Sep 1, 2019 Iowa Farm Country One Morning

Many days were spent exploring and photographing Iowa’s driftless region - trout streams, trickling waterfalls, lookout points over the Mississippi River, and the Effigy Mounds. But as I checked off all these locations on my list, it was the bucolic farm country landscape that remained unchecked. It was everywhere, but it eluded me photographically. I wished to capture it only under certain conditions - early morning fog over the hilly landscape or a dramatic afternoon storm rolling across the uninterrupted sky.

Our home in Iowa farm country

I located a roadside lookout that provided a panoramic view of farm country without a road interrupting it. But the atmospheric conditions that bring out the best of the landscape never materialized, until our final day in Iowa. I woke up before sunrise and sat drinking my coffee when I rolled up the window blinds to peer outside into the pitch dark. Despite the darkness, the heavy fog was obvious. This is it! I quickly gathered up my gear and drove to the lookout point only 3 miles away.

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I set up the tripod and had the 70-400mm lens attached to the camera. At first, I faced the east where the sun’s predawn light began to appear. It was a glorious site unfolding, miles of undulating hills covered with flowing veils of fog. The sky awakened in colors and the fluid fog created an ever-changing view. Facing the sun, I worked the scene only to turn around and see an equally beautiful one. For well over an hour, I ran back and forth between two designated points of view.

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An abstraction of celestial light, the fog covers the earth in soft transitions over the ghostly silhouettes of trees, granting a blend of ethereal impressions. The sun’s light through the aerosol offers variations in tones and hues - red, blue, orange, yellow. All this became a playful game of continuously changing light and color. Better yet, fog removes clutter by covering it with an intangible blanket of light that varies in thickness. These scenes are fitting to a photographer that favors abstraction or minimalism.

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The long zoom lens gives an infinite number of compositions to choose from. It compresses the hills together which gives the composition a repeating pattern of fog and land, bright and dark. Because of this effect and lack of distortion that is seen through a wide-angle lens, the angle of the long lens can be changed to capture multiple images horizontally that later can be stitched into one image. From the high vantage point, I studied the landscape and discovered ‘pieces’ to capture by zooming in to 100mm or greater. The closest foreground was at least a few hundred feet away. Starting there, I could zoom out to include much of the sky or zoom in to tighten the scene. I could position the lens horizontally or vertically. And I could pan across for multiple shots.

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Traveling presents its own challenges when attempting to photograph on location, especially when limited in time. The best conditions will mostly elude you, so it comes down to luck or simply making the best of what you have. In the case of Iowa’s driftless farm country, I got lucky.

“Where to next?” she asked.

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Jul 29, 2018 The Camera’s Journey Begins in Old Florida

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It was a perfect end to the day, a typical Florida summer evening when the humidity in the stifling air clings to every inch of your being. My wife and I stood on a rickety dock, each with a wet glass of chilled wine in hand, enjoying the end of daylight as it sweetly kissed the cypress forest. The waning sun over the smooth water had fallen behind the distant storm clouds that earlier in the day moved violently across the sky.

The wooden dock creaked under our weight as we toasted the sky, water, and trees, and then gave thanks for our safe arrival to our temporary home on Lake Rousseau. This soon-to-be ritual of clinking our glasses together at the end of a travel day marked the beginning of our road adventure. After several hours sitting in a full ton truck that pulls our 12,000-lb home, and white-knuckling the steering wheel, I recorded the mileage in our travel ledger, the first entry of hundreds. Without mercy, constant torrential rain and a break-a-way switch mishap introduced us to the challenges of RV traveling. So it was with great relief that our first campsite greeted us as the skies cleared and the steam rose from the saturated ground.

After settling in, I barely had enough time to pour a glass of celebratory wine and watch the final minutes of glistening light on the water as the cypress trees came to life from dusk’s gentle illumination. To me, the scene unfolding was a touch of Old Florida revealing itself through a cluttered history of ambitious commercial development. Could there possibly be a photo opportunity here?

Lake Rousseau is a man-made one, created by the damming of the Withlacootchee River over a hundred years ago. Later, a lock was built to accommodate boat traffic through what was to become the Cross Florida Barge Canal. For various reasons the canal never reached completion. Much of the land and water were eventually turned over to the state and Lake Rousseau became a popular fishing destination.

A narrow inlet with small privately-owned docks separated me from the wall of lovely cypress trees. The reflections of the old docks and trees with draping Spanish moss were fully realized in the flat water. Normally, anything man made is avoided in my images, but one of the docks near the opening of the inlet caught my eye. The watery forest with its dark and mysterious inner sanctum surrounded the dock, reminding me of an “Authentic Florida” scene from a Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings novel.

The skull and cross bone flag hanging on the edge of the dock was a perfect focal point for this scene. The blue and white flag contrasted against the natural green tones, and the red ring buoy added a nice touch of color. A vertical composition worked well to emphasize the height of the trees and to avoid other man -made objects. The rule of thirds was followed for the prominent focal point, while the cypress tree branches above the dock were emphasized to add depth.

In a setting like this one, isolation is key to a good composition, and this is where a long lens is most useful. A 225mm focal length isolated the dock giving the scene a timelessness. For all we know, it is a dark, mysterious place deep within a Florida swamp, a perfect hideaway for a pirate. Who would know it is on a popular man-made lake?

With a touch of Old Florida and only 250 miles under our RV-travel belt, my first photograph on the road was taken.

“Where to next?” she asked.