On Saturday, September 19, 2020 we photographed just off of a roadway not too far from Platoro Reservoir. I made a few shots with the reservoir and mountainside behind. This one is my favorite:
Aspen, Platoro Reservoir and Mountain. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, 1/400s, f/16, ISO 125.
It takes considerable thought making compositions within a forest. Even though there is natural beauty all around, it is not as easy as one might think to make an interesting photograph with so much around that can be distracting or unappealing in an image and, after a while, one begins to think that the compositions are too common and repetitive.
I found the contrast of the small evergreens among the tall, rugged Aspens interesting.
Fall Decor. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, 1/125s, f/16, ISO 800.Fall Forest. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, 1/400s, f/16, ISO 800.
And again I found boulders with fallen Aspen leaves decorating them in the forest.
Forest Boulders. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, 1/125s, f/16, ISO 100.Aspens and Boulder. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, 1/320s, f/11, ISO 800.
Near the roadway I found a number of Aspens that had started growing horizontally, maybe from some early life damage, but that had turned to grow upward toward the sky.
As I later discovered, it was not unusual to find such curved shapes in the Aspen trunks. I’m sure there must be a logical explanation for this unusual growth pattern.
I spotted a small shimmering Aspen tree that really stood out against the darker surroundings. I included the small tree as a highlight in a wide angle image. When reviewing that photograph, I decided to crop the image, making it more apparent that the small tree was the primary object of interest .
I made a few close up images of the yellow Aspen leaves late in the day. I had brought only a wide angle lens on this shoot. The wide angle close ups always include much more than I wanted in the images, so I cropped them during editing to pick out the portions that I was trying to capture.
It was late in the day and the sun was rapidly sinking in the sky, but I managed to get a few images with weak back light, then a few more with dispersed light. The three presented here are the ones that I like best.
Continuing to drive farther along FSR 250, checking out the scenery and possible campsites, I pulled off the road, when I saw this view of a red top mountain.
A Red Top Mountain. iPhone photograph.
I made a mental note of this location, hoping to return here again, when I had more time to shoot with my DSLR.
Shortly after taking this photo, I came to Stunner Campground at the intersection of FSR 250 and FSR 380. I was surprised to find that it was not only open, but free and no one else was there.
I pulled into the first campsite that just happened to be a level, pull through site that would be perfect for my son and DIL’s small camper trailer. This campsite came with a pair of hiking boots (image below). I then staked out the next campsite just a bit more down the loop for my vehicle.
Abandoned or Forgotten Boots. iPhone photograph.
Stunner Campground Campsite. iPhone photograph.
Just up the hillside, on one side of my campsite, were tailings from an old mine or exploratory mine.
A few other campers began to arrive in the campground a little later with a few staying and a few driving on.
Since I had plenty of time before my son arrived, I did a lot of walking in and around the campground, scouting for potential photographic opportunities.
Stunner Campground, Rio Grande National Forest, Colorado. iPhone photograph.
There were many large rocks and boulders scattered around the campground. The rocks usually had splotches of lichen growing on them in interesting patterns.
Lichen on Rock. iPhone photograph.Lichen on Rock. iPhone photograph.Lichen on Rock. iPhone photograph.
I worked my down towards the Alamosa River that ran beside the campground.
Mine Tailings and the Alamosa River at Stunner Campground. iPhone photograph.
The photo above was taken from atop mine tailings, looking down towards the river and across to a mountainside. Notice that there are patches of good fall color, but most of the trees are still green or just showing signs of changing.
The beetle killed evergreen trees really spoil the scenery now all around the Rocky Mountains, but there are trees that either are resistant or maybe just not yet attacked by the beetles.
The soil in this area is mineral rich, resulting in an orange-red color in the water, staining the rocks and anything else in the water. The water is acidic from the naturally occurring minerals and the mine tailing contribute even more to the natural elements in the water.
Mine Tailings above the Alamosa River. iPhone photograph.
