Month: June 2021

Indiana, Fall 2020, Brown County State Park Part 2 – Ogle Lake

After stoping at a number of pull outs along the main roadway in Brown County State Park, I continued to Ogle Lake and hiked the loop trail that goes around the lake.

At the end of the lake nearest the parking lot, I went off the trail down to the waters edge to get this image:

Ogle Lake, Brown County State Park, Indiana

I walked along the edge of the lake towards the north until I got back to the official trail, where I stopped to photograph reflections in the lake.

Fall Reflections, Ogle Lake, Brown County State Park, Indiana

There were not many others here today, so it was not difficult to keep a safe distance from others and I only had to standby occasionally to let others clear out of my compositions.

Brown County State Park, Indiana
Brown County State Park, Indiana

At least a couple of hikers asked what I was photographing.  The first to ask seemed to think that there must be something special that was not apparent along the trail to photograph.  The second was a photographer with a long lens.  He was photographing birds and thought I must be doing the same.  I guess we all have our own thoughts about what is worthy of photographing.

Brown County State Park, Indiana
Brown County State Park, Indiana

As I rounded the end of the lake and began to hike along the south side, I noted some very nice reflections on north side of the lake.

Fall Reflections, Ogle Lake, Brown County State Park
Fall Reflections, Ogle Lake, Brown County State Park, Indiana
Fall Reflections, Ogle Lake, Brown County State Park, Indiana
Fall Reflections, Ogle Lake, Brown County State Park

The reflections in the lake seemed to me to be the best images that I’ve gotten so far and I struggled to make interesting compositions for the rest of the hike.

Brown County State Park, Indiana
Brown County State Park, Indiana
Grafiti Tree, Brown County State Park, Indiana

That’s it for the Ogle Lake area,

Ken

 

Brown County State Park, Indiana, Fall 2020, Part 1

I visited Brown County State Park on the second day of our Fall of 2020 visit to Indiana, where I photographed near a number of pull outs along roadways through the park and while hiking a couple of trails in the park.

This post will consist of the photos made near the roadway.

Dew Drops and Grass, Brown County State Park, Indiana
Indiana Fall, Brown County State Park
Brown County State Park, Indiana
Big Fall Leaves, Brown County State Park, Indiana
Autumn Gold, Brown County State Park, Indiana
Yellow and Green, Brown County State Park, Indiana
A Trio of Fall Maple Leaves, Brown County State Park, Indiana

Thanks for following,

Ken

Indiana Fall 2020, Around the Cabin, Part 2

This post contains more of the images that I made in the wooded area around our cabin in late October, 2020.

Fall Woods, Indiana
Fall Leaves, Indiana
Fall Leaves, Indiana
Fall Leaves, Indiana
Fall Foliage, Indiana
Fall Leaves, Indiana
Misty Fall Woods, Indiana
Misty Fall Woods, Indiana
Misty Fall Woods, Indiana

A few, but not all, of the images in this post have been uploaded to my Flickr page.  More about this visit to Indiana to come,

Ken

Indiana Fall 2020, Around the Cabin, Part 1

In 2019 we were in Indiana the third week of October, which was at least one week early for the peak of fall color.  So we scheduled our 2020 visit for the last week of October, which was projected to be the peak time for fall color there.  Wrong!  The peak came one or two weeks earlier in 2020, then storms the week prior to our visit, removed leaves from most of the mature trees.  Fortunately, there were still a few trees, mostly the ones in the forest understory, with fall foliage remaining.

We stayed in a cabin a few miles from Brown County State Park, which is a popular place for fall foliage viewing.  The first day in the cabin, I walked around the wooded area on which the cabin was located, making images of the remaining fall color.

Fall Woods, Indiana

It was windy and I was shooting handheld, so I used much higher ISO than I liked to get a sufficiently high shutter speed to freeze the motion of the leaves.  Unfortunately, this results in noisy photographs.

Fall Leaves, Indiana

I did what I could to reduce the noise, but there are tradeoff in this process.  Too much noise reduction makes the fuzzy images even more fuzzy.

Fall Woods, Indiana

The high ISO can also result in blown out highlights in portions of images.  I did not use graduated neutral density filters, since these are problematic in wooded areas with no clearcut line between bright areas and darker area in a composition.  I did apply software ND effects, which helps, but software filters are not as good as real physical filters.

Fall Woods, Indiana

To avoid the blown out highlights, I sometimes eliminated the sky in compositions and sometimes cropped out as much of the blown out portions of the images as I could, while trying to maintain a “reasonable” composition.

Fall Woods, Indiana

I was not pleased with many of my photos, even most of the ones that I elected to process, due to these conditions.

Fall Woods, Indiana
Fall Woods, Indiana
Fall Woods, Indiana
Mossy Log, Indiana Fall

And it did not help that I missed the peak color.

Continued later,

Ken

Abandoned House, Texas Panhandle, September 28, 2020

I have driven the same route through the Texas Panhandle numerous times in my travels, seeing numerous old, abandoned houses and businesses.  Occasionally, I will take a few minutes to stop and photograph some of these, if I have time in my schedule to do so.

Abandoned House. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/250s, f/11, ISO 250.

This house is just off of a highway and almost completely surrounded by high grass and trees.  I had made a mental note of it several times and finally decided to stop by to photograph it.

The view above is seen as one is driving to the northwest.  If driving from the the northwest, the house is almost hidden and can easily be overlooked.

Abandoned House. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 38mm, 1/125s, f/11, ISO 250.

The sun was almost directly overhead, the light bright and harsh, so I converted the images to monochrome, which gives more pleasing images under these conditions.

I photographed all around the house, but with the dense vegetation, I did not get good images from other view points.

Ken

 

Abandoned Home or School House, New Mexico, September 27, 2020

Driving between destinations, trying to maintain a travel schedule, I often see things that I neglect to take time to photograph.  I have driven by the same places numerous times, thinking I should someday stop to get a photograph, even if it is midday with the harsh light of the midday sun directly overhead and minimum or no shadows.

If I stopped at each of these numerous places, I would obviously fall far behind in my travel schedule.  Today I decided to take time at one such place that was some distance off of the highway, but clearly stood out in the wide open space in this part of New Mexico.

Abandoned. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 38mm, 1/125s, f/11, ISO 200.

The architectural design of this structure suggest that it might have been a school house in this tiny community in the wide open plains of New Mexico.  I probably should have stopped somewhere to inquire about this old place, but I did not take the time.

Abandoned. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 38mm, 1/125s, f/11, ISO 200.

Perhaps someday, when I have more time, I will stop to learn more about this place.

Ken

P.S.  The B&W image was chosen for Flickr’s Explore page, May 29, 2021.