Points of Light

Against the wind

2011-06-15T10:19:00.003-05:00

The only thing I like better than photographing people is photographing people doing something they love to do in the environment in which they love to do it. Suzanne was kind enough set aside some time to model for me. More than once. Unpredictable weather canceled more than one scheduled session. We finally wwere able to connect on a chilly spring day to get the picture above. Several times running around the bend. Sun in her face. Wind blowing like crazy. But she loves to run. She loves to help others. By posing for me, she got to do both.

Walking the lonely path

2011-05-17T07:45:00.003-05:00

Taken last weekend on the shores of Lake Michigan near Evanston, Illinois. Recent weather has been more suited for late November than mid-May, and this picture is indicative of that.

Tempest

2011-04-29T11:23:00.003-05:00

A look at the skies in northern Illinois while storms and tornadoes battered the southern U.S. Spring is the time when the cold of winter is replaced by the warm of summer. It does not change peacefully, however.

Lights! Camera! Robins!

2011-04-27T09:13:00.004-05:00

I heard a commotion near my front door about a week ago. A series of shrill warbles that sounded like a robin. Upon investigation, I found that a female had built a nest in a yew bush right outside the door at about eye level. I presume the commotion was to announce the laying of a clutch of four eggs.

Not being one to waste an opportunity when it's handed to me, I've scouted various angles of view, planned placement of lights and cameras, and will document the robin family over the course of the next three or four weeks.

Mama's already gotten a taste of being in the limelight. The top picture looks as if it were taken in the late afternoon sun. Oh, no. Mid-day. Flash on a light stand ten feet away, zoomed and gelled to simulate late day sunlight and put a catchlight in mama's eye. White balance on camera adjusted to heighten the effect.

Mama took it all in stride. No prima robin she.

More to come.

Mmm ... nectar

2011-04-18T11:35:00.003-05:00

We both struggled to get what we wanted. I wanted a picture and the hummingbird wanted food. The bird came back to the feeder again and again, despite my presence just five feet away. I'd fire off a shot and scare the little guy off. He'd come back for his meal and we'd repeat. After I got a few shots worth keeping, I let the bird eat his fill. Bounced flash fired by wireless trigger.

What's on the horizon?

2011-03-21T08:47:00.002-05:00

You can sit and wait to see what happens or you can go out and meet it.

Let it snow

2011-01-11T07:51:00.001-06:00

A great year starts today!

2011-01-01T15:44:00.002-06:00

Hope yours ends up on this side of awesome.

Winter wood

2010-12-29T10:31:00.002-06:00

Log pile and barn at Peck Farm Park in Geneva, Illinois.

Walk on by

2010-12-01T11:54:00.005-06:00

Continuing with the theme of taking people's pictures while they're walking away from me. This is my wife, taken while out for a walk this past weekend. Curve of the path, shadow line and placement of the figure were all intentional. The footprint of a dude with a large foot and that of a horse are bonuses.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Carried away

2010-11-30T09:01:00.003-06:00

Snapped this shot during some down time during a recent family portrait session. The little guy was getting restive and mom decided to take the young man for a spin. He loved it.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

End of November

2010-11-28T19:21:00.002-06:00

With winter closing in. This is the month my wife describes as existing in "two shades of brown." Toss in a little blue sky and the occasional snatch of color here and there, and it's not too bad.

Photographs taken at Jelke's Creek Bird Sanctuary in Sleepy Hollow, Illinois. I plan to revisit the huge old tree throughout the month of December.

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

Foreclosed

2010-11-05T22:17:00.004-05:00

There are a lot of empty houses around, and if what I hear on the news is true, there will be a great many more in the months ahead. I recently was hired by a real estate company in Chicago to photographically document a number of properties they represent.

I was told to be very trigger happy when it came to capturing the condition of the properties. An old two-story structure with a full basement garnered about 250 frames to record the effects of age, use and abuse.

What started as a "just the facts" approach changed about midway through this particular home. As I framed up shot after shot of wear and decay, I began to see stories in the details of the old house.

Perhaps I've found a muse to keep me occupied over the winter months ahead.

And there's no lack of subject matter.

Zooooom

2010-10-25T20:14:00.003-05:00

Hi. Remember me? The guy who used to post 20-25 posts a month here? Yeah, that guy.

I was photographing storm clouds rolling in over a corn field out in the open countryside west of Chicago way back in September. Shooting in between passing cars. Finally I thought, why not? I waited for the next car to come by and shot just as it passed. For no other reason than that it might make for an interesting shot.

I pretty much missed autumn as far as getting colorful fall pictures for myself. Most of my weekends were taken up with photography gigs and my weekdays with processing pictures. And it doesn't look like things will ease up any time soon. Not that there's a problem with that. I'm thankful for the work, much of it repeat business and referrals from happy clients. Gotta love that.

Not sure about the fate of this blog. It may wind up going the way of other abandoned blogs. Maybe I can come up with a theme for the winter months and post a series of shots here. Maybe it becomes a showcase for the professional stuff I'm currently doing. Dunno for sure.

I'm now into by-the-seat-of-the-pants video production. Picked up a client that keeps me busy producing short videos. Getting some inquiries for making more videos from here and there.

It's an interesting ride and I'm happy to see where it takes me.

Katie

2010-10-04T09:37:00.007-05:00

I spent the month of September shooting pictures for a lot of people. Nothing wrong with that, but I was kept so busy, I didn't have time to make any pictures for myself. I did get to go out this past Saturday and do some landscape shooting just for me. Didn't come back with too much worth keeping, but it was good to get out and play with possibilities.

One of the things that going out on Saturday helped with was a senior portrait session on Sunday. Once the fairly standard selection of senior picture poses were in the bag, I experimented with environmental portraits, and I'm pretty happy with the results.

Nearly every shot from the session is lit with flash, but in such a way as to blend in with the late day sunlight. Sometimes the flash was the key light with the sun adding an accent. Other times I let the sun be the main light while filling in the shadows with flash. Katie's mom is standing just to the right of the larger tree in the picture above, holding a flash unit aimed at her daughter which was fired with a wireless trigger. Had there been no flash, the right side of Katie's face would have been dark.

For the most part, this was straight-ahead, no diffusers, stark nekkid flash. There wasn't alot of choice because a diffuser or umbrella would have gotten blown away by pretty strong winds. But it worked.

Besides helping to balance the ambient sunlight, the flash adds a little catchlight in the eyes, a little sparkle, a little life. Nice.

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

Terms of engagement

2010-09-23T09:03:00.002-05:00

I had the chance to shoot an engagement session recently in the historic town square of Woodstock, Illinois. The one that was used in the movie Groundhog Day to recreate Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.

It was an intimate session. Just Katie, her fiance Brent, my wife as an assistant and 200 partygoers crammed into the square for a late summer festival of some sort. The soiree was not listed on the square's upcoming events on the town web site. Ah, well. So much for recreating Bill Murray/Andie MacDowell dancing in the gazebo.

We made do. We hung around the outskirts of the square and I used clever angles and the occasional Photoshop clone tool to hide anyone who wandered into the background.

I love shooting late day portraits. I love shooting early morning, too, but haven't been able to interest too many clients in getting up before sunrise to get to a location. The low sun in the sky offers a whole lot of lighting possibilities that don't exist midday.

The picture above was lit with a single speedlight with a shoot-through umbrella to compensate for having the sun behind the subjects.

