Tag: Clouds

Indiana, Fall 2021, Part 14 – Indiana Backroads

This is a continuation of the previous post of my fall 2021 photography along Indiana backroads.

Early Fall Forest, Hoosier National Forest, Indiana, October 2021
Hoosier National Forest, Indiana, October 2021
Bent Tree Fall, Hoosier National Forest, Indiana, October 2021

After shooting along one section of a gravel forest roadway, I continued driving looking for other prospective places at which to shoot.  I stopped at a trailhead and considered a short hike along that trail, but rain was threatening, so I decided it was best to leave this hike for another day, thinking I had time to return again, but I never got back to this location.  I will try to keep this possibility in mind for future visits to this area.

The gravel road ended at a paved roadway, which led to a more major backroad. Shortly after getting onto that route, I saw the walker that I had seen earlier on the forest road.  We waved to each other as I passed his home.  That was miles from where I had seem him hiking, so I’m assuming he drove into the forest for his exercise routine.

Clouds and Beans

Along the paved roadway, I could see the dense clouds sweeping in from the west.  I knew I had to stop to shoot the clouds over the farmland and forest, but the roadway was narrow with few places to pull over.  Finally, I found just enough space to safely get off of the roadway.  I walked across the road and a very short distance along a farmer’s field road to shoot across a bean field.

Rain’s a Coming

Back in my vehicle, I continued to wander around the country side looking for places to photograph the farmland scenes.  I passed a farm with red barns near the top of a hill.  There was no place to pull over nearby, so I drove past, turned around at a crossroads and went back up the hill, finding a place below the hilltop to pull over.  As I walked towards the top of the hill with my camera and 80-400mm lens, I spotted a bare tree and a flock of blackbirds soaring nearby with a few birds settling in the tree.

Blackbird Tree

After shooting the bare tree with the blackbirds in it and clouds for a background, I continued to the top of the hill to pick a place along a fence line from which to shoot the farm buildings.

Red Barns of Fall

Until next time,

Ken

Indiana, Fall 2021, Part 13 – Indiana Backroads

Indiana has much farmland and forest land, which is best observed along the country backroads.

Country Road
Indiana Backroad Fall

Driving the backroads can lead to unexpected discoveries in the many small country communities.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls

Like this old school house adjacent to a cemetery.  The weather was changing with clouds gathering, making for great sky in some images.  I wanted to be sure to have the bell visible in a photograph, so I had to find the best place from which to shoot to achieve that.  It would have been good to have had a higher place upon which to stand.  There was a stump of an old tree nearby.  I tried standing on the stump, but I could still not get the bell in a photo from that vantage point, so I had to settle for shooting standing on the ground from farther away than I wanted to shoot.

Old School

A community church shared a parking lot with the school.  There were interesting storm clouds above the church, so I had to shoot that.

Ominous

Continuing along the backroads, I took a gravel road through a portion of the Hoosier National Forest, stopping to shoot along the roadway.

Forest Road

I had passed a local walking up this road and I greeted him as I pulled my camera  gear from my vehicle.  We chatted for a few minutes and he revealed that he had relatives in the metropolitan area where I live.  It is not unusual to discover such facts from random meeting such as this, which shows just how small our world can be.  He continued his walk up the hill and I picked several spots from which to get Indiana backroad fall photographs.  The walker came back down the hill and back up again at least one more time as I shot nearby.

Indiana Backroad

To be continued,

Ken

Indiana, Fall 2021, Part 12 – Yellowwood Lake

After my unsatisfying photographic outing in Yellowwood State Forest, I waited for sunset on a little boat dock that barely jutted into Yellowwood Lake.  It was mostly calm and the lake surface smooth and reflective of the sky and surroundings.

Clouds and Lake

The photographer and young couple, that I had encountered as I returned from my woodland hike, had walked past me and into the area on the right side of the photo above.  I had to watch carefully to keep them out of my photo, even though I doubt that they would have been very noticeable, anyway.

I made a series of photos as the light, sky, clouds and reflections in the lake surface changed.

Softly Reflected

There were small, almost inconspicuous plants or floating, natural object in the water that made subtle foreground in my compositions.  These photos are best view on a large screen to appreciate the details.

Yellowwood Lake Fall Reflections
Radial Sunset
Radial Clouds
Yellowwood Sunset

I alternated shooting directions from along the lake to across the lake as sunset approached.  The forest blocked the actual sunset, but the cloud color and lighting changed as the minutes ticked by.

Yellowwood Lake
Radial

This end of the day shoot was much more satisfying than the hike in the forest, so I’m glad that I decided to hang out here for sunset.

Thanks for following,

Ken

Indiana, Fall 2021, Part 11 – Yellowwood State Forest

In the afternoon, after my morning shoot at Ogle Lake in Brown County State Park, I decided to go to Yellowwood State Forest, where I had shot last year and see how it looked this year.

I hiked the same trail that I had taken the previous fall, but this year I went a little further along the trail.  Recent rains had muddied the trail, requiring some minor off trail work to bypass the worst of the mud.

On the opposite side of the lake from my starting point, I encountered a lone, barefoot female hiker, carrying her muddy hiking boots.  It appeared that she had walked through some deep mud somewhere along her hike and maybe it was more comfortable to hike barefoot than to suffer in the mud invaded boots.  She seemed to be carefully picking her way along, which was good, since there were plenty of natural things on the trail to stick, poke and gouge bare feet.  I did not encounter her on my hike back to the parking lot, so I have to assume she made it out.

The lack of good peak fall color in the forest resulted in a disappointing photo shoot in the forest.  Even though I was late for the previous year’s peak, the previous year’s shoot seemed more satisfying than this one.

