Eagle Bluff Lighthouse

Racks full of postcards draw me like a magnet when I'm out traveling. When my wife notices that I'm no longer walking with her through a store, she knows the first place to look for me. Postcards are a good reference source to see how different photographers approach subjects that have been photographed a million times already.

So, here are some of the things I've learned from postcards about photographing landmarks:

1. Photograph at a time of day when the fewest people are likely to photograph. This is usually around sunrise. Your photo will have a look that relatively few other photos will have.

2. Show the landmark in its surroundings.

3. Isolate the landmark from its surroundings.

4. Photograph the landmark at a time of year when relatively few other people will photograph it. Early spring, peak color in autumn and mid-winter are good choices.

5. If the sky is doing something dramatic ... bonus!

6. Stick to the rules of composition. Or not.

The above photograph of the Eagle Bluff Lighthouse in Door County, Wisconsin is a bit too typical of a "postcard" shot, but it was begging to be taken. Mid-morning on a fall day when the colors had reached their peak. Sun illuminating the lighthouse through a clearing in the surrounding trees. Blue sky creating a contrast of color to the gold and orange leaves. A spot of sunlight hitting the juncture of the split rail fence. I was there with a camera. What else could I do?

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

Cana Island Light

There's something about standing alone on the shore of Lake Michigan in the middle of the night, miles from the nearest town, that puts your senses on full alert. The "fight or flight" response lurks just beneath the surface as your mind nags you about the distinct possibility of a large animal or person with evil intentions emerging from the trees along the shore.

If you can push those thoughts into the background far enough, what's left is a pure appreciation of the sights and sounds of the moment - the light breeze coming off the lake, the sound of waves breaking on the shore, the points of light far away in the night sky and the lighthouse tower, doing the job it was designed to do more than a century ago.

I stood where horrific wrecks and daring rescues took place in days long past. A place where intense storms pummelled the rocky shoreline. But this night was reserved for the contented sigh of the breeze, the blanket of night pulled snug and a light signaling that all was well.

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

I believe I can fly

For the past 63 years, Door County has thrown a party every October to celebrate autumn. The Fall Festival takes place in Sister Bay and draws people from across the Midwest. The crazy thing is, I've been traveling to Door County for the better part of a decade and I had never heard of the Fall Fest until this year. And I only found out about it when the receptionist at the motel I booked mentioned it as the reason that rooms were particularly scarce.

I hung around the festivities on Saturday morning, which featured a parade, activities for the kids and all the bratwurst one could possibly want. I skipped the bratwurst, took some shots of the parade and hung out at the bungee trampoline.

Many kids enthusiastically got buckled in, then, when it was time to bounce, took a few timid hops, using most of their alloted time (at six bucks a pop) to get the feel of what they were doing. Not this girl. She got right down to business, soaring high into the air and performing a continuous string of back flips. It was fun to watch and photograph. It took several shots for me to get the timing right to catch the high point of one of her flips, but I finally caught one.

I lost my zest for being anything other than vertical with head above feet a long time ago. For a few moments, though, I was taken back to a time when I believed that anything was possible.



Update - I've been Polymeme'd: Tracking some of my photos via Flickr's stats feature and discovered a couple on the news aggregator site Polymeme. Glad they like.


I'll soon be Smashing: Was contacted by a writer for SmashingMagazine.com. Three of my photos will accompany a future article on winter photography.

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

Taking flight

After witnessing the blazing fall colors in Door County, Wisconsin last weekend, the trip home seemed anticlimactic. Stiff winds from the previous day had stripped many of the leaves from the trees. The sky hung in sheets of gray. A squall line of clouds formed over the open water of Lake Michigan where cold air from Canada tussled with the warmer air at the water's surface.

My wife and I stopped in the small town of Kewaunee to take a look at the lighthouse. I have photographed it a number of times and I wanted to try to capture it against the late fall/early winter sky.

