Practicing

Last week, I was away for a cabin weekend with friends that has been an annual tradition for many years. While I was away, one of my friends taught me a little about shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. It’s all new to me. Even though I like taking pictures, I have never explored playing with these settings. Instead, I’ve just stayed in auto mode, for the most part. 

Since I’ve been back, I’ve played with all of this the tiniest bit.  This morning, I went out to drink my morning tea with my camera in the back yard. My good camera does not take good action shots in auto mode.  I’d like to try to capture hummingbirds in hover mode, which shows their wings, so I was playing around with shutter speed.  

The hummingbirds cooperated and while I was taking pictures of one at a feeder, another one showed up.  This is the second picture I took. The wings show up better and I think that’s a combination of bird position, light, and shutter speed. To do this, I think I figured out the manual focus and I like how it really zeros in on the focus area and blurs the out of focus parts.  

Another thing I like is the additional crispness or clarity of the object in focus range. I think this is clearer and sharper than auto mode when the camera is trying to focus on everything all at once. 

Not So Strange

 In some places, this would be strange.  At a juggling festival, it’s not nearly as surprising.

Now I Know Where It Is

 It’s on a gravel road somewhere outside the South Eastern town of Whalen MN.

Not long before spotting East Street, we also saw Dew Drop Road and this structure.

These are pictures from our trip to Cedar Rapids Iowa for the juggling convention.  

Getting Caught Up

 This one was taken in mid-May.

Robin

 I took this picture on Mother’s Day at Wood Lake Nature Center. 

Owl Hunting

Based upon a Facebook post of a friend, we had a tip about the general location of a barred owl’s nest fairly close to our house.  Sometime in the first week of May, we went there at dusk and my camera immediately ran out of batteries, because if was the one time I did not check them first.  We did not see any owls, but we did see a turkey roosting in a tree and a raccoon.  

We did not make it back until the evening of 05/13 and 05/14 a little before sunset.  The first night, we walked around and were richly rewarded.  Mostly we saw the one adult barred owl.

It wasn’t until the very end that we saw the other adult and the juvenile. These two practically flew over our heads.  They were quiet but we sensed the air movement or something, so we barely got to the see them fly and land. 

We went back the next night an hour or so before sunset and we saw one of the adults and the juvenile.  We didn’t walk around much.  Once we spotted one owl, we stayed in that location and they did two.  Both started out fairly deep in the forest, too deep and obstructed to take a decent picture, but the juvenile kept flying out closer to us.  It also was constantly chirping or vocalizing.  We figures that we weren’t stressing it, since we stayed in one spot and it kept getting closer to us. 

When it landed on a tree in the open, it became even more rewarding to watch.  The juvenile owl started playing with some dead leaves hanging from the branch below it. 

I took a number of pictures of the owl playing with the leaves.  Many of them turned out blurry.  I almost never take videos with my camera, because I just don’t think about it but this time I did!

Northeast Bird Rookery

PT and I met up yesterday morning to go to the bird rookery.  When I look at the photos that I took, I think I was playing around with different types of framing.  Note to self - - Next time, remember to look at your notes from the photography classes you have been taking and pick an area for focus and practice.  

Almost all of these were taken at or close to full 60x zoom in automatic mode. 

I like these two photos together.  It’s subtle and you have to really look, but they capture careful stick placement and a job well done. 

This is one of the two islands where the birds are nesting.

In addition to the herons, there are cormorants, different types of ducks, and, or course, geese. 

Here are several pictures where I was trying to frame things in a certain way.  A lot of this involves just taking a lot of pictures, since the birds move so quickly. 

The first one suggests how crowded the trees, but not really since it’s capturing an edge.  It’s even more dense in the middle.

I got to witness a confrontation between two herons through the camera lens.  While the shots are not that clear it was thrilling to see and hear.  

I am taking a photo editing class later in the month and I hope I learn how to edit out the pipe or whatever it is in these last two shots.  

Last thoughts……One of the things that I’m exploring overall is what is a good photo?  Not surprisingly, I think I started with a rather narrow, internal definition in that I like crisp, clear, close shots of the thing I am photographing.  That means I’ve been approaching photos from a portrait-taking perspective, like this one.  

