The domes

The Mitchell Park Horticultural Conservatory opened in the mid-1960s. The conservatory consists of three beehive-shaped domes (the world's first conoidal domes) covering 45,000 square feet of displays and thousands of plant species.

The Show Dome features rotating seasonal exhibits, the Arid Dome houses desert plant species of the Americas and Africa while the Tropical Dome is home to plants from warm, moist environments. The Tropical Dome also houses a number of tropical bird species.

This image is a three image panorama stitched with Hugin and converted to HDR via levels adjustments in Photoshop and compiled in Photomatix. You can see the panorama bigger here.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Birch tree-o

A three-pronged birch tree in my neighborhood in Elgin, Illinois. Played with really narrowing the depth of field. This shot is a panorama of 38 separate images shot with a 135mm f/2.8 lens and stitched together with a software program called Hugin (free download). By the way, Hugin is nice in that it takes into account the focal length of your lens and camera sensor's crop factor before starting the stitching process to ensure that distortion in the final image is kept to a minimum.

The cemetery shot from yesterday was also made using this technique and was composited from 26 separate images. Useful if you realllllly want to separate a subject from its background.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Sunset Rock

There's more to Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga Tennessee than Rock City and Ruby Falls. If you stay away from those tourist traps, you can view some wonderful vistas for a whole lot less money. Sunset Rock was a Confederate outpost that overlooked the valley below. From this vantage point, General Braxton Bragg watched Union troops advancing on Chattanooga in November of 1863. A Confederate assault on the advancing army failed and the city eventually fell to the north.

Photograph © 2008 James Jordan

A perfect world

Of course we know it isn’t. Life, as nature, isn’t perfect. But we can create the illusion that all is in balance and no imperfections mar the landscape.

Until someone figures out the camera tricks we’ve employed and the fog and snow clear away, revealing the truth that was there all along.

The saddest victim is the person who successfully fools himself.

Photo: A perfect world. Composite photo taken in fog. Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2007 James Jordan.

Twilight marina

Happy Friday. Dock your craft, get out and do some explorin' this weekend.

Have a good one.

Photo: Reefpoint Marina, Racine, Wisconsin at twilight. Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2007 James Jordan.

Storm panorama

Storms moved across our area last Friday, and, late in the day, my wife and I decided to drive out to meet one as it approached our home in Elgin, Illinois. We headed for an ominous looking ring of clouds while simultaneously searching for a suitable spot to set up. We eventually came to the corner of a corn field, and, seeing that the storm was moving pretty quickly, we stopped there.

I normally jump out of the car and begin to shoot holding the camera by hand, but I set up on a tripod, wanting to use some long exposures in the hopes of catching a lightning bolt or two on film. I took a number of shots, but never timed it quite right for the lightning. I then took a series of shots from right to left of the approaching storm as large raindrops started falling around me. The camera and tripod was quickly stashed in the car as the rains came full force. Those photos were stitched together in PhotoShop to create the panoramic view of menace.

I've captured a number of stormy panoramas in the past couple years. You can see other storms near Elgin, Indianapolis, Phoenix, and Racine .

Be sure to click image to enlarge. Photograph © 2007 James Jordan.

Phoenix panorama

This photo is best viewed larger. Click on the picture to enlarge it. The Phoenix area got a lot of rain last weekend while my wife and I were there. It's autumn and the weather is wetter than usual.

Before heading north to Flagstaff and connecting with old Route 66, we hiked partway up Lookout Mountain, one of several peaks in the Phoenix metro area. From there, we got a panoramic view of the city and a bank of storm clouds blanketing the area in the early morning hour.

This is stitched together from two photographs.

Photograph © 2006 James Jordan.

Storm over Lake Michigan

A series of storms hammered Wisconsin and Illinois yesterday, striking one after another, then drifting out over Lake Michigan. My wife and I arrived at Wind Point, north of Racine, Wisconsin, as the latest storm moved out over the water on its way to Michigan.

We arrived with the intent of getting some sunset shots of the lighthouse at Wind Point. I had taken a number of images of the moody sky over the lake throughout the day as we traveled up the lakeshore from our home in suburban Chicago.

I remember thinking that I was glad that I could safely watch this storm from a distance as I captured a number of shots of the roiling clouds, thick walls of rain, and for a brief time, a segment of a rainbow as the moisture retreated from the afternoon sun.

After a while, we turned our attention to the lighthouse behind us to begin to plan how we would set up for the sunset shot. We soon saw that there was at least one more storm in the day's arsenal.

That photo will be posted tomorrow.

This panorama is best viewed at the large size. Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2006 James Jordan.

Approaching storm

You’ll need to click on the picture to enlarge it and get the full effect. This is a panorama of the same cloud bank that produced the sunburst that I posted two days ago. Three pictures were stitched together in Photo Shop to capture a ninety-degree view of an approaching storm.

I felt the power of the approaching storm front as the sky darkened, the wind increased and the temperature dropped. Things were happening so quickly that from the first frame to the third frame of the series, the light had dropped a half stop, which I had to correct in Photo Shop.

Another stormy panorama can be seen here.

Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2006 James Jordan.

Stormy panorama

My wife and I were returning to Chicago yesterday from a week-long “Spring Break” trip to Tennessee. We encountered a strong thunderstorm while driving through Indianapolis about a half-hour before sunset. Conditions were treacherous – strong winds, sheets of rain and heavy rush-hour traffic made for difficult driving.

We emerged from the storm into the last light of day near the town of Brownsburg, Indiana. As we drove farther ahead of the storm, we began to see a fuller view of the ominous shape of the storm clouds. I pulled off the highway at the next exit, parked in a bank's parking lot, and jumped out of the car to capture the sight of storm clouds bearing down on the town at sunset.

The wide angle lens I have was woefully inadequate to capture the full spectacle of the approaching storm, so I took several shots across the horizon (handheld) and stitched them together in PhotoShop to create the panorama above.

Click on pictures to enlarge. Photographs © 2006 James Jordan.