I set up a tripod and shot a few frames with a telephoto lens from just off a parking lot in a small beachfront park near the light. I wanted to get a low angle view of the lighthouse behind some old pilings in the water and decided to head down to the water's edge to set up. I picked up the tripod and set off. As I crested a small sand dune I came face to face with a large flock of resting gulls. I stopped dead in my tracks hoping not to disturb them, and for a second it seemed to work. As I considered my options for getting to the water's edge without agitating the birds, one gull decided the guy with the tripod and camera was sufficiently threatening to demand action. It spread its wings and flapped toward the water. That's all it took for several dozen birds to loudly follow suit.

I ran several steps down the dune, chunked the tripod's legs into the sand and quickly fired off three shots as the gulls headed for the pilings. This shot is what I consider the best of the three - the first shot, actually, as the gulls flew in somewhat of a formation. The second and third shots document the gulls going off in all directions.

It was good to get away, to witness the beauty of God's creation and make some good contacts while in Door County (I'm in job seeking/freelance gig mode almost all the time now). The owner of an art gallery expressed enthusiastic interest when I described a series of Door County photos I have been working on for the last two years. If all goes well, I'll be represented in her gallery next spring.

We'll see if that opportunity takes flight.

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

Wallpaper Wednesday #3

A large stand of birch trees occupies a corner of Peninsula State Park in Door County, Wisconsin. Just enter the park at the Fish Creek entrance. You can't miss it. It's beautiful at any time of year, but autumn adds a colorful backdrop to the long, thin black and white tree trunks.

Shot on an overcast day and given a touch of Orton processing. Click on the picture for a 1440x900 size image for your computer desktop background. Other sizes here: 1280x1024, 1280x800, 1024x768 and 800x600.

Photo: Autumn birch. Click on this post's headline for image EXIF data. Click on picture to enlarge. 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.

Moored for the night

Door County, Wisconsin is my favoritest place to be. And autumn is my favoritest time to be there. And the locals that I spoke with while I was there this past weekend say that this year's fall colors are the richest in recent memory. And yet some of my favoritest pictures taken this past weekend of this favoritest place at this favoritest time of year had nothing to do with fall colors. Go figure.

Yes, I shot plenty of trees and colorful leafy scenery while up there, as the previous photo can attest. But I also shot some twilight and night photos and some pretty bodacious Lake Michigan surf - onshore winds on Sunday gusted well above 30-40 mph, kicking up some pretty impressive tubes and at one juncture, threatened to blow me off a rocky crag at Cave Point. I'll go into that later.

But today I'll go with something a little more on the tranquil side. The photo above is of the Anderson Dock in Ephraim on the Green Bay side of the Door peninsula. This shot was taken about a half hour after the sun had set. The sunset itself was pretty dull - the clouds you see in the photo pretty much obscured the view. But I thought that the clouds themselves were interesting enough to risk sticking around to see what would happen as the light faded.

What happened was an interesting juxtaposition of the dark swirling clouds and the calm mirror-like surface of the water in Eagle Harbor. It's as if the safe haven of the dock makes the moored boats immune to the turbulent forces of nature which lurk above. I remember feeling that way when I was a young boy. A storm outside our house may have raged, but all was well because my dad was not afraid.

This was also a poignant weekend because it was one year ago that the raging storms of life claimed my father. He passed away after complications following a kidney surgery. Now it's my turn to stand calm in the storm as my family sees the trees bend and hears the wind howl.

I had a good role model.

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

Walking a crooked mile

But then again, aren't we all? Don't you wish the road wad perfectly straight and clearly marked all the time? Of course, if it was, you might miss the scenery along the way.

Have a good weekend.

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

Rocks on the Fox

Rock balance on the Fox River in downtown Elgin, Illinois.

There comes a point when trying to balance a rock when you think to yourself this is not going to work - give it up. Especially when people are watching. But if you stick with it, slowly adjusting the contact point of the top rock with the surface of the rock beneath it, you'll eventually hit a point where you know that the rock will stand - you'll feel it, and it's only a matter of time and ever-so-slight adjustments before the rock stands on its own.

