Sunset in the park

Sunset is a spectator sport in Door County, Wisconsin. The harbors, parks and marinas on the western edge of the peninsula begin to fill with people about a half hour or so before sunset. They come to watch, reflect and photograph while the sun dips below the horizon. I come to watch the people watching the sunset.

Fish Creek, Wisconsin is home to the aptly-named Sunset Park, a clearing on the west end of town on the shore of Green Bay. It seems like I always come away with an interesting picture whenever I visit. This time was no exception.

I spotted the couple on the park bench and noted the folks in the distance sitting on a low retaining wall on a short bluff. The picture pretty much composed itself. I liked the shadows cast by the low-angled sunlight. I set myself up about three feet behind the bench and made several exposures to be sure I had all the elements -- sky, sun, bench, foreground -- properly exposed at least once, with plans to assemble the final image later in Photoshop.

Then I left the sunset watchers to finish out their day.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Sunset over Reefpoint Marina

The day glides to a close in Racine, Wisconsin.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Apocalyptic sunset

I finished a photo assignment at a local hospital a couple of nights ago, then met my wife at a nearby shopping mall for a snack and a little walking inside. Afterward, as we headed to our cars in the parking lot, I glanced at the western sky, which until now was under a heavy cloud cover. A small section of the sky appeared to be a boiling mass of pink, similar in appearance to the sky in the movie Independence Day just before the alien ships arrived to destroy the planet.

I joked to my wife that we should hurry home because it appeared that Dekalb just got nuked. We watched the swirling mass grow, then slowly open to reveal pink and gold clouds beyond the portal. Rays of sunlight streamed out of the hole. I shot a few photographs from the parking lot, but having a Home Depot as a foreground wasn't quite cutting it for me. I wrote it off and decided to head home, while my wife drove off to a grocery store to pick up a few items.



I shot a few more pictures of the Home Depot apocalypse, then climbed into my car and headed out of the parking lot. My cell phone rang. My wife had called to tell me that the view was spectacular where she was. I turned west and onto the road she had just taken. She was right -- the hole was now closer, larger and shooting rays of light in a gigantic laser light show. My only problem was finding an unobstructed view.

I turned into a subdivision hoping for a clear shot of the sky over some rooftops. No dice. I gave up again and left the subdivision, turning east to head home. I glanced at the rearview mirror then decided to pull over. I got out and got a couple of shots of the roadway and trees beyond. A police car pulled up and asked if everything was OK. I explained I was getting a few shots of the sunset and Mr. Policeman nodded and drove off. I got another dozen or so shots, all hand-held, before the light faded.



Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

Hello, sun

The landscape around here is gettin' springy wid it. You go, bud.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

The sun went down ...

I've been away for a few days. To stand. To watch. To ponder. And grab some pictures of what I saw while standing, watching and pondering.

I specifically made a trip to Door County, Wisconsin to fill a few holes in the selection of photographs that will hang in a gallery there from May to October. The theme is twilight and night scenes around the county.

The scene above is a self portrait taken at the marina in Sister Bay. I had wrapped up shooting the sunset and as an afterthought, decided to plop down the tripod, set the self timer and walk to the end of the pier for a shot.

A few stubborn chunks of ice hang around the harbors, slowly falling victim to the warm winds that blow from the south. Their days are numbered. Buds are budding. Grass is greening. Taps and buckets are attached to sugar maple trees. A season ending, another beginning.



Technical stuff: Graduated neutral density filter used to balance sky and foreground tones, 30cc magenta filter to warm up the sky. Photographs © 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.

Under the sunset tree

More abstract nature pics from Pingree Grove Forest Preserve near Pingree Grove and Gilberts, Illinois.

The area near these two northern Illinois communities has seen an explosion of new subdivisions going up in recent years. Glad to see that part of the plan was to preserve a few hundred acres of open space in the middle of it.

And I'm sure the wildlife that was displaced by all of the construction appreciate it, too.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Watching the watchers

Sunsets are a spectator sport in Door County, Wisconsin. The descending solar orb draws a crowd at marinas and other easily accessible vantage points along the peninsula's western shore on Green Bay.

