08-03-12 Dawn

Here's another HDR photo taken from the bluffs overlooking the northern leg of the Little Bend on Lake Oahe. In the shot I posted a while back I was looking east into the rising sun. In this shot, I've moved my tripod, the sun is behind me and I am looking off to the northwest towards the Cheyenne River.I don't know about you, but when I look at this photo I see the pure white of the popcorn clouds. Then I see the sea green sage and, finally, the distant, dark water and long line of the cloud covered horizon. (And if you are paying attention to words here, I hope you appreciate my alliterative attempts. Opps, I did it again. :-) Or did I? Actually, "alliterative attempts" is an example of assonance. Sorry, but I was an English teacher long before I started to call myself a photographer.)

07-30-12 Distant Showers

Once again I ventured out before sunrise this morning. My wife and I were at the Spring Creek marina and when my wife told me to make less noise so she could sleep a little longer, I grabbed my camera bag and tripod and went driving.I headed to the two trees that I photographed last summer thinking that I might get something a little different. And I did. What made this shot special, of course, is the rain shower that is happening miles off in the distance. And I should admit that one of the reasons I went back to the same two trees is that I wanted to try to get an HDR photo that does a better job of exposing the relatively dark foreground. And I got what I wanted. Because of that, there's a lot of texture in this photo. Maybe too much?

07-23-12 Patterns

Last in a series of wheat photos.

07-22-12 Glorious

Sometimes, when I'm out at Lake Oahe in central South Dakota, I don't go sailing. On this particular morning, I woke up well before sunrise and at first light saw that there were some clouds off in the east that looked promising. So I packed up my camera gear and went driving. I ended up on the bluffs above the Little Bend area - an area I have been to many times before.It may seem obvious but a sunrise photo isn't about the sun - that looks pretty much the same every time. It's about the clouds, the terrain and the atmosphere. And in all of these cases, I got what I was looking for.This photo, incidentally, is an HDR photo, which means that it's really two or three photos sandwiched together into one. I experimented with a process that gives this photo a bit of a surreal look. Compositionally, this photo does what a landscape photo should do: there is something in the foreground, the middle ground and in the back ground.I wish you could have been with me when I took this photo. It was an amazing moment in an very special place.Canon 5DIII f/8.0 1/250 ISO400 19mm

07-18-12 Golden Braids

This is third in a series of wheat, this time a close view of what comprises a generally nondescript golden field of wheat.

07-17-12 Spring Wheat

Some would say that if you've seen one wheat field, you've seen them all. And from a distance that's probably true. But I'm afraid my quest for good wheat photos yesterday didn't satisfy me. So I went out again this morning looking again for the perfect wheat photo opportunity. I was hoping for better light today and I got it. Generally, it was overcast but the sun was working to push its way through occasional soft spots in the morning clouds. And so I got the perfect back lighting from the biggest soft box on earth.I took over 200 photos during the 30 minutes I spent at this particular field. I'll admit that I was practicing a little "spray and pray" photography because a gusty breeze was causing the heavy heads of wheat to move around. And since I was using a very narrow field of focus (low f-stop number), I wanted to be sure I had some focused photos when I got home.Towards the end of my shoot, Bret H., the field's owner, drove up and stopped. I walked over to his truck with my camera and told him that I couldn't resist taking photographs of his amazing crop. He simply smiled. When I showed him a photo I had just taken and said, "You're not a farmer; you're an artist," he smiled some more.If you haven't stopped by a mature wheat field and studied the plant that in some ways was and still is the foundation of western civilization, it's time you did. The whispy "hairs" and the braid-like grains of wheat truly are a work of art.

07-16-12 Amber Waves

When I went driving this morning in search of something to photograph, I figured that the perfect wheat field would likely draw me like a magnet. I am fascinated by bare, black fields that turn to green and then to beautiful yellow-gold. And we can't help but notice the harvest of wheat because the huge red or green machines that work the fields contrast so distinctly with the mature crop.But who has the time or interest to park and take a closer look at the grain? I would guess the farmer would. And so does the photographer, who, as I've said so many times in this blog, has the power to get you, the viewer, to take a closer look. And it is worth the time. . .

07-14-12 A Pre-Tourney Prayer

I am sorry to admit that I was so caught up in finding good photos that I have no idea what the prayer these fisherman were bowing their heads for said. I suspect it asked God for safety and good fishin'. The event was the Lake Oahe stop of the national FLW Walleye tournament. The fishing is high stakes - $60,000+ goes to the fisherman who catches the most big fish.

07-13-12 Justice

I have seen Justice exactly twice in the years that I've been sailing Lake Oahe in South Dakota. Liberty, on the other hand, is my next door neighbor at the Spring Creek Marina. What do Liberty and Justice have in common? They are both boats owned by Bob and Sara H., who live just down the road from the marina.I wish I knew more about this amazing classic Chris Craft. Even more, I wish I had orchestrated an actual photo shoot of this attractive boat and couple. Unfortunately, I did not assert myself and instead I got a bit of a snapshot as the boat sped by on a morning that was nearly perfect for a ride in a classic boat - little wind and nearly glass smooth water.

07-12-12 On the Road Again

I tell me students to avoid taking photos through windows of moving vehicles. After all, who wants to see bug splats? So why did I keep driving as I snapped this photo with my iPhone? I have not good answer other than I guess I don't always practice what I preach.

07-06-12 One Last Fish

My friend Scott P and I had spent a great week on my sailboat on Lake Oahe in South Dakota. It was incredibly hot but that was OK with us. We had made our way back to the marina and were mostly packed and ready to leave when we decided to go out for one short attempt at fishing. And in a short time, Scott had landed this 10-12 pound northern. I think it helped make Scott P's week.Most people avoid catching northern on Lake Oahe but Scott seeks them out. He says they are more fun to catch than walleye, and they are just as good to eat, if not better, than walleye. But you've got to know how to clean them, which Scott does.I was "netman" on this fish and netting a big fish isn't easy. In fact, earlier in the week I had missed netting two pretty good sized northerns. So I guess landing this fish helped make my week, too.

06-27-12 Sadness

What you see in this photo is a pile of debris in the middle of a cornfield. But what I see is much more, for this pile is all that remains of a farmstead north of Watertown, South Dakota, that had become for me a place of photographic pilgrimage.This farmstead had an old house, a fairly large barn and two other out buildings that were part of the farming operation years ago. The buildings were subjects hundreds of photos I have taken. It was also what I called "the north studio," because I took many of my senior portrait subjects to this location due to its wealth of good locations for pictures. More recently, I took some of my LATI photo students there to share this great location. The photos they took are likely the last photos that were taken of this South Dakota relic.The group Kansas was right when they sang that "Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky." And so I suppose it was inevitable that an abandoned farm would be bulldozed and turned into crop land. But I feel like I've lost a friend. This place had an important place in my personal history and it had a soul that had become part of my soul.But at least I have the photos. . . .