01-04-12 Rural Scene

So here's a token winter shot, offered primarily to balance all the tropical photos I've been posting lately. On the day I took this photo it was, as my mother used to say, "Damp cold!" That was as close to swearing as my mom ever got.So you have an idea of what Cheri is referring to. . .

12-17-12 Winterscape

I went wading through snow that was calf deep to get this shot. Twice. Was it worth it? I'd say so, but only because the drive north of town in mysterious winter fog, the trek through snow and the framing of the frost lined trees was a small adventure and it got me out of the house on a gray winter day.Whether I was successful in my adventure or not wasn't the most important thing. Sometimes it's the concept and the process that matter most; it's the journey, not the destination. Or, in the words of Harry Chapin in his song Greyhound, "It's got to be the going not the getting there that's good."

12-16-12 Country Road

I spend a couple hours driving out in the country looking for something suitable to photograph. It had snowed last weekend and today was foggy so I figured I'd find something interesting involving fog and frost. This photo is one of several I took.Once I had the images, the next challenge was taking what turned out to be very low contrast scenes into something worth sharing. Thanks to Aperture and a couple of software plug-ins, I got was I had imagined I might. I should say, incidentally, that this is an HDR photo - there are two exposures layered here to help me get a good overall exposure.

Mysterious

This photo was taken on a foggy summer morning north of Lake Okoboji in Iowa. And, yes, it's been enhanced with Photoshop.

Rain, Fog & Trees

I drove up to what some people in Watertown call "Harmony Hill." It was a foggy morning and I was thinking that I would get an interesting shot of the ethanol plant down below, belching steam into the early morning fog. But when I got to the top of the hill, I couldn't even see the ethanol plant. But I did see this small group of trees, edged with the serpentine road that led to a nearby monastery.This shot is pretty seriously Photoshopped, in part because I've been learning a few new things and I wanted to practice them. This photo had 4 layers before I flattered it to publish it.Revision: I orignally posted a nearly square version but Jack's post inspired me to look again at the original crop. Jack's right: the full view is more "atmospheric."

Street Light

Early yesterday morning, I went out on the deck, where Deb, my wife, was standing. She said it felt a little like Hawaii and I politely disagreed, since it was 46 degrees it didn't smell like the tropics. But it was hazy and humid.As she started to list the things I had to do, I said, "Wait" and I went in to get my camera. I may not be in Hawaii but that doesn't mean there is nothing exotic to photograh - such as our neigbors' tree silhouetted against a street lamp and the deep purple morning sky.Even though I liked what I saw when I framed this photo, the camera saw it very differently and that's what I like about photography. Sometimes my camera captures things that I make better with software. But other times I see something and my camera makes it better with it's own internal software. It's a good relationship. . .

04-29-09 Early Morning Farmstead

By Scott Shephard

_g9s0257 POTD

I'm back in the country today - this time showing another shot of an area already pictured in this blog. On this particular summer morning, the humidity left wisps of low-lying fog surrounding this long-vacant farm.

Canon 1DII 1/2s f/7.1 ISO400 24mm

04-20-09 Foggy Morning

This photo was taken in the Little Bend area of the Missouri River. I wasn't looking for a photograph on the morning I took this. I was actually making an ice run to the Little Bend Bait Shop, which was a few miles away from where I had docked my sailboat.

While humid weather is normal for South Dakota summers, fog isn't. Thus, I needed to stop to take a few pictures.

Canon 5D 1/13s f/10.0 ISO400 300mm