Brick and Glass

During my recent weekend trip to Kansas City, my family and I visited the Plaza, an upscale shopping area, with very ornate, unique architecture from an earlier time. The primary focus of this trip was not photography, but I managed the few occasional shots. Since the weather was primarily overcast, and the architecture was fairly old, I felt that shooting for later conversion to black and white would be the most effective.

While shooting this photograph, I was filled with questions. How long have these buildings been here? What influenced their design? Unlike today's designs, even the windows on the top and back of this building were designed with a purpose. What was that purpose?

In this composition I focused on the tonalities of the bricks and shingles as well as capturing the ornate glass windows. From the era in which this was built even the back and top of the building had artistic qualities and it is in this image that I attempt to capture some of these qualities.

Technical Details:
Canon 5d, 70-200 f/4l lens @ , f/10, 1/250 sec.
The Plaza, Kansas City, Missouri

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Double Trouble

During the 50th anniversary celebration at DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge, I had the opportunity to dine with the manager of Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge in Northwestern Missouri. It is a place I have passed perhaps 40 times and never stopped on trips to Kansas City from Omaha. I knew that I would be making the trip again in just a couple of weeks and I decided that I should stop this time, and ended up stopping on both directions of the journey.

During my time on the refuge I saw multiple types of ducks, a bald eagle, a small army of muskrats, Sandhill Cranes, and these Double-Crested Cormoran. Now, I do not normally go out of my way to photograph birds. Yes, I like birds, as I like all things nature, and yes, I like to photograph them, but my general photography setup is currently not such that allows for good bird photography.

What I mean by this, is that besides the general deep-seated desire to photograph, and the will to execute, you need some pretty powerful equipment. Now, I have a 300 f/4l lens, which has been excellent, excellent, excellent for me for larger animals such as bears, elk, deer, etc., but when it comes down to birds, not so great. With that 300 f/4l lens, I can add (and usually do) a 1.4x canon teleconverter (or extender) which makes it a pretty darn good 420 f/5.6 lens. This still, is not enough. In order to get the shot above, I coupled a tamron 2x extender to the 300 + 1.4 combination to get 840 f/11. Add that to my Canon 20d to get the extra 1.6 crop factor and you now have 1344mm of reach. Not to stop there, I also had to crop the image to a little less than a 7 megapixel photo from an 8 megapixel sensor.

Ultimately, why wouldn't I do that everyday? At f/11. I've lost quite a bit of light and consequently I must use a significantly slower shutter speed. Since the Canon 20d does not autofocus with anything less than f/5.6, I must now rely on manually focusing. In my pentax k-1000 days, this was common for me, but as I reviewed the shots from the refuge, I realize that I am not that great at it anymore, and I definitely think that my diopter setting is off. Additionally, and most importantly all this glass ends up degrading the sharpness and contrast of the image.

So why bother at all? Simple, for me it's better to attempt the shot and perhaps get a single good one, than to try at all. I think that my shot above is acceptable, not award-winning, but I believe it to still be a fairly decent shot.

As for the refuge, I thoroughly enjoyed my 2 stops at Squaw Creek and I hope to return again soon. The wildlife, though at the tail end of the spring migration, was outstanding and fun to photograph. I can only imagine how it would be during the height of one of the migrations.

Technical Details:
Canon 20d, 300 f/4l +1.4tc + 2.0tc, 1/640 sec.
Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge

To view other photographs, order this photograph as a print, or purchase licensing rights, please visit my website at http://www.journeyoflight.com/.

Dreamy Leaf

Today at the arboretum, I continued to explore the textures on the logs and trees. I found this fallen leaf that still had some pigment and I liked how the leaf contrasted with the design on this recently wet log. Since the day was very overcast I have very little light and no tripod so I had to use a shallow depth of field. When I reviewed the image I liked the dreamy effect that was created. I increased this feel by utilizing the Orton technique.

Technical Details:
Canon 5d, 50 CM lens, f/7.1, 1/100 sec.
OPPD Arboretum

To view other photographs, order this photograph as a print, or purchase licensing rights, please visit my website at http://www.journeyoflight.com/.

Pine Cone Designs

For today's image I went to the arboretum and worked on extremely up close shots of pine cones. I particularly worked on keeping a small depth of field which creates a very small area of focus. I wanted to create a little more of an abstract feel to this pine cone. This is a good example of how small the depth of field is in macro work. This particular photograph was taken with an aperature of f/5, which is fairly shallow, but is extremely shallow here, leaving only the very tips of the pine cone closest to the camera in focus.

Technical Details:
Canon 5d, 50 CM lens + extension tube, f/5, 1/160 sec.
OPPD Arboretum

To view other photographs, order this photograph as a print, or purchase licensing rights, please visit my website at http://www.journeyoflight.com/.

Snail Spiral

Today I took a short walk through Platte River State Park in eastern Nebraska. It was fairly overcast and still a bit muddy, but there were bits of green appearing so it was a good day to focus on macro. After walking for a bit, I entered a small clearing of trees that I explored carefully looking for interesting items. I came across a snail shell whose owner had vacated and I spent the next hour focused on working on this shot.

I composed this shot using the golden ratio which is similar to the rule of thirds. If you are not familar with composition, the rule of thirds states that the primary subject should be placed at a third horizontally and vertically in the frame for maximum effectiveness. The rule of thirds is actually a simplified version of the golden ratio which is 1:1.618. This means that items of importance should be placed at .388 or a little more than a third from each side vertically and horizontally.

