A Good Start to April

This is a Painted Pony zebra. You don't have to look too closely to see all the zebras in his coat.

Chuck, scratching Sootie's cheek. Shot with the iPhone, hence all the noise.

Out with the old, in with the new. The black purse has a hole in it, so I bought something lighter for spring and summer (it is spring, isn't it?).

If there are crocuses, it must be spring.

Peony snouts, definitely spring. The little yellow spheres are Osmocote fertilizer. Peonies don't need much care, but after this past winter, maybe a little help is needed.

A good start to April.

Friendship Peony

The first peony bud to open this season, on a plant given to me by friends Cindy and Kurt. Looks like it could be "Pink Parfait" - very light pink center with a pink cup. A good part of my garden started in theirs, iris, hibiscus, resurrection lilies, daylilies, and hostas. The iris are blooming, too, deep purple crayons bursting into iris fireworks.

I used live view and an extension tube on this shot. Live view made it much easier to see what was in focus and to get it sharp as possible. Love the soft pinks and early morning dew.

Upper Falls, Old Man's Cave

Thought I'd post something, so you don't think I've passed on the the Great Digital Darkroom in the Sky. The past month has been a combination of disgust and depression about my photography skills and issues with back-ups brought on by user ignorance. I'm just about past both, and wanted to get one Hocking Hills photo up. This is one of my favorite views in the Old Man's Cave gorge - love the old stone bridge and the gnarly tree roots framing the Upper Falls.

Vignettes from the Inn at Cedar Falls

The Inn at Cedar Falls is a pretty B&B in Hocking Hills. The innkeepers have carefully designed and placed vignettes of weathered tools, old furniture, plants and vintage advertising. Here are just a few:

Rampaging River

Hot hot HOT today. Did some shooting in Cuyahoge Falls, along the river. Amazing - the river is running at full force, blasting over the dam and down the gorge. All the sand bars have disappeared, even the big one just below the old powerhouse. It extended into the river from the two trees on the right. Even the log stuck on the dam is almost completely submerged.

If you look closely, you can see that some creative soul painted a smiley face on one of the pylons.

The noise is unbelievable. I was standing on the High Bridge, about 100 feet from the freeway, and all I could hear was the river. Here's the view, looking up toward the Sheraton:

And here's what it looked like this winter:

Wildly different! Below is the dam by the Sheraton patio. I have never seen this much water pouring over it.

This one is looking north toward Broad Blvd. Probably could've cropped it better. I just liked the rusted girder. There are a couple of other ancient girders and some giant gears, who knows from what. There was an amusement park some where down the gorge about 100 years ago, maybe they're leftover parts from a ride.

Even though it was ridiculously hot for the last day of May, I'm glad I took the camera out - the river was just awesome!

First Bloom

The first peony blossom opened yesterday - it's one of Grandma Wilk's. Seems fitting for Memorial Day.

To soften the vivid magenta and green and reduce the contrast against the house, I used a Lightroom 3 preset called "Aged Photo" on this shot, and added a vignette and a bit of grain.

John Brown Tannery Park



It was such a nice evening tonight, Chuck and I had a picnic at Plum Creek Park, then went to Tannery Park to look at the river. The deck is gone, washed away by the flood. We were walking on the sand bar under these trees last year - not a chance of doing that now. The river path is completely under water. Kent State is still renting kayaks, though. Bet that's a wild ride.

Dame's Rocket and honeysuckle are blooming. I just googled Dame's Rocket - it's not a native plant, it was brought from Europe in the 17th or 18th century and has successfully naturalized. At least three states list it as an invasive. Honeysuckle is an invader, too, but they're both pretty and smell sweet, so I'm cutting them some eco-pc slack.

Marietta, Ohio - April 25, 2011

Cabela's was...interesting. Cool outdoor stuff, but all the stuffed dead animals were fairly creepy. There was dead stuff from everywhere, displayed everywhere. Dead fish, dead ducklings, dead elephants, and a about 400 dead deer. A giant nature mausoleum. They had some live fish, too, big koi and freshwater game fish. As I said, ...interesting.

