Field of Trees

This past weekend I delivered 38 of my framed prints to DeSoto National Wildilfe Refuge to be on display from April 12-June 7. While there I took the opportunity to drive around the refuge and to hike a little. The patterns in this particular grove of trees has always interested me and I took some time to stop and photograph them. After processing this photograph I used the nik "Monday Morning" filter to give it a more surreal appearance.

Technical Details:
Canon 5d, 17-40 f/4l @ 17mm, f/9, 1/100 sec.
DeSoto National Wildilfe Refuge

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

The Dark Road

Today's image was taken at Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge. There was a section of the road that passed through a tunnel of trees and it was a very foreboding type passage. I used a smaller depth of field in order to intentionally blur the foreground to force one's eye down the road. To accentuate the uneasy feeling, I converted the image to black and white, tinted it with a little red, green, and yellow, and then I used the nik "Midnight" filter. This creates an even more ominous environment.

The original photograph:

Technical Details:
Canon 5d, 70-200 f/4l @ 200, f/5, 1/1250 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/.

A Touch of the Old World

This is an image of the Giralda Tower near the Cheesecake Factory in The Plaza in Kansas City. It is a 138 foot replica of a tower that is in Seville, Spain. Since this tower was built in the 1920's and had an old world feel, I converted this image to black and white and then gave it a bit of a brown tint. I also used OnOne's PhotoFrame program to frame the image with an old film type emulsion frame.

This is the original black and white converted image:

Technical Details:
Canon 5d, 70-200 f/4l @ 73mm, f/10, 1/1250 sec.
The Plaza, Kansas City, Missouri

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

Forboding Faces

While going through my photographs from the Plaza, I came across an image of a fountain from that area. It was essentially a black and white image, but I decided to do something a little different. I tinted the image slightly green and used the "Poster Edges" Photoshop filter (under artistic) to give it a forboding comic book feel. The before an after conversion:

Some trivia: Besides Rome, Kansas City has the most fountains of any city.

Technical Details:
Canon 5d, 70-200 f/4l lens @ 145mm, f/10, 1/800 sec.
The Plaza, Kansas City, Missouri

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

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

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

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/.