There were numerous other indications of old mining operations around the campground and I even saw newish claim stakes in one location.
Stunner Campground View. iPhone photograph.
That little Aspen tree in the photo above really caught my eye, so I had to photograph it with a green evergreen tree as background. I tried other compositions and close up views, but this one is most pleasing to me.
Mineral stained driftwood along the Alamosa River. iPhone photograph.Alamosa River at Stunner Campground. iPhone photograph.
When my son arrived, he said the fall color in this area was the best he had seen on his trip from the Denver area and that there was much smoke from forest fires visible during most of the drive. There seemed to be little, if any indication of smoke in this area.
We drove around a little after they arrived to decide where to go for a morning shoot the next day.
This is open range country, so there were cows wandering around the forest. A small herd of cattle moved into the campground during the night, sleeping in the open, grassy meadow of the campground.
Early morning frost and curious cattle in Stunner Campground. iPhone photograph.
The darker spots in the grass of the photo above are places where the frost did not form, because an animal was laying there during the night.
At sometime during my second day in Colorado, my son and his wife decided that due to the smoke from numerous large forest fires in Colorado, it would be best to come south to meet me in the Rio Grande National Forest. So I needed to find a suitable campsite for all of us and scout the forest roads for potential photographic opportunities.
Thus Friday morning I continued to drive along Forest Service Road 250 and spurs off of FSR 250, looking for good campsites, stopping above Platoro Reservoir to shoot a few DSLR photos.
This is a continuation of my visits to Indiana covered bridges in October, 2019. I am including multiple bridges in this post, due to the limited photographic opportunities at these bridges.
The Edna Collins Bridge (follow the link to read more about the haunting of this bridge) is a short bridge along a narrow paved roadway. I parked on the side of the road, after getting out to check to be sure it was safe to pull onto the steeply dipping shoulder.
Edna Collins Covered Bridge. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/11, 1/200s, ISO 800, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
There was no way to get down into the creek to shoot a side view. The bridge is aligned approximately east-west, so shooting from the west side in the late afternoon was best.
Leaving Edna Collins, I drove to Crooks Bridge. There is much confusion about the history of this bridge. Follow the embedded link to read about it. This seemed to be a popular bridge on one of the Covered Bridge Festival routes, as there was a fair amount of tourist traffic that I had to contend with as I looked for ways to shoot it. My shots from one end at an angle to the bridge, resulted in a very tilted look that I could not adequately correct. I also attempted to shoot from a low water, concrete crossing beside the bridge, but I could not get anything worth sharing from that perspective, looking into the afternoon sunlight. Finally, I walked down the steep slope on the northwest corner of the bridge into the creek bed, from which I got this shot:
Crooks Covered Bridge. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 17mm, f/11, 1/400s, ISO 2500, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
From Crooks Bridge, I continued to McAllister Bridge. I parked at a pull off area and began to walk around the bridge checking out various view points before getting out my camera gear. On my way back to the vehicle to get my gear, another car pulled up and a couple of ladies emerged and began walking towards the bridge. As they passed me one said, “Houston”. It was obvious that she had seen my Texas license plate. I thought that she was asking, if I was from Houston, but she was actually telling me that she was from Houston and went on to say she was visiting relatives in the area. I had lived in Katy, in the western portion of the greater Houston area and of course she knew about Katy. Such a small world.
Shooting options at McAllister were limited. I could see no way to get any interesting shots and I ended up with common views. This image, shot from the edge of the roadway, looking up at the front and side of the bridge, is the most interesting perspective that I got.
McAllister Covered Bridge. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/11, 1/125s, ISO 125, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
Continuing on my way, I stopped at Neet Bridge, but I could see no way to get interesting shots today, so I continued to Roseville. I experienced the same at Roseville, but I did make a few images with my iPhone, drove across the bridge, just because I was there, turning around and crossing it again to head towards Harry Evans Bridge.