More pictures from this session can be found on my Facebook photography page.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Peoplescapes

2010-09-21T10:50:00.004-05:00

Amy Rose discovered my photographs on this blog awhile back. She started following my work here and on Flickr. When it came time to select a photographer for her wedding, she had a short list. Last May, we got together in a Starbucks and talked about what she was looking for in her wedding pictures. "We love your landscapes. If you could shoot our wedding the same way, we'd be thrilled."

She even chose a wedding venue that would be condusive to landscape photography -- the Wedding Canyon in White Pines State Park near Oregon, Illinois. Walls of exposed rock layers rise up to twenty feet above a beautifully landscaped floor of grass, trees, ponds and rocks.

I shoot landscapes with an eye for the light. Where is it coming from? What is it doing? Can I add some light of my own and have it make sense? I look for shapes and colors that I can work into interesting compositions. Then I go for contrast and colors in the exposures. Which is exactly what I did on Amy Rose and James' wedding day.

And had a blast doing it.

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

Storm is over

2010-09-08T07:41:00.003-05:00

Drove through a very heavy thunderstorm on the way home from Wisconsin on Labor Day. Torrential rain, lots of lightning. As my wife and I approached Port Washington, the rains lightened as the tempest headed out over Lake Michigan. We drove to the Port Washington harbor to see what we could see.

What we saw, just for a few moments, was the sun breaking through the clouds and casting rays over the harbor. Some large drops of rain were still falling as I fired off a half dozen shots. The tricky thing about this kind of shot is to make sure you've exposed properly, otherwise, you get blown out areas of pure white, and nothing in post processing can adequately fix those. I'd fire a shot, take a peek at the image's histogram and note with dismay the large areas of pure white, make an adjustment, meter on a bright but not too bright area of the scene and fire again, all the while hoping the magical view stuck around until I got it right.

Number six was the charm. And then the scene disappeared.

In post processing, where I only adjusted levels, I noticed that the dark areas of the image were riddled with small white spots. I thought to myself that I must have done something to mess up the camera's sensor while changing lenses in the rain. Great. I checked other images taken after this scene, and strangely enough, the spots weren't there. What was up?

It was only after I had meticulouly removed each and every white spot that I concluded that the spots were backlit drops of rain. Oh.

Maybe I should have left them in.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Back again for now

2010-09-07T07:48:00.003-05:00

Some people are beginning to wonder where I went off to. The posting here has been slow to say the least. I've been right here where I've always been, but growing increasingly busy -- when you're trying to make a living as a freelance photographer, busy is a good thing. The only problem is that when you're busy, you wind up making nearly all of your pictures for someone else. Since I haven't had much of a chance to make pictures for myself, the frequency of new images appearing here has suffered.

I had a chance to get out and make some pictures for myself over the Labor Day weekend, so at least for a couple of weeks there will be fresh stuff to see here. It will definitely be a hodgepodge of stuff -- nature, people, landscapes.

Today's picture is a quickie. For years I've driven up to Door County, Wisconsin and back and each way, I'd pass a sign for Sheboygan Falls. And I'd always wonder if Sheboygan Falls had a waterfall. It does. Quite a few, in fact. The photo above is of the top of a series of cascades that cut through the town.

I was passing through the town on the way to somewhere else and stopped by the falls. I wanted to use a slow shutter speed to blur the water, but didn't have a tripod with me. So I jammed the camera against a railing and experimented with shutter speeds. One-quarter seemed to do the trick. I would have preferred one-half second or longer, but I couldn't get that long of an exposure without showing some camera shake.

Just a hint of fall color in the trees. We've made the turn into September and the turn of autumn is not far off.

By the way, if I'm not here, you might be able to see some of my most recent work appear on Flickr and my Facebook photography page.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Under the stars

2010-08-18T08:37:00.004-05:00

Self portrait under a starry sky.

My wife and I visited my daughter, who lives in a rural part of Tennessee. Far from city lights that pollute the night sky. Clear nights provide a spectacular star show that I love to capture on camera. This photograph was made in one exposure, with no Photoshop other than to adjust levels a tad.

It took an hour or so to set up and choreograph this shot. I set up the camera on a tripod and framed the shot with an ultra wide angle lens while it was still light. Placed a flash on a stand just outside the frame to the left. Identified the spot in which I needed to stand.

When it was sufficiently dark (nearly pitch black), I set the camera to a 30 second exposure. The flash (fired by a wireless trigger on camera) was set to go off at the end of the exposure. That gave me 30 seconds from the time I hit the shutter to use a handheld flash unit to light the trees (five pops of the flash), find my mark, place the handheld flash unit behind me and hit a pose before the final flash went off. The advance planning paid off. It only took three or four tries to get a frame that I liked.

Ah, the things I do for my art.

Extra points if you can find the Big Dipper. The big dip is in the orange shirt.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

And you thought YOUR morning commute was a pain ...

2010-08-17T13:21:00.001-05:00

Brook trout swimming upstream. Tennessee Aquarium, Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Along life's road ...

2010-08-15T21:12:00.001-05:00

... it's sometimes stormiest before the calm.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Jellyfish

2010-08-11T10:36:00.003-05:00

Looking very much like a nebula in the outer reaches of the universe, a jellyfish floats in its particle-strewn tank at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Only the universe inhabited by this creature is deep under the ocean of this planet.

Fascinating creature.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Sparrow

2010-07-30T08:51:00.002-05:00

But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it.

Matthew 10:29

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Summer

2010-07-29T07:38:00.002-05:00

This is what summer in northern Illinois looks like once you escape the Chicago suburban sprawl, ditch the calendar and put away the e-mail and the cell phone.

I don't do that often enough.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Rolling in

2010-07-19T11:14:00.003-05:00

A summer thunderstorm rolls in over Green Bay. Taken in Fish Creek, Door county, Wisconsin.

I've been keeping busy (very busy) processing images from several recent shoots, so posts here have been sporadic. Sorry about that. But there is light at the end of the tunnel, so things should pick up here in the near future.

Thanks for hanging out here and following my occasionally excellent adventures. There is lots more to come.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Flame on!

2010-07-14T06:49:00.009-05:00

The fish boil is a Door County tradition that, depending on whom you ask, was either brought to Wisconsin from the "old country" or originated right there on the Door peninsula a century and a half earlier. The premise is simple -- potatoes, onions, salt and chunks of Lake Michigan whitefish are introduced at specific times to a large pot of boiling water over an open fire. The finale is the boilover, when the fire is doused with kerosene, which causes the water to boil over the sides of the pot, which simultaneously removes the accumulated fish oils and douses the fire. Time to eat.

A good boilmaster is equal parts cook, thermodynamics engineer, showman, interpretive guide and pyromaniac. Such a person works the fire pot at Pelletier's Restaurant in Fish Creek, Wisconsin. Seven times a day, seven days a week for 26 weeks of the year, Matt Peterson, a third generation boilmaster, stokes the fire, engages the crowd, times the addition of ingredients to the pot, and poses for pictures. Together, we estimated that Matt's image is snapped about 5,ooo times in a given week, possibly giving him the edge over the goats on the grass roof of Al Johnson's restaurant in Sister Bay. Not a bad way to make a living.

I happened upon the 8:00 p.m. fish boil at Pelletier's, the last of the day. Matt confided to the crowd that the day's finale gets an extra charge -- double the dose of kerosene. (You'll note in the photographs below that everyone is standing well behind the chain fencing -- everyone, that is, except for a certain photographer who had poked his head under the chain to get those shots.)

This was a single-pot finale. During the busier dinner hours, Matt will have two pots going at once. He explained that in a two-pot scenario, the first pot gets a regular dose of fuel while the second gets a double dose. He tried to explain to me the dynamics of the timing and sizes of the charges to ensure proper consistency between the food in the two pots. I wasn't buying it. It was mainly to provide a better show for the patrons, wasn't it?

