch to water or I could make some Defcaf Vanilla tea. I have only tried it once. I am not sure I like it yet. And the winner is .... Decaf Vanilia tea. After that I promise to drink water. And yes, it took me almost a whole pot of tea write and edit the previous paragraphs.)

 

Black and White Photography Project

A short while ago I was talking with a couple of co-worker's in the parking lot after work. One co-worker brought up my interest in photography. The other co-worker has an interest in photography as well. I mentioned this blog and told her I would sent her a link to it if she was interested. We talked a brief while and it seemed like we shared a common interest in subject matter. Nature, abstract and non-people.

I sent her the link and she sent me a black and white (I prefer the term monochrome. It is more technically correct and the & character is more trouble to type on my iPad) photo of a heavily vained tree bark that she had taken as an example of our simular interests. I have taken pictures like that a few times but never in monochrome. Like this one for example.

We emailed back and forth a few times. I mention that most of the photos I have converted to monochome did not look very good. The quality was poor. She said in her experience most software conversion not do come out well. She suggested using the cameras Black and White setting. You will get much better quality results. And she was right.

So recently on my weekly hike, I decided every picture I took I would try to take in monochrome and color. While looking for the monochrome setting I found a setting for Vivid and More Vivid. I ended up taking most of the color pictures with the Vivid setting out of curiosity. I should have used the Normal setting for a better comparison. In Part 2 I will try to use the Normal, Vivid and Black and White setting for each photo.

I am struggling with when to take a photo in monochrome as opposed to color. I am guessing it helps if there are strong contrasts between light and dark. Like the contrast between shadowy spaces ridges of the bark and the lighter spaces of the peaks or the ridges in the above link

As you will see from most of my photo's monochrome was not always the best option. Or I maybe I am not setting the exposure settings the best way for monochrome? Anyway here are the first batch.

 

I have included this oner again because it is one of my favorites despite the bad comosition. I have no color version for comparion.

 

Here are three versions of the same photo, Monochrome, Normal, and Vivid. Or maybe, Monochrome, Vivid and More Vivid. I am not sure. I will have to check the original photo and see if that data is saved with the photo. I know exposure settings are saved but I am not sure if this kind of data is saved.

First of all I am not happy with any of these three. But I prefer the last color photo. With the monochrome I don't like how the foliage on the trees look. You can not tell that it is spring without the color, The blue in the sky and its reflection in the water is lost.

 

 

 

(Looking in the freezer. Mmm, Double Chocolate Klondike bar. My throat feels a little sore. Maybe something cold will help.)

(It helpd for a while. That was good, but I think I like the regular Klondike bar better.)

 

I like this monochrome photo better than the last one. But I still think the color photo is better. The tree branch is too bright in the monochrome photo. It is OKish in the color photo. I miss the blue sky and the green foliage.

 

 

I am going to end Part 1 with one of my favorite photos from this session. What initally attracted me to this scene is not readily apparent in the pictures. The sun was shining on the river and was bouncing back up lighting up the left end of the broken tree. The ripples in the water were creating ripples of light on the tree. The ripple effect is not noticeable but that fact that some golden light is being projected on the tree is.

It does not show was well in these first two photo's. In the second two it is more noticeable.

I still like the color photo better. But the monochrome version is a close second this time.

 

 

The composition of these next two are different. The monochrome version was taken at a higher angle than the color one. But I like the monochrome version enough that I choose a color version that was close enough to it to use as a comparison. In both of these you can see the rippling reflection better. You may have to click on the photo to see it at full size to be able to notice the ripple.

The golden color in the interior of the wood really pops in the color picture. I also like the texture of the wood grain and the curves of the tree in both photo's. The lose of color in the monochrome photo allows the textures, curves and shading to become the main feature of the photo. Hmm, maybe this is my first clue as to what makes the monochrome technique important.

 

 

 

There will have to be a Part 2. My work is not done.

 

Another Filler

Here is another filler posting to hold you over until I get my other project done.

With the recent rains we have had I was blocked from hiking my usual trail. Before this blockage I successfully bypassed two other flooded area's. This one I could not get around.

