One of Kenosh’s colorful trolleys that run a loop through downtown and the harbor area.
I decided to play around and make this look like a post card by adding the text to it.
This was all done on my iPhone.

Just out of curiosity, last night I made an 8×8 print of this photo. It turned out very nice.  I’m so blown away by the quality of photos I’m getting from my iPhone 4 camera and the quality of the editing and filter apps that I’m using.  In the future, I’ll have to do a post about these apps.

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In this image of Miners Falls in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, MI, I tried to capture the spirit of that battle, the place where water and rock meet. Where rock fights for it’s life as water slowly chips away at it. I’ve also tried to show water’s delicate beauty and the awesome, landscape changing power working together in natural harmony.

I love water. I’m fascinated by it’s diversity and simple complexity. I never tire of watching it in all it’s shapes and forms.

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As we were driving home from this year’s vacation, we once again found ourselves in Marinette County, so we decided to visit the Pike River again. This time we went farther downstream to Dave’s Falls County Park.

There are two small waterfalls at Dave’s Falls, a lower and an upper. While we did get some nice photos of the falls, I found this wonderful spot up stream from them.

I was on a very large granite boulder that jutted out into the stream and shot this from a very low angle, sitting on the boulder with my tripod as low as I could get it. I used my wide angle lens and had it as wide as it would go. In order to keep everything sharp, I shot at a very small aperture which then made for the very slow shutter speed that blurred the water nicely.

I love shooting stream images. It can be quite a challenge finding that perfect composition and even more of a challenge figuring out how to set your tripod up once you do find it.  The rewards are wonderful though. There’s not many images that are as pretty as a nice stream shot.

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Leaves weren’t the only subject that were lower down though, we also found many mushrooms growing on dead trees all over the forest. These mushrooms took many shapes and sizes, ranging from little classic mushrooms like you’d buy in the store, to very large pancake like ones growing up the sides of standing trees. One dead tree we came across was covered from it base up to six feet high in these fungi. It was a pretty impressive site.

While in another area of the woods, I used the exact opposite of my advice. Instead of looking down, I looked up, and found an awesome looking hornet hive high in the branches of a tree. Luckily it was a vacant hive and I was able to stand underneath it and photograph it with my telephoto lens. Interestingly, this hive was over a very busy trail, but no one seemed to notice it, even as I was taking pictures of it.

All of this goes to show that you’re head needs to be on a swivel while out shooting in the woods. You never know what you may see when looking down and looking up.

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Munising Falls is a pretty little waterfall that can be found in Pictured Rocks National Lakesore. The waterfall is 50 feet high and located in a lush area filled with plants and trees. The falls pour over a very colorful sandstone cliff and into an amphitheater like depression they’ve carved over time.

There is a nice trail to the falls and a boardwalk platform to stand on to view the falls. You aren’t allowed to go off of the boardwalk, so composing a unique image is a little tricky, but it still can be done.

I was very surprised by the beauty of Munising Falls. The photos I had seen of  it really didn’t do it justice. Those same photos also made it look smaller than it actually is. the falls are great to photograph because they’re in shade most of the day. This image was shot on a bright, sunny day, but you’d never know it because of the shade. It helps to have a tripod for shooting this waterfall because of the shady location.

Just down stream of the falls, the creek flows through some beautiful forest that was peaking in fall color on that day. We were lucky to be there on the day we were, it led to some great images of a Michigan autumn day.

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Then, while at the Maritime Heritage Festival earlier this month, I finally got my shot. I was walking up to the monument when it occurred to me that a close up of the fisherman with the tall ship Bounty in the background would be perfect. It wasn’t as easy as that though. First off there were a lot of people walking around and to get a photo without any of them in it was an arm tiring, patience trying challenge. I also had to contend with some flag poles to the right that prevented me from having the composition I really wanted.

I knew immediately that it was going to be either a black and white or sepia image. After trying both, I liked the sepia version best. I did do a little “photoshopping” to this image. There were some people on the far shore that I removed. I also removed the rubber dingy hanging off the side of the Bounty. These are just small changes that help to create the feel I’m looking for in the image, (Rubber dingys just don’t say “old timey” to me).