"Just between you and me, yes," he admitted.

I staked myself out in a corner of the chained-off boil area to wait for the conflagration. Two things I ignored -- the scorch marks on the ground and the singed shrubbery behind me -- should have told me that I was going to be pretty close to the action. I also used a very wide angle lens to frame the shot. It would catch the fireball and crowd reaction nicely, but it would also make objects in the viewfinder closer than they appeared. I set my camera to fire five frames a second, set the focus and exposure to manual so the fireball would not throw either setting off and waited for the blast.

The blast came and I felt warm. Very warm. In the second shot of the sequence above, it appears as if Matt is looking my way to assess the extent of the restaurant's liability at setting a photographer on fire. The third shot of the sequence shows Matt disregarding me in favor of getting out of Dodge himself.

After examining my arms and finding no singed hairs, I met up with my wife, who for some reason doesn't share my love of exploding pots of fish, and headed over to Sunset Park to catch the sunset and its watchers.

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

Sunset in the park

2010-07-13T08:18:00.004-05:00

Sunset is a spectator sport in Door County, Wisconsin. The harbors, parks and marinas on the western edge of the peninsula begin to fill with people about a half hour or so before sunset. They come to watch, reflect and photograph while the sun dips below the horizon. I come to watch the people watching the sunset.

Fish Creek, Wisconsin is home to the aptly-named Sunset Park, a clearing on the west end of town on the shore of Green Bay. It seems like I always come away with an interesting picture whenever I visit. This time was no exception.

I spotted the couple on the park bench and noted the folks in the distance sitting on a low retaining wall on a short bluff. The picture pretty much composed itself. I liked the shadows cast by the low-angled sunlight. I set myself up about three feet behind the bench and made several exposures to be sure I had all the elements -- sky, sun, bench, foreground -- properly exposed at least once, with plans to assemble the final image later in Photoshop.

Then I left the sunset watchers to finish out their day.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Aaaaaand ... I'm back!

2010-07-12T07:46:00.003-05:00

Spent some time in the northern parts of Wisconsin last week. Started by photographing a family on a Lake Michigan beach and ended with a few days in Door County. Experienced every type of weather Wisconsin can throw at you in July -- fog, heat, humidity, storms, sun, clouds, rain. Great for pictures.

This is the Sturgeon Bay North Pier Lighthouse, which I've photographed many times. This time, it was socked in by pea-soup fog. The lineup of seagulls on the overhead catwalk seemed to imply that air traffic control had imposed a ground stop on all flights around the lighthouse, save for one intrepid gull launching himself into the great unknown.

More pictures and stories to come.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Balancing Trio

2010-07-07T08:54:00.004-05:00

They've got nice rocks in Door County, Wisconsin. I balanced a few whilst waiting to see what a storm over Green Bay would do. At this point, it had stalled and was breaking apart.

It's been a while since I did any rock balancing. Good to see that I still had the touch. The stormy backdrop was nice.

Oh, and the pressure was on for this piece of ephemeral art. A trolley full of tourists had arrived at the location and were watching me work. Got a couple of oohs and ahhs when I got the center formation balanced.

Thankyouverahmuch. I'm here all week.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan

Happy 4th!

2010-07-04T16:46:00.001-05:00

This and that

2010-07-02T09:33:00.004-05:00

As one month ends and another begins, I go through the same thing -- looking through the photographs of the past month and opening a new folder in which to stash photographs yet to be taken.

I keep my pictures organized on my hard drive by month. Subfolders identify specific places and subjects that rose to prominence during that month. It may not be the most user-friendly way of keeping track of things, but one thing it does afford is a quick visual review of my photographic activity of any particular month.

June of 2010 was a busy one. Lots of storms rolled through this month. Today's photograph is of a storm cell that came through northern Illinois in early June. I was standing on the inflow side of the storm. Grass bent toward the cell as air was drawn into the system's convection engine.

The June '10 folder shows lots of places visited, lots of activity. Which is good.

For what it's worth, I'm taking about 1,500-1,700 photographs each month. Not all are kept. June saw about 450 keepers out of nearly 2,ooo clicks of the shutter. That means that about 80 percent of the pictures I take aren't worth seeing. But it doesn't mean that I'm wasting time and energy. Most of those photographs served as guides along the way to capturing the keepers. I am a constant chimper of the LCD screen on my camera. I shoot, look, quickly evaluate and try something else as necessary. Sometimes it's an exposure adjustment. Other times a slight change in position and framing. Or a change of lenses. Sometimes I scrap the idea all together and start an entirely new approach. Each click of the shutter gets me closer to producing the strongest possible image of the subject. Hopefully.

By the way, I had someone ask me if I posted the exposure information of my photographs anywhere and the answer is no ... and yes. I don't specifically post EXIF data, but Flickr does. It draws EXIF data from each picture I upload and posts it in conjunction with the image. If you're ever curious about the exact exposure and camera settings I used to get a particular shot on this blog, just click on the photograph. It will take you to the image's page on Flickr. Scroll down the right hand sidebar until you see "More Properties." Click the link and you'll get every piece of info recorded by the camera.

Hope your skies are sunny and clear as you head into the month of July. But then again, there's something to be said about those storms that occasionally roll through.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Sunset over Reefpoint Marina

2010-07-01T08:23:00.002-05:00

The day glides to a close in Racine, Wisconsin.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Cooler by the lake

2010-06-30T07:09:00.002-05:00

Weekend sailors enjoy the late afternoon at Reefpoint Marina in Racine, Wisconsin. This particular day, the cool lake air mixed with the hot humid onshore air to produce thick fog over the water.

But the fog didn't hamper the sunset in any way.

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

Christopher Kenosha

2010-06-29T08:30:00.004-05:00

Harbor Park in Kenosha, Wisconsin is a nice place to spend a summer Saturday. Expansive open area on the shore of Lake Michigan, nearby museums, beach, lighthouses, a trolley, and weddings. Lots of weddings. The cars, limos and sometimes buses pull up, wedding parties get out and photographers start doing their thang.

This little flower girl wandered around in front of the Christopher Columbus statue and fountain in the center of the park while waiting for her turn in front of the camera. Portions of the wedding party were getting their photos taken on the other side of the fountain. As she wandered in front of the statue, I saw a nice picture about to line up and I had a camera in my hands, so what the heck.

As my wife and I strolled further, we saw a photographer working with a bride and groom. The photog just finished a series of shots of the couple with Chris's backside behind them when we heard a trolley clanging along behind us. The photographer quickly jumped into position in front of the couple, told them not to move and got a couple of shots of the b&g with the trolley passing behind them.

Good man.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

The aviator

2010-06-28T07:37:00.004-05:00

My wife had a hankering for photographing dragonflies. I had a hankering to photograph storms expected to sweep through the lower tier of Wisconsin counties. What to do?

Make a stop at Volo Bog, near Ingleside, Illinois, just a few miles from the state line on the way to the Badger State. They got dragonflies aplenty there.

This fella (we could tell because we could hear the beating of his wings) continually circled a stand of wildflowers near the parking lot. He would dart about, then hover and glide, then take off again. After a lot of trial and error, I found that I could focus on him while he hovered. I moved around the bed of wildflowers, getting a good angle on the sunlight as well as a clear shot of the sky and waited for Mr. Dragonfly (a common green darner) to circle back and hover. One hover brought him to within a few feet of me and I was able to fire off three shots. This is the best one.

