FIELD PREPARATION, AND LIFE WAS GOOD...

We stopped in the middle of nowhere for a break last Sunday and we saw this farmer showing up briefly on the horizon and disappear again. We had a glass of wine with a little snack and listened to the birds around us. I knew if the tractor would make another round on the field I would have have my chance for a shot. A few minutes later it happened. It didn’t need any details, the silhouette was enough to tell the story about field preparation. The wine tasted great and life was good…

A HIDDEN GEM

White Pine Hollow Preserve, Iowa

One of the hidden gems in the landscape of the driftless area here is White Pine Hollow State Preserve near the little town of Luxemburg, Iowa. You can’t drive in and I recommend some solid hiking boots if you like to explore this area. Except for the hollow that leads down to the bottom of the canyon there are no trails and some sense of direction is recommended. If you don’t mind a hike through washed out and rocky terrain and can master a couple of small river crossings, you will be rewarded with tranquility and the beauty of nature. And now, during these unusual times, it is a place where social distancing is easy to maintain. We hiked yesterday for 3 1/2 hours and didn’t see a single soul. Well, have a look what we found…

Snow Trillium (Trillium nivale)

Big patches of Wild Leek (Allium tricoccum)

Round-lobed Hepatica (Anemone americana)

ON THE GOAT PRAIRIE

At Pohlman’s Prairie, Little Maquoketa River Valley, Iowa

Only about a mile away from our home is a 23 acre site of ‘goat prairie’, a remnant and variant of tall grass prairie, mostly found in the Upper Mississippi Valley on south-southwest slopes. It is a preserve here on top of the limestone bluffs in our valley of the Little Maquoketa River, just north of Dubuque, Iowa. Only a few more miles down, the Little Maquoketa meets the mighty Mississippi.

Last week Joan celebrated her birthday and due to the circumstances we all know about, we didn’t go out for a fancy dinner but made a short hike up the slope to ‘Pohlman’s Prairie’. Too early for wildflowers on the goat prairie but the view across the valley compensates for the efforts to make this little hike. The small patch of dry grass prairie is surrounded by Eastern Red Cedars. Actually an invasive tree, but nevertheless very pretty and its berries are a great source of food during fall and winter for several species of birds.

I always loved this spot on top of the bluffs and have photographed it many times before. With nothing but overcast, I thought a black and white photo would tell the story about this day at the end of winter the best. The dark cedars in the foreground frame the river and bridge. It doesn’t matter that there are no leaves out yet, the trees on the other side of the valley are out of focus but give a sense of place. Not a photo for the next local touristic brochure but I have enjoyed making it and it pleases my sense for landscape photography.

MISSISSIPPI RIVER STORIES 2020 #1 - A FAVORITE VIEW

Bridge across the Mississippi, Lansing, Iowa

It feels good to do some normal things in these days of uncertainty. Means wrapping my thoughts around photography and writing a new blog post.

This photo was taken last Sunday. Joan and I made a trip along the river to the wetlands up in New Albin, Iowa’s most northeastern town at the border to Minnesota. Before you get there you have this beautiful view of the bridge that crosses the Mississippi in Lansing. It is one of my favorite views here in the Mississippi Valley. This time I used the upper balcony of the Driftless Area Nature and Education Center in Lansing. The slightly higher elevation allows to keep the road in the foreground out of the frame without zooming to much into the scene. I hope you enjoy.

BRIDAL FALLS

Bridal Falls, Pikes Peak State Park , Iowa

I’m picking up where I left almost a week ago. Being on the road for another business trip prevented any contribution to this blog from a photographic standpoint. Not that I wouldn’t take the camera with me, but light and schedule haven’t been in my favor.

Last Sunday, Joan, dog Cooper, and I took a hike in Pikes Peak State Park, Iowa, which led to Bridal Falls (Deutsch: Brautfall). With the sun behind the ridge and waterfall, not much could be gained from the light on this side of the slope (facing east). 