We walked around Harmar Village after dinner. The pedestrian bridge was in great shape. Huge flower baskets were suspended from the bridgework. I'll bet they're beautiful during the summer.

The train side is a picturesque ruin - rotted trestles with trees and weeds growing in the holes. Definitely a kid magnet. The water's deep enough that falling in wouldn't be a problem. Inadvisable the week we were there, though, since the Muskingum and Ohio were flooding.

It'll be nice to go back in the summer and take a paddle boat tour on the Ohio.

Push Boats on the Ohio, April 25, 2011

As we drove down OH Rt. 7, we saw lots of these push boats moving coal barges upriver. The Ohio was flooding, with a really strong current, yet the push boats were movig as many as six fully loaded barges upstream and leaving enormous wakes. They have to have seriously powerful engines.

We watched this one chugging upriver from a little park in Marietta, on the bridge to Harmar Village.

O'Neil Woods - CVPS Photowalk, May 14

What a soggy day for a photo walk. We met at the barn on Bath Road and walked toward Yellow Creek, then up the hill a bit. Phlox, geranium, and Jack-in-the-Pulpit were blooming. The Jacks make me sad - they remind me of riding with Larry in the woods at Promise Land Farm. Anyway, very humid with sporadic rain. No wind to speak of, but everything was moving from drips coming off the trees. I wanted to shoot Yellow Creek - it was just busting down the ravine - but the water was too muddy from runoff.

Not entirely sure what this plant is, a cherry maybe? The flowers look like the ones on the wild cherries in my backyard in Brimfield.

I love the CVPS photowalks. I learn something everytime (like there's something to shoot even on a rainy day), the people are nice, and the chat over breakfast is always interesting.

Marietta, Ohio

One of the little shops in Harmar Village had unique landscape art - yep, a dozen old bikes hanging from a tree. Only open on weekends, so we didn't get to see what interesting stuff was inside.

I adjusted the color temperature, saturated the blues, increase contrast, sharpened and added a vignette, all in Lightroom 3.

The Brenda Tharp tips are coming, it's been a really busy couple of weeks. I hope it slows down a bit next week.

Composition Tips from Brenda Tharp

Some notes on composition from Brenda Tharp's workshop

Rather than giving us a lesson on composition, she wove the information through the first critique on Friday morning. We each submitted 6 photos taken before the workshop, and she reviewed them with us in a group session. It could have been nerve-racking - putting our work out there for a professional to, basically, tear apart - but Brenda is very thoughtful and direct.

The first thing she zeroed in on was "bulls eying", the tendency we have to put the subject smack in the middle of the frame. It makes for a very static picture. She reminded us about the "rule of thirds", which means dividing the frame into thirds horizontally and vertically, and placing the subject roughly where the lines intersect. She cropped some one's bulls eye shot to follow the rule, and it made a dramatic improvement in the photo. Brenda was adamant about splitting the frame in half, vertically or horizontally, because it just stops the eye. Move the horizon or strong lines out of the center to allow the eye to flow through the photo.

Visual clutter is a bad thing in a photo. It distracts from the subject and makes it hard for the viewer to understand what the photographer wants to convey. She suggest using depth of field to isolate the subject from a busy background. This is one of Chuck's favorite techniques: get the subject really sharp, and blur out the background.

Brenda told us to simply, even in big landscapes. This is something I have a trouble with. My landscape shots are just a mess of everything I see, so there's no real subject to catch your eye.

Another interesting thing she noted is that we generally look at pictures from left to right, top to bottom. It's easier for the viewer if you set up your composition to be "read" that way.

Brenda had more good information on composition, but I think I'll save it for another post.

Brenda Tharp - Thoughts from the Workshop

Brenda is a wonderful teacher - her focus is as much on the art of photography as on technical finesse. She opened the workshop Thursday night with some thoughts on the essence of photography.