Roseville Covered Bridge. iPhone photo, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
Many of the covered bridges have the “Cross this bridge at a walk” warning, but I saw no vehicles heeding this advice. Most went much faster than I can walk and I can walk fast.
It was getting late in the day and the settings for the last few bridges that I visited were not interesting, so I did not bother getting out my DSLR and shot with my iPhone. Some of these might be more interesting to shoot later in the fall or winter.
Harry Evans Covered Bridge. iPhone photograph, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.Harry Evans Covered Bridge. iPhone photograph, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
By the time I got to the Zacke Cox Bridge, it was very late in the afternoon and time to begin the drive back to my wife’s cousin’s house.
Zacke Cox Covered Bridge. iPhone photograph, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
This is the last of the October, 2019 covered bridges posts. Maybe I will get back to this area in the fall of 2020 and have opportunities to see more of the covered bridges.
After a day of other activities, I took another afternoon to visit more covered bridges in an area east of Indianapolis, Indiana. I started at Oakalla Bridge, just south of the last bridge (Dunbar) that I had visited during my first day of shooting covered bridges.
Oakalla Covered Bridge. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 22mm, f/11, 1/160s, ISO 64, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
I think most of the covered bridges have some graffiti on or around them and Oakalla Bridge seems to be popular with those who like to mark things with graffiti. I saw some evidence of graffiti being painted over on the exterior of the bridge and other graffiti in the interior.
Oakalla Covered Bridge. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 18mm, f/11, 1/60s, ISO 64, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
It is also easy to get down into the creek channel from one side of the bridge. The long log in the creek below the bridge even has graffiti on it.
Oakalla Covered Bridge. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 14mm, f/11, 1/125s, ISO 250, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
There was plenty of room to move around on the wide sandy bank on one side of the bridge. I made numerous images from this area, but in the end, I only chose a couple of those as most representative of the bridge and its setting to include in this post.
Oakalla Covered Bridge. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 14mm, f/11, 1/80s, ISO 100, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
The last bridge that I got to late in the afternoon of my first day of photographing Indiana covered bridges was the Dunbar Bridge. There was more traffic across this bridge than any of the other bridges that I had photographed earlier in the day, maybe because it was late in the day and people were going home after their work day was over.
Dunbar Covered Bridge and information sign. iPhone photo, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO modules.Dunbar Covered Bridge. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/11, 1/4s, ISO 200, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
Wide angle lens distortion, especially when shooting from one side at an angle to the plane of the bridge, makes these bridges appear to be leaning to one side. Some bridges were actually leaning a little and/or the sides were not vertical, so the distortion exaggerates the lean or angle. I try to correct this in post processing, but sometimes it is not possible to completely correct the distortion.
Beneath Dunbar Covered Bridge.Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/11, 5.0s, ISO 200, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
To get to the creek for a side image, I had to walk beneath the bridge from the only easily accessible route. This appears to be a popular place for young people, judging by the graffiti and many footprints in the sand. Looking closely at the writing on the left hand side beam one can see a message from Missy proclaiming that she loves Ken. I promise that I did not write that or anything else on the bridge.
Dunbar Covered Bridge. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 21mm, f/11, 1.6s, ISO 64, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
The side view of the bridge with the creek, bridge and tree reflections in the creek and the sandy shore line with the early fall foliage in the background was quite good.
Dunbar Covered Bridge. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 14mm, f/11, 3.0s, ISO 64, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
The dim late day light required longer exposures, showing the motion in the clouds and probably blurring of the tree foliage moving in the wind.
Dunbar Covered Bridge. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 14mm, f/16, 30.0s, ISO 200, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
Some of these images have embedded links to higher resolution images on Flickr. Viewing the images there will let one see more detail.
This bridge got its name from a large boulder in the creek that moved, when the current was strong. That boulder was destroyed, as it was deemed a threat to the bridge.
Rolling Stone Covered Bridge, Putnam County, Indiana. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/11, 1/125s, ISO 800, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
Rolling Stone is a short, single span bridge in an attractive setting.