I have seen this waterfall before and at that time it was nothing but a trickle. With things in place, I guess the photo that tells a powerful story about winter in Iowa was within the range ….

AT THE CONFLUENCE

The Wisconsin River meets the mighty Mississippi. Pikes Peak State Park, Iowa

One of the best places here in eastern Iowa to have a great view over the driftless area, the landscape that wasn’t shaped by the glaciers, is Pike Peaks State Park. Here, just above the confluence of the Mississippi River and the Wisconsin River you get the idea what a gem the area is we live in. When we have visitors from Germany, we always try to make Pikes Peak State Park part of the program (Hallo Claudia, Susanne & Andre St. 😊). I have shot here several times before over the years but never managed to tell the story of this great vista with just one photo.

This Sunday was a gorgeous warm winter day. Joan and I took our little dog Cooper for a ride and a short hike in the woods of the state park. The blue sky didn’t make for a lot of drama, but with the low sun behind us it was ideal for a panorama photo. I turned to a six-shot pano, trying to bring this great view all together in just one image. No tripod, just hand-hold upright clicks, with about 20-30% overlap and then simply assembly in Adobe Lightroom, using its panorama function. The result is a photo with almost 17,000 pixel on the long side, which would allow to print it 1.5 - 2 m wide without loss of detail. The small version of the picture here in the blog doesn’t do it much justice, but if you click on the photo and use the full real estate of your computer screen, you may get why I’m happy about the outcome of this probably 150 degree view.

TONTO NATURAL BRIDGE

Tonto Natural Bridge, Arizona

There is one photo I still like to show you from my trip to Arizona three weeks ago. Not because it is overly pretty, but it took a few extra thoughts and efforts in the making. On my way back from Petrified Forest National Park to the airport in Phoenix I took a little side trip and visited Tonto Natural Bridge State Park. The bridge is located a few miles north of Payson in the mountains of Central Arizona. It is believed to be the largest natural travertine bridge in the world.

With very limited time on hand (never a good thing) and being there around 2PM, with the sun high in the sky, made me wonder if there was even a decent photo opportunity as I was driving down into the deep valley to the state park area. Another bummer, the access to the observation deck below the bridge was closed due to some high water damage. I had to make the best out of the circumstances at this visit for getting a photo but at least I wanted to see it.

The only way to manage the very high contrast scene was to bracket each image with five handheld shots (-2,-1,0,1,2EV). I’m really not a big fan of HDR but it is amazing how the technology inside of Adobe’s software has improved during the last years. Within a minute the five shots were lined up and merged into a DNG file in Lightroom. It still took some dodging and burning to balance the exposure locally.

I wanted a picture that made it clear that this was a natural bridge, with a little light from the other side, and showing some of the travertine structures. The cactus in the foreground and the pines, or their shadows in the canyon, give a better idea about this place. First I was tempted to remove the safety reeling on top of the bridge but than I realized that it gives this geologic wonder a sense of scale.

PAINTED DESERT (7)

Painted Desert, Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona

Thank you to everybody who came out last night, despite the freezing cold, to see my presentation in the EB Lyon Center. It was a nice audience who had great questions at the end and I had good conversations with some people afterwards.

Here is another photo from my recent trip to Arizona. Desert landscapes have always fascinated me and arranging the elements with the play of the light can be a challenge but is also simple fun. Have a great weekend!

10 YEARS

Petrified Forest National Park is only a small part of the Painted Desert. From here goes the view over the seemingly endless badlands of the desert. (If you view this photo on a computer, click on the image for a wider view.)

This week marks the 10th anniversary of my blog. February 5th, 2010 I posted a photo from Cerro Gordo, an old miners ghost town in the Inyo Mountains, California. Much has happened since but the blog was always about “Nature and Photography”. I wanted to tell the stories behind some of the photos and by writing about it, also improve my English language skills. As I evolved as a nature photographer over the years my focus shifted more and more towards the goal of creating awareness about the nature, animals, and landscapes that surround us. I still believe a storytelling photo or blog post can help to create attention for conservation and protection needs of our natural heritage. And yes, it is still fun to use a camera and try to make a good image, even if the attention span for a photo in social media seems to drop a little more every year.

