Jellyfish

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.

Winter dance

In the nearby forest preserve that I frequent, I regularly pass this grouping of trees, and every time I do, I'm struck by their choreographed appearance. Leaning, turning, twisting, reaching like a dance troup frozen in time.

Usually, their limbs and branches mesh into a confusing mishmash of busyness in a photo, but a late winter snowfall helped to define the lines of the branches and really bring out the gracefulness of their forms.

Sometimes it takes the hard times to bring out the grace in us. Hopefully, others will see a defining choreography of our lives and not a chaotic scrambling when that happens.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Smokin'

I've seen these kind of shots done before and wanted to try them out, but didn't have the equipment or the knowledge of how to do it. Thanks to the interwebs, I picked up the knowledge part. Thanks to seriously getting into portrait and wedding photography, I picked up the equipment part.

There's quite an involved process in getting smoke shots, from lighting (two strobes firing simultaneously from left and right against a black background) to playing with background colors in Photoshop (invert smoke image, choose a background color, invert it, layer inverted smoke image over it, multiply, flatten and invert). But the result is kinda cool.

Now to play around with colored gels on the flashes, inserting objects into the smoke trails and yada yada yada without burning the house down.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Somebody get Hitchcock on the phone

A massive flock of starlings circling over a marsh at the Pingree Grove Forest Preserve near Pingree Grove in Kane County, Illinois. The vortex of black birds twisted and turned the entire time my wife and I were there, making a loud racket while so doing.

I took several shots each time the avian tornado approached our position, and this one best establishes the density of the flock.

Just glad they weren't directly overhead.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Under the sunset tree

More abstract nature pics from Pingree Grove Forest Preserve near Pingree Grove and Gilberts, Illinois.

The area near these two northern Illinois communities has seen an explosion of new subdivisions going up in recent years. Glad to see that part of the plan was to preserve a few hundred acres of open space in the middle of it.

And I'm sure the wildlife that was displaced by all of the construction appreciate it, too.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Driven to abstraction

I've taken several walks with my wife through the Pingree Grove Forest Preserve in Plato Township in Kane County since it opened in October. The first couple of times, I looked for interesting objects to photograph and was pretty disappointed with the results. Literal representations weren't cutting it for me. So, the last time we wandered through, I looked for interesting patterns in the scenery to photograph.

These backlit arched stems and grasses caught my eye, so I caught them right back. A combo of late afternoon sun, which occurs way too early in the afternoon anymore, long lens and big aperture for shallow depth of field makes the picture.

More abstractions to come.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Let's get classic

Kind of makes you want to go on a road trip, doesn't it?

Have a great weekend.

Classic car show, Sturgeon bay, Wisconsin. Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Red ... rules

I was looking through my archive of images from Door County, Wisconsin last night to pull some submissions for a publication when I came across this photo of a maple tree north of Sister Bay, taken last October.

There was some major red rule action going on here. I took several shots of the tree at various focal lengths, but this particular crop seemed to do it for me the most. The result is a natural abstract image, a tapestry of red and black.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Know when to ditch "Plan A"

I usually head into a photo session with a preconceived notion of what it is I want to capture. Nothing wrong with that. It's actually helpful as a starting point. The trick is to recognize when that plan is just no longer working for you, and as much as you are emotionally attached to that plan, to dump it in the rubbish bin. Otherwise Plan A becomes a dead weight around your neck, creatively speaking.

I stopped by the Bode Forest Preserve in Streamwood, Illinois this morning. Layers of fog lay draped over the trees and I wanted to capture bursts of sunlight streaming from between the branches. It looked oh, so pretty in my mind's eye. Reality, however, was not nearly so cooperative. It just wasn't happening the way I envisioned it.

So did I ditch Plan A to explore the other visual opportunities that lay before me? Of course not. I stubbornly tried to make the landscape bend to my will, wasting a lot of time and memory card space in the process.

I gave up and headed back to my car, passing a clearing that opened to Bode Lake. I stopped for a second, looked at the mist on the water and thought, It probably won't do any good, but I may as well look as long as I'm here. Not much of a Plan B, but there it was. I walked through the clearing.

Can't say the view was particularly spectacular, but I took a few shots using a fallen tree branch as the foreground interest, then decided to go for some "worm's eye" shots holding the camera an inch or so off the ground, pointing it in the general direction of the branch and seeing what would happen. What happened were some very simple abstract images that appealed to my Asian sensibilities. I varied the focal length between shots, and voila!



I meant to do that, yup. Yessir, that's the ticket.

(Side note: I was in Quebec a few years ago, and at my first meal in a restaurant there, the server brought my food and said, "Voila!" It made me laugh because it sounded corny. Then I realized those folks meant it up there.)

Photographs © 2009 James Jordan.

Facade of justice

The Grundy County Courthouse in Altamont, Tennesee sits on a high point on the Cumberland Plateau, making the structure visible from a distance as you approach from the west. The imposing building is a stark contrast to the small houses, farms and shacks that line state highway 108.

These classic ornate columns were put in place in the mid 1990s when the courthouse was rebuilt following a fire. The original courthouse was built in the late 1800s. The inset photo shows the courthouse from the front lawn at dusk.

As imposing as those in the county government would like the presence of justice to be perceived, stories of corruption within the local law enforcement agencies are common, making the facade of the house of justice just that -- a facade.

Photographs © 2009 James Jordan.

Retreat

The icy tentacles of winter slowly release their grip upon the earth. Though they may wage another battle or two against the forces of spring in the days ahead, the outcome is becoming clearer by the day.

For reasons unbeknown, we're celebratin' all things Irish today (it's pronounced OY-rish by the denizens of OYR-lund, by the way - just a tip so you sound authentic -- no need to thank me). I'll be doin' my part by having a corned beef sandwich for lunch. And that's about it.

Hopin' you byes and garls have a good one today.

Photo blogging: One of my photographs showed up on Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish blog last weekend. The Dish is one of the top 100 blogs in the world, according to Technorati.com, which tracks such things. The photo accompanied a post that reviews a review of a book that deals with deriving meaning from the beauty of nature.

Oh, and there's an amusing post that precedes the one on beauty. A chin-scratching type wonders if God's perfection is somehow diminished if one lives apart from Him. For some reason, I can't imagine that God is sitting somewhere wringing His hands wondering, "Why don't they ever call me?" Shows what happens when we make us the standard of perfection.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Like a red, red rose

Taken at the dining room table. Orton processing applied.

Click on pictures to enlarge. Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

February thaw 2

Note to self: Valentine's Day is Saturday. Plan accordingly. A nice warm holiday in the middle of a cold month.

Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

You know you're getting cabin fever when ...

… the road salt stains on your car remind you of alien worlds in space.

Today’s photo tip from the backwater of the interwebs, designed to improve your flash photography:

Snap whatever reddened soured the cap patch also disseminating the reddened feat nervy - this module enable you to intend a inferior disagreeable winkle gist that whatever flashes yield images with. I aforementioned this digit as it pushes the reddened discover from your winkle in digit directions which crapper advance to a more modify reddened kinda than meet disseminating it - a lowercase more sophisticated.

Translation: Use a white card to bounce your camera’s onboard flash off the ceiling.

But wait, there’s more.

Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

You know you're getting cabin fever when ...

... splotches of cooking oil on the bottom of frying pans begin to look interesting.

I don't think we've had more than one day this month where the temperatures made it above the freezing mark. I'm officially tired of winter. It can go away now. kthxbai.

Guess I'm not the only one with cabin fever.

Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.