I shot multiple exposures of the inside, then combined those to create HDR images.
Rolling Stone Covered Bridge, Putnam County, Indiana. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 14mm, f/11, Multiple Exposures, ISO 800, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
The engineering and construction of these bridges is remarkable. These were designed to last for many years, although these do require maintenance, mostly to the exterior, from time to time.
Rolling Stone Covered Bridge, Putnam County, Indiana. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/11, Multiple Exposures, ISO 800, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
I was able to get down to the creek and shoot from several viewpoints along the creek shoreline.
Rolling Stone Covered Bridge, Putnam County, Indiana. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 14mm, f/11, 1/200s, ISO 2000, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.Rolling Stone Covered Bridge, Putnam County, Indiana. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 14mm, f/11, 1/250s, ISO 3200, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.Rolling Stone Covered Bridge, Putnam County, Indiana. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 21mm, f/11, 1/160s, ISO 800, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.Rolling Stone Covered Bridge, Putnam County, Indiana. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 18mm, f/11, 1/125s, ISO 800, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
The second stop during my first day of photographing covered bridges in Putnam County, Indiana was at the Pine Bluff Bridge.
Pine Bluff Covered Bridge, Putnam County, Indiana. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/11, 1/125s, ISO 800, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
The setting around Pine Bluff is more attractive than that around Cornstalk (see previous post) and this will be a great place to shoot, when the fall colors peak.
Pine Bluff Covered Bridge, Putnam County, Indiana. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/11, 1/125s, ISO 800, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.Pine Bluff Covered Bridge, Putnam County, Indiana. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 20mm, f/11, 1/30s, ISO 640, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.Pine Bluff Interior HDR. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/11, Multiple Exposures, ISO 64, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
I found a way to get down to the creek, where I could walk along the edge of the creek and beneath the bridge to shoot it from both sides.
Pine Bluff Covered Bridge, Putnam County, Indiana. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/11, 1/125s, ISO 640, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.Pine Bluff Covered Bridge, Putnam County, Indiana. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/11, 1/125s, ISO 640, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
I experimented with the DxO Nik Selective Colorization of a monochrome image with a couple of the photographs taken of this bridge, bringing out the red color of the bridge after converting the images to monochrome.
Pine Bluff Covered Bridge, Putnam County, Indiana. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/8, 1/400s, ISO 1600, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.Pine Bluff Covered Bridge, Putnam County, Indiana. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/8, 1/400s, ISO 1600, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.Pine Bluff Covered Bridge, Putnam County, Indiana. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/11, 1/1 80s, ISO 800, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
The photo above is my favorite of this bridge with the curved road leading to it.
A country road leading to Pine Bluff Covered Bridge, Putnam County, Indiana. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 14mm, f/3.5, 1/125s, ISO 500, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
The final image here is looking back from near the bridge down the roadway leading to the bridge. I know this will be a great place to try to return to another time, when the fall colors are at their peak.
Prior to visiting Indiana in October, 2019, I had never realized that Indiana had so many covered bridges. I have seen numerous covered bridges in the New England states, which seem to get lots of attention, but I had never heard much about covered bridges anywhere else.
Part of the reason for our trip to Indiana was to attend a number of the Covered Bridge Festivals in an area west of Indianapolis. These are very popular events, drawing many locals and others from far away. Local organizers of these festivals provide maps with suggested routes to bridges nearby the festival sites.
I’ve always been intrigued by old covered, wood bridges, most of which were built in the 1800s to early 1900s, so I knew I wanted to try photographing as many as my time would allow. I was not at all sure about how or when to best photograph the local bridges, having never visited any of them and having no idea of the setting, nor the lighting at various times of the day.
So one afternoon, with one of the maps to a few bridges, I headed to the northern most bridge on the map, planning to work my way south from there, visiting as many bridges as possible before dark.
