End of November

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.

Summer

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.

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

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.

Autumn journey

If you haven't noticed, today's image is a little different than what's usually posted here. Or is it?

The photographs I make and share with the world are not so much depictions of things -- they are depictions of the feelings created by viewing those things within a particular setting. At least that's the goal I have in mind when setting out to create pictures.

The photo above started as a contrasty, lens flare-y, moderately underexposed shot of the hillside, the tree and the hiker against the afternoon sun. I punched the contrast even further, added a background photo layer of dried field grasses (blurred beyond recognition), then added another photo layer of stone tile to add some texture.

The result is an image of a person leaving the comfort of a life that is past (note the windmill in the lower left) and beginning an arduous journey into an uncertain future that grants no promises (note the dead tree) while at the same time harboring hope that things will work out well (note the bright sunshine amid the chaos).

In many respects, this photo is a self-portrait.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Golden field

On Wisconsin route 83 north of the town of Mukwonago lies a field of soybeans turned golden with the chill weather of early autumn. A lonely tree stands nestled between rises in the landscape.

Also in this location is a puzzled farmer who probably still wonders why the guy with the camera stopped to take pictures of his soybeans. He stood in his driveway watching me the entire time.

If he could only see the view from his place.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Life goes on

Some time ago, I granted permission to display the above photograph to a web site dedicated to helping survivors of suicide deal with their grief. I hadn’t thought about it much until I received the following e-mail today:

Just had to tell you I ran across your photos on the Suicide Survivor website. They are ABSOLUTELY breathtaking! Your work is BEAUTIFUL-brought tears to my eyes! Much gratitude –Lisa

This particular photo was taken just a few days before my father suddenly took ill and passed away in October of 2007, so it holds a high degree of meaning for me. I’m happy that it and others are helping someone else like Lisa deal with her own grief.

UPDATE: I wrote to Lisa to thank her for her kind words about my photography. She wrote back:

My brother killed himself on the 4th and your pictures are very peaceful, calming and soothing. I saved your site so I could keep looking at them-I can’t tell you what comfort they bring-Incredible.

Thank you again for your beautiful work-it does make a difference to someone.

Today's sunrise ...

... as seen from Sleepy Hollow, Illinois. Yes, there really is a Sleepy Hollow. It's located in Chicago's northwest suburbs. The town is a blend of three-quarter-million-dollar homes and large expanses of open space. If you skip the mansions and stick to the open areas, you can see some very nice views of nature.

"But yesterday you said you were starting a series of insect macro photographs to clear out your backlog of bug pictures." Yes, I did. And I'll hop right back on that tomorrow.

Unless, of course, today's sunset looks promising.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Out from the misty sea

A shot like this one would have driven me nuts back in the days when I shot film. Fussing over the exposure, taking shots at a full range of shutter speeds hoping to capture the effect I was after, waiting for the film to be developed, then either celebrating or agonizing over the results.

Digital photography made this a breeze. Place a stack of neutral density filters over the lens to slow down the exposure and turn crashing waves to a dreamy mist. Set camera to aperture priority and dial down to f/32 for maximum depth of field. Meter on the rocks in the distance, click. Check and evaluate. Adjust. Click. Repeat as needed.

This is the beach at Wind Point, a few miles north of Racine, Wisconsin. Two-foot waves were breaking just offshore. An exposure time of ten to thirty seconds turned the breakers into misty clouds on the rocks in the middle of the photo. A hunk of driftwood was brought into the picture to complete the composition. I mean, I just happened upon this unique alignment of driftwood and rocks and thought I'd photograph it. Yeah, that's it ... that's the ticket.

Wink, wink.

Happy Friday.

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.

Fair weather friends

A lonely tree has some skybound companions to keep company.

Last Friday, the sky in northern Illinois put on one of the best shows I've seen all year. The sky exhibited a complete range of moods -- from feathery strokes to puffy cotton balls to ominous masses. A brisk wind moved the parade of water vapor along at a fast pace, changing the panorama minute by minute.

I had a scheduled commitment for the day, but it fell through and I found myself with a wide open calendar page. I spent a good portion of the day taking photographs featuring the shifting skies.

The Mother's Day tulip picture was taken at about 1:00 in the afternoon under wispy clouds. I usually avoid taking pictures midday because of the harsh light, but shooting up at the sky through backlit blooms made for a good exception to the rule.

This photo was taken later in the afternoon. It's a tree on a berm adjacent to a shopping mall parking lot. A pro photographer with whom I worked as a photo buyer/art director a number of years ago had a slogan, "Simple pictures are best."

I agree. Have a good Monday.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Daybreak

The curtain of night pulls back to reveal another day. Make the best of your time on stage today.
Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Embrace

Happy Moon Day. The full moon - the Snow Moon - makes its appearance today. I went for a photowalk with Roger last evening to try to catch the full moon rising. Hazy clouds hid the lunar disk for a while, but it did manage to peek through once or twice, though never really at full strength.

A quick set up when it did show itself enabled me to make one picture of the moon with a lone tree making a friendly gesture toward it. Other than a couple of levels adjustments in post processing, this is how the shot came out of the camera.