Well, today I tried something new. This is a photo from my recent trip to Arizona. The panorama is stitched together from 6 handheld photos in portrait orientation. A few years ago this would have been a tedious task in Photoshop and without using a tripod, good results were not necessarily guaranteed. Using Adobe Lightroom Classic these days makes the process of merging the photos a breeze. It took less than a minute until the panorama was on the screen, ready to be finished to my taste. Almost 15,500 pixels on the long side will allow to print this image 60” (~1.5 m) wide without any loss of detail.

I like to thank all friends and readers of my blog for the time they spend here. Your encouragement and support keeps me going.

PAINTED DESERT (5)

On the Blue Mesa, Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona

When you visit a landscape and your time is limited, you have to make the best out of it if you like to come home with some decent photos. In Petrified Forest National Park I had clouds only for a short period of time and tried to incorporate them in my images. In addition they helped a little bit to mute the sun and lower the contrast, although in January the sun is still not really high. Without a polarizing filter the glare on the rocks and sand would overpower everything. Shooting at 16 mm focal length the use of a polarizer is a little tricky. It is easy to produce a totally uneven blue in the sky that is difficult to fix in post process, but without a polarizer… well, the glare just takes over. 😉

PAINTED DESERT (4) - ROUTE 66

Petrified Forest National Park is crossed by three other traffic pathways beside the park road. The major ones are Interstate 40 and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway. Not so visible anymore is the historic Route 66. A line of telephone poles parallels the alignment of the former road through the park. This part of Route 66 was open from 1926 until 1958. The remains of this 1932 Studebaker sits where the famous highway once cut through the National Park and is probably one of the most photographed sites.

Probably many of those old Studebakers have used Route 66 in the heydays of this road. Today a photo helps us to imagine it…

When I took the picture of the telephone poles in the afternoon, the nice clouds from the morning were gone and with them all dynamic in the sky.

PAINTED DESERT (2)

Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona

The two photographers from the Netherlands in the picture below and I entered the National Park right after it opened its gates for the public at 8AM. This is of course too late for sunrise all year long. The park closes at 5PM, too early for the “killer light” we all like to use for our photos. It is understandable that the resources of the park, like the petrified wood, need to be protected but it is a little bit of a bummer for any landscape photographer.

Here is a quote from one of the signs at one of the overlooks: As you look over the Painted Desert, you see only a small portion of it. The Painted Desert extends over 7500 square miles (19425 km^2) across northeastern Arizona. Because Petrified Forest National Park lies at its heart, the entire park contains the colorful rocks of the Painted Desert. These particular mudstone and sandstone rocks are called the Chinle Formation and were deposited from 227 to 205 million years ago during the late Triassic Period. During that time the supercontinent Pangaea broke apart, eventually forming our present continents. Over the next 180 million years, the rocks of the Chinle formation were deeply buried, uplifted, and eroded into the badland topography you see today. Approximately 20 million years of late Triassic rock and fossil history are recorded in this geologic kaleidoscope.

With almost two days on hand I wanted to explore and capture the essence of this landscape. Petrified wood is scattered at many places and revealing its beauty was part of my plan. More to come…

Out there as early as possible .

All images: Nikon D750, Nikkor 70-200mm / f4

PAINTED DESERT (1)

Colorful geology at the Blue Mesa, Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona

After a busy week in and around Phoenix I spend this weekend in the Painted Desert, and in particular in Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona. It is a wonderful place to see the fossil record from the Late Triassic Period, 225 million years ago. Trunks of petrified wood are the most obvious remnants of this former tropical landscape. The National Park covers about 230 square miles (~600 km2).

Unfortunately for every camera owner, who likes to take advantage of the light around dawn and dusk, the park doesn’t open before 8AM and closes already at 5PM. I tried to make the best out of it and like to share a few photos over the next weeks with you. So, please stay tuned…