I'm more than a month out from losing my job and have done the things that job seekers have to do to find work. Resumes, job boards, search firms, networking and answering countless ads. I'm waiting to hear back from a couple of interviews. Along the way I've heard how tough things are job-wise in this economy. I've more than once thought to myself this is not going to work.

But I'm going to stick to the plan, make adjustments where needed and push through this, trusting that at the end, I'll be standing on my own.

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

Wallpaper Wednesday

Here is some autumn color for your desktop on this week's edition of Wallpaper Wednesday. Taken last weekend in Geneva, Illinois along the Fox River. We're having one of the most colorful autumns in recent memory here in northern Illinois.

Click on the photo for a 1440x900 size image. Right click and set as your desktop background. Other sizes are available here: 1280x1024, 1280x800, 1024x768, 800x600.

Enjoy.

Click on this post's title for image EXIF data. Photograph: "Turn, turn, turn" © 2008 James Jordan.

Ripples

This is an actual photograph. It's the surface of the Fox River in downtown Elgin, Illinois as the waters approach a dam. The surging water slows as it encounters the barrier and forms smooth ripples on its surface.

I photographed the phenomenon two years ago during an all-day photography event sponsored by the city of Elgin. Today is the third annual installment of Elgin 1440 (the 1440 being indicative of the number of minutes in a day). Photographers are criss-crossing the city today gathering images that will be submitted to a jury for an exhibition to be held in November.

I was out this morning photographing the daybreak. I'm taking a break to attend to some business, then I'll be back out this afternoon. And yes, I'll be posting photos here and on Flickr.

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

Duck! It's autumn

Same place, another day. This photo was taken at the same spot as the photo in the previous post. This time, several preening ducks occupied the place. One finished with a flourish and was captured against the reflection of fall colors on the Fox River.

Happy Columbus Day, U.S.

Happy Thanksgiving, Canada.

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

Autumn rocks #2

Jack Frost has been a busy guy around these parts, painting the trees in red and golden hues. I'm continuing a series of photos featuring autumn colors without actually depicting the trees themselves. Taking a walk along the Elgin, Illinois riverfront, I took a number of pictures of the colors reflected in the waters of the Fox River.

I found a rock along the river bed that was just begging to be balanced and carried it with me until I came upon a good spot for a photograph - a hospitable base rock and a colorful background in the water behind it. The low angle of sunlight didn't hurt, either. It took a couple of minutes to get the rock to balance, but once standing, I took several shots from different angles.

Photo tip: The natural inclination is to shoot a closeup of an object from, well ... close up. For this shot, I stepped back several yards and used a telephoto lens to bring the object to me. This changes the viewing perspective ever so slightly and can result in a shot that is a bit different than what we may be used to seeing and may compel a viewer to stick with it a bit longer than they would have otherwise. It's worth playing with as you're out shooting.

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

Autumn rocks

It's shaping up to be a nice colorful autumn here in northern Illinois. The usual routine is for the trees around here to go straight to brown, then lose their leaves. Thanks to an abundant amount of rainfall late in the summer courtesy of hurricanes Gustav and Ike, the trees are happy and are showing their appreciation with a display of golds, oranges and reds not often seen in these parts. Lots of photography fodder for a change. I like.

I'll be catching those golden hues, albeit in an indirect way. The large photo above is the first in a series of "Autumn rocks" images, that will feature ... well, rocks ... but with a touch of autumn thrown into the mix, like the gold heart-shaped leaf sitting atop the subject as Tyler Creek flows by.

I was out this morning catching some more rocks and fall color and will post those here in the days ahead. If you're the curious type and can't wait, head over to Flickr to get an advance peek.

Click on this post's headline for the main image's EXIF data. Click on pictures to enlarge. Photographs © 2008 James Jordan.

Wallpaper Wednesday

Yeah, it's a departure from the usual type of photograph I post here. But if you've been following Points of Light for more than a year (and there are a few of you), you'll know that I post some kind of weird picture around Halloween, and the picture usually involves fire in some way.