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

After and before

By now, you've probably figured out my modus operandi when it comes to photography - "If there's a way to do it cheaper, why not?" I spent most of last year taking photos with a $200 point and shoot digital camera to see if that camera could compete on an image quality level with the big guns. It can, to a point, but I think that point is pretty high on the quality scale.

Getting more serious about my photography later in the year caused me to collide with the limits of that camera, so I made the jump to a digital SLR. I've used the dSLR for four months and I'm already colliding with the limits of that camera. But that's another story.

Half of digital photography is taking the picture and the other half is making the picture in a photo editing program. IMHO very few digital pictures come right out of the camera ready to be displayed to the world. So which photo editing program do I use? Refer to my modus operandi. I use Adobe Photoshop Elements 6, a $79 package that does a lot of the things that its more robust (and expensive) cousin, Photoshop Creative Suite (minus all the other graphics/design programs that come with it) can do. Or at least that's what I'm trying to prove this year.

I shot a number of images on snowy days over the past couple of weeks, in which I discovered the limits of my dSLR, namely, it doesn't do so well in high-contrast situations, like, oh, let's see ... snowy days. The images that come out of the camera need help. In some cases, the images are beyond help (read purple fringing). Hello, recycle bin.

Anyhoo, over the next several days, I'm going to highlight some of those snowy photos, the good, bad and ugly and some of the actions I took in PSE to adjust those photos, featuring them side by side, "after" image first, then the original "before" image as it emerged from the camera.

Anyone who is not into post processing or does not own PSE can stop reading now. Everyone else, here is how the above image was processed: The image was opened, Select/All (ctrl+A) and copied (ctrl+C). I then went to the Effects menu and chose High Pass (the little gray apple picture if you're using the visual menu), applied it and slid the adjustment slider all the way to the right and clicked OK. I then selected Paste (ctrl+P), which placed the original copied image on a layer on top of the picture I just adjusted. I went to the Layers menu box, clicked on the bar that said "Normal" and selected "Soft Light." Clicking on the two right facing triangles on the right side of the Layers bar brings up a menu. I selected Flatten Image to merge the two layers into a single image.

I then selected Enhance/Adjust Color/Adjust Hue and Saturation and slid the saturation slider to about +35% then hit OK. Then I selected Filter/Adjustments/Photo Filter and selected the violet filter and set the slider to 35% then hit OK.

The photo was pretty much finished at this point, but I played with the levels (Enhance/Adjust Lighting/Levels) a bit, then added the lens flare as an accent (Filter/Render/Lens Flare - 35mm Prime at 50% and moved the crosshair into position and clicked OK).

Working with layers is what set Photoshop apart from the crowd back in the days when digital photo editing was in its infancy. Getting the most out of PSE requires some facility with the Layers menu. So copy and paste some layers in your pictures and play around to see what happens.

Photographs © 2009 James Jordan.

Little Christmas tree

One of many small lighted trees we have around our house. Absconded into my basement photo area and placed on a small light box. Sheet of light green Canson art paper (available at most hobby stores) used as a backdrop. Hand-held flash unit bounced off ceiling. Tree replaced on fireplace mantel. Wife is used to decorations disappearing for short periods of time.

Post processing (in Photoshop Elements 6.0): Orton processing applied. Vignetting and gaussian blur added. Photo of blurred golden lights layered over the photo and blended via "soft light" setting and 25% opacity. Layer over tree and bucket selected, feathered and deleted. Lens flare added to light bulbs. Adjusted brightness and contrast.

Hope this Christmas season is going well for you and yours.

Photo sightings: Digicamhelp.com is featuring my photo, “What to My Wondering Eyes Should Appear” on their home page for the next week or so. Check it out – the site offers a LOT of helpful articles about getting the most out of your digital camera.

Photograph © 2008 James Jordan.

New kid in the neighborhood

Young pine in the forest - Peninsula State Park, Door County, Wisconsin. Took a drive through the park, stopping often to shoot pictures. The morning sun played peek a boo with the cloudy sky, but came out long enough to backlight this little pine tree for me. Tried to contrast the little guy against the giant trees in the background. A photo of potential, the promise of things to come.

Click on this post's title to see image EXIF data. Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2008 James Jordan.

Misty autumn dawn

I came across these lonely trees lost in a foggy meadow in Sleepy Hollow, Illinois last week. A lot of rain has left the ground saturated around northern Illinois. Warm days and cool nights release the moisture in the form of fog and I've been taking advantage of God's gift to photography.

Orton processing was applied to this image to increase the color saturation and further soften focus.

Happy Monday.

Click on this post's headline to see EXIF data on this image. Photograph © 2008 James Jordan.

New day

Seize it.

Click on this post's headline for photo EXIF data. Click on picture to enlarge (1280x800). Photograph © 2008 James Jordan.

Somewhat after the style of Maxfield Parish

Somewhat.

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

Island in the stream

Actually a rocky outcropping on the Fox River in East Dundee, Illinois. Taken this morning while the mist still hung over the water.

I love fog.

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

Sisters in the snow

Besides the fog, the thing that attracted me to take this shot was the two trees in close proximity to each other. They merged together to form a complete whole. Standing together amid the uncertainty of a foggy world.

Kind of nice when people do that, too.

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