Additionally, this photograph follows the golden spiral which encourages the eye to spiral into the most important subject, here it follows the spiral pattern of the shell. This is one of the most blatant examples of the golden spiral I have ever taken, simply because the shell itself is a spiral pattern.

The golden ratio and the golden spiral can be found throughout nature and the more one is aware of this, the most impact your photographs generally have. Of course, like everything these are simply guidelines, which like everything creative, should be broken. I find I follow these rules, but also break them quite often. For more information about both of these compositional guidelines visit: Golden Section and Photography.

Technical Details:
Canon 5d, 50 CM + extension tube, f/10, .4 sec
Platte River State Park, Nebraska

To view other photographs, order this photograph as a print, or purchase licensing rights, please visit my website at http://www.journeyoflight.com/.

Intrinsic Patterns

After a short spell, I finally made it back to the arboretum. The very first hints of spring are just arriving in Omaha and little bits of green are appearing, albeit among some remnants of snow and dead leaves. I took a walk through the mostly wooded portion of the park, stopping to look at some of the interesting patterns on the trees and within the leaves. I have walked by a particular dead log countless times, but for some reason it has never caused me to pause for more than a few seconds. Today was different. As the sun ducked in and out of the clouds, patterns emerged on this log and coupled with the intrinsic lines created a scene I felt compelled to record.

Technical Details:

Canon 5d, 50 CM, f/32, 1/125 sec.
OPPD Arboretum

To view other photographs, order this photograph as a print, or purchase licensing rights, please visit my website at http://www.journeyoflight.com/.

From the Archives: Radiant Omaha

A combination of being ill with having the pre-spring muddy mess outside contributed to another review of the archives. As spring is just around the corner I went through the old season shots to see what I should be getting ready to shoot. I almost skipped over this old downtown Omaha file taken from the Gene Leahy Mall from 2006, but decided to give it another view. I had processed a vertical of this same shot about a year and a half ago and it didn't give the scene the sense of grandjuer I had witnessed. A new Photoshop version later and more experience with the tools allowed me to process this image more like the actual scene I witnessed. Yes, the godbeams and clouds were actually brilliantly like this, it was a very calm nice spring stroll through downtown. I only used a polarizer, I didn't even carry my tripod with me. Goes to show what you can capture when you make sure to have your camera with you.

Technical Details:

Canon 20d, 10-22 ef-s lens @11mm, f/11, 1/200 sec., Polarizer
Downtown Omaha (June, 2006)

To view other photographs, order this photograph as a print, or purchase licensing rights, please visit my website at http://www.journeyoflight.com/.

From the Archives: An Eastern Nebraska Field

For today's image I dug deep into the archive, way back to May of 2006 and found this image. On this day in May my wife Holly and I had been on a driving excursion looking for hay bales to photograph. We didn't find any, but we found this field and I stopped and snapped a few images. I have never processed this image previously since it did not have the dramatic landscape light that I prefer. While going back through my old images again, however, I stopped on this image due to the contrasts between the yellow of the field and the cyan in the sky. Further exploration fo this image led me to the barn and the trees in the background of the image. I consider this to be a stereotypical Nebraska image, which I sometimes try to avoid, but it is still a serene view. Incidently, this was taken the same evening as one of my most popular photographs, "A Country Road".

Technical Details:

Canon 20d, 10-22 ef-s @ 22mm, f/10, 1/60 sec., May 2006
Eastern Nebraska near Greenwood (I think)

To view other photographs, order this photograph as a print, or purchase licensing rights, please visit my website at http://www.journeyoflight.com/.

A Frozen World

After nearly a week of being closed, the arboretum opened and I took the opportunity to take a look around. It had been a fairly nice weekend with Saturday close to 60 degrees. The first part of Sunday was also nice, but then the temperature dove below freezing. This gave me another opportunity to look for ice that had thawed and refrozen which can create for some interesting natural patterns. For the most part, however, the ice and snow were scare and there was only a mucky muddy residue left. I did manage to find some nice rock patterns that continued below the ice in a small pond. In this image I particularly liked how the edge of the ice went around some of the rocks that poked above the surface.

Technical Details:

Canon 5d, 50 CM, f/9, 1/125 sec.
OPPD Arboretum

To view other photographs, order this photograph as a print, or purchase licensing rights, please visit my website at http://www.journeyoflight.com/.

From the Archives: Reaching Out

Of the many great things about digital photography, one of the best is quick review. Quick review when you take the photo to make sure it looks right, quick review when you download your photos, and quick review when you want to go back and look for images. Occasionally, I go back and review photographs from the past. Sometimes, I learn a new technique in Photoshop that I want to try, other times I need a specific type of image, and then again sometimes I'm just in a mood to see what I can do with old photos. Today's image fell into the last category. I have probably passed up this image 20 times in my reviews before I decided to process it finally. The hint of green among the interesting patterns of rocks caught my eye and I wanted to explore this image further. This is the end result. This is also the first non-midwest photograph entry into my blog.

Technical Details:

Canon 5d, 300 f/4l + 1.4 tc, f/11, 1/5 sec.
Alberta, Canada (June, 2007)

To view other photographs, order this photograph as a print, or purchase licensing rights, please visit my website at http://www.journeyoflight.com/.