The Big, Bad, Wolf..... Not!

Nikon D90
18-200mm lens at 95mm
Aperture f/5.6
Shutter 1/400 sec.
ISO-640
Natural Lighting
Shutter Priority

Happy Halloween everybody!! I hope everybody had a fun and safe day today with whatever you did. I actually was a very bad mom and totally missed the whole trick-or-treating thing which was yesterday, instead of today. Ooops, hopefully my son will forgive me. Instead we went to a Harvest Fest where he got all sorts of free candy and had fun playing games.

I debated whether or not to post something more Halloweeny but decided that these beautiful creatures were more interesting and deserving of a post. I had the great pleasure of being able to go to Battle Ground Indiana this past week and was able to get up close and personal at Wolf Park to four pure timber wolves. For me it was a dream come true! I have always, always loved wolves. I used to collect wolf stuff, everywhere I went. I could have had a whole room dedicated to them at one point and to this day, I still every year get a wolf calendar to hang up somewhere in my house. This is a research facility that studies wolf behaviors and does wildlife photography seminars as one way to fund their research. You can also Adopt A Wolf to help them out.

I was able to spend several hours in the enclosure with these guys and one gal and took tons and tons of pictures. In this shot the wolf was jumping, apparently this is something this wolf (Wolfgang) loves to do. I just thought it was great to watch and I tried to get a picture of him at the very top of his leap where he pauses for a second. My connection to Scott's photo is the colored leaves in the background. I could have also done a reflection shot, but I liked this one better. It shows a little more character, and these guys did have some character. Wolfgang happens to be the alpha male of the pack so you had to be a little cautious around him. He did great until they allowed the alpha pack female back in and then he became a bit less relaxed and had to show everybody else in the pack who was the boss. Fascinating to watch and beautiful animals to photograph.

I have more photos of the wolves on flickr if you are interested in seeing them. I could have posted tons more then I did, haha, and driven everybody crazy.

Nikon D90
18-200mm lens at 150mm
Aperture F/7.1
Shutter 1/1000
ISO-640
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Also please remember that we have extended our Wordless Wednesday for this week until tomorrow (Monday), please go here and make a guess. It's fun and painless, I promise!

Getting Back to my Roots

Canon 30D
Canon EF 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6
Focal Length 34mm
Shutter Speed 1/20, 1/50, and 1/125
Aperture f/4.5
ISO 125

Friday was a very long day. I had several meetings set-up for potential clients spread across three counties. What's more I wasn't bright enough to plan my visits in a logical manner. As such, I was in Chicago Heights for my last meeting, practically looking at Indiana right around the time rush hour starts...on a Friday evening. It wasn't looking good for a pleasant trip home. The good news is that my route could conceivably take me by the Morton Arboretum! Now we're talking! So off I went in search of some peace after a hectic day of mostly driving. This boy needed to stretch his legs. His dogs were barking!

Those of you unfamiliar with the Morton Arboretum only need to know one thing: stop what ever you're doing and go there now. I mean it. Go now. It's just a stunning place, both for it's simplicity and it's humble grandeur. Every time I go I reconnect with Ma Earth and that is something I cherish. There are four things in life I always consistently return to: music, photography, reading, and just being outdoors. This place feeds my soul.

Knowing I might be able to swing by I packed my camera and a full 10GB of memory knowing how pissed off I'd be if I ran out. I arrived just in time to enjoy that delicious late afternoon sunshine. I literally snapped 630 pics as I wandered the conifer walk, circled Lake Marmo on the West side, and stumbled upon Schulenberg Prairie, a new find for me. I just cannot put into words how this kind of place affects me. It's why photography is such an important and vital art form and why I'm so in love with it. Words just can't do what a good photograph can.

This photo was taken on the banks of Lake Mormo. The tree is a Freeman Maple, which is a crossbreed of Silver and Red Maple. The roots are just fantastic and the way the branches fall over the water just captivated me. I took 3 exposures with HDR editing in mind. The tricky part is that my tripod is kaput forcing me to do my best at holding very still whilst my camera gets three exposures. It helps tremendously that the light was sufficient. If the day were cloudy I probably would have been out of luck.

So why did I think HDR with this shot? Couldn't I have gotten a good shot without fancy software? The answer to that question is yes, I could have gotten a good shot without HDR. I've posted an edited shot here that is a single exposure. The facts of this setting are the dark shadows potentially clipping the details in the roots and the bright highlights of the reflected water potentially clipping the highlight details. The range from darkest to lightest is just extremely wide. And that's exactly what happened in the single exposure - clipped shadows and highlights (I'll admit, I edited a little extreme to emphasize the point). So why shoot with an eye towards HDR? It's just a better representation of what I'm seeing at that moment. And that is a key point.

There are some that rail against HDR photography, stating it looks fake or dreamlike. And indeed it can look fake and dreamlike. Some even prefer it that way. I would venture to state is can actually make a photo (particularly a landscape) more realistic. That is to say more like what the photographer is seeing when the shot(s) is taken. This is what I'm after and I'm fairly satisfied with the results on this one. Make no mistake, I struggle with making these shots look real. Ask Brandi. She's functioned as foil to my recklessness (Thanks B! I need it!). But I continue to learn when to push it and when to back off the "fixes." In the end, all I want is a photo that conveys the emotion of the scene. This shot does that for me.

My connection to Brandi's adorable faces are the ringlets of hair framing the little one's face. These roots remind me of those ringlets. And I was struck by the symmetry exhibited as the root comes up to kiss the reflection, similar to the girls leaning into each other.

