Passages

Cemetery in Burlington, Wisconsin.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Up in smoke

Motorists making the drive from Chicago northward into Wisconsin on I-94 will see a plume of smoke rising a few miles past the state border. The plume belongs to a coal burning electric power plant in Pleasant Prairie, just south of Kenosha.

The plant just completed a test of technology that can reduce carbon emissions by more than 90 percent. It's unclear whether the plant will permanently adopt the technology due to the cost of maintainance and the need for a place to store the tons of carbon particulates that are trapped by the filters. Can anyone say NIMBY?

Meanwhile, the plant continues to belch away 24/7/365.

Five-image HDR from a single RAW file. Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Oops

Happy weekend. Play it safe. Don't lose your head.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

From soft to scary

Wal-Mart has the right idea, kinda. I passed the photo studio in a local Wally World and stopped a second to check out their setup. One huge softbox with a jillion watts of light hanging seven feet in the air directly over the camera. That was it. A nice one-size-fits-all lighting solution. Except we all know that one-size-fits-all doesn't. If you have nice tight clear skin, Wal-lighting will make you look like a million bucks. For the rest of us in the 90 percent who aren't blessed that way, such light only enhances our shortcomings. But I digress.

The child portrait above employs the one soft light approach, except I chose to move the light low -- the bottom of the umbrella was set to about the child's height and placed slightly to the left. A reflector was laid on the floor just in front of the model to throw a little bit of light under his chin.

Having been a natural light kind of a guy for so many years, playing with multiple strobes, umbrellas, reflectors, gels, snoots and grids is a whole new ballgame. Sometimes it can be downright scary ...



Now, off to get my morning coffee. I can be such a monster without it.

Bottom photo: Three strobes - two LumoPro 120's set as optical slaves on stands behind me left and right, 1/16th power. One strobe on camera with a diffuser. ISO 200, f/5.6, 1/80th. Five image HDR from a single RAW file. Photographs © 2009 James Jordan.

Looking to the future

As promised, much better looking subjects in my subsequent strobe-at-night photos. This is from Thip and Suli's engagement photo session. Great couple, fun and energetic in spite of the cold temps. My wife assisted, acting as the equipment bearer and steady-er of the light stand, because the wind can play havoc with an umbrella. Who knew?



We started by wandering around Festival Park in downtown Elgin, Illinois then moved to the Riverwalk on the Fox River, stopping at interesting locales to shoot a few photos of the couple.



The top shot was taken at the Elgin Riverwalk's overlook of the Fox River dam. Light stand and wife was just out of the picture to the right. I was on the level below the overlook with camera tethered to the light via a 16-foot cable draped over the retaining wall from above. Someday I gotta get me a wireless flash trigger.



The final shots were taken from the overlook. I joined everyone back at the top to get catch some city light action behind Thip and Suli. Then it was time to head home and thaw out.

Photographs © 2009 James Jordan.

Self portrait with garage and driveway, 6:30 a.m.

So why am I taking pictures of myself in my driveway at 6:30 in the morning? Because I can, that's why. Actually, I have an engagement photo session this evening and want to try out some off-camera strobe-assisted shots of the happy couple in an urban setting around sunset. So I'm using myself as a guinea pig to test some lighting setups.

I'll be working simply -- one strobe with an umbrella on a stand, balancing flash with ambient light. Shooting pictures of myself over the last couple of days in different scenarios has helped me to be able to quickly determine my camera settings when faced with a tricky lighting setup. This shot, which includes interior and exterior house lights, a strobe and the pre-dawn sky, took just three shots and adjustments to balance. It has also helped me to come up with a routine to quickly set up, tear down and move the strobe/umbrella combo from location to location. I may even try something in the middle of the street at a crosswalk.

And I'll have better looking subjects to work with.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

In storage

An old truck (just barely) protected from the elements. Seen near Viola, Tennessee. Black and white conversion of a color photograph. Created a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer in Photoshop to adjust gray tones.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Don't know what I was looking at, but I kinda liked how it looked

Was at the Mitchell Park Conservatory in Milwaukee last weekend. Saw this plant with a long skinny pineapple trunk and propeller leaves in front of a humongous palm leaf thingy.