Dragonflying complete, we headed into Wisconsin to visit Kenosha and Racine.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

The light at the end of the storm

2010-06-24T11:45:00.006-05:00

Let me start with a disclaimer. I don't advocate that anyone go out looking for storms without a lot of advance preparation, a plan and a backup plan. In the case of the line of severe storms that rolled through northern Illinois last evening, I had been keeping tabs on reports from NOAA most of the day and keeping Accuweather's rolling radar map within a couple of mouse clicks. NOAA let me know that developing storms would likely follow a path along the top two tiers of counties in Illinois after afternoon surface heating added the final ingredient necessary for the formation of a mesoscale convective system (MCS) -- fancy weather talk for a really big storm. By 4:00, things were developing rapidly along the Iowa/Illinois border. By 5:00 my wife and I had wolfed down a quick dinner and were in the car.

The plan was to drive west while staying north of the storm, then dropping south to catch the back side where hopefully things would be quite picturesque (and safe). While driving, my wife monitored the radio for reports of storm locations as well as warnings from the National Weather Service that we subscribe to on our cell phone.

After some zigzagging west and south and skirting the edge of the storm, it became clear that the extreme amount of moisture in this system would obscure most of the cloud formations in the storm cells. Bummer. By this time, we were in Elburn, Illinois and a wall of rain was coming in from the west. We decided to punch through it on state route 38. We were treated to an amazing lightning show along the way. We emerged from the rain just east of Dekalb.

I set up a tripod and set about to capture some lightning. The best way I know to do that is to frame up an area of the sky that is pretty active, set the camera ISO as low as it will go, close the lens aperture all the way down and let the camera pick a (hopefully) long exposure time. I had gotten it down to about a one-second exposure, then just kept clicking away, hoping that lightning would strike while the shutter was open. Out of about a hundred shots, lightning showed up in about a dozen. The image above was the most extensive lightning bolt I was able to capture.

From there, it was a matter of capturing some of the incidental clouds to the system, then sticking around for the aftermath -- in this case, a sky full of mammatus clouds at sunset.

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

Apocalyptic sunset

2010-06-23T08:27:00.004-05:00

I finished a photo assignment at a local hospital a couple of nights ago, then met my wife at a nearby shopping mall for a snack and a little walking inside. Afterward, as we headed to our cars in the parking lot, I glanced at the western sky, which until now was under a heavy cloud cover. A small section of the sky appeared to be a boiling mass of pink, similar in appearance to the sky in the movie Independence Day just before the alien ships arrived to destroy the planet.

I joked to my wife that we should hurry home because it appeared that Dekalb just got nuked. We watched the swirling mass grow, then slowly open to reveal pink and gold clouds beyond the portal. Rays of sunlight streamed out of the hole. I shot a few photographs from the parking lot, but having a Home Depot as a foreground wasn't quite cutting it for me. I wrote it off and decided to head home, while my wife drove off to a grocery store to pick up a few items.

I shot a few more pictures of the Home Depot apocalypse, then climbed into my car and headed out of the parking lot. My cell phone rang. My wife had called to tell me that the view was spectacular where she was. I turned west and onto the road she had just taken. She was right -- the hole was now closer, larger and shooting rays of light in a gigantic laser light show. My only problem was finding an unobstructed view.

I turned into a subdivision hoping for a clear shot of the sky over some rooftops. No dice. I gave up again and left the subdivision, turning east to head home. I glanced at the rearview mirror then decided to pull over. I got out and got a couple of shots of the roadway and trees beyond. A police car pulled up and asked if everything was OK. I explained I was getting a few shots of the sunset and Mr. Policeman nodded and drove off. I got another dozen or so shots, all hand-held, before the light faded.

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

I got peace like a light bulb ...

2010-06-22T07:31:00.002-05:00

These things were pretty popular back in the 1970s. Light bulbs that contained symbols, messages, logos, you name it. They didn't give off much light, but that wasn't the purpose. You could have bought one for a couple of bucks back then. They're going for around 20 dollars on eBay these days.

I got hold of a couple of oldies but goodies from a friend to see what I could do with them, photography-wise. This was the first thought off the top of my head. A composite photo. Shot the lit bulb in a lamp fixture, then took a shot of my hand holding the same bulb. Put 'em together in Photoshop.

Speaking of "off the top of my head" ... I have an idea ...

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Storm story

2010-06-21T07:45:00.005-05:00

My wife and I followed the progress of a storm system most of the day last Friday. OK, so I followed it. I just kept my wife updated throughout the day. I think she knew that if things got interesting that I might want to go out and meet the storm as it approached our area. The storm eventually cut a path across six states leaving flooding, downed trees and power outages in its wake.

We received a severe thunderstorm watch alert on my cell phone early in the day. From there I logged onto the NOAA weather site, which provides a daily forecast briefing that meteorologists across the country use as reference in preparing their forecasts. The briefing indicated that a large flying wedge of thunderstorms was sweeping its way across Iowa and heading to Illinois and points east. This storm was a surprise -- it had not previously shown up on any of NOAA's computer models.

A combination of strong convection within the system and high velocity winds aloft meant a pretty good show was on its way. The NOAA site hinted at the possibility of the existence of wind shears, which meant that all the ingredients were in place for the formation of supercells.

I hit Accuweather.com for their rolling radar pictures. Using their time stamps and a trusty old road atlas, I calculated the speed of the storm at about 60mph. Whoa. Nothing to do but keep an eye on the weather reports and wait for our uninvited guest to blow in.

Later that afternoon, when the system approached to within 60 miles of my home, I set out to meet it. My wife came along to monitor the radio and keep me out of trouble. The plan was to photograph the approaching storm, then skedaddle our way back home ahead of it. The whole thing was like one of those algebra story problems -- a severe storm with high winds and heavy rains is heading east at 55 mph. A Ford Escape with a crazy man inside is heading west at 50 mph. Where will the two meet?

We met just west of Illinois Route 47, a north-south road in western Kane County. As we got closer to the storm, the visual turned from a shapeless mass of dark gray to layers of churning clouds, including a rather impressive shelf cloud riding underneath the stack. Walls of rain hung from the snarling mass along the horizon like sheets on a clothesline. I turned onto a north-south road, located a red barn to frame against the sky, turned the car around so it pointed toward home, then hopped out into a corn field to get some images.

I've shot enough approaching storms to know when enough is enough. I called to my wife, who sat in the car with her window open (I presume to yell to me to get back in at the appropriate time), and let her know that when the lead clouds hit a certain point on the southern horizon, we would make our exit. That would be our cue to get out fast. The clouds didn't quite make it there before I could hear the slow sizzle of very large raindrops striking the leaves of corn on the opposite side of the field. Time to go. I ran back to the car and just got inside as the rain began to fall on us.

The rain eased, then stopped as we raced eastward, raising my confidence that we could outrun the storm if things worked out for us at a couple of stop lights along the way. At stop light number one, we found ourselves waiting for green behind a farmer on a small tractor hauling a trailer tank full of water. Either he hadn't heard or ignored the weather reports -- there was plenty of water about to be delivered today. Either way, he was about to learn a hard lesson. When the light turned, the tractor pulled out ahead of us at a painfully slow pace. A line of cars the opposite way prevented me from passing the tractor as the rain caught up with us. The tractor hinted at pulling off the road to let us pass, but then swerved back on as the farmer likely rejected the idea of becoming a sitting duck on the side of the road in favor of continuing as a crawling duck. Big raindrops began hitting the roof and windshield as we finally pulled around the slow moving tractor, leaving the farmer behind to deal with his fate.

