05-01-09 Japanese Garden

This serene lake is part of a beautiful garden outside of Kyoto, Japan. We visited Japan in 2004 and as I browsed through photos I had taken, I had the reaction I often have when viewing older digital photos: I want to go back and re-photograph the areas we visited. But this desire isn't because I have a better camera or a better lens, but because I think I have a little better eye and also because I'm sure I missed some great shots.

I have many strong memories of Japan but one of the oddest involves the camera I was traveling with - a Canon 1D Mark II, which was considered a state-of-the-art dslr in 2004. The Japanese are gracious and friendly people but many were especially friendly when they saw my camera. They would walk up to me and, though they couldn't speak my language, would point to my camera, smile and shake their head in an affirmative way. The Japanese love quality electronics - especially electronics made in Japan.

Canon 1DII 1/160s f/6.3 ISO400 115mm

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

04-29-16 The 4 Presidents - Early Morning

By Scott Shephard

View fullsize

I'm guessing that there have tens of thousands of photos taken from this vantage point. So what makes this photo different? Maybe two things. First, it was taken just after sunrise (on this day about 5:30) so the sunlight is casting strong horizontal shawdows. Second, I framed this photo with the curving road leading the eye to the break in the trees which reveals Mt. Rushmore in the distance. Remember to look for elements that can help frame the main subject in your photo.

Canon 1D 1/320s f/3.5 ISO250 200mm

04-28-09 Mysterious Path

By Scott Shephard

IMG_5323 POTD

Here's one of the 75,000 photos that I can distinctly remember taking. And it is, like many of my photos, a bit of an accident. I had been taking photos along Iron Creek in the Black Hills and was walking back to my truck. There had been a brief rain shower, which left the vegetation wet and shiny. And then the sun came out and almost as an afterthought I took a picture or two of the trail looking back towards the sun.

Without the sun, there would be no bright highlight on the trail and the little pine trees and the birch trees wouldn't be rimmed by back lighting. In the viewfinder, I didn't see this - it was only when I viewed the photo on the computer screen that I saw how interesting the lighting made this picture.

Discolosure: this photo is enhanced with a Photoshop filter called "Midnight." Altered reality? This isn't photojournalism - it's an art form and I guess you'd called "Midnight" "artistic license."

Canon 5D 1/30s f/6.3 ISO125 60mm

04-27-09 Building Facade - Chicago

I guess it may be obvious that I like taking photos of Chicago. To be honest, I don't remember taking this one, but it is my photo. I guess I wasn't feeling "flow" when this one happened, though I did take it in 2003, which is a long time ago. :-(

I wish I knew the name of this building. But I don't. Anyone?

Canon 1D 1/640s f/14.0 ISO400 90mm Lens unknown.

04-26-09 Fog and Tree

This was a marginal day for "fun" photography because it was raining an cold. But I had felt obligated to get a few more fall shots before driving back to the warmth of our cabin. Heading home, I passed this almost barren oak tree with a misty backdrop and stopped to take a few pictures through the half-opened window of my truck.

Canon 5D 1/200s f/2.8 ISO400 160mm (Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS)

04-25-09 Lakeside Path - Croatia

One of the more photogenic places I have been in Europe is a national park in Croatia called Plitvice Lakes. This park consists of 16 lakes of various sizes connected by cascading waterfalls. Because of the high calcium content of the water in the lakes, the lake bottoms are milky white and the water is a milky blue-green.

In this photo one of the many winding paths leads through a tunnel of trees along the shoreline of one of the lakes . My friend and I started our park tour very early and we almost had the park to ourselves. Two hours later, the paths were crawling with tourists and, as I've thought before, I felt that Europe would be a lot more pleasant if it weren't for the tourists. But wait! I'm a tourist, too, aren't I?

Canon 5D 1/50s f/4.0 ISO500 105mm

04-24-09 Japanese Temple - Kyoto

Something just occurred to me as I was trying to figure out what to write about this photo: I have taken around 75,000 digital photos over the last 6 years and when I look at them, I can remember a remarkable number of details about the circumstances surrounding each photograph. Why is that?

My answer has to do with flow, a theory developed by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. Flow "is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity."

In a crude way, my "focus" while taking photographs reminds me of golfers like Jack Nicklaus and other athletes and coaches who can remember amazingly precise details about every shot they hit or plays they made in games performed 20 and 30 years ago.

No, I am not Jack Nicklaus, nor was meant to be. :-) But I can get focused once and a while. When do you achieve flow?

Canon 1DII 1/80s f/1.8 ISO800 50mm (35mm eq:65mm)

04-23-09 Snow Melt

It has been a wet winter in the Black Hills, which has left the reservoirs full and the creeks running high. I normally take a few photos at Iron Creek near our cabin when I am staying in the Hills. But when I drove to my favorite photo location on Iron Creek, I found that the creek was really too high for me to find a good vantage point from which to photograph. So instead I went looking for another creek.

This photo was taken at the Grizzly Bear camp ground near Mt. Rushmore. In summer this creek is usually just a gurgling brook. The day I visited warm weather and the ensuing snow melt left it running full. If you wonder how the water is made to look white, the answer is: a slow shutter speed. In this case the shutter was left open for 8 seconds.

Canon 5DII 8s f/22.0 ISO100 60mm (Canon 24-105mm f/4.0L)

04-22-09 The Drive Home

Yesterday, my "Missouri River Sunrise" photo appealed to some of my Facebook friends in a way that I hadn't expected. So once again I'm posting something that may seem prosaic to some but which is perhaps meaningful to others.

This one wouldn't exist if my friend Jack hadn't said, "You need to take a photo of those clouds" as we drove east across the state. I resisted -- in part because I was driving and in part because I don't like taking photos from the car. But here are the clouds. And here, also, are the rolling plains of central South Dakota, touched with a hint of green and the promise of another summer. (Jack steered the truck as I took two quick photos in very sparse traffic.)

Canon 5DII 1/400s f/10.0 ISO160 67mm (24-105mm f/4.0L)

04-21-09 Missouri River Sunrise

The other day, I posted a somewhat rhetorical question on facebook which asked for ideas for photos that I might post. I actually got several suggestions. The most intriguing suggestion came from a former student of mine who said that she missed seeing the South Dakota sky.

Being a South Dakotan, I've always been impressed with the sky in wide open places but was struck by the reality that there are people who live in places where it's hard to see the horizon and maybe even hard to see the actual sky due to haze or smog.

Thus, I offer yet another photo of the Missouri River. In this photo I am looking more or less north. This photo was taken a couple miles away from another photo posted in this blog called "Lake Oahe Sunset."

Canon 5D 1/160s f/8.0 ISO400 105mm (Canon 24-105mm f/4.0L)

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