My first inclination this particular evening was to take in the sunset from a more remote location. I knew the perfect place -- a rocky beach at Nelson Point, within Peninsula State Park north of Fish Creek. I arrived only to find that rising lake levels had submerged the beach.

With that option gone, I headed into town and decided to visit a small village park that was built especially for sunset viewing. Dozens of others had gotten that idea ahead of me. Instead of shooting the sunset, I decided to photograph the sunset watchers. It wasn't hard. Everyone had a camera, so I blended right in. I could get right up to people and click away, since they likely assumed I was after the sun and not them.

After the sun dipped below the horizon, the crowd broke out in applause and began to filter out of the park.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

An old friend

When I first picked up a camera to begin the task of seriously improving my photography back in 1997, one of my first subjects was the lighthouse at Wind Point, just north of Racine, Wisconsin. I've lost count of the number of times I've returned. I can't recall ever having been disappointed with any of my sessions there.

On a recent visit, my wife and I arrived at sunset as a half dozen windsurfers were packing up and heading home. Brisk winds kicked up some rather large waves on Lake Michigan that day. As the sun descended past a bank of clouds, I was hoping that the sky would burst into a sea of flaming red, but what you see above is as far as things developed. Oh, well. A stack of neutral density filters helped me get a nice long exposure of 20 seconds or so to catch the movement of the clouds behind the lighthouse.

Since I first laid eyes on them 12 years ago, the lighthouse and grounds have undergone several makeovers, most of them to my liking.

Then again, so have I.

UPDATE: This photo was selected as Photo of the Day at the Karma group on Flickr and posted to the Karma POTD blog. Thanks!

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Out with the old ...

Since I started 2008 by posting a photo of a sunrise in Door County, Wisconsin, it seemed fitting to end the year with a picture of a sunset from DC.

Hoping that you accomplished all you set out to do in 2008 with wishes that 2009 will usher in all the best for you.

Photograph: Sunset Park, Fish Creek, Wisconsin. Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2008 James Jordan.

Bursts

I'm beginning to like how black and white pictures strip photography down to its basics - composition, form, tone. There's no hiding behind flashy colors or fancy post-processing. A photo either works or it doesn't. As I go through my photos choosing candidates for black and white conversion, I'm sadly finding photos that don't work in black and white. That only means that they don't work in color, either. Time for Mr. Delete Button to do his stuff.

This photo does a couple of things nicely. I like the complete range of tones from black to white throughout the picture. The photo also merges the natural sunburst created by sun and clouds with the technological sunburst of the sunlight bouncing, pinball style, off the many interior elements of the camera's lens. The act of photography itself is an imposition of the technological on the natural. Most times, the trick is to disguise the imposition as much as possible. Sometimes the trick is to embrace it.

Photo tip: When photographing the sky with a visible sun, meter on the sky above the sun with the sun just out of the viewing frame. Then recompose and shoot.

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

Times two

Simple pleasures are doubled by sharing.

Have a great weekend.

Photo: Sunset Park, Fish Creek, Wisconsin. Graduated tobacco filter and 2-stop grad ND. Orton effect added in post processing. Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2008 James Jordan.

Fire over the meadow

This is a filter-aided attempt at capturing a dramatic sunset. The sky just wasn’t happening the way I anticipated, so I pulled out the 2-stop graduated tobacco filter and played around with it.

It livened up the sky considerably, turning a fairly blah photo into a better photo (picture without the filter is shown below). Every camera kit should include some filters - a circular polarizer, an 81b warming filter, a 2-stop graduated neutral density filter and the 2-stop graduated tobacco are a good start. Just sayin.'

Ah well. At least I was able to get a couple of moon pics out of the trip (see the posts from the last two days).

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

Twilight time

It’s Friday and the sun will soon slip below the horizon on yet another work week. Hope yours was a good one.

Have a great weekend.

Photo: Twilight, Egg Harbor, Wisconsin. Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2008 James Jordan.

