One Subject, One Focus
Last week we drove to upper Michigan to view the wonderful fall colors. The timing and lighting were just right the day we went to Tahquamenon Falls State Park in Paradise, MI.
The upper Tahquamenon Falls is 200 feet across with a drop of almost 50 feet. The lower falls are about 4 miles downstream, and are made up of a series of five smaller falls around a small island. The water is a golden brown color which is caused by tannins from nearby cedar swamps that drain into the river.
After so many years of taking and processing “traditional” photographs, I decided to expand my creative side and signed up for an “unconventional” photography class at a local community college near me. The class is designed to sharpen your photography skills and combine images artistically through photo manipulation. The professor displayed a number of creative photographs that were the result of combining two or more different photographs. Window frames became works of art, and portraits were fashioned into painted illustrations. It awakened me to a whole new photographing/editing adventure!
Part of class last night was to take abstract photographs inside the campus. Below is a closeup of part of a waterfall taken with a slow shutter speed inside the entrance of the building my class was in. I liked the way it turned out and decided to try my hand at combining two photos. I had taken a photo of a white pelican on a lake a couple of years ago. Given the white edge at the top of the waterfall photo, I thought these two photographs might blend well. Both photos where processed separately then processed again when combined. I used two Apps, Snapseed® and Painnt®. Then finished it off with Photoshop Elements® and NIK®. I am quite sure this can be done using just Photoshop. I haven’t mastered it enough so I improvised with what I know well. If you haven’t tried this yet, I would highly recommend it. It has awakened a whole new energy within and expanded my parameters on what to photograph!
Chicago Skyline – f/5.6; ISO 800; 1/15 sec.
Danube River – f/7.1; ISO 200; 1/125 sec.
Sorrento, Italy – f/10; ISO 200; 1/250 sec.
f/6.3; 1/800 sec; ISO 3200; 187mm
f/6.3; 1/400 sec; ISO 6400; 210mm
Brookfield Zoo also known as the Chicago Zoological Society is located in Brookfield, a suburb of Chicago. One of my favorite places to visit is the monkey house. There are quite a variety and more than a few that are happy to pose.
“In every walk in with nature one receives far more than he seeks.” John Muir
These photographs were taken with a Sony Mirrorless Camera in a Manual mode setting using an 18-55mm lens with an Opteka Achromatic 10x diopter attached to it.
Spent a long time watching this blue heron hunt for fish on the shores of Delavan Lake in Wisconsin. Their process of catching fish is very interesting. The heron will stand very still in the water upright, but as it moves to a new location it cocks its head and neck to one side to scan the water surrounding it. When fish are spotted, it crouches its body down very close to the surface of the water and tucks its neck in close to its body. And then it waits – when the time is right with extreme force and precision it dives for the fish.