About three miles from home, any hope of outrunning the system disappeared. A section of storm to the south had raced ahead of the mass behind us and closed in on us in a big wet sloppy hug. We slogged though pouring rain and howling winds the rest of the way, dodging fallen trash bins that littered our subdivision like so many casualties in the streets.

Little damage was sustained in our neck of the woods, although many other areas saw uprooted trees and a few are still waiting for power to return. More storms are in the forecast for the next several days.

I'll keep an eye on them.

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

Little bump on the prairie

2010-06-18T10:23:00.002-05:00

A small glacial kame rises above the surrounding flatland at Moraine Hills State Park near McHenry, Illinois. A foggy morning helps to define the contours of the kame against the wooded backdrop -- I had been to the park several times and never really noticed this formation until this day.

Kames are formed by the flow of water through a narrow tunnel in a melting glacier. Dirt and debris form piles at the bottom of the glacier and are revealed as the glacier recedes. Kames can be the dominant feature in a post-glacial landscape.

So in this instance, it kame, it thawed, it conquered. Ba-dum.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

He feeds the sparrows

2010-06-17T07:40:00.002-05:00

OK, so I helped a little. Psst, hey buddy ... you got some doughnut crumbs on your beak, there.

Outside the Apple Haus, Long Grove, Illinois.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Young'un

2010-06-16T08:10:00.003-05:00

A young red winged blackbird surveys the fog-shrouded landscape. Moraine Hills State Park, McHenry, Illinois.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Occupying a thin slice of time and space

2010-06-15T09:32:00.003-05:00

But then again, aren't we all?

A butterfly on a wall fits neatly into the shallow depth of field of a telephoto lens. Peck Road Farm butterfly house, Geneva, Illinois.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Gimme shelter

2010-06-14T06:54:00.002-05:00

A spider hides out under the petals of a coneflower. Moraine Hills State Park, McHenry, Illinois.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Candid shots

2010-06-11T10:20:00.004-05:00

From the Port Washington Pirate Festival last weekend. The minstrel making music and telling tales of life on the open seas ...

The flaunter of flasks in the marketplace ...

And the sorcerer, using his silver box of magic to capture people's souls.

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

There be pirates

2010-06-10T08:41:00.002-05:00

I headed up to the Port Washington Pirate Festival in Port Washington, Wisconsin last weekend. My main objective was to come back with a number of piratey portraits to feed my portfolio. I figured that anyone willing to go to the effort to turn themself into a pirate wouldn't mind posing for a couple of photos. I was right. I ran into one group of scallawags and wenches that called themselves the Sea Ratts. All I had to do was ask once to take a few photos and I became their official photographer for the weekend. Individual shots, couples, small groups, large group. I came away with shots for my portfolio and Getty Images, they had photos for their web site. Win-win.

I learned that many of the piratey participants traveled a regular summer circuit of festivals and fairs ranging from Rennaissance to Revolutionary War. One gentleman I spoke to said that since the economy tanked, having something like that to fall back on was not too bad of a way to make a living. He wouldn't go into detail about how they made money -- I presume some made money through selling concessions and others through performance fees, but I'm only speculating.

This was my favorite subject throughout the weekend. Meet the "Governor" of Port Washington. His job was to act alarmed and comically order his militia to repel the landing of a pirate vessel and subsequent invasion of his port, every two hours on the hour each day. I'd catch him between invasions, and he would always snap back into character as soon as he saw me and my camera. Lots of fun.

I've been meaning to turn my camera more often to the human landscape and this summer I plan to do more of it.

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

Several reasons why I love Racine, Wisconsin

2010-06-09T09:08:00.002-05:00

Against the storm

2010-06-08T08:39:00.003-05:00

The lighthouse at Wind Point, north of Racine Wisconsin, set against a backdrop of turbulent skies.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Storm cell

2010-06-07T21:44:00.003-05:00

This past weekend was a turbulent one in the Prairie State. This is the action northeast of Woodstock, Illinois on Sunday afternoon.

My wife and I were returning from Port Washington, Wisconsin and noticed a large storm brewing to the west and north of us. We eventually crossed paths at Lake Geneva. After we had driven through the storm, we kept an eye on it as it drifted eastward toward McHenry. I stopped three times to get photos of the churning clouds.

By the time we arrived home, the skies had cleared and you wouldn't have known that anything dramatic had occured at all.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Avast me hearties!

2010-06-04T09:39:00.003-05:00

The weekend is nearly here and I'm planning a trip to Port Washington, Wisconsin's Pirate Festival. Three days of pillage and plunder and folks dressed up as various scallawags and wenches. Some folks take this thing pretty seriously and travel from all over the Midwest to attend these types of things decked out in their piratey best. Who knew?

I don't plan on dressing as a pirate (I think I get enough points for having my birthday on September 19 -- International Talk like a Pirate Day). I do plan on catching as many piratey portraits as I can throughout the day on Saturday. Arrr!

Hope that whatever swashbuckling you have planned for the weekend turns out well.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Got pollen?

2010-06-03T07:48:00.001-05:00

If not, there's plenty more where this came from.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Rocking the poor man's macro

2010-06-02T08:19:00.005-05:00

A photo of a hover fly, not hovering. The guy was hanging around on a seed pod at the top of a stalk of grass next to my garage (don't ask why my grass is seeding out).

I don't readily have $1000 laying around to spend on a macro lens, so I make do with a couple of cheap 50mm f/1.8s taped together, face-to-face. A new 50mm lens will set you back just $130 or so. When not shooting bugs, the 50mm makes a great portrait lens (on a DX sensor camera, it's equivalent to a 75mm). The other lens is an old manual job from an older film camera that doesn't get used any more.

A couple of people have asked about the setup I use to shoot insect macros. I've posted photos of the lens combo, flash setup and sample pics on the James Jordan Photography page on Facebook. There's a pretty thorough explanation of how I go about using the equipment and how I approach shooting bugs and other small things. And if you're also on Facebook, be sure to "Like" my page, mkay?

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Turnabout's fair play

2010-06-01T08:52:00.003-05:00

We've made the turn from spring to summer and with that, it's time for me to do my annual "turn the lens around and shoot something small" photo trekking.

In this case, I gaffer-taped two 50mm f/1.8 lenses together face to face so the back of one of the lenses points toward the subject. I can focus down to less than half an inch with this setup. Add a flash on a bracket that dumps light just past the lens and I can shoot just about anything that will stay still long enough for me to move in. You lose the corners of the frame, but a little cropping takes care of things nicely.

This damselfly was one of dozens flitting about my backyard yesterday, enjoying the warm weather.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Purple trillium

2010-05-28T08:27:00.002-05:00

We don't seem to have white trilliums here in northern Illinois, but we do have these.

Seen in Trout Park, Elgin, Illinois.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

And the windows of heaven were opened

2010-05-27T08:22:00.003-05:00

So if you heard a loud gasp at about 3:00 yesterday afternoon, it was me. I had just looked into my viewfinder and saw this thing bearing down on me.

Not that I didn't know there was a storm approaching. I had been out shooting exteriors for a local hospital and took a break because of excessive cloud cover. I went home to monitor the weather and saw some storms approaching. I decided to go out to meet them.

I'm still getting used to a new wide angle lens. It has a field of view that is much wider than my peripheral vision. I saw nasty clouds, but I didn't see all of them appearing to open the bomb bay doors to drop a gusher on me until I peeked through the lens.

After a few shots at a rural crossroads near Elgin (the electric lines at the edges of the picture were going in opposite directions -- that's how wide the view is through that lens), I booked over to the hospital to catch the creeping crud passing over it.