I've posted several other HDR shots on our Flickr page. Check them out and leave a comment. I'd love to hear what you all think. In the meantime, your assignment is to go to the Morton Arboretum ASAP. If you need company, I'll be there.

Scott

Everyone Meet Kristine

We've got our latest Wordless Wednesday winner Kristine joining us. Kristine was the randomly selected winner from Scott's post.

A little about Kristine in her words...
About me
I am married with no children but two cats that we love. Currently living in West Michigan but born and raised in Crystal Lake, Illinois. I have always liked taking pictures but my true passion lies in music. I love to sing and it has given me the chance to go so many places.

A little about the photo in her words...
This is a picture of one of my 6 nieces. This season lends itself to running and jumping into large piles of leaves and Abbie loved it so.
We were thankful that the rain held off so we could have a little fun outside.


And now beautiful Abbie...

Nikon D90
18-105mm VR kit lens
ISO-200
Aperture f/5.6
Shutter 1/125
sb-600 flash

Thank you so much for joining us Kristine! We loved having you and little Abbie is such a gorgeous face to have grace our little blog.
Please come back anytime!

Wordless Wednesday with Sere

Rules:


The poster must post only one(1) photo with settings. No additional verbiage (other then the rules) is allowed.

Commenters (that's you) must comment and guess how the photo associates with the previous(Tuesday's) photo. The winning guess gets to be our guest photographer on Sunday.

No previous photography experience required. In fact, wanna-be's like us, are encouraged. The only criteria; you must be able to take a photo (any camera will do), email said photo, allow 3C1D to publish said photo and follow the rules...

1 guess only per person. All rules stricly enforced with a paddle (Brandi style)!

Ready Set Go!!!!!

Nikon D90
Lens 18-200mm at 105mm
Aperture F7.1
Shutter 1/1600 sec.
ISO-200
Natural Lighting

See like this

Nikon d40 kit lens @46mm
ISO 200
f5.3
1/640sec
manual focus
natural light

So when Scott posted his photo yesterday I commented that I wanted to see the leaf against the bright blue sky. Here is a different leaf against a different sky at a different time of day but I wanted to see how it would look. In a picture perfect (read cash flush) world I too would have a macro lens and this photo would look remarkably different. Such is life.
Typically I shoot full manual with auto focus. Taking Scott's advice I flipped my camera to the macro setting and snapped off a few. As is typical for my camera it just didn't give me what I wanted. I find I have to 'force' my camera into submission and make it do what I want on a regular basis. I'm just working on understanding all the settings on my camera so I can quickly pin my camera and win the match, making my first shot the best shot. That doesn't come without practice, lots and lots of practice (this makes me happier than I can express).
So for me, for right now, I'm going to keep shooting in manual until I win the war I have silently declared on my camera. This is the lifestyle I have chosen, but as my very best friend is always saying
"my advice only works for me, do what is best for you."
Just keep shooting.

Nature's Building Blocks

Canon 30D
Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 macro
Shutter Speed 1/8
Aperture f/18.0
ISO 100
Aperture Priority
Natural Light

Dan's photo was great (so was Amanda's for that matter)! And I'm so thrilled we have you friends to share this adventure. Having said that, Dan, you really put the heat on for me. I have to confess, I haven't done a lot of urban photography. I spent some time in Chicago several years ago to get some shots of the city but it is much harder to do successfully than I realized. Add to that the fact I live in Puddle in the Woods (translation: Lake in the Hills) and you've got a recipe for a stymied photographer!

*Side note, don't you love language? I just used the work 'stymied' and I gotta say, that was fun!

Moving on, I noticed immediately the deep reds and browns of the brick and the cement forming a lattice of what could almost be veins. I thought about this a lot and almost stuck a flashlight in my mouth to get a "glow worm" view of my cheeks. You would have seen some veins and all. I thought better of it and decided a really close view of a fall leaf might accomplish something similar.

For this shot, I taped about a dozen leaves to my sliding glass door with a nice afternoon sun setting behind the leaves. It spelled a fantastic golden back light that really brought out the colors. From there I decided I better use a very small aperture to ensure sharpness across the entire leaf. This of course meant a slow shutter speed and more tripod work. I used my remote shutter to further increase my odds of a sharp photo.

The best part about this shot is anyone can do it, as long as you have a tripod (or something else to brace the camera) and a window with good light. Many point and shoot cameras have a macro mode. Use it! It's really cool examining these leaves up close. I took about 65 shots and I could have posted 10-12.

So get out, collect some leaves, and see what you can do.

Scott

Fall is Coming....

I wanted to get everybody into the fall colors mode with this picture. I love being in the midwest during the fall season, the colors are always so absolutely gorgeous! I know the east is supposed to have the "best" fall colors but I think I would have to argue with that :0).

Nikon D90
Lens 18-200mm at 48mm
Aperture f7.1
Shutter Speed 1/125 sec.
ISO 200
Natural Lighting

This was taken at Copper Falls State Park outside of Mellen, Wisconsin up near Lake Superior. The whole area is gorgeous with tons of waterfalls and rivers to peruse. The colors were at their prime while we were there and I have several other fall color shots taken from the area but this one ties in well with Scott's water shot from yesterday. Where he was HOT, we were on the COLD side although this day was gorgeous.

I was trying to figure out how to get the waterfall which was in shadows, along with the bright blue sky. As you can see I ended up blowing out the beautiful blue sky in order to get the water.

I hope this gets you all revved up for fall color. It does for me, so get those cameras out and start shooting!!! I can't wait to see what Jay'me comes up with for Friday Faces tomorrow. Enjoy!