Shot it with a 200mm lens and an off-camera flash on a bracket to throw a tad more light into the fuzzy propeller tree and separate it more from the palmy whatsit behind it.

Bet you can't tell that I never studied horticulture, can you?

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Orchids

Mitchell Park Conservatory, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Available light plus flash at 1/4 power with diffuser on an off-camera bracket to add some fill and separate the flowers from the background.

I've been blogged. Darren Rowse at Digital Photography School has selected a couple of my photos as part of 21 featured "Impressive Tree Images." Head over and check out all the fantastic flora shots.
Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Flashy fingers

Experimenting with a two-flash setup combined with ambient room light as the third light source.

Not easy to do when you are both the model and the photographer. Used a light stand to mark the focus point. Set the camera's self timer and situated myself so my left hand was in focus. Played a little riff while the timer counted down. Chimped the shot on the camera's LCD, reset lights and camera settings as needed and started all over again.

Flashy, huh?

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

The things that remain

This is the remnant of a pier located at the Wind Point lighthouse north of Racine, Wisconsin. I had gone there hoping to catch the moonrise, but the area was socked in with clouds. So I shot what was there.

Yeah, the processing is severe on this shot, but it was done on purpose to ramp up the surreal feeling I wanted to get across.

We all have things that were once a vital part of our lives that have fallen by the wayside. Although the waves of time continue to wear away at them, they continue to sit below the surface, still influencing, still guiding. And sometimes still tormenting.

I think this shot would make a great cover for a great book on this topic.

Five-image HDR from a single RAW file, exposed to retain highlights. Straight and graduated neutral density filters used to even out tones of water and sky and allow for a long exposure to smooth out the water. Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Keeping watch

I admire those who don't flinch when things get tough.

The lighthouse tower at Wind Point, north of Racine, Wisconsin. I had gone there hoping to catch the harvest moon rising over Lake Michigan. This works, too.

Five-image HDR from a single RAW file. Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Primary colors

A sign in the clouds. Rochelle, Illinois.

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.

Gold among the brown

That time of year when nature reminds us that we all eventually must return to the earth.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Out of bounds

A morning glory not paying much attention to the boundary established by a picket fence.

Love the luminous quality of the three blossoms -- one spent, one open, one yet to come.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Late bloomer

Seen in the chilly early autumn air. You go.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Let's get classic

Kind of makes you want to go on a road trip, doesn't it?

Have a great weekend.

Classic car show, Sturgeon bay, Wisconsin. Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Golden field

On Wisconsin route 83 north of the town of Mukwonago lies a field of soybeans turned golden with the chill weather of early autumn. A lonely tree stands nestled between rises in the landscape.

Also in this location is a puzzled farmer who probably still wonders why the guy with the camera stopped to take pictures of his soybeans. He stood in his driveway watching me the entire time.

If he could only see the view from his place.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

The covered bridges of Ozaukee County

Okay, make that bridge, singular. Ozaukee County, Wisconsin is home to exactly one covered bridge -- the last one still standing in Wisconsin. So, in one fell swoop, I managed to photograph every covered bridge in the state. Whew.

The bridge is a neat piece of engineering, it is held together with wooden pins -- no nails.



So why did they cover bridges? Local folklore holds that teams of oxen got skittish when crossing a bridge with a view of the flowing waters in the creek below. This bridge is situated on Cedar Creek near the town of Cedarburg, itself a place filled with the history of the German immigrants who settled there in the early 1800s.

UPDATE: A little Googling has revealed that there are in fact more than 40 covered bridges in the state. What the heck? Even though the majority of the bridges are less than 30 years old, this discovery makes me suspicious of the Wisconsin towns that claim the invention of the ice cream sundae, Flag Day and the Republican party.

Photographs © 2009 James Jordan.