Then I caught my breath.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Time passes slowly

2010-05-26T08:31:00.002-05:00

Along the Fox River in West Dundee, Illinois.

Photograph © 2010; James Jordan

Down Michigan Avenue

2010-05-25T08:21:00.003-05:00

The view from about 24 stories above the streets of Chicago. Michigan Avenue, looking south from the Intercontinental Hotel. Taken during a break in a photo shoot there earlier this month.

Tribune Tower is at the left edge of the frame, Merchandise Mart is just past the Radisson. ~~Sears~~ Willis Tower is just peeking at the upper right.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Into everyone's life, some rain must fall

2010-05-24T09:06:00.003-05:00

And sometimes, it looks like the world is about to end. These are some glimpses of the sky late last Friday as storms rolled through Elgin, Illinois. My wife and I did a little storm chasing since this type of photo op is fairly rare here. While we get our share of storms, we're usually on the side obscured by rain and clouds.

We tracked some nasty looking clouds down gravel roads, then swung through a large subdivision of homes. Many of the residents were unaware of what was passing overhead. While I shot this photo, a resident of a nearby house pulled into her driveway, ran to the door and yelled at someone inside to come out and see this.

Despite the manace in the sky, all we got out of this particular storm was wet. After some heavy rain, the turbulence moved on.

And all was peaceful once again.

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

Itza bird

2010-05-21T09:06:00.003-05:00

And that's about all I know about it at this point. A kind of speckled-stripey-sparrowy-finchy looking thing. Spotted at Moraine Hills State Park, McHenry, Illinois.

Perhaps one of my more ornithologically persuaded friends can help with an ID.

Thanks in advance.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Hello, Spring

2010-05-20T08:03:00.002-05:00

A photo of the renewing cycle of life and death in nature. Moraine Hills State Park, McHenry, Illinois.

I've been blogged. The folks at Sherman Hospital in Elgin, Illinois spotted a photo I took of the hospital at sunset. I was contacted for permission to post the photo on the Future of Sherman blog and to answer a few questions about photography in general and making the sunset picture in particular. See the photo of Sherman Hospital and blog post here.

Off to photograph some desserts at Blackbird in Chicago this morning. Photos will appear in a magazine and on the Blackbird web site.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Whirlybird

2010-05-19T07:17:00.005-05:00

You're looking at photograph number 155 out of more than 200 that I took while trying to catch a maple seed pod in flight.

The seed pod, called a samara, is designed to carry the seed away from the parent tree so as not to compete for resources necessary for survival. I had the idea in my head for a few days to get a photograph of a falling samara while showing the path of its fall, and to do it all in-camera. Much easier thought than done.

The trick is to set the camera for a long exposure, then have a flash fire at the very end of the shot (this is called rear curtain synch). You then need just enough ambient light in the room to expose the fall of the object before the flash goes off. This is also easier thought than done.

I experimented with a range of exposures from 1/4 second to 2 full seconds, and settled on 1/2 second as sufficient to catch a blurry fall. I set the aperture at f/8 to increase depth of field and improve my chances of getting the samara in focus -- those babies are hard to steer.

Locked the focus on a target area on the tabletop, composed the shot against a black background, set the camera on auto timer, had a flash unit off to the side with a grid to direct a beam of light to where I wanted to catch the samara, had another flash with a grid and green gel to add some color to the backdrop. Did a few test shots using my hand to simulate a falling object. Once happy with the results, I started dropping seeds that I had gathered from my front yard.

At that point, the timing of the drop is everything. A lot of shots had nothing in them but a trail. Some had the samara at the very top of the frame, some had it going off the bottom. I got pretty good at hitting the target with the seeds. Over the course of dozens of seed drops, I discovered that you have to hold them in a certain way to make them twirl straight down. Only six shots out of more than two hundred were close enough to keep. The shot above was the best of those.

Hmmm. Wonder what else I can drop and photograph?

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Sit down and soak your feet

2010-05-18T09:52:00.002-05:00

Lots of rain recently has our streams and rivers jumping their banks around here. Nothing like what's happened to places like Nashville, of course.

Roadways get wet. Parks get flooded. Ducks and geese have a great time.

The above photo was taken where a swollen stream met the swollen Fox River in Geneva, Illinois, creating a swirl of turbulence. Happens every spring, and most people here are used to the temporary inconvenience.

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

The first and last

2010-05-17T07:32:00.002-05:00

I spent the better part of the day yesterday photographing landmarks in Elgin, illinois as part of the Elgin 1440 photography event. Sponsored by the city's Cultural Arts Commision and a local newspaper, the event is designed to capture a day in the life of a city through the eyes and cameras of its inhabitants. The numeral 1440 refers to the number of minutes in a day.

I started the day at about 5:00 a.m. intending to catch the sunrise from the downtown area. While en route by car to downtown, the sky lit up with a sun pillar, a phenomenon where the first rays of sunlight beam straight upward in a pillar of light. Being in a moving car and not able to easily switch from the wide angle lens to a telephoto, I did not get a clear shot of the pillar. Ah, well. I hope someone else did.

I'm posting one of the first photographs of the day and one of the last. The photo above is the Elgin skyline at sunrise, featuring the Elgin Tower Building. The photo below is of the newly built Sherman Hospital at dusk with its geothermal lake in the foreground. In between were about 200 assorted pictures of places and people doing their thing on a pleasant spring Sunday in Elgin.

At midday, I met a reporter from the local paper who chatted with me for a bit about the 1440 Event and my part in it. The result of that conversation is a mention in the lead of a story in today's paper and a couple of quotes from me. Nothing terribly profound, I'm afraid, but at least they spelled my name right.

News story on Elgin 1440.

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

More trilliums

2010-05-14T09:21:00.002-05:00

I like these flowers. I have to travel to see them, but it's worth the view of the woods full of trilliums.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Field chickweed (Starry grasswort)

2010-05-13T10:54:00.001-05:00

In the woods

2010-05-12T07:12:00.004-05:00

I love the dappled light of the woods. Pools of light. Puddles of shadows. The name of the game while walking a trail at Starved Rock State Park near Utica, Illinois was "isolation." Could I find interesting looking subjects, then use available light and shadow to make then stand out from their surroundings?

In a lot of cases, yes. In many more, no. But it was fun to see if I could turn light, shadow and subject into an image that would make someone want to look twice.

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

My daily requirement of greens

2010-05-11T08:26:00.003-05:00

Got them at Starved Rock State Park near Utica, Illinois.

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

Points of view

2010-05-10T09:11:00.003-05:00

I shot a wedding this past weekend. Mostly on my feet. Sometimes on my belly in the middle of the aisle. I asked the minister ahead of time if doing so might bother him, and he said to go for it.

From the balcony ...

From between the main photographer and the videographer ...

From the wedding party's viewpoint ...

And a whole lotta places in between. Shooting's done. Now the processing's begun.

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan. Shot for Holly Birch Photography, Champaign, Illinois.

Rochelle, Illinois

2010-05-07T08:27:00.003-05:00

Wandering through my photo archives yesterday in search of a photo and came across this forgotten gem taken last August. An electric generating facility and water tower in Rochelle, Illinois at twilight. The last light of the day cast rose colored hues as the sky darkened into a deep blue. The moon doesn't hurt things, either.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

A millium trilliums ...

2010-05-06T08:28:00.002-05:00

... are blooming. A patient plant, trilliums can take up to eight years to go from seed to blossoming plant. Ants disperse the seeds while in search of food and the cycle starts all over again.

