Sparrow

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

Matthew 10:29

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

A moment of daylight

Saturday was gray. Low clouds blocked any hint of the existence of the blue sky beyond them all day long. But toward sunset, a small opening, a slit in the clouds, opened on the western horizon. The descending sun burst through that opening and shone for all of five minutes, then disappeared.

A half hour earlier, I had been wandering around the Isaac Ellwood mansion, home to one of the barbed wire barons of the late 1800s, taking in the Victorian architecture and snapping the occasional photo. Under the gray sky, it seemed more of an exercise than a meaningful gathering of photographs.

Heading back to meet my wife, the sun made its brief appearance, bathing the city in soft, warm light. I had just passed St. Mary's Cemetery on the city's north side. I turned around, headed back to the cemetery and pull up just as the sun disappeared. I hopped out of the car, framed some grave markers against the fading sky and fired off a few shots. And that was it. Color gone, gray sky fading to black. Sleeping grave markers all around, worn from a century or more of memorializing the lives of people long forgotten.

Life is as brief and fleeting as those few moments of brilliant sunlight. I just hope that my time will be seen as having brightened up the skies of those around me, if only for a little while.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Portrait of November #3

More photographs from Glacial Park, north of Ringwood in McHenry County, Illinois. If you're wondering why I placed the subject where I did in the frame, the answer is simple -- I didn't have much choice. A brisk, chilly wind tossed the seed head back and forth. Since I was using a telephoto lens, I had to chase the pods back and forth, snapping as I went and hoping for a good shot. As it turned out, this shot was the most sharply focused of the several that I took.



The second photo was much easier to accomplish. The wind was gusty, but not enough to move the fallen branches (thankfully). I took my time and composed the shot to juxtapose the diagonal lines of the fallen tree against the verticals of the foreground grass and background trees which continue to live while the dead tree returns to the earth to nourish future flora.

Photographs taken with white balance set to "Cloudy" to add warmth and color to the scenes. Levels adjustments and slight color saturation added in post processing. Photographs © 2009 James Jordan.

Portrait of November #1

Over the weekend, my wife and I hiked a couple of the trails at Glacial Park, just north of Ringwood, Illinois, near the Wisconsin border. The area has been described as "biological eye candy" and I can see why. The park is a mixture of rolling kames, prairie, ponds, kettles, bogs and oak savannahs. Nippersink Creek meanders its way through the northern reaches of the park.

In early autumn the prairie grasses turn a burgundy color. By this November day, it had settled into an amber hue. Large flocks of cranes circled overhead.



I had recently decried my annual photographic funk that hits in November. If ever there was a cure, this was it. What emerged from the day is a composite portrait of the month of November. While on the surface, everything appears still and asleep, if you look long enough, you'll see signs that life continues. The juxtaposition of the end of life and the continuation of it is what makes November what it is, and is what I'll present here over the course of the next few days.

Stay tuned.

Photographs © 2009 James Jordan.

Passages

Cemetery in Burlington, Wisconsin.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Gold among the brown

That time of year when nature reminds us that we all eventually must return to the earth.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Thoughts on being wanted

One day my wife and I noticed that our cat, pictured above, who had always been the picture of health, was limping on her hind legs. Within two days, she was completely paralyzed from the waist down.

We rushed her to our vet, who told me after an examination, in very grave tones, that the left side of her heart had enlarged, which allowed blood to pool and form clots. These clots would occasionally escape the heart and lodge in her legs, causing paralysis, and that the condition was nearly always fatal, since the clots would eventually reach and shut down vital organs. The vet gave me a bottle of medicine, designed to enlarge her blood vessels and dissolve the clots, told me how to administer it and told me not to be surprised if the cat did not survive the trip back home. That was nearly two years ago.

In April of 2008, I posted on this blog about her medical issues and wrote that there would come a day when her condition would overcome any benefit the medicine would provide. That day came last week when a series of clots shut down her legs and eventually her lungs. She now lies buried under the shade of an oak tree in our back yard.