I picked up a small plastic skull in the Halloween section of a grocery store a few years ago for about three bucks. You don't often see toy skulls that are correctly proportioned any more. Or that haven't been painted with all sorts of garish faux-spooky colors. Or don't have goofy looking eyeballs in the sockets.

Anyhow, I suspended my anatomically correct, non painted, eyeball-less skull in front of a black backdrop while I passed an oil candle around it during a 20 second exposure. The result is pretty much as it came from the camera. Maybe a slight adjustment of the overall levels, but that's it.

If you're really into skulls, there's this person (Noah Scalin) who posted an artsy skull on his blog every day for a year. Those creations have been published in a book, Skulls. The second year of his blog features skull art contributed by readers. Take a look if you dare.

Oh, yeah ... the Wallpaper Wednesday bit: I'm starting a new thing where I offer photos that you can use as desktop wallpaper on your computer screen every Wednesday, starting today. We'll see how long I can keep this up. The pictures on Wallpaper Wednesdays are yours for the taking. Well, actually, the pictures I post here are yours for the taking every day. How am I going to know who snitches them? The only difference is that on Wednesdays I'll provide pictures in five sizes to accomodate the five most popular screen sizes of computers that visit here.

Click on the picture above to open a 1440x900 size version. Right click and select "Set as background" or whatever your browser denotes as setting your desktop background.

Other sizes: 1280x1024, 1280x800, 1024x768, 800x600

Boo.

Photographs © 2008 James Jordan.

Toft Point

The Toft Point natural area lies just north of Baileys Harbor, Wisconsin on Door County's Lake Michigan coast. The area features wave-cut dolomite cliffs, limestone cobble beaches and marly soils which support more than 440 species of plants, many of them rare and endangered. The site is recognized by the National Park Service as a National Natural Landmark and was designated a State Natural Area in 1967.

As many times as I’ve visited the area, I have never quite gotten a photograph that I thought adequately depicted the rugged, wild nature of the place. I arrived there one more time last month on a day of clouds and spotty sunshine. I noticed an interesting cloud formation to the north and decided to try to capture it against the rocky shore. I camped on a rock surrounded by water, set my tripod low and set my zoom lens to its widest angle. From that position, I took two shots – one of the sky and one of the lakeshore, setting an ideal exposure for each and intending to merge them together later.

I was disappointed with the initial result, which I have bravely posted here. I let it sit for a couple of weeks, then decided to throw everything I had at it to see if I could spice up the image.

In Photoshop Elements 6, I selected the lakeshore and applied an Orton effect – I lightened the image selection by about half, copied it and pasted it over itself on a layer. I put a slight Gaussian blur on the layer, then blended it with the layer beneath using “multiply.” This boosted the color saturation of the rocks and water. I did a similar adjustment to the sky, except this time I converted the adjustment layer to grayscale and cranked the contrast wayyyyy up. I added a slight Gaussian blur then blended the layers using “Soft Light.” The action popped the clouds but added a bit of noise to the sky, which I corrected with Elements’ noise filter. I added a slight vignette to the overall image to finish things up.

The photo was selected as “Photo of the Day” at the Karma Group on Flickr. It’s the third photo of mine selected for that honor.

Click on this post's headline to see EXIF data for the photo. Click on pictures to enlarge. Photographs © 2008 James Jordan.

Ripples

The calm stillness of the day was interrupted by the slightest ripples of concern, but they quickly dissipated. Hope your day goes the same.

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

Busy as a ...

This fella was hard at work and pretty much ignoring the big old camera hovering less than an inch away. Good thing for me, I guess.

I'm keeping busy too. The job search and some photographic gigs are filling up the schedule. Don't know where it will all lead, but it should be an interesting trip.

Blessings to you this weekend. Have a good one.

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

Carbonated dandelion

Some crisp, clean refreshment on a chilly autumn morning - a dandelion seed head looking for all the world like it had been immersed in soda water. Morning dew (not Mountain Dew^TM) did the trick.

Clicking this post's headline will take you to a page of exposure data. Click on picture to enjoy a larger glass full of the image - see if you can spot the bonus bug. Photograph © 2008 James Jordan.

