Gimme shelter

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

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Got pollen?

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

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Purple trillium

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.

Hello, Spring

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

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.

More trilliums

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)

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

In the woods

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

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





Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

A millium trilliums ...

... 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.

Wind-assisted photography

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.

Bustin' out ...

... 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

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

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Hello, sun

The landscape around here is gettin' springy wid it. You go, bud.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Bloomin'

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

Magnolia blossom, Batavia, Illinois.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Magnolias

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.

Hello, Dewey

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

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.

Meet Spike

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

Mitchell Park Conservatory, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Agave

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.