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.