The cat showed up on our doorstep as a stray one winter about ten years ago after someone dumped her in our neighborhood. She was cold, hungry and injured. We took her in, had her fixed up (in more ways than one) and gave her the home she had been denied elsewhere.

Our now music-major college-age son named her Poly (short for Polyphonic) because of her distinctive two-toned meow. Her meow registered in perfect fifths in the key of A (I worked it out on a guitar after listening to her meow one day). Think of the first two notes of the song, Feelings. Karaoke cat sings, "Me-ow ... nothing more than me-ow ..."

Back in April of 2008, I was getting acquainted with a new digital camera and pointing it around the house when I spied a triangle of sunlight on our family room floor. Poly wandered into the shot and gazed up at me wondering what I was up to. I took the picture because it was an interesting composition -- it actually illustrates a principle of the golden mean, but I won't go into that.

I posted the photo on Flickr and on this blog and pretty much forgot about it, until the week before Poly died. I was contacted by Getty Images, who was interested in adding it, along with several others, to their stock photography library. Unfortunately, at the time I took the photo, I was not thinking in terms of it ever being commercially viable, and had deleted the high resolution version. The current version's resolution does not meet Getty's minimum standard.

But still, it's nice that a formerly unwanted cat found that our home and the world's largest stock photography agency did indeed want her.

Photograph © 2008 James Jordan.

Fallen

Gossamer wings that will fly no more. Tyler Creek Forest Preserve, Elgin, Illinois.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

A day for remembering

Laurel Hill Cemetery, Wears Valley, TN. Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Night comes rolling in

Another photograph from my cloudy day adventure last Friday. This is the St. Mary's Cemetery in Dekalb, Illinois as daylight faded into night. The cemetery contains some classic looking grave markers and one of the most attractive trees I've ever seen on its rolling terrain.

This was my second visit to this cemetery -- you can see the result of the first visit here.

This time, I wanted to use HDR to take advantage of the cloudy sky and fading light. This image is a blend of five separate exposures, each one a stop lighter than the previous. They were blended in Photomatix Pro. I shot the images as fast as the control wheel of my camera would allow me to adjust the exposure -- about two seconds between shots, but I still captured a lot of movement in the clouds, which the software smoothed over, creating the motion blur, which creates a kind of 3-d effect which I like. The drama of the sky and tree is accentuated by the low camera angle.

The tumult of this world goes on.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Say hello to my little friend

This guy came into my life in late August of last year. A polyphemus caterpillar was found in my front yard (if you're not familiar with their appearance, think Heimlich in A Bug's Life). I captured it, intending to photograph it the next day. He had his own plan and spun a coccoon overnight.

Shortly thereafter, I lost my job to a corporate downsizing and Mr. Polyphemus became my layoff buddy. The coccoon was kept in my garage for safekeeping in hopes that I might get some pictures when the moth emerged. He and I both made it through the winter. I brought him inside a couple of months ago to await the blessed event. Other than a brief stint as a cat toy, the moth pupa spent a comfortable, uneventful stay. I even did some picture taking while it snoozed.



After the cat incident, I kept Mr. Polyphemus on a high shelf in my work area in the basement. I was working away yesterday afternoon when I started to hear a scratching noise. I turned to the shelf and noticed antennae sticking out of the pupal case. I quickly set up a studio space in my garage (got a small bucket of sand, stuck a fallen tree branch into it for a perch, set up a black foam board background -- all on the top of a small freezer in the garage -- set the wriggling pupa at the base of the branch) and waited to see things progress.



Unfortunately for Mr. P, he had a very difficult time emerging from the shell. The struggle removed some of the hair from his abdomen. Even worse, his wings were only partially emerged for a time, long enough to cut off the flow of fluids necessary to expand them to full size. Instead of the majestic six-inch wingspan I was expecting to photograph, his wings never got any longer than the length of his body, dooming his mission of finding a female with which to mate.