She suggested that we practice "daily seeing" - increasing our awareness of light and compostion, noting what would make a good picture, even when we don't have a camera in hand. She asked that we work to clarify our vision, show what excited us about a subject. If it's the dew on a daffodil, compose to highlight the dew. If it's the cheerful abundance of a field a daffodils, use color and depth of field to fill the frame. "What," she asked, "are you trying to express - on the simplest level, what is the picture about?"

I'll post some additional notes from the workshop this week, hoping both to share and to more firmly fix the information in my brain.

For more information about Brenda and her work, visit: http://www.brendatharp.com

Cabela's, Fun but Kinda Creepy

Chuck and I stopped at Cabela's in Triadelphia, WV, yesterday. The place is huge and has every single kind of sporting good anyone could want. It also has a bunch of stuffed dead critters, including things you wouldn't think any one would want to kill, like squirrels, polar bears and otters. And about 400 stuffed deer. Did you know bucks came in "typical" and "not typical". Yep. The "not typical" come with antlers like waterfalls, hands, steroidal cypress knees, and bristlecone pine trees. Who knew? It was a little creepy with all the dead stuff, but I found a breathable waterproof jacket for outdoor (photo) shooting and Chuck found some shorts with pockets for everything but a laptop.

April 25, 2011

Ohio River Panorama

We spent a pleasant day today. We did the factory tour at Fenton Glass in Williamstown, WV, then drove to Parkersburg. Lunched at a nice cafe, The Daily Grind, went to the Blennerhasset Museum, and stopped at Fort Boreman. Tucked in the Museum basement were display cases filled with prehistoric Indian stone tools and weapons, all hand labeled on yellowing paper in old style calligraphy. The labels must have been 70 or so years old. Some one put a lot of time into the history. The second floor had "A Century of Wedding Dresses" and river boat memoribilia - and some very cool old desks, several of which would look good in my house.

The pano was taken from Ft. Boreman on the West Virginia side of the Ohio River. Spectacular view of Belpre and Parkersburg, as well as miles of the Ohio.

Mad Mama

Robins are nesting under the top deck again. I was innocently checking my flowers, and Mama blasted out from under the deck, swearing a blue streak. So I apologized and left. I hope she'll cut me some slack when it's time to weed. Oh, and PS, Mother Nature, rotten weather during the week, not the weekend. There's lawn to be mowed and stuff to be planted!

Levi Keim at CVPS and the First Flower of Spring

Levi Keim, from Beach City, Ohio, gave a wonderful presentation of his film work from out west and Ohio. Really stunning shots of water droplets, star trails and the western landscape. Imagine taking a photo and having no idea what it looked like until you came home and developed it.

Since it was a lovely day, I took the camera out. There's a short loop trail next to Happy Days conference center, so that's what I took, and ended up in Mater Dolorosa cemetery. These shots are from the cemetery. It's peaceful, and only slightly melacholy.

I think this is a winter aconite - it was right at the opening into the cemetery.

Patrick and Magaret Cassidy's plot at Mater Dolorosa. They died a month apart in 1885, at 84 and 79 years of age. Sweet and sad.

Beech leaves backlit by the setting sun.

Sunday, April 25, 2010: Hocking Hills

Silence. I can hear the wind, that’s all. Peace. No planes overhead, no freeway noise, no sound of cars. Three and a half hours from home to find this kind of quiet.

As I write this, I am on the screen porch of our cottage at Hocking Hills. Other cabins are visible through the trees, but not obviously inhabited. The woods are fresh and green with spring, the understory gradually covering last fall’s leaves. We’ll walk later, just a short ways to take some pictures and enjoy the soft afternoon air. Sunday, April 25, 2010.

Credits: Katie Pertiet Color Challenge 03 01 09 paper, Anna Aspnes Avalanche paper, recolored. Font is Georgia.