Think back. Way-y-y-y- back. What's the earliest experience you can recall in your life? For me, my earliest recollection is when I am a crawler. I've found an open jar of pennies and I am fascinated by the shiny coins. I pick up a small chubby handful and place them in my mouth, experiencing all the metallic copper goodness my young taste buds can process. Then I am making gagging sounds. I don't recall experiencing any sense of panic. Perhaps I am too young to know that I am choking to death on a mouthful of pennies. My mother rushes into the room, making a number of loud, rapid vocal noises. I am whisked up, my mouth is cleared of coinage and eventually all is well.
Every year, I try to take some sort of offbeat picture for Halloween and more often than not, it includes fire in some form. It's a way to release my inner pyromaniac, I suppose.
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.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.
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.
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.
Polymeme. Glad they like.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Rock balance on the Fox River in downtown Elgin, Illinois.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The calm stillness of the day was interrupted by the slightest ripples of concern, but they quickly dissipated. Hope your day goes the same.
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.
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.A traveler through this life collects photographs of and shares words about the points of light discovered along the way.
My photo gallery on Flickr
Want to take better pictures? Read some of the secrets behind my photos at Ready, Aim,Click.