Web master

OK, so it's actually a web mistress - it's the female of the species of orb weaver spiders that grow large and spin their intricate webs. This particular spider was resting comfortably on a dewy morning - so comfortably that dew had formed on her body overnight. She had good reason to be comfy. Nearby, in her "pantry" an unfortunate grasshopper lay in storage until the next mealtime. Circle of life kind of thing.

Still taking the Nikon D60 through its paces, and loving it so far. I had taken great pride in pushing the old Fujifilm Finepix s700 beyond its stated capabilities, but man, it took a lot of effort. It's very freeing when the technology works with you, not against you. Hopefully it will show in the pictures I make from here on out.

As always, click on the post's headline to see exposure data for these shots. While it only shows one set of info, I used the same settings for both pictures.

Nikon D60 Photo tip: If you look toward the bottom of the column of numbers and codes on the EXIF page, some pictures will say "Low gain up." That's the term for having Nikon's Active D-Lighting feature turned on. Basically, it lightens the tones in shadow areas and helps even out the contrast in the photo. I'm d-lighted to have the feature available, although I made a major unrecoverable error in some night shots a couple of weeks ago because I forgot to turn it off. Live and learn.

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

Tiny geometries

The spiders are busy these days. Hundreds of webs glistened in the early morning light as I took a walk in a meadow on a misty morning last week. Not only has the business climate been good enough for the enterprising arachnids to open multiple locations, each has been successful enough for the eight-legged creatures to get fat on numerous customers to their web sites.

I have some nice close-ups of some of the webmasters - maybe I'll post some of those later this week.

This particular web sat in the shade of some trees and brush. Bright spots of sunlight shone through the backdrop and formed out-of-focus circles of light (referred to as bokeh or circles of confusion) due to the close focus and wide open aperture of the lens I was using (an 18-55mm zoom set at 55mm with a +7 stack of closeup filters). The shade created a light blue cast which was accentuated in post processing.

I've been blogged: It seems I have a fan at Coloursmag.com - Zeeshan Kazmi has compiled a list of 20 Amazing Landscapes and selected three of my photos (#11, #12 and #14) to be part of the group. My appreciation to Zeeshan.

Click on this post's headline to see EXIF data on the photo. 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.

Morning light

Autumn's morning light is softer than the light of a summer dawn. Perhaps it's the steeper angle at which the sunlight hits our northerly atmosphere. Maybe it's psychological. We see the natural world around us beginning to wrap up its business for the year. Time to dim the lights in anticipation of the night of winter to come.

Click on this post's headline to see EXIF data for this photo. Click on picture to enlarge (1024x768). 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.

Splash of color

The vehicle called autumn has made the turn and is stepping on the gas pedal. Splashes of color are appearing daily within a stand of trees near you. So sit back and enjoy the ride. Photo taken in Peninsula State Park, Door County, Wisconsin.

Picture tip: This is a great time of year to go for a photo walk in a wooded area. Keep an eye out for contrasting splashes of color from leaves that are starting to turn. Yellow is good. Red is better. Bonus tip from Ansel Adams: When Adams shot photos in the woods, he worked hard to position himself so as to eliminate any trace of the sky showing through the foliage, which would appear as distracting bright spots against the dark background.

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

Foggy autumn morning in the hollow

My first posted photo of the fall. And with it, I'm introducing a new feature. Actually, Blogger has always had this feaure, but I never thought to take advantage of it. I've set the headline of this post to take you to a Flickr page that shows the exposure info for the photo in the post. Just click on the headline to go there. The Nikon D60 records a pretty thorough set of data for each picture taken with the camera.

The only thing it won't record is if a filter is used. In this case, a 2-stop graduated neutral density filter was used to balance the tones between the sky and ground.

Happy autumn.

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

In other news: I've landed a small but regular gig as a photography writer/reviewer for a web site called Innovative Digital Photographers. It features news about photo gear and offers tips and techniques in a variety of photographic disciplines. Check out the profiles I've written for two photographic pals of mine, Peter Bowers and Trey Ratcliff. Each has a unique take on photography.

