Fall is just ahead

 

 

Jean Klock Park

Benton Harbor, Michigan

Autumn to me means the color of the trees and the cool of the mornings. It means the hot summer is finally over and things can slow down again.

It's my favorite time time of year and I look forward to it all summer long. But even when the leaves haven't changed yet there's the taste of Fall in other places if you look for it.

 

The trees have started their little tease of color and I went out this morning to see if they had changed enough to make a difference, but they hadn't. I thought about giving up and going back to bed, but instead went ahead to the beach to see if anything there caught my eye.

The dune grass had changed color just enough and with the help of the morning sun coming over the dunes it made this image into something different.

 

But you still can't beat a good old maple tree in full color. Come on Autumn.

 

 

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Anatomy of an Image

Everyone has a camera. Everyone thinks they can take a picture. It's not easy, folks. The more I try, the harder it gets. This is what it took for this one.

Point Betsie Lighthouse



1. Run home from work, load the camera that cost half of what I paid for my first house, a change of clothes, and a tent into the truck. 
2. Drive three and a half hours only to watch the sun set off to your left when you're still 30 minutes away.
3. Hurry down to the beach and see there's not much time left to shoot before all of the light goes away, only to have someone with a camera they just bought come up to you for help and stop you from getting that last little glimmer of light and hope for the night.
4. Go off into the dark trying to find a place to set up your tent only to get lost and settle for a county park to stay in and the front seat of your truck as your bed for the night.
5. Wake up to the county Sheriff telling you that you have to leave and the nearest tent campground is about 30 minutes away.
6. Get to that campground finally about midnight, set up the tent, and then grab everything again at six in the morning so you can make it back by sunrise.
7. Pray there's a little color and a few clouds in the morning sky so it doesn't look like a big grey nondescript blob of nothing.
8. Press the shutter and hold your breath for the fraction of a second this all leads up to.

That's what it took and this doesn't even count the things I left at home, the yard work left undone, the time not spent with Denise, the nap I missed. So the next time you think it's easy to take a picture, remember this...

I don't take pictures. I make images.


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The Lost Summer

It's been a long time since I put something here and I'm going to blame it on the summer.

 

 

Summers aren't what they used to be when we were kids. Not as long and not as much fun. Not something to wish for and to wait for. This summer was a summer with a case of too much and too many.

 

Too hot, too much work, too many schools, too many bids, too many ambulatory deficiencies at home.

 

It was a lost summer of sorts, but now it's over.

 

Now it's time to get back to my photography. That's what the fall is for. More time and more color.

 

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A Sign as a Reminder

I like signs. Old signs. Neon signs. Oddly worded signs. Anything with character.

I first saw this one while going through the small town of Lake City, Michigan heading up to the Upper Peninsula one autumn about four years ago, but I didn't stop.

I thought about it as one of those simple little missed chances. Something I should have stopped for, but didn't take the time to do so. I know it's silly, but that's been bothering me for those four years.

I got a chance this weekend to go back to that spot while we visiting our daughter who's spending the summer working near there. I almost didn't go out Saturday night to take this picture, but I'm glad I did. Not because it's a great picture, but because it's my new reminder.

I've got to learn that if you see something interesting, stop what you're doing and take your time. More often than not, we won't get another chance at things in life.

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Just Shoot the Light



Lions Park Beach

St. Joseph, Michigan

This image is from earlier this week when  one evening it looked like the  skies were going to light up at sunset like they sometimes do over the lake and turn the sky into a brightly colored backdrop for this scene I had been thinking about.

I talked Denise into riding with me to the spot I had seen earlier to see if things would work out like I had envisioned.

But not tonight. The clouds were there, and the colors started to come around for a while, but then  they faded away.

So I remembered a little lesson from a recent workshop where the instructor told us to not go into a location with a locked in thought of what to shoot. That way if things don't work out, like they didn't that night, you still could maybe make things work.

In his words "shoot the light".

That simplifies things. It gives you options and doesn't lock you into one thought. Change an angle, change a viewpoint, change thoughts from a brightly colored scene to a moody monotone.

That's not a bad way to look at things. Just take what life gives you and make the best of it.

Don't over think it.

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A wise writer told me...

Grand Mere Sunset

Grand Mere State Park

I just read something by a writer who said she needs to write, maybe not just for others to read her work, but just to write for herself. She writes to just soothe the need to create.

That's what I feel like with my pictures. I take them for me and then if others see them and like them, it's even better. Sure it's nice to have others say they like them, but if I start shooting for just that, I'll see things going down a path I won't like.

Write what you want Denise, and I'll shoot what I want. Creativity will take over and the other things will take care of themselves.

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New subject matter

I don't shoot people. I never have. It has never interested me. Sure the occasional family shot, but never for the sake of art.

But while on a recent landscape photo workshop, one of the others took a picture of an old man working a grinding mill and it was the best image I saw of that entire weekend. It made me start thinking that people could be interesting too.

I went to a location a couple of weeks ago that a club maintains to work on and run old steam driven locomotives, tractors, and equipment. These three were taken that day.

