Let it snow

Winter wood

Log pile and barn at Peck Farm Park in Geneva, Illinois.

Of ice and rocks

A winter day on the shore of Green Bay at Peninsula State Park in Door County, Wisconsin.

I'm digging into the recent archive for this shot -- gotta get out and do some shooting for myself.

Yesterday was a busy one for photography. I covered an event for the Chamber of Commerce to which I belong. One shot will show up in a local paper. Later I did a portrait session for a health and nutrition counselor for use on her web site and marketing materials.

I've settled into a string of receiving regular monthly royalty payments from Getty Images. It's interesting to see what's selling. Lately, they've been shots of balancing rock stacks. Who would think? Once the ice clears for spring, I'll get out and balance some more. There seems to be a demand for that sort of thing.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Little mansion on the prairie

Isaac Ellwood was one of the first men to successfully mass produce and market barbed wire back in the 1800s. He made a fortune from his home base in Dekalb, Illinois. Today, his home is a museum that pays homage to his twisted passions.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Snow day

A little study in contrast and composition involving visual weight and placement.

I was wrapping up my post-snowfall shooting on Monday and heading back to my car when I glanced to my right and saw the park bench in the distance. I kept walking but then my brain made me stop. Apparently it finally finished processing the visual info it just received and formed a picture in my mind.

I walked back to the spot where I first noticed the bench, quickly framed the shot and fired off a couple of captures, then headed back to my car. My brain made me stop again. This time it reminded me that my aperture was only f5.6 and that it would not be enough to keep both the tree trunk and bench in focus. Argh.

Back to the spot again. Set aperture to f/11. Framed and shot two more frames.

Sometimes I wish my brain were just a little quicker.

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.

Peekaboo barn

You may be able to clear the land to make room for a farm and a barn, but eventually, the land takes it all back.

A barn slowly being swallowed by nature just west of Elgin, Illinois on the edge of the Chicago metroplex. If it isn't nature, it's the steady advance of suburbia.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Winter light

It snowed last night. No surprise. It's the Midwest and it's late February. It happens.

I took advantage of the fresh blanket of white stuff to get out and do some shooting this morning. Other than a few small woodland critters, mine were the first footprints in this neck of the woods. Nice. Quiet. Just me and a light breeze.

Took some straight shots with available light. Then got out the flash, a stand, a couple of warming gels and a wireless trigger and set out to play with the possibilities.

I trekked into the middle of this trio of pines and set the light stand behind the middle tree. Set the camera to Incandescent white balance to turn things a tranquil blue. Erased the legs of the light stand and my footprints into the tree cluster in post.

More snowy magic to come.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Watching the day fade

At the aptly-named Sunset Park. Door County, Wisconsin.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Take that, wind

It's Wisconsin. It's winter. The wind is howling and driving the apparent coldness of the winter air down to single digits, causing one's own digits to cease any sense of touch after a few seconds' exposure. What to do?

Throw something pretty up into that wind and enjoy the sight.



Part of the recent Fish Creek Winter Festival in Door County, Wisconsin involved an event called Kites Over the Bay, a confab of kite afficianados who descended on the frozen harbor in the little village to display a serious dedication to the art and performance of kite flying.

While simultaneously photographing and freezing on the frozen waters of Fish Creek's harbor, I had a brief conversation with Barbara Meyer, who had traveled with her husband from Minnesota for the event (that's Barbara and her hubby at the top of this post with a kite they had built from one of their designs). I learned that many of the kite fliers that day had traveled from several states bordering Wisconsin and that there is an American Kiteflyer's Association.

The KOTB kites ranged from standard to exotic, with more than a few of the inflatable variety. One intrepid flier decorated his spot on the ice with several "schools" of fabricated fish that "swam" upstream against the wind.



All in all, a colorful diversion from the nearby toilet seat tossing, ice bowling and snow golf of the Fish Creek Winter Festival Games.

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

Field of blue

Massive chunks of blue ice along the Green Bay shore, Peninsula State Park near Fish Creek, Wisconsin.

Two-stop graduated neutral density filter to balance sky and foreground tones.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Blue, blue, the ice is blue

I was photographing the Anderson Barn in Door County, Wisconsin this past weekend, when a couple pulled up, got out of their car, and pulled out a camera of their own. On their way to the barn, the wife turned to me and asked, "Have you seen the ice, yet?"

Seeing that Green Bay was frozen as far as the eye could see, I started to figure whether or not I had been asked a trick question and stood there for a moment with a blank look on my face. The woman's husband came to the rescue. "There are chunks of ice along the shore near Fish Creek and in Peninsula State Park. They're huge and they're blue."