I scored my first magazine cover recently. A photo taken at Cave Point in Door County graces the cover of the fall 2008 issue of Door County Living. The magazine chronicles the lifestyle of the Door peninsula in Wisconsin.

And there's nothing like having some of your photos blogged. (Numbers 2, 4, 5, and 6)

Back in a bit

I was just sitting down to get going on a blog post when I got an e-mail from my wife, who is driving to work. She reports fog in the area. I'm grabbing my camera and heading out. Back soon.

Migration

This is the time of year that the monarch butterfly makes one of the most remarkable migrations in the animal kingdom. Monarchs in eastern North America are currently in the process of migrating from Canada to their winter home in Mexico (western North American monarchs overwinter in southern California. Many butterflies follow the shoreline of Lake Michigan southward, then navigate over inland waterways to the Mississippi River, some traveling a journey of more than 2,500 miles. Their offspring will make the northward journey in the spring.

This monarch was spotted just south of Door County Wisconsin along the shoreline of Lake Michigan as it made a refueling stop. Just one of billions making the journey that billions have already taken and have yet to take.

Photo info: Taken with a Nikon D60, 55-200mm AF-S Nikkor lens set at 55mm, aperture priority and auto exposure. 1/100 second at f5.6, ISO 100. Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2008 James Jordan.

Six unspectacular things about me

I’ve been tagged by Dona to participate in a blog meme. The rules are to list six unspectacular things about yourself, then tag six others to participate.

So first, here are six things about me that do nothing to differentiate me from any of several hundred million of my fellow human beings:

1. I grew up in a small town. How small? The town limit sign was printed on both sides. Ba-dum.

2. I’m left-handed.

3. I turned fifty years old today. (The above photo was one of the first taken with my birthday present - a Nikon D60.)

4. I never learned how to swim.

5. My dad started his working career in a camera store. He landed a job at a company and worked his way up to middle management. At about the age of 50, he was downsized out the company and went back to work in a number of camera shops. My first job was in a camera store. I was downsized out of my corporate middle management job two weeks ago. So far I’m following my dad’s career arc, but I’m trying hard not to end up in a camera shop.

6. I love to cook. I first learned how when my wife was pregnant with our first child. The very thought of food would make her nauseous. So in order to survive I had to learn to prepare my own meals.

All right now – tag six people to participate. Hmmm. Okay, I pick Jules, Linda, Dave, Stacy, Hillary and Roger (I picked Roger before for a meme and he kinda participated – he declined to spread it on to others, but that’s okay). And for a bonus seventh pick, I choose Kelli.

The rules: Link back here, write your six unspectacular items then spread the meme to six others.

What's the difference between a duck?

The debate rages on as to whether photographers should work to get their best shot straight from the camera or shoot their photos with a mind to enhance them later in a photo editing program like Photoshop.

Those in the “no edit” camp feel that untouched photos are somehow purer than a post-processed image. Those in the post editing camp feel that the very process of photography itself distorts reality, so why not work to get the strongest possible image that technology will allow?

I usually try to create the best image possible within the confines of whatever camera I’m using. Anything else is just laziness. Every photographer should know the limits of their equipment and what it is capable of producing in any given situation.

But that doesn’t mean that I don’t post process my images, either. A camera doesn’t always capture the range of tones available in a scene. Colors can get lost. More often than not, I will adjust the light levels and color saturation of my photos, sometimes selecting specific areas of a photo to adjust. And sometimes, a particular effect will enhance a photo, like the Orton processing used on this photo above of a female mallard duck.

Orton is a process of creating a duplicate image, blurring it, layering it over the original image then blending it with the original. The result is a soft-focused photo with richly saturated color.

Here is the same duck photo before processing, as it came straight out of the camera.

What’s your preference?

Want to see more before and after photos? Lev Kolobov produces a photo blog with a twist. Lev's blog, LEVitation, gives a before and after glimpse of each image he posts. The trick is to place your cursor over the red "Kolobov" under each image to reveal what the photo looked like before processing.