I like them. I think I may have found something new to shoot along with the canyons, rocks, and trees.

Summer day

Just a nice little image for a nice little summer day.

That's it. Nothing else.

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Just nice to look at

Elkmont Cascade

Great Smoky Mtn. Nat. Park

Not much to say about this one.

It's just hot outside today, and this one makes me cooler when I look at it.

Not every image has to have some big magical, mysterious meaning behind it or evoke some deep emotional response.

Sometimes just a little will be enough.

A Couple of Paths

Both of these are from the same night in a state park near where I live. Both are nice images, but not great. I'm tired of putting out nice ones. I want the great ones. 

People are very complimentary when they see my things and seem to like them, but I know there's better in me somewhere. I can blame the weather, or the location, or the____(fill in the blank) on not getting the great, but deep down I know it's me. A really good photographer seems to be able to pull things from nice to great just about any time they want to.

You can get lucky once in a while. I've been riding that train for a long time and now it's time to get off. Nothing would make me feel better about myself than taking the nice one and being able to make it the great one.

I need to decide. Lucky or great.  One takes a lot more work.


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Stay at Home

I live in a small town along the western shore of Lake Michigan and have for most of my life. One thing that's done is to make me blind to the scenery so near my home.

I fall into this trap of thinking there's nothing to take pictures of near home. I think I have to go somewhere else to find something to take a picture of and that leads to just sitting at home not shooting anything.

One of my recent pledges to myself is to do something every day. Get the camera out and just take a picture. I can't get better with the camera in the bag. 

My new theme....Stay at home and look around. People pay to come here. I get to live here.

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Patience

I found this old Coke sign on the side of a building while dropping off something for work about a month ago and have since gone out of my way about six times to stop there.

Every time I've stopped there's been a car parked in front of it, just off to the left side of this half of the sign. Not the same car, and only one car and there's nothing I can do about it.

But I'm not giving up. I'm going to use the Trillium Lesson and just keep on trying. One of these days there won't be any cars, the light will be just right, and I'll be ready.



The sign's been there since Coke cost just a nickel. It'll wait for me.

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The Trillium Lesson

One of the things I look forward to each spring is taking pictures of the trillium in the woods. Don't know why; I don't really like taking pictures of flowers; but it seems like this is just a passage of winter into spring for me.

I had pretty much given up on finding the trillium this year because of the strange spring weather we had. I looked for them whenever I drove past a stand of trees, but they were never there.

I didn't see any of them at all, that is not until yesterday.

First I saw a patch of white on the hillside along the road, turned around to make sure, and then stopped. The slopes were covered with them.

And here lies my little lesson to myself...

I gave up on them. I didn't look hard enough. I knew they came out about the first of May, but I didn't go looking for them.

Trouble with this image is the blooms are old. Not very old, maybe just a day or even less from their prime. They are wilted and gone for the year already. I could have maybe made something special out of this place if I had only saw it just that little bit earlier.

I can't make that special image sitting on the couch. I have to get out and work for it.

Green is Good

Tremont Road Bridge

Great Smoky Mtn. Nat. Park

All winter I was looking forward to the spring workshop I was going to in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Looking forward to the spring blossoms along the rivers and the wildflowers growing in the forests.

Then the early spring came.

Everything was early, the blossoms and flowers came and went before I got there. I didn't know what to expect, but something was there that made up for the missing ones.

Green.

Everything was green, and so many different shades of green that I found myself doing something I never do. I always find myself cranking up the saturation levels to get the look I like, but for the first time I can remember I had to slide the saturation levels to the left just to make the image believable.

Flowers and blossoms would have been special, but now I know green is good too.

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Little Things

While I was wondering around the Smokies last weekend I did something I don't do often enough.

I just took my time, looked around, sat on a rock once in a while, and took it all in.

Usually when I'm off taking pictures I seem like I'm rushing things. Can't wait to set the tripod up, click the shutter, take the picture, and go on to the next one.

I think my photos have been suffering from that. I've got to slow down. Slow down and look for the little things. Composition, lighting, all the details and the little things that make a picture an image.

Speaking of little things....the "big" mushroom in this image is only about 3/4 inch tall. Took my time, saw it on the side of a log, and had the best time of the weekend playing around with it.

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Elkmont

Elkmont Cottage

Great Smoky Mtn. Nat. Park

I just got back late last night from a workshop in the Smokies at the Tremont Institute there. One of the places we spent time in was called Elkmont. It has a campground, trails along the river, and a fascinating group of thirty or more old run down cottages hidden amongst the trees of the forest and lining the river banks.

No one in our group knew the story behind them and I even stopped a ranger (well actually he stopped and lectured me for being inside one of the cottages) and asked what the story was. Sadly, he didn't know the true story and seemed like he didn't want to know.

But I'm going to find out. Why the owners left; when they left; who they were. Someone has to know and have written a story of it somewhere.

The little cottages, in all colors and shapes just sit there right in the middle of this National Park just as the people left them when they moved on.

Like a modern day Mesa Verde.