 

 

The Wabash is overflowing again

 

The Wabash River is overflowing again due to some heavy rain we had a few days before the weekend. So I was not able to hike the trails because they were under water. After the weekend the Wabash started to go back down, but it rain some more and it is going backup up. It is supposed to peak in the the next couple of days. More likely the hiking trails will still be under water this weekend as well.

I was able to take a few interesting shots around the bridges this weekend. But first here are a few photo's from the week before.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And now some photo's from last weekend. I was walking along and under the three bridges that pass over the Wabash in the downtown area.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The snow is melting and the waters are rising

I went for my walk this Saturday. With the rain we had a few days ago and the warmer weather the many snows we have had this season is finally melting. This is causing the Wabash River to flood. It is about 6 feet above flood stage. The two Downtown entry points to the Wabash Heritage Trail are flooded over.

Here are a few photo's of the flood waters.

 

 

 

 

 

Damn it, Damn It, Damn it!

For those who just want to see my latest Turkey Run pictures click here to skip past the story. Its probably for the best anyway. I am not very good at expressing myself in the written word. I am thinking about working on that. I am not sure how yet.
Well the Turkey Run trip did not go as well as I wanted it to. I was really looking forward to the trip all week. I have been in need of something to cheer me up. I was off work the last week of October to setup my Halloween display. That was a big a dissapopintment. I have been feeling blue for a long while and the Halloween vacation made it much worse. See my other blog Thomas's Stuff for details of how that went sometime soon.
Anyway as I was driving to Turkey Run Saturday morning I realized about 15 miles into the drive that I had no cash on me! I have no idea if they take credit cards. Should I go back home and see if I can find some cash laying around the house? If I do I will end up adding 30 miles to the trip and waste about half and hour. I have already started later than I wanted too. What happens if I keep going and they don't take credit cards? I will be really bummed if that happens
I decide to keep going.
I arrive at the gate and ask the lady park ranger if they take credit cards. Yes we do she says. Thank you very much I say. I made the right choice.
After paying the admission fee I drive into the parkling lot and park. I get out of the van, do some stretching and then start checking my backpack. Two bottles of water, 50mm primary lens, 75-250mm zoom lens, tripod, camera? Where is my camera. Damn it, Damn it, Damn it where is my camera?!?!? I CAN NOT BELIEVE I DID NOT PACK MY CAMERA! This darkened my mood for at least an hour and a half.
I did have my Samsung Galaxy Player with me. I was using it to listen to music while driving It is an Android device that is everything but a phone. Or as a co-worker calls it my "Android phone that is not a phone". It has an app that I use to I use to track my hiking miles and time. It does have a camera but it only takes OK pictures. Some time half way though the day it crash on me and I later found out I lost all the photo's I had taken before then.

The photo's that did survive that day
The newly repaired Suspension Bridge. As you ca see there is some fall color still. But in most of the park the leave were a week or two past their peak.


Some crazy stairs in Gypsy Gulch


A small section of Turkey Run Hollow.


An interesting curved stone wall near the Punch Bowl

The setting sun reflecting off of Sugar Creek

Bird, branches, and beavers, Oh My!

I stalked a bird for at least a half an hour at the "beach" a few weeks back. It was about 5 feet away from the edge of the river. It was catching some small fish.

I started out about 50 feet away. I would put my tripoded camera down take a few photo's, watch the bird for a while then move a couple feet forward on my knees stop then do the same thing again.

The photo's did not come out that good because the sun was in behind the bird. So the bird was darker than I would have liked. But I had fun stalking the bird.

On my way to the "beach" I discovers a beaver lodge under a steep embankment. I had seen it many times but I though it was just a clump of trees fallen in to river. I currently can not get a good photo of the lodge. No good angles to shoot from. I have been thinking of taking a canoe or kayak trip down the river when the leaves start changing colors. If I go by the lodge I will try to take a picture. I have not ridden in a boat for a long time and never by myself. This may be a bad idea. But I hope to do it soon anyway.

Anyway, I was walking along the trail and I see something swimming in the water and it was headed towards the clump of trees. It saw me and dove deep under water and I lost track of it. So I waited a long time near the clump of trees to see if it would come back. It finally did and I saw the big flat tail. Then I knew it was a beaver. Later a larger one showed up as well. I got an OK picture of it. It was difficult to get a good shot between the many tree branch's.

While I was waiting for the beaver to come back I took some pictures of some tree branch's