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

Dark clouds

This wasn’t the shot I had planned. I kept my eye on the sky and clouds as the day drew to a close in Door County last July. It had been raining on and off all day, and it appeared that the sky was clearing. If things worked out, the sun would break through just before it set, illuminating the clouds with a fiery hue.

I set up in a small park on the shore of Green Bay to wait and see what would happen. The sky did continue to clear, but instead of a fiery show, the sky glowed a light orange color behind the remaining dark clouds, then disappeared for the day.

I saw a composition forming with a boat dock and some dark clouds that floated by above it. I wanted to be sure the dock could be seen above the horizon line. The only way to do that was to hold the camera just inches above the water. I did, bent over and unable to see the shot before I took it. I made several shots, a couple of which came out framed nicely.

The plans to get through the cloudy days don’t always come off the way we envision them, but we humans manage to make the best of it anyway.

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

Long time gone

Once upon a time, back in the days when gasoline cost less than 50 cents a gallon, you would take your car to the service station for fuel. Not a gas station, like you see today, but a service station. Because back then, the attendant would actually come out to your car and give you service, not sit behind bulletproof glass while monitoring a bank of pump readouts.

An attendant would come out of the station, greet you, fill your tank, clean your windshield (or scrape it in the wintertime) check your oil level if asked, then top off the oil if needed, then send you on your way with admonitions about the weather or other driving conditions of note. Needed directions? The person was an expert in the local geography. Air for your tires was free. Paying at the pump meant that you handed the attendant your money while never exiting your vehicle.

Service stations were run by individuals, not regional or district managers in search of ever escalating profits who eventually discovered that creating mammoth enterprises with twenty self-service pumps and a full size convenience store with an attached fast food franchise on a busy intersection could crank hundreds of cars through the lot in an hour. Sure beat the mom-and-pop enterprise with two or three pumps, a cooler full of sodas and a couple of metal chairs by the front door - where interaction with another human being was a part of the experience.

Progress, they call it.

Photo: Gus Klenke Garage, Ellison Bay, Wisconsin. Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2008 James Jordan.

We're soaked

We folks in the upper Midwest are drying out today. The Chicago area has been hammered all weekend with the remnants of Hurricane Ike. As much as eight inches of rain (an estimated 90 billion gallons of water) fell in the last two days, flooding roadways and, for a brief time, cutting off all ground access to O'Hare airport in Chicago and threatening to flood the downtown area.

Of course, this was just a taste of what the folks in the Houston area experienced with the full force of the storm. I can only imagine what that is like.

The photo above was taken at the Crown Fountain in Chicago on a very hot afternoon. Summer days will usually find a large crowd of kids (and sometimes adults) taking advantage of the water spray from the twin monoliths.

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

Leaf and hopper

Spotted in the local wildlife sanctuary. I headed out there yesterday morning hoping to recapture the magic of the deer morning, but to no avail. Oh dear, no deer. So I had to settle for plants and bugs, of which there are plenty.

The grasshoppers are particularly plentiful and particularly skittish. Dozens of them would take cover in each of the plants that line the path, then would abandon each plant as I walked by, scattering simultaneously in all directions in a display that resembled fireworks. I wasn’t able to get close enough to get any photos of them.

This little leafhopper stayed put long enough for me to get a few shots. The sun, which had been hiding behind some clouds, came out for a moment, and bathed the leaf and hopper in a golden morning backlight.

Leaf hoppers are very similar to cicadas in that they have the same sound-producing organs (tymbals) to produce a cicada-like song. They’re so small, however, that the sounds cannot be heard by the human ear.

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

Meet the next up and coming band …

The “B” Sides. Just kidding. Actually it’s the David Yeager Band, headquartered out of Wheaton, Illinois. With a Dave-Matthews-Band-meets-Blues-Traveler vibe, these guys are looking to make an impact in the local Contemporary Christian Music scene.