With the right combination of moisture, shade and isolation, trilliums can create a beautiful green and white carpet across the woodland floor.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Buoys and gulls

2010-05-05T07:57:00.003-05:00

Saw plenty of both last weekend in Door County, Wisconsin. These two both had a nice blue background.

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

Wind-assisted photography

2010-05-04T07:48:00.002-05:00

After the storm system plowed through the middle of the U.S. last weekend, the wind kicked up, at least in the northern parts of the Midwest. Seeing that I was in Door County, Wisconsin, and seeing that spring wildflowers had bloomed and seing that I wanted to get some photos of them while I was there, I had no choice other than to try to do so in the stiff breezes that raked the peninsula.

Focusing in close quarters is tough enough when the subject is still. When the subject appears to be riding a breezy bucking bronco, it can be nearly impossible. But for reasons that I'm still trying to figure out, these two photos -- a trillium and tulips -- have a nifty sense of motion about them despite my best efforts to freeze them in place.

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

Before the storm

2010-05-03T08:01:00.003-05:00

These were the clouds at the extreme northern end of the storm system that stretched from Louisiana to Wisconsin over the weekend.

While traveling to Door County, Wisconsin to deliver a set of photographs to a gallery, my wife and I stopped in the Lake Michigan city of Manitowoc to stretch. This was the view from where we parked. Mammatus clouds usually signal convection in the atmosphere, usually a sign that a storm is on the way.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Mill

2010-04-29T08:15:00.003-05:00

I have an adage that I follow when out taking pictures: If the sky is doing something interesting, find something to stick in front of it and shoot it.

The skies were getting turbulent out at the Goose Lake Prairie State Natural Area near Morris, Illinois this past weekend. The park includes the remains of farms that once sat productively on the wide expanse of land. This windmill was selected for the job of acting as foreground interest to stand against the stormy backdrop.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

On the prairie

2010-04-27T08:06:00.004-05:00

An old fence post seems to play tug of war with the remains of a barbed wire fence while stormy clouds swirl overhead. Seen at Goose Lake Prairie State Natural Area, Morris, Illinois.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

But when it's nice enough out to fix that leak, it ain't rainin'

2010-04-26T08:09:00.004-05:00

An old barn sits within the confines of the Goose Lake Prairie State Natural Area near Morris, Illinois. I like old barns. I had a camera with me. You know the rest.

It's a real fixer-upper, which, unless there's some historic significance to this structure, will never get done. For now, the gaps, wood rot, rust and decay make for good photo fodder.

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

Earth. Why not give it a day of its own?

2010-04-22T13:18:00.002-05:00

Photographing parts of the earth, I've come to appreciate its diversity, resilience and wonder. Why not give it a day of its own?

Of course, it's our attitudes and actions toward the planet on the other 364 days that really matter.

The photo above was taken in August of 2008 on a walk in the misty morning air in Dundee, Illinois. Beams of sunlight danced across the water of the Fox River. As my wife and I crossed a footbridge, I caught this image of a small tree perched on a rocky outcropping on the river. At this point, the tree was mostly dead. It has since become all dead, but for a brief moment, the sky reached down and the tree reached up and the two connected.

Enjoy your day, planet.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Bustin' out ...

2010-04-21T07:16:00.004-05:00

... which is what spring has been doing all over around here lately. My wife and I both remarked to each other on a walk last evening that it seems like spring just didn't creep in this year, it exploded onto the landscape with an urgency we don't ever recall seeing before.

Or maybe it just seems that way because I'm getting older.

Photo taken at Fox River Bluff Forest Preserve, St. Charles, Illinois. Aperture priority @f/4.5, 120mm, 800 ISO and -.03 EV. Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

A thing for spring

2010-04-20T08:04:00.002-05:00

A spray of pink blossoms backlit by the setting sun. Fox River Bluff Forest Preserve, St. Charles, Illinois.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Food, glorious food

2010-04-19T08:06:00.003-05:00

I've played with food photography in the past, but was fortunate enough to get a real good shot at it (pun intended) this weekend.

You're looking at eggs benedict, asparagus and pineapple with poblano pepper. Lighting was pretty simple -- window light from behind the plate, softened with a white diffuser. On-camera flash bounced from the ceiling to the right for some fill light on the front.

There's an interesting story of how this shoot all came about. A couple of blogging buddies set this up, and I'll let them tell the tale on their own blogs. But first, I have to process all the photos from the day and get them to the bloggers so it can happen.

So stay tuned.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Gone fishing

2010-04-16T09:19:00.001-05:00

Hello, sun

2010-04-15T07:37:00.004-05:00

Bloomin'

2010-04-14T07:37:00.004-05:00

An obligatory nature shot, but it's spring here, so why not?

Magnolia blossom, Batavia, Illinois.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Cana Island twilight

2010-04-12T08:03:00.003-05:00

Another day comes to an end in Door County, Wisconsin. Another night settles in. Another lighting of the lighthouse light. Another winter passing, another spring on its way.

Ironically, the sameness of every passing day provides cover for change to creep in. Little by little, imperceptively, patiently, change squeezes in between the seemingly immutable objects and routines that surround us and settles into place.

Life is funny like that.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Framed

2010-04-09T07:55:00.003-05:00

A long time ago, when I was a fledgling graphic designer and commercial illustrator, I landed a gig creating renderings of home designs for a local builder. Looking over the first set of rough drawings, the client said the houses looked good enough, but "you need to find a way to frame the subject to keep the viewer's eye from wandering off the page." We eventually settled on adding strategically placed tree limbs and other landscaping here and there to do the trick.

Taking a long walk on a long pier to get close to the Sturgeon Bay Canal lighthouse, I noticed the meandering overhead catwalk wrapped itself around the edges of the frame in an M.C. Escher-like configuration. Looked good to me. Plus, the Red Rule was calling.

I nestled the lighthouse just right of center -- I often try to imagine diagonal lines crossing the frame from the corners. I'll either place the subject along one of those diagonals, or put them in one of the four "V's" formed by the crossing lines. It's kind of a mashup of the rule of thirds and the golden mean. Weird but it works.

I finished it up with some High-pass post processing, which simultaneously increases and decreases contrast. Weird but it works, too. I'll explain it further sometime when I fully figure it out.

Until then , have a great weekend.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Going with the floe

2010-04-08T08:26:00.005-05:00

While waiting for the sun to set recently in Door County, Wisconsin, I had lots of time to sit and watch the remains of winter's snow and ice slowly fade away. Some of it, like the ice floes above, crept slowly out of the harbor near Sister Bay on their way to the open expanse of Green Bay to eventually become one with the waters there.

The remnants of formerly sizeable ice chunks glimmered in the late afternoon sunlight.

Others played with the sun, returning a thousand points of light.

Here in the Midwest US of A, spring is a battle of the skies. Advancing warm air masses from the south seek supremacy over the cold air of the north -- a civil war that goes back and forth for several weeks until the northern air mass retreats. We've had a taste of spring, but for the next couple of days, the North will again hold this region. But the South will rise again and make a new assault on the occupation forces and will ultimately prevail.

But in the meantime, dang, it's cold.

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

Firmaments

2010-04-07T08:38:00.004-05:00

This is a worm's eye view of the moonrise -- if you're a worm in a boat on the shore of Lake Michigan, anyway. A nice combination of elements -- the earth, water, sky and the realms beyond.

The technique is pretty simple. Stand on a slippery rock and hold an expensive piece of electronic and optical equipment an inch off the surface of the water. Point it in the general direction of your subject. Click, chimp the image on the LCD and try again until satisfied with the image.