Early Fall Forest, Yellowwood State Forest, Indiana
Yellowwood State Forest, Indiana

I stood in a small stream crossing to get the shot above, which is about where I turned back last year on my first hike in this forest.

Through the Tree

There were no really good places to get to the lake shoreline from the forest trail, so I had to shoot through trees towards the opposite shoreline.

Somewhere along the way, I managed to push through some brush to get near enough to the shoreline to get the image below.  I still had to carefully zoom and position the camera to avoid much distracting parts of stray limbs and bushes intruding into the edges of this composition.

Yellowwood Lake and State Forest, Indiana
Yellowwood State Forest, Indiana

On the hike out, at a bridge crossing of a shallow creek, I encountered a photographer and a young couple, apparently getting engagement photos.  The environment at this location and time did not look great for such photos, but I’m not that kind of photographer, so what do I know about that?

Maybe a quarter of a mile from the parking lot, I stopped at a short section of the trail that had been bridged over by a low wooden section.

Leads Darkly

As I finished a shooting here, the young couple and their photographer approached from behind.  We exchanged greetings again and I continued to my vehicle.

When I arrived at my vehicle, I was not at all satisfied with this photographic outing, so I decided to hang around on a small, narrow, concrete boat dock until near sunset and hope to get something more interesting for my efforts today.

Stay tuned for more,

Ken

 

 

Grand Canyon, North Rim, July 2021, Part 14 – Sunset Clouds and Canyon

Sunset Clouds and Canyon 1

The light in the canyon was dim, but the clouds kept changing and I continued to snap photos, capturing the changing clouds and light.

Sunset Clouds and Canyon 2
Sunset Clouds and Canyon 3
Near Sunset

As it got nearer sunset time, reflected light from the clouds, brightened the canyon and gave it a warm glow.  The photo above has the best of the sunset light during this shoot.

Clouds and Moon over Grand Canyon

The moon rose, while we were here, but it was completely obscured by the clouds, until it was high in the sky.  It is barely visible in this image near the upper right of center.  Click on the image to get a better view on Flickr (best viewed on a large screen).

Cloudy Sunset, iPhone Photo

While waiting and watching the sky, I walked around, capturing a few images with my iPhone.

iPhone Panorama, GC NR Overlook

This wraps up my July, 2021 visit to the Grand Canyon North Rim.

Thanks for following,

Ken

Grand Canyon, North Rim, July 2021, Part 13 – Sunset Clouds and Canyon

Cloudy Evening

[I accidentally published this prematurely about a month ago before the draft was fully complete, so I’m republishing this with the final updates]

We shot at this location one morning and decided to try here at sunset on our final day in the park.  It was heavily overcast, but we could see some breaks in the clouds, so we hoped to get some good light as the sun set behind us.

Clouds and Canyon 1
Clouds and Canyon 2

As we waited for sunset, I captured numerous photos of the clouds over the canyon as the light varied from dim to less dim.

Cloudy Canyon 1
Clouds and Canyon 2
Clouds over Grand Canyon
Sunset Clouds 1

The clouds above the distant horizon finally began to glow dimly in the late day light.

Sunset Clouds 2
Sunset Clouds and Canyon

In the final image for this post, the clouds were brighter and reflecting light into the canyon, bringing out more detail in the canyon.

To be continued,

Ken

 

Grand Canyon, North Rim, July 2021, Part 12 – Roosevelt Point

Prior to going to our selected view point for sunset photos, we stopped by Roosevelt Point again.  We had scouted this area on a previous day.  Today we hiked the trail as far as it was safe to go, this time with our DSLR and gear.

Roosevelt Point

Those with acrophobia or anyone not sure footed should not go here.

As is apparent in these photos, it was mostly cloudy with some breaks in the clouds in the distance.

Roosevelt Point and Photographer

When I was shooting here, I was thinking the first image, with its wider view across the canyon, was going to be my best shot, but now I think the second one is the better of these two.

Final sunset shoot, coming up,

Ken

Grand Canyon, North Rim, July 2021, Part 11 – Marble Canyon Views

We arrived at a national forest primitive camping area in the mid-day to early afternoon, where there were views across the canyon to Marble Canyon in the distance.

Marble Canyon View
Cloud Shadows

There is a trailhead here and we hike a short distance along the trail, down a steep slope then up a steep slope, to check out other views across the canyon.

Clouds and Canyon
Cloudy Afternoon
Get the Shot
Marble Canyon Distant View

Until next time,

Ken.

Grand Canyon, North Rim, July 2021, Part 10 – Trees and Clouds

After our morning shoot, we drove around to explore the local area, getting to a couple of places with overviews of Marble Canyon in the distance.  At one of these areas I photographed a couple of interesting trees with the cloudy sky and/or the canyon in the background.

Tree and Clouds, Original Color Version

This lopsided tree was easily isolated against the cloudy sky.

Tree and Clouds, Black and White Version

I think the black and white version of this image is more dramatic.

Enduring

I captured several compositions of this deformed or broken tree with the clouds and canyon in the background.

Deformed Tree, Canyon and Clouds 1
Deformed Tree, Canyon and Clouds 2, Vertical Shot.

I like the third image (vertical) of the deformed tree best, with the first (horizontal) a close second.

Until next time,

Ken

Grand Canyon, North Rim, July 2021, Part 9

Morning Clouds

The photos in this post are from the final morning of this visit to the North Rim.

Photographing A Grand View
Morning View
Morning Canyon and Clouds
Rocky View Point
Focused Walk

Next up, more exploration and Marble Canyon Views.

Until then,

Ken