Sunset Park

Back from a week in Door county, Wisconsin. The memory card in my camera and the one in my head are full, so I'll be emptying those out here over the next few days.

Sunset Park in Fish Creek, Wisconsin is aptly named. The main street through Fish Creek will get you there, but it’s better to take the wooded path to the park. The path comes upon a clearing where people gather to gaze westward over Green Bay to bid the day farewell.

This picture was selected as Photo of the Day at the Karma Group on Flickr.

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

Blustery sunset

Wave after wave of storms moved through the upper Midwest this past weekend. I was able to find a window of time to make my way out to shoot that also coincided with sunset. This scene occurred after a day of thunderstorms. The wind was still very brisk and I purposely used a slow shutter speed to blur the foreground flowers. I also purposely tilted the composition to heighten the effect of being messed with by nature’s forces.

Taken at the Jelke’s Creek Bird Sanctuary in Sleepy Hollow, Illinois. It’s a great place to capture the best that God has to offer.

Photograph © 2008 James Jordan.

The gathering

This photograph was taken from just off a service road between a suburban strip mall and a medical services building. What you can't see is the busy highway and shopping center just beyond the reeds. I shot from a low angle to hide them.

The soundtrack for this shot was the call of the red-winged blackbirds flittering among the reeds and the drone of traffic just beyond them. Behind me, bicyclists pedaled past this scene, traveling on a concrete sidewalk that passed by a Holiday Inn and a restaurant.

Suburbia has created these mini-ecosystems, small places where what's left of displaced species can gather for yet another day. The suburbs are filled with these little islands of nature surrounded by a sea of commerce. They can be found along roadways, near parking lots and in other places otherwise deemed unsuitable for building.

The dark clouds and setting sun speak a warning to other open areas that lay on the edges of the suburban sprawl. Your time is coming.

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

Enjoy the silence

I’ve never been able to sit and watch the ocean or a sunset without having my mind wander into myself and ponder my place in life, the universe and everything else. What you see in this photo is a front row seat to encounter not only the swirl of water, wind and sky, but the swirl of activity happening within.

The old chair sat discarded on the edge of the beach, so I pulled it over into a patch of sunlight and shot a few frames. I often cross-post photos here and on Flickr. Last night, a commenter mentioned that this photo reminded him of the chair that Depeche Mode frontman David Gahan used in the video for Enjoy the Silence, a song about letting some things remain unsaid between people who love each other.

In the video, Gahan, dressed as a king, chases the sunset to a number of locations, each time setting up his beach chair and sitting briefly to view the sights before him. Yet it is not the sunset that he is chasing. The video echoes the themes presented in Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s novella, The Little Prince, which contains the line what is essential is invisible to the eye.

So pull up a chair, sit for a while and look for those things which cannot be seen. You can’t miss them.

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

Two worlds

Twice each day the two meet. Day and night cross paths at dusk, make their circuitous journeys and meet up again dawn. They tip their hats to each other as they walk their opposing paths, each content to remain in their own world, while we observe the changes as they pass.

Composite day/night photo. Photograph © 2007 James Jordan.

Nelson Point sunset

This is the view of the sunset from Nelson Point in Peninsula State Park in Door County, Wisconsin - if you’re looking from about 12 inches off the ground. The beach is mostly rocky and barren, but the occasional plant grows and thrives in the protected spaces between the large rocks on the perimeter.

I’ve said before that Door County, the peninsula that separates Green Bay from Lake Michigan, is basically a large rock covered with a layer of dirt left over from the glacial history of the Great Lakes region. While there are a few sandy beaches, the place where and land meets water is primarily rocky; tall bluffs rise from the waters of Green Bay and Lake Michigan, a statement to the determination of the intrepid people who first inhabited this wild area.

Today, the artist enclaves, boutique shops, inns and restaurants are the latest in the evolution of the pioneer spirit of the people who make their homes here. They too have found their protected spaces within the cracks of the rocks.

Photo is a blend of two exposures to increase dynamic range. Photograph © 2007 James Jordan.