I told them that I would be sure to check it out. Then I went to check it out. Just off shore from one of my favorite parks in Fish Creek were chucks of ice. They were huge and they were blue, all right. Apparently, the wind and waves of a winter storm had broken up six- to twelve-inch thick sheets of ice along the Green Bay shoreline and stacked dining room table-sized slabs one atop the other, in some places more than six feet high.

And in a phenomenon usually reserved for glaciers, the clarity of the ice, combined with its thickness created a blue-green hue. I had found my photographic muse for the weekend.

More icy blue eye candy to come, along with some of the goings on at the Fish Creek Winter Festival and some wintry landscapes in general.

All in all, it was a good weekend to be out and about in the icy north with a camera.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Snow, up close

A little pile o' snow, macro style. It's interesting how transparent snowflakes are. And they're awful tough to photograph. If they don't shatter into pieces upon landing, there's the chance that they'll melt before you can focus and shoot. Then there's lighting them so they actually show up. At this point, any measure of success I have in capturing snowflakes on camera is due to luck, not skill.

Happy Groundhog Day. Here's to an early spring!

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Getting flaky

I woke up Saturday morning and discovered that this fella and a few million of his buddies decided to drop by.

I put together my tried and true DIY macro photo setup (taped two 50mm f1.8 lenses together face-to-face, attached them to my camera along with a flash bracket and flash aimed just in front of the lens combo) and headed out to get a few shots of the guests.

I set up a mirror on my deck to collect some subjects, then moved in and fired away. The dark background is courtesy of the reflection of my camera. The blue tone was provided by setting the camera's white balance to incandescent. The flash (at 1/16 power) added just enough definition to the icy flakes.

Brrr. Nice.

Settings: ISO 100, f/16 @ 1/80. Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

12 significant photos #2

A barn that time forgot. Made on February 14, 2009.

Continuing the retrospective on significant photos taken in 2009.

I photographed this barn while on the way to a photo session. I live on the edge of the Chicago metroplex and it's not uncommon for the occasional barn to intermingle with shopping centers and subdivisions. This barn sits behind a CVS pharmacy south of Crystal Lake, Illinois.

Normally, the barn would have been mostly hidden among the trees and brush, but a dusting of snow the night before painted the roof white and covered the foreground grass. It looked interesting, so I pulled into the pharmacy parking lot, walked over to the edge of the barn property and shot a few frames. I was finished in less than five minutes.

I didn't even bother to post the photo anywhere for a few days, but when I did, the reaction to the picture was instantaneous and deep. Views and comments poured in on Flickr and for a time, the photo appeared in the rotation of featured photos on one of the site's main pages, which generated more views and comments.

I'm still not exactly sure what the fuss was about, or what drew people to this particular image. I was definitely thinking "Red Rule" when I made the picture. The doors hanging askew adds some quirkiness to the barn and quirkiness is good in a picture. The doors perhaps add to the feeling of neglect and abandonment. And maybe I should have known about the fuss, seeing as how another picture of a barn after a winter snowfall is one of my most viewed online photos -- it's received nearly 30,000 views and after two years, still gets 70-90 views every day.

Hey, it's snowing today. Maybe I should go look for some barns.

NOTE: Fixed the link. Sorry.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Icy

Pictured here are some of the results of a Christmas Eve ice storm here in northern Illinois. I headed out around my house this morning armed with a hand-held flash unit and a blue gel to throw a little more chill into these pictures.





Things will warm up and the ice should be gone by midday. (N)ice while it lasted.

Photographs © 2009 James Jordan.

Winter silence

All I heard on this foggy winter morning was a gentle sigh of the wind -- the measured breathing of the world as it lay asleep under a blanket of white.

Sleep well.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

River

Missing someone this Christmas? Yeah, me too.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Silent sentinels

The old guard standing watch over the foggy winter morning.

Photograph taken last week at the Paul Wolff Forest Preserve near Elgin, Illinois. After the candle photos taken with a strobe setup, these straight-up shots were a breeze. A warmer, drier breeze to be exact.

More fog photos to come, and at least one more candle shot. Stay tuned.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

This little light of mine

I've been thinking about this shot for a while. Ever since I did the red Christmas ornament shots a week or so ago, I've been pondering what to do next and thought of photographing a candle out in the woods. I've just been waiting for the right time. The right time being either a fresh coating of snow or a foggy winter day.

The foggy winter day came today, so I packed a candle, lighter, camera, boom stand, flash, gels and grid and headed out to a local forest preserve. It was a pretty straightforward shot once the light was set up - the boom allowed me to place the flash directly above the candle to create a ring of light with a grid attached. A double layer of CTO gels allowed me to shift the color balance to incandescent to simulate twilight while maintaining a warm white light on the candle -- this was shot mid-morning.

The setup for the flash is shown below. After that it was just a matter of laying on my side in the melting snow until I framed up a few shots that I liked. Then home to change out of my wet clothes.



Photographs © 2009 James Jordan.