Against the wind

The only thing I like better than photographing people is photographing people doing something they love to do in the environment in which they love to do it. Suzanne was kind enough set aside some time to model for me. More than once. Unpredictable weather canceled more than one scheduled session. We finally wwere able to connect on a chilly spring day to get the picture above. Several times running around the bend. Sun in her face. Wind blowing like crazy. But she loves to run. She loves to help others. By posing for me, she got to do both.

Tempest

A look at the skies in northern Illinois while storms and tornadoes battered the southern U.S. Spring is the time when the cold of winter is replaced by the warm of summer. It does not change peacefully, however.

Lights! Camera! Robins!

I heard a commotion near my front door about a week ago. A series of shrill warbles that sounded like a robin. Upon investigation, I found that a female had built a nest in a yew bush right outside the door at about eye level. I presume the commotion was to announce the laying of a clutch of four eggs.



Not being one to waste an opportunity when it's handed to me, I've scouted various angles of view, planned placement of lights and cameras, and will document the robin family over the course of the next three or four weeks.

Mama's already gotten a taste of being in the limelight. The top picture looks as if it were taken in the late afternoon sun. Oh, no. Mid-day. Flash on a light stand ten feet away, zoomed and gelled to simulate late day sunlight and put a catchlight in mama's eye. White balance on camera adjusted to heighten the effect.

Mama took it all in stride. No prima robin she.



More to come.

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.

Into everyone's life, some rain must fall

And sometimes, it looks like the world is about to end. These are some glimpses of the sky late last Friday as storms rolled through Elgin, Illinois. My wife and I did a little storm chasing since this type of photo op is fairly rare here. While we get our share of storms, we're usually on the side obscured by rain and clouds.



We tracked some nasty looking clouds down gravel roads, then swung through a large subdivision of homes. Many of the residents were unaware of what was passing overhead. While I shot this photo, a resident of a nearby house pulled into her driveway, ran to the door and yelled at someone inside to come out and see this.



Despite the manace in the sky, all we got out of this particular storm was wet. After some heavy rain, the turbulence moved on.



And all was peaceful once again.

Photographs © 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.

Sit down and soak your feet

Lots of rain recently has our streams and rivers jumping their banks around here. Nothing like what's happened to places like Nashville, of course.

Roadways get wet. Parks get flooded. Ducks and geese have a great time.



The above photo was taken where a swollen stream met the swollen Fox River in Geneva, Illinois, creating a swirl of turbulence. Happens every spring, and most people here are used to the temporary inconvenience.

Photographs © 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.

Going with the floe

While waiting for the sun to set recently in Door County, Wisconsin, I had lots of time to sit and watch the remains of winter's snow and ice slowly fade away. Some of it, like the ice floes above, crept slowly out of the harbor near Sister Bay on their way to the open expanse of Green Bay to eventually become one with the waters there.

The remnants of formerly sizeable ice chunks glimmered in the late afternoon sunlight.



Others played with the sun, returning a thousand points of light.



Here in the Midwest US of A, spring is a battle of the skies. Advancing warm air masses from the south seek supremacy over the cold air of the north -- a civil war that goes back and forth for several weeks until the northern air mass retreats. We've had a taste of spring, but for the next couple of days, the North will again hold this region. But the South will rise again and make a new assault on the occupation forces and will ultimately prevail.

But in the meantime, dang, it's cold.

Photographs © 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.