New Direction

Well, I have one more show this year and then a much needed break....(13 weeks) until the new season kicks off for me in March. During the interim I have decided to take my work in a different direction. I am going to focus less on the landscapes and wildlife and put more emphasis on my creative side......hmmm..my creative side...that thought alone scare me.
I will be looking at old photos and taking many new ones with the intention of exploring a more artistic feel. I will be using in camera effects as well as filters and layers to bring a different end game to my work. My goal is to cross photography with painting and see what happens. Fine art photography.....it's all about how the photographer wants to portray a photo. There may still be some landscapes in my future but I want to add a dreamlike effect to them and for the time being i will be taking a more minimilist approach to my photographs. The fun part about this is that the possibilities are wide open. Without worrying about the realistic impact of a picture I can now experiment with creating a different type of art. I am very excited about this and will soon add a folder to my website called Fine Art. Some people will love it, some will hate it, but it's my interpretation and that in the end is what's most important. More to come....it's time to grow.   

Safety while shooting

Safety....I have to think about that a lot when I am out shooting. It's certainly not something to take lightly considering some of the areas and situations that I sometimes put myself in. I like to explore, I like to find places that many people don't see. Everybody has some type of camera these days so it makes it just that more difficult to find places and things that the average person wouldn't stumble across.
Prior to going out I have to think about the possible situations that I am putting myself in. I typically carry bear repellent and a hunting knife regardless of where I am going. I also have a first aid kit and always have a cell phone although I have been in many areas in northern Wisconsin where service is not available.
You may think it's strange but I am more nervous about walking the streets of Madison at night than I am being out in the middle of nowhere miles and miles away from anybody. Madison at night or during the early morning is a beautiful city to photograph but with the high volume of assaults and robberies you can never seem to relax. You may wonder why I carry bear repellent in the city.....if it can stop a bear at 35 feet just think what it would do to a person. You just can't afford to take any chances when you are carrying around a lot of expensive equipment, plus I am kind of interested in living a bit longer. It irritates me to no end to think that I have to be on the defensive all the time but better to be safe than sorry.
I have yet to have any bad experiences photographing around Madison, lets hope it stays that way.
Now, trekking out in the wild is a little different. I am not so much worried about getting mugged as I am getting stuck in a bog or getting eaten by the local wildlife.....although there are some crazy people out there so you always need to be on the lookout. I have considered a firearm for my hikes into the wilderness. I think it's the safe thing to do. I have stood 30 feet from a mother Black bear and her cubs, had a wolf run 10 feet in front of me and have followed fresh Mountain Lion tracks. I am not a hunter, never will be, but when it comes to protecting myself it is a priority.
I have also considered a spot tracker for those areas where cell phone signals don't exist. That would give me some piece of mind knowing that I could be tracked if I turned up missing.
The one thing that I am not very good at is letting someone know where I am going....the problem is that most of the time I take off I have no plan. I just go........

Monday October 3rd

Spent the weekend in Mt Horeb at their Fall Festival art & craft show. Had a great time and talked to a number of very nice people. Getting ready for shows can be grueling but it all seems worth it when you hear the comments on the work that you have done. I have been told that it's time for me to hit the big markets but i really like the small town atmosphere that places like Mt Horeb and Baraboo provide.
I have 4 shows left to do in 2011. It's been a very good year. I have learned a lot and met so many great people.
I am excited about next year. I look forward to finding new places and using new photography techniques. It's a never ending experience of learning and i wouldn't trade it for anything. It's time for me to get out of my comfort zone and move to the next level. It's a little scary but when i think about where i am today compared to two years ago there is no doubt in my mind that i can make the jump. 

August 28, 2011

Spent this weekend at the cottage. Wanted to focus on experimenting with panoramic photos and the color changes during sunrise and sunset. The panoramic shots turned out pretty good and I was just practicing for when the leaves turn. During Fall there will be great panoramic opportunities on some of the lakes around here.

I did find a small lake with a protected shoreline. It is totally wild, no cottages, no boats, nothing! We don’t have enough of those around here. Sat in the woods overlooking the lake for about an hour on Saturday as the sun rose. I took 11 photos at different angles and then merged them together in Photoshop to create a very nice panoramic view of the entire lake.

I enjoyed watching a couple of Beavers swim around while slapping their tails on the water. I am pretty sure that their home is on another nearby lake as I did not see any wooden structure. Their tails must be incredibly strong as their water slaps sounded like gun shots.

One thing I did learn this week is that there is no mosquito spray that actually keeps mosquitoes away from you. I have tried several and have had no luck. I even tried one that smelled so bad that even I wouldn’t come near me……yet they still swarm.

Two warnings that are probably on the cans of repellent (I don’t typically read, I just spray and go) is to not spray near mouth or eyes. I can tell you now that Deet does not taste good and will also make you cry if you happen to rub your eyes after you have sprayed your hands. Lessons learned.

I have also learned to live with the deer ticks but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to do the same when it comes to mosquitoes……especially when you are trying to focus on taking pictures. You just can’t rush it sometimes.

They truly live up to the classification of a bug.

No real mis-adventures to talk about although I did manage to put two barbed hooks through my hand while fishing on Friday. I had just caught a Northern pike and was attempting to take the lure out of his mouth when he shook and drove the backside hooks into the area between my thumb and forefinger. One of the hooks went completely through and popped out on the other side. The barb does not make it easy to slip it back through so I had to:

1. get the hook out of the fish’s mouth
2. cut the leader off of the line
3. drive the boat back to the cottage
4. cut the barb off the hook
5. slip the hook out of my hand

It looked worse than it felt and I lived to tell about it. Four lives down, five to go…

Anyway, after taking about 300+ photos this weekend I was incredibly disappointed by the results but that’s the way it goes sometimes. There is always next weekend…..