While I'm usually a fan of level horizon lines, this seemed tilted enough to look like it was done on purpose for effect. Yeah, that's it. It had nothing to do with the fact that I was nearly standing on my head and barely able to stay on the rock I was on with all that blood rushing to my head, let alone hold the camera level.

That's the ticket.

Location: Cana Island, Door County, Wisconsin. Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Magnolias

2010-04-06T07:46:00.003-05:00

Just doing my part to add to the profusion of flower photos in the world. Magnolias in bloom, Batavia, Illinois.

I generally try to avoid photographing in the afternoon sun, but this shot had a couple of things going for it. One, the flowers were fabulous. Two, the sun was partially obscured by high hazy clouds, which helped to diffuse what would have otherwise been harsh light.

I moved to the shady side of the tree and caught some blooms backlit against the darker backdrop, helping them to stand out from the rest -- I also used a long lens at a wide aperture to make use of depth of field.

Every little bit helps.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

April showers

2010-04-05T07:40:00.003-05:00

Every winter causes me to forget it. Every spring brings it back again. The smell of rain on a warm day. Nice.

Photo taken along the riverwalk in Batavia, Illinois. Four-stop HDR from a single RAW image. Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

The moon moved me so I moved it

2010-04-02T08:08:00.004-05:00

Some double exposures of the moon and the goings on around the Sturgeon Bay lighthouse. As I packed up to leave, a couple of gentlemen arrived to do some fishing. I was nearly back to my car when I looked out to see them at work (good work if you can get it) on the pier. I zoomed in on them and got a shot or two, then added the moon in post.

While the telephoto zoom compresses and flattens perspective, I like how the waters on the shore side of the pier are calm while the open water beyond tosses and churns. I also like how one guy chose to anchor his net on the pier. It was pretty windy that night.

Photoshop tip: If you have a good shot of the moon in the semi-dark sky, you can select it with the elliptical selection tool, copy then paste it into another photo. This automatically places the moon on its own layer. It will have the dark ring around it from your selection, but not to worry. Select "Lighten" from the layer options menu. Voila. The moon is now seamlessly blended into the picture. You can then adjust the opacity (which will control the brightness of the moon) to your taste. Flatten the image and save.

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

... and the moon came up

2010-04-01T07:52:00.005-05:00

The not-quite-full moon rises above the north pier lighthouse in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. This shot was one of those mad scramble type deals that happen to me occasionally. The lighthouse sits at the end of one of two piers that flank the Sturgeon Bay ship canal, which technically turns most of the Door County Wisconsin peninsula into an island. While the two piers are just a hundred yards or so apart, to get from one pier to the other requires mad swimming skills, a boat, or a ten minute drive to the nearest bridge and ten minutes back to the lakeshore.

I started out on the pier that the lighthouse sits on and waited for the moon to rise, hoping that the position would allow for a good juxtaposition of moon and lighthouse. Not being sure of exactly where the moon would appear made it a 50-50 choice. (Note to self: as the sun nears the horizon, shadows will point roughly to the point from which the moon will rise -- not exactly, depending on time of year or your location on the planet, but it gets you in the ballpark.)

As it turned out, I decided that being on the same pier as the lighthouse was a) not a good position from which to get the shot I was after and b) too close to the lighthouse to easily get both it and the moon in focus. Sooooo ... Hop in car. Begin the drive to the opposite pier. Make a wrong turn. Waste time backtracking to locate correct road to other pier. Park car. Grab equipment and begin rapid hike to the pier. Forget some equipment. Decide not to go back for it. Run like crazy up the beach to the pier, stopping to shoot along the way. Finally get to opposite pier. See that the moon is now much higher in the sky than I had originally wanted. Set up for the best shot under the circumstances. Take it. Rest. Relax. Enjoy the evening.

What's that about good judgement being the result of experience and experience being the result of bad judgement?

Similar-but-different tale from a guy who spent three decades as a shooter for Life, Sports Illustrated and National Geographic.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

The sun went down ...

2010-03-31T06:40:00.003-05:00

I've been away for a few days. To stand. To watch. To ponder. And grab some pictures of what I saw while standing, watching and pondering.

I specifically made a trip to Door County, Wisconsin to fill a few holes in the selection of photographs that will hang in a gallery there from May to October. The theme is twilight and night scenes around the county.

The scene above is a self portrait taken at the marina in Sister Bay. I had wrapped up shooting the sunset and as an afterthought, decided to plop down the tripod, set the self timer and walk to the end of the pier for a shot.

A few stubborn chunks of ice hang around the harbors, slowly falling victim to the warm winds that blow from the south. Their days are numbered. Buds are budding. Grass is greening. Taps and buckets are attached to sugar maple trees. A season ending, another beginning.

Technical stuff: Graduated neutral density filter used to balance sky and foreground tones, 30cc magenta filter to warm up the sky. Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

Hello, Dewey

2010-03-26T08:04:00.003-05:00

More from yesterday's early morning communing with nature. Hoping to capture some more signs of spring this weekend.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

I got sunshine on a cloudy day

2010-03-25T08:38:00.004-05:00

I noticed yesterday that the jonquils and daffodils are about ready to bloom in my backyard. I made a note to get out there today and shoot the not-quite-there blossoms in the warm light of the early morning sun. Only one problem. It rained last night and the day started out gray.

So I manufactured my own sunshine. I put a gold diffusion dome on a flash unit, placed a 1/4 inch grid on top of that to create directional light, clamped the flash unit to a spare piece of 2x4 lumber, placed it on the ground about four feet to the right of the flowers and fired it with a wireless trigger on the camera.

Voila. Highlights a-plenty with a touch of backlight on the blossoms and enhanced color in the background. With a nice warm glow to boot.

Have you seen those photos in magazines that show the sunshine streaming in through a window? Chances are, that light was created by a gelled flash unit or two or three. I gotta do me that sometime.

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

Rubbernecker

2010-03-24T09:16:00.001-05:00

The need for speed

2010-03-23T08:02:00.005-05:00

I'm naturally averse to using high ISOs. Blame it on my days as a film photographer shooting landscapes. The grain (or noise) associated with pushing film to the upper limits of speed was a price that I was seldom willing to pay. I determined never to go beyond 400 ISO. That "speed limit" was something I carried over in the switch to digital.

I'm more willing now to pay the price for the ability to shoot in low light conditions. Being paid to cover events and weddings in less than ideal lighting does that to you, I guess. You do what you gotta do to get the pictures people want. 800 ISO became my new friend, along with a software program designed to reduce digital noise.

This fella was shot at 1600 ISO -- formerly a no-man's-land for me. A very small amount of on-camera flash was used to give the bird a catchlight in its eye, but that's all. The heavy lifting was done by my camera's sensor.

Not sure that I'll make a regular practice of shooting at 1600, but with photography, at least, I've learned to never say never.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Meet Spike

2010-03-22T08:21:00.001-05:00

I'd say he's looking pretty sharp today.

Mitchell Park Conservatory, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Oh, deer

2010-03-19T07:57:00.003-05:00

I'll betcha that if you had told this king of the forest that he would spend his afterlife overlooking the display of camoflaged boxer shorts at the Bass Pro Shop, he would have laughed in your face.

Maybe he'll listen next time.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Agave

2010-03-18T08:45:00.002-05:00

Also known as "that funky plant that everybody photographs at the plant place." Often mistaken for Aloe. The juice of this particular plant can cause a rash.

And that's pretty much all I know about agave.

Photograph taken at Mitchell Park Conservatory, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. © 2010 James Jordan.