I let Mr. moth out into my backyard to live out his final days. Poyphemus moths do not have working mouth parts, so they do not eat. They only live for a few days after emerging and just have one thing on their to-do list. This guy's problem is going to make it difficult for him to schedule any dates with the ladies.



Photographs © 2009 James Jordan.

Web master

OK, so it's actually a web mistress - it's the female of the species of orb weaver spiders that grow large and spin their intricate webs. This particular spider was resting comfortably on a dewy morning - so comfortably that dew had formed on her body overnight. She had good reason to be comfy. Nearby, in her "pantry" an unfortunate grasshopper lay in storage until the next mealtime. Circle of life kind of thing.

Still taking the Nikon D60 through its paces, and loving it so far. I had taken great pride in pushing the old Fujifilm Finepix s700 beyond its stated capabilities, but man, it took a lot of effort. It's very freeing when the technology works with you, not against you. Hopefully it will show in the pictures I make from here on out.

As always, click on the post's headline to see exposure data for these shots. While it only shows one set of info, I used the same settings for both pictures.

Nikon D60 Photo tip: If you look toward the bottom of the column of numbers and codes on the EXIF page, some pictures will say "Low gain up." That's the term for having Nikon's Active D-Lighting feature turned on. Basically, it lightens the tones in shadow areas and helps even out the contrast in the photo. I'm d-lighted to have the feature available, although I made a major unrecoverable error in some night shots a couple of weeks ago because I forgot to turn it off. Live and learn.

Click on pictures to enlarge. Photographs © 2008 James Jordan.

Pupa

A pupa is a transformational stage in the life cycle of an insect. Not too dissimilar to losing a job and looking for another, as is my case.

This silken cocoon was built by a polyphemus caterpillar about two weeks ago. I captured the caterpillar which I found in my yard with the intention of photographing him the next day. He changed the plan by spinning a cocoon overnight.

Since it’s rather late in the season, I don’t know if he will emerge within a two-week pupation period or hibernate over the winter. He spun his shell two week ago today.

Today, my first full day separated from The Company, will find me in my new cocoon, participating in the activities of preparing for a new life. As in the case of Mr. Polyphemus, I don’t know what the time frame will be before I emerge in a new light.

So as I wait for the cocoon to stir, I will attend to the moth’s and my own situations in the same manner – one day at a time.

Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2008 James Jordan.

Time has flown

It's probably safe to assume that there are still more dandelions in the world than there are photographs of them, but photographers all over the world are working hard to close the gap. So here is another contribution from me to the world.

The symbolism is there - the passage of time, age, leaving a legacy. Maybe that's what makes them such a popular subject on Flickr.

I strolled through my backyard last evening photographing some of the flowers that are appearing. I carried a sheet of black foam board to create backgrounds for several shots. Before I stepped back inside, I noticed this guy near the back of my garage.

Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2008 James Jordan.

Faded glory

Time makes its incessant march into eternity. It will eventually overtake us all. The lesson: Make the most of the time you have today.

Who’s in my blogroll: Kathleen Connally is in love with the people and places in rural Durham Township, Pennsylvania. And it shows in her carefully crafted images – lyrical landscapes, candid portraits of her family and the folks who populate the world of Durham Township. Consistently one of the highest rated photo blogs in the U.S. I had the pleasure of meeting Kathleen a year ago at a Photoblogger's meetup in Chicago. Visit A Walk Through Durham Township.

Photo: Decayed daffodil and faded denim. Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2008 James Jordan.

Trouble comes to town

Dekalb is a quiet, lovely old Midwestern town on the plains of northern Illinois. It’s a wonderful place to photograph and a number of images from Dekalb have graced this blog over the last three years. Northern Illinois University sits on the western edge of Dekalb, just before the town gives way to the wide expanse of the prairie beyond it.