It’s been fun to explore broadening from that point to try and tell a story with picture, use a picture to better remember an experience, focus on “the whole” rather than one subject, and a bunch of other things.  I’m not sure I am doing this deliberately.  It just seems to be happening. 

Last Week

Last week, my partner was out of town.  I don’t often take pictures of my food, but this bowl of green curry noodle soup, that I made for myself,  was very tasty and attractive, as well. 

Last Saturday

Last Saturday, SS and I went to see the bird rookery in Northeast.  It was part of an event with the National Park Service.  The Park Service had two view scopes set up and in one of them I could see a cormorant nest.  After that, I did snap a picture of the next. 

It was cold so I did not take many pictures. 

Great Horned Owl

The spouse and I headed out to the park where a pair of great horned owls nest every year.  We just found about it last year.  On Sunday, we went searching and found the male sleeping in a tree.  From talking to people at the park, it sounds like the pair was nesting, but that they lost the nest after the last big rain (not the rain from today).

We were there in the middle of the day and I was also shooting into the sun. 

We also heard spring peepers in a more open portion of the park. There was no way to get a picture of them, but I did snap a shot of the location they were singing from as a way to remember. 

Duck, Duck, Duck, Duck, Duck, Duck……….

It’s great to get rewarded for doing the right thing.  I am very brain tired, but not body tired so I swam tonight. Between the parking lot and the gym, I ran into this.

Here’s a close up of the one on the end. 

By the time I was done swimming, most of the ducks were stepped on.  Since it was subtle, I’d like to think it was by accident by people who just weren’t paying attention.

What I Learned

Yesterday, during the varsity show for MONDO, I played around with taking pictures of the performers and that was a total bomb. Not the show or the performers. It was the pictures. I was using my phone.  One of the things, I learned is that burst mode did not work for capturing movement the way I wanted to capture it.

Other than the show, I did not take many pictures. I was too busy with other things (smile).  This one is my favorite. 

I like how it turned out.  In addition from an experiential perspective, I like the stillness and concentration it evokes in the midst of a lot of joy, noise and chaos happening close by.

Morning Quiet Before MONDO

I am taking in a little quiet this morning.  The rest of the day I will be at MONDO, which is also so very, very good after a 2 year hiatus from juggling festivals.  

These are Hammett  in silhouette.

Earlier this week, I also got a fun picture of Chandler using my new camera tripod. 

March Precipitation

The pine tree had these beautiful tiny little drops at the end of its needles after it rained, sleeted, and snowed over night. 

This morning, there was a cat in a bag.

Yesterday, we went to the Minnesota Marine Museum in Winona, so we also stopped by the bank so I could get a long-needed fix of Louis Sullivan architecture. 

Action Photo

When I saw that one of my cats was getting ready to yawn, I decided to take a picture.  While it would have been a good time to use burst mode, I did not. 

It was surprising to see how much a cat can open it’s mouth. 

Bridal Veil Falls Mississippi River

 Yesterday, we went for a walk from campus past the Franklin Avenue bridge on the east bank of the river.  We stopped and saw an ice climber at Bridal Veil Falls.

We also saw a flock of winter robins.  It was too hard to get more than one bird in a picture. 

Side Light In The Morning

I took another photography class from Eric Mueller yesterday about understanding light.  One of the reminders was that I need to take more pictures.  This morning, I decided to take some with the beautiful morning light and to explore some textures.  

This photo is the only one which was not edited and for that reason I almost like it best.  I am going to take Eric's  editing class, but I have a voice inside, which I've named "the Puritan" which says things like "editing is cheating".  At the same time, I'm also interested in what it can offer, since I am not a journalist. 

Basket from Bishop Hill 

The rest of these have been edited, but not heavily.  I have always enjoyed the textures on the radiators.  I can't say that I got the shot that I wanted, but I also wanted to remember my first attempt.

Art Shanty Project 2022

Today was my first time to go to the Art Shanty Project.  M and I ventured out today.  It was cold, but not as cold as it's been the last few days.  

In the Tick-Tock Shanty, this guy leaned to down, so that his face was framed nicely for my pic.  I gave him a big thumbs up when I was done.  This is probably my favorite pic because of that.  

I didn't take a lot of pictures and it was hard to see what I had taken until I got home.