I had the privilege to do a photo shoot for the band last weekend in downtown Chicago. Band member Steve insisted on a from-the-back shot with the soon to be completed Trump Tower in the background, so I obliged. The buildings reflected in the tower’s massive sea of glass are from across Wacker Drive behind (in front of?) us.

You can see a few more pics (which show faces) of the David Yeager Band in a Flickr photo set.

You can also visit the band’s MySpace page and listen to some sample tracks.

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

Deer in the mist

Okay, so I noticed that it was a bit foggy this morning, so I thought I'd check out a wildlife sanctuary not too far from the house for picture possibilities. I find a nice little spot - small pond, grasses bent ever so gracefully, still water, fog shrouded hills and trees in the background. Beautiful. I set up the tripod, frame up the shot, get the exposure the way I want it and am ready to catch a few frames, when this punk kid wanders into the shot. Like totally photobombing the scene. What's a photographer to do?


And then, to make matters worse, a bunch of buddies show up. Sheesh.


They all high-tailed it out of there after this shot. But the damage was done. I just wasn't in the mood to take any more pictures after this.

Sarcasm.

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

Coming up daisies

I was attracted to this scene first by the daisies in the sunlight. I don't usually shoot photos in the middle of the day unless it's overcast, but these flowers were just begging for it. Then there was the surroundings. Steep rocky shoreline, the wind, the waves. A picture not just of surviving, but thriving.

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.”

Matthew 6:25-29

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

Pupa

A pupa is a transformational stage in the life cycle of an insect. Not too dissimilar to losing a job and looking for another, as is my case.

This silken cocoon was built by a polyphemus caterpillar about two weeks ago. I captured the caterpillar which I found in my yard with the intention of photographing him the next day. He changed the plan by spinning a cocoon overnight.

Since it’s rather late in the season, I don’t know if he will emerge within a two-week pupation period or hibernate over the winter. He spun his shell two week ago today.

Today, my first full day separated from The Company, will find me in my new cocoon, participating in the activities of preparing for a new life. As in the case of Mr. Polyphemus, I don’t know what the time frame will be before I emerge in a new light.

So as I wait for the cocoon to stir, I will attend to the moth’s and my own situations in the same manner – one day at a time.

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

Balance

Using the weekend to help me find some balance. Hoping you do the same. Have a good one.

Photo: rock balancing at Tyler Creek, Elgin, Illinois. Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2008 James Jordan.

Drumming up business

A street drummer in Chicago lets it loose for a gentleman that just dropped a handful of coins in his collection box. The scene presented an interesting juxtaposition of past and present, and depicts two different battles for survival 160 years or so apart.

Taken at the Fort Dearborn site on Wacker Drive in Chicago.

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

Monolith

I'd like to say "Thank you" to all of you who left sympathetic comments yesterday about the loss of my day job. Today, the 24 newly unemployed from The Company will meet as a group with an employment counseling agency. It's sort of a last perk.

The agency will provide any and all of its services to each of us at no charge. We get to pick and choose those services which we think will benefit each of us. I plan to take advantage of whatever I can. Hey, why not?

About that face in the crowd from yesterday. I stuck around Crown Fountain until dusk fell and shot some photos of the monolith against the darkening sky. I could say something cliche like how the darkest times reveals what we're made of more brightly.

Wait, I just did. I also expect to be very proud of the gang of 24 today.

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

A face in the crowd

I am that face in the crowd. Today I am joining a growing demographic group - the unemployed. The Company needed to relieve the pressure that months of declining sales presented. A number of us were told yesterday that our positions were eliminated. My departure was my final act of service to The Company after 17 years.

Options are being weighed. Contacts have been initiated. We'll see where this road leads. Until I find out, though, I'll identify myself with a crowd of people in this struggling economic picture. Call us the Class of 2008.

By the way, anybody looking for a media-savvy writer/producer/creative communicator with a background in publishing and marketing? Just thought I'd ask.

Photo: Crown Fountain, Millennium Park, Chicago. Two-stop graduated neutral density filter. Photograph © 2008 James Jordan.