Occasionally, an intense storm will roll off the plains and buffet this small community. But that’s to be expected. What wasn’t expected was the storm that rolled through today in the form of a gunman who burst into a lecture hall on the NIU campus, opening fire on the students who had gathered there. Six young lives, including the gunman, were snuffed out today. A dozen or more were wounded. The entire community is now dealing with a horror that previously had been read about in headlines. Today this town is the headline.

As with the storms that will roll through this coming spring and summer, Dekalb will stand strong, just as I am sure it will stand strong through this latest storm. But there are some storms where even after recovery, things will have been changed forever.

Photograph © 2008 James Jordan.

The house of meeting

There was a time when a group of congregants regularly gathered in this building to find faith and encouragement to continue on with their lives in the harsh environment of Door County, Wisconsin. Children likely gathered here to learn the three Rs. All that remains today are memories of the souls that once made this building a living part of a growing community. Somewhere along the way, the body faltered, declined and died. Like a body that has relinquished its soul at death, this structure now slowly returns to the earth.

New Year’s Eve dawned cold, gray and foggy in Door County, and I was returning from Sturgeon Bay, where I had taken some shots of the pier light and U.S. Coast Guard Station. I decided to leave the main highway and take a county road that cuts across the Door Peninsula to connect with a shoreline road to Egg Harbor, where my wife and I were staying. The road didn’t go where I thought it would, and for a while, I lost my bearings in the thick fog, wandering the back roads in search of the familiar highway.

My wanderings brought me to this building, which emerged like a ghost from the fog around me. I found myself proclaiming a low “Wow!” as it came into view. The snow and fog isolated this building and its surrounding trees and brush from the rest of the world, a haunting display of a building where lost souls once came to regain their bearings.

Photo blogging: Here’s looking at you Eyescapes is a series of photographs of human irises. It’s a project by Rankin, a London-based photographer and co-founder of the magazine Dazed & Confused (apparently, he’s cool enough to get by with only a singular name). What is striking about the series is the sheer variety of coloration and structure of the various eyes. The clinical becomes art. Take a look at Eyescapes.

Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2008 James Jordan.

Both sides now

Found this leaf in a parking lot and was impressed by the red hue of the front side and the bright red veins against the pale red of the reverse. I decided to create a diptych showing both sides. I think the final result is equal parts clinical and artistic, celebration and autopsy.

I'm about finished with the leaf photos. Last evening, I set up a small tabletop studio in my basement (the garage is getting too cold to work in), grabbed some seashells and a bag of sand, and recreated some close up beach scenery.

Dude.

Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2007 James Jordan.

Faded glory

The Japanese celebrate an aesthetic called wabi-sabi. Basically, it is the art of finding beauty in imperfection, of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death. It's simple, slow, and uncluttered - and above all, authentic.

Wabi-sabi is flea markets, not warehouse stores; aged wood, not Pergo; rice paper, not glass. It celebrates cracks and crevices and all the other marks that time, weather, and loving use leave behind. It reminds us that we are all but transient beings on this planet - that our bodies as well as the material world around us are in the process of returning to the dust from which we came.

I spent some time this past weekend photographing what was once a robust garden of flowers in my backyard. But the winter approaches and the cycle of life draws to a close.

You can view these photos of death and grieve for the time that has passed.

The length of our days is seventy years— or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away. Psalm 90:10

Or you can resolve to make the most of the time that is still available.

Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Ephesians 5:15-16

Choose wisely.

Monday photo blogging: Like dogs? So does Erin Vey, a Seattle photographer who specializes in poochy portraits.

Photo: Morning glory. Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2007 James Jordan.

Queen Anne’s lace and fall poplars

The color of a stand of poplar trees rises above the gray sea of dried Queen Anne’s lace. Autumn is a conflict of emotions. The celebration of life. The anticipation of death. Joy and sorrow intermingled. Bittersweet.

Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2007 James Jordan.

Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year winners released. The Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition aims to find the best wildlife pictures taken by photographers worldwide, and to inspire them to visionary and expressive interpretations of nature. Here’s a look at some of the winning photographs.