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For Edward Abbey

I just finished reading a book by Edward Abbey called "Desert Solitaire". It's essentially based on his year of being a park ranger in what is now Arches National Park (really about a lot more than that, but that's enough for the sake of this blog). His first year of service as a ranger was in the late 1950's when the park wasn't even a national park yet and didn't even have a paved road into it.

This is an image of the area in Arches where he stayed in a small aluminum trailer and under a canvas roofed structure when it was too hot to stay inside. The image doesn't portray the size and scale of the area very well; it's almost impossible to do that. Just to put it into proportion, I've recently read that the "small" round top of Balanced Rock (off to the far right side of the image) weighs 7 million pounds!

Balanced Rock, Arches National Park

It's this size, the fact that you can see for what seems like forever, that keeps Denise and me coming back to this area. You can't do that in Michigan where we live. You don't get that same feeling. Sky like this doesn't happen at home.

Edward Abbey not only got to see it, he got to live in it. Read his book and you'll see how much he appreciated it.

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Time to Come Out

I think it might be coming to an end. It might be finally over. I can feel it.

Every Winter I go into a funk. Nothing else to call it. I blame it on the grayness of the skies and the shortness of the days because I don't have anything else to blame it on, but I'm not sure what brings it on. Denise tries to hide from me and I would too if I were her.

My photography suffers from it. I try to force myself to go out and shoot new pictures or to sit down and edit old ones, but I can't seem to get into the mood.

Something changed this week. The weather is better (it's been in the 60s and the sky's been blue) and I've decided to go to The Great Smoky Mountains National Park next month for a workshop.

Things to look forward to. Spring and a trip into the woods taking pictures.

Denise, you can come out now.

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Lessons in an Image



I look at this picture and for some reason I see a man at peace with himself. I don't know why, but he seems that way. Peace with the world around him and at ease. I don't know if that's true at all, but when I look at it, that's what I see.



Reading in Cerrillos, New Mexico



I admire him if he really is that way because most of the time I'm not. Not at ease with myself, and forever looking for the negatives around me. Looking for the bad and not the good.

Somehow I've got to do what Denise has been telling me for years.

Learn to see things more positive.



A job is a job

Dinosaur Tracks in the Stone

Northern Arizona

I complain about my work. It's a good job, and it's taken care of me and my family for many years, but it's not much fun right now.

I look at this picture and think about the owner of this roadside stall getting up each day hoping the sign advertising tracks in the stone bring the occasional tourist to his little table so he can maybe sell them a little necklace he put together.

Is his job better than mine, or are they both just ways to put food on the table? Is he happier than me with his work?

Something different for me



Through a Dirty Cafe Window

Gardiner, Montana

 Here's an image that's a little different for me. It's not my usual style or subject matter.

It was taken while sitting in a little cafe booth in Gardiner, Montana at the end of May last year. While it looks bright and green here, we were waiting for the snow to stop and the roads to be cleared in nearby Yellowstone National Park.

Just down the road less than a half-hour away, winter still had it's hold on the park, but the hope of spring was just starting to peek out.

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Someplace warm to think about



The Mittens at Monument Valley



It's been a real warm Winter so far, but they say we're going to get about a foot of snow tonight.

I just needed a warm, sunny place to go.

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A goal

One of my favorite hikes I've taken was to Iceberg Lake in Glacier National Park. It's a medium length day hike, about 6 miles if I remember right, that leads off into the wilderness along trails lined with beargrass and crossing streams along it's way.

Iceberg Lake

Glacier National Park

Sloan, my daughter, did this hike with me along with a couple of others on a trip there in 2008, and it will be one of the things I always will cherish when I think of her. Time we spent together.

 I've been thinking of that trip a lot this past week or so, and it's giving me an itch to get back there. I have a lot of good memories from there and want to see more places in the park, do some things I couldn't do before, and re-visit some of the old memories. You know of my history of "second chances" if you've been reading along. I think I would like another one of those at this place.

Not this year. I need to do some things to get ready for Glacier. Last year I set some goals for my phototography. This year I need to set some goals for myself. Glacier will just be the carrot at the end of the stick.

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An odd thing to think about




 
Here's the small town of Waterton in Alberta, Canada that's part of the twin national parks I mentioned in the last post. It's a simply beautiful little town in an amazing location, but there's only one thing I can think of when I look at this image.

We spent just a few hours in town doing a little shopping and then having dinner but then things went bad. Looking for something to do after the sun went down, we spent a long night watching a terrible movie.


The national park lodges that we stay in on some of our trips, as we did on this one, don't have televisions and I hate to admit it, but it's surprising what you'll do for entertainment when you've spent the last two weeks going "cold turkey" without it.

Thanks to "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", I'll forever have it in my head when I think of the little story-book town of Waterton.

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Remember when...

Prince of Wales Hotel

Waterton National Park

Alberta, Canada

I spent the New Year's holiday weekend, between football and being lazy, looking through old images while putting some together for a project I'm working on. It's interesting to relive past trips through past images.

Today I went through a trip we took to the shared national park called Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park in Montana and Alberta.

I hadn't thought about that trip for a while and it was nice to go back to it today.

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