All in all I’m very pleased with how this image turned out. I feel it’s a good tribute to all fishermen and sailors who’ve been lost at sea.

Purchase Prints or Usage Rights for this Image

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This month’s photo is an oldie but a goody. It’s a scanned slide that was taken in April of 2000. One of the highlights of the year in the Owens Valley is the migration of the Painted Ladies in March and April. The butterflies come up the valley from the south and in good years can number in the millions. In bad years though you may not see a single butterfly. The year I took this was a very good year.

The tree is a flowering plum and was not only full of beautiful pink flowers, but was also full of Painted Ladies. I’d say there were at least 20 – 30 butterflies flying around the tree. Even with that many, it was still difficult to get a nicely composed shot. Of all the shots I took that morning, this one was the best.

I rank this photo in my top 10 of all time. I just love the colors in it.

]]> http://sbdigitalarts.com/photo-of-the-month-april-2010/feed/ 0 http://sbdigitalarts.com/lake-michigan-sunset/ http://sbdigitalarts.com/lake-michigan-sunset/#comments Fri, 20 Nov 2009 03:44:57 +0000 Steven http://sbdigitalarts.com/?p=432

This image was shot on the eastern side of Lake Michigan near the Grand Haven Lighthouse in Grand Haven, Michigan.

I had been photographing the surfers who where surfing near the pier at Grand Haven, (Yes that’s right, surfing on Lake Michigan. Read my post, Lake Michigan Surfers for proof.) waiting for the sunset to happen. When the sunset finally came it wasn’t much. There weren’t any clouds in the sky and the haze was killing the nice light on the lighthouse.

One thing that did stand out for me was the golden reflection in the water. It was really beautiful.

I ended up shooting many pictures of  the sun setting into the lake and the light reflecting off of the waves, but I think my favorite images from that evening were the ones where I focused just on the reflected color in the water. I feel they show nature’s simple beauty and the peacefulness of a Lake Michigan sunset.

I would say that about 70% of the trees are now bare in the park. There are more leaves on the ground than in the trees. What’s interesting is that I found myself noticing things that I didn’t notice when the colors were at their peak. Without my eye being drawn to the amazing colors overhead, I was able to see the smaller beauties that were all around.

The image above is a good example of that. At first I was drawn to the area by all the leaves on the ground, but as I walked around I noticed the contrast of the tree’s dark color with the bright leaves and really liked it. I wanted to emphasize that contrast so I lowered my composition to inches above the ground and framed the shot so the tree took up a large portion of the picture. My first shots had more sky in them, but the sky was kind of a distraction so I came in even tighter and left most of the sky out. I’m pretty happy with the final result.

You can see more images from yesterday on my SierraVisions post, Fall 2009, The Last Hoorah

What I’m seeing are images that were composed nicely, but have some exposure and color issues. I’m sure at the time I was disappointed in these images because of that. I knew Photoshop very well in 2005, but I wasn’t nearly as knowledgeable as I am today. Now I can fix exposure and colors issues without even thinking to much about it. Another big difference between now and ’05 is Adobe Lightroom. It wasn’t even out back then. I think it came out in 2006 if I’m not mistaken. Lightroom has now become my main tool in post processing. It gives me the ability to fix the white balance and exposure  issues that many of these images have just by moving a couple sliders.

This image of an Eastern Sierra aspen grove is a perfect example. The white balance was very blue on it and it was slightly underexposed. I shot this image as a JPG, not a RAW, but I was still able to fix the white balance and exposure in Lightroom. Just by adding yellow and magenta I warmed the picture up and with some contrast made it look as I first envisioned it.

It’s pretty awesome to go back through my files and find these types of hidden treasures. I’m finding that as I become more knowledgeable with Lightroom and Photoshop, I can save images that I thought were lost.  Sometimes I turn them into black and whites, and sometimes I’m able to make them look as I wanted them to look when I first shot them.