Monday August 8, 2011

Spent this last weekend at the cottage. It's located on beautiful North Sand lake near Webster, Wisconsin. Got out early on both Friday and Saturday morning, did a lot of driving but not a lot of shooting. Came across a cow pasture off of Blackbrook road on Friday morning with an old Chevrolet car sitting on it's side. The field was enclosed with barbed wire and considering my track record with photo shoot injuries I decided to bypass the opportunity. Not happy about the decision because I really wanted to have a look at the car. Got a nice shot of the sunrise overlooking the Yellow river but not much else......other than finding out that there is a strip club called Misty's on hwy 70.....who knew???
Could not get that car photo opp out of my head on Friday so I brainstormed on how to get over the barbed wire fence without having to make an emergency visit to Spooner General Hospital. Friday night I took the ladder out of the garage and placed it in a spot where I would see it when I headed out on Saturday morning. Figured that I would use the ladder to climb up and jump over the fence, then haul the ladder to the other side to exit out when I was done shooting.
Brilliant idea except that I forgot to grab the ladder as I was leaving on Saturday....somebody must have moved it??? Got to the fence before sunrise and found a corner where the top was made out of  weather beaten wood so I climbed up the barbed wire with plans to catapult myself over by stepping on the wood and pushing off. Note to self....weather beaten wood is not stable.
As I stepped off the wood the fence piece broke but by then I was in mid jump and landed safely......a 9.5 on effort but a 2.5 on form. Grabbed my tripod and camera from under the fence and took off for the old Chevy. Spent 20 minutes shooting HDR shots and even found the license plate dated 1961. I attached it to the car, took a few more shots, wondered if the howling hunting dogs that I heard in the distance were heading my way and decided to go. The return trip over the fence was a little trickier as I had to climb the fence and straddle  the barbed wire so as to not....well you get the picture. Success......feeling a little like a cat, 3 lives down, 6 to go.

Friday July 22, 2011

Sometimes you put yourself into situations that you typically would not put yourself into for a shot that you couldn't normally get. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
On Friday morning I got up at 4:15 to drive 45 minutes to a wildlife preserve northwest of Spooner, WI. It is an area with beautiful valleys and hills surrounded by miles of dirt roads. I have been there several times and have never seen another person. I wanted to get there early for some sunrise shots and then hike to a hill that overlooks a quiet lake surrounded by tall pines. I can barely make out the lake from the road but know it's down there. I figured the hike would be 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile through two valleys and over two hills. I took off with camera, tripod and backpack in tow thinking that although the terrain looked rough I could make it without any problems. Wrong assumption. I figured that if I could get to the top of one of the hills I could shoot down on the lake. The sun had just risen and the morning colors were perfect.
As I progressed through the field I came to realize that the brush was a little heavier than I expected and very wet with the morning dew. I finally got to the top of the hill that I though would give me the best shot but found that the brush was so tall that I could not see down on to the lake so I decided to hike to the lake itself.
That was a poor decision on my part as the bush got thicker and thicker as I walked on, almost to the point where I could no longer move within it. Now I was soaking wet and so deep into the brush that I could not see where I was. After about 45 minutes I finally came to a wet bog that as I took my first step swallowed up my left hiking boot (the laces had come untied walking through the brush).
I recovered my boot, took a standing 10 minute break and deciding that I could go no further turned around and looked for a better path back. It didn't exist so I tried to backtrack but it all looked the same to me so I tied my boots and made my way through that hell that I had just walked out of. Had it been dusk I fear that I would not have found my way out of there.
Obviously I made it back but my arms and legs were scratched and bloody and my stomach was bleeding from a sharp stick that almost impaled me.
Lesson learned....respect nature, it's not forgiving. Last week 3 hikers in Yellowstone went over the falls because they were in an area that they were not supposed to be in. I shouldn't have allowed myself to get into the situation that I did. The bad news is that I never got the shot that I wanted. The good news is that I made it out.........the great news is that I didn't find any wood ticks.

 

July 19,2011

Out shooting last night in the heat. A lot of bugs to go along with humidity. Headed out towards Poynette to drive the back roads. I knew that the sun was going to turn into a deep red ball of fire and wanted to find a good place to set up for a sweeping landscape shot. Along the way I stopped for interesting subjects but forgot about the effects of bringing a cold camera (air conditioned truck) into extreme heat.......the lens glass will fog up. So, I got a few good shots that appear to be in heavy fog so all was not lost. After that I turned off the air and suffered in the heat so my camera could get back to a hellish room temperature of 101 degrees(heat index).
Looking for sweeping landscapes is a little more difficult these days due to the height of the corn. A solution to that would be to jump up on the roof or hood of the car but last time I did that my thumb got slammed in the door that I had used to get up on the roof..........so needless to say there was no roof jumping.
I finally found a nice shot with cornfields and a nice row of telephone poles. The sun was still pretty bright so I used a 3 stop neutral gradient filter to darken that area of the photo. Low bright sun (if you are shooting into it) plays havoc with camera exposure meters so you need to alter your exposure. 
As I was walking to the back of the truck I noticed the view through my back tinted window. I re-positioned my tripod and not caring about exposing the foreground got off some pretty interesting shots using the window as my filter. The photos look pretty good on the camera's LCD screen. We'll see how they turned out when I process them. 
Took a few more shots before the sun dropped and then drove to another area so I could get that 15-30 minute post sunset sky that is really incredible on these hot nights.
I am heading up to the cabin this weekend for some wildlife landscape shooting. Hope the wood ticks are gone by now.