Cornstalk covered bridge, Putnam County, Indiana. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/11, Multiple Exposures, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.Cornstalk covered bridge, Putnam County, Indiana. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/11, 1/125s, ISO 500, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
Th first image is an HDR made from multiple exposures, while the second is a single exposure. The exterior is brightly lit by the sunlight, but the interior is in shadow, so no single exposure will capture details in both the interior and exterior. If the vegetation looks a bit blurred in the HDR, it is because it was a very windy day and anything moving between images complicates merging multiple exposures. I’ve tried to minimize this “ghosting” effect, but I’m sure some remains. These image look similar, but note that the interior is brighter in the HDR with more detail visible and the sky is not over exposed as it is in the single image. The colors are also a little different between the images and maybe I should have paid more attention to the HDR color editing. I think the single exposure colors are more accurate.
Shooting the dark interior with bright light coming through the top, side vents and from the opposite end of the bridge, also required resorting to HDR. Even so, the exterior is over exposed.
Cornstalk covered bridge, Putnam County, Indiana. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 15mm, f/11, 1/13s, ISO 500, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
In the second interior image, I minimized the effect of the exterior overexposure problem by shooting at a different angle, which allowed for a more effective use of a graduated neutral density filter; but the shutter speed is slow, so the vegetation seen through the vents and at the end of the bridge is blurry due to motion. An HDR might have been a better choice for this type image, but I wasn’t keen on shooting the interior and I had more ground to cover this afternoon, so I did not take a lot of time inside the bridge.
Cornstalk covered bridge, Putnam County, Indiana. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 14mm, f/11, 1/125s, ISO 2500, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
There was so much motion of the vegetation caused by the wind, that I had to use high ISO to get sufficiently fast shutter speed to freeze the motion. The high ISO resulted in more noise, which I’ve tried to minimize in post processing.
Cornstalk covered bridge, Putnam County, Indiana. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 20mm, f/11, 1/500s, ISO 2000, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
The exterior of Cornstalk was not easy to shoot. I found a way down into the dry portion of the creek channel, but I could not get to a good view point, without wading through water and mud and I was not prepared to do that. So my side shots here are limited to views from the creek shore.
Cornstalk covered bridge, Putnam County, Indiana. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/11, 1/200s, ISO 500, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
The image above is from the opposite end of the bridge from the first image. The lighting on this end was different than on the other end, making the colors darker. Even though it was cloudy, the sky was still bright, so I used a graduated neutral density filter to help balance the exposure across the entire image. There is no distinct line between the sky and the rest of the image, so I put the dark portion of the filter over the entire image, with the darkest portion over the upper part. This increases the color saturation of the entire image.
The third bridge that I photographed in the afternoon of my first day of seeking covered bridges in Indiana was the Bakers Camp Bridge.
Bakers Camp Covered Bridge. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/11, 1/125s, ISO 1250, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
I made use of a fairly new looking fence in a grassy area on one side of the bridge as a leading line to the bridge.
At the end of the fence line, near the bridge, I found a way down to the edge of the creek from which I made several photographs with reflections of the bridge in the creek, after removing some distracting litter along the near shore line. It is not always possible to physically remove distracting objects, but whenever it is, I like to do so, since that is far easier than having to remove the objects later in post processing.
Bakers Camp Covered Bridge. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 22mm, f/11, 1/125s, ISO 1600, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
Walking back up to the front of the bridge, I made the usual frontal close up to get the bridge name and date into a photograph.
Bakers Camp Covered Bridge. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 14mm, f/11, 1/160s, ISO 1600, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
I then walked onto the bridge to attempt shooting inside. I stood on one side in case of traffic, which is not usually heavy across these country bridges, but not unusual either. In fact, one friendly lady, driving an SUV, stopped momentarily to ask if I was getting good photographs.
Bakers Camp Covered Bridge. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 14mm, f/11, multiple exposures, ISO 2500, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
Since it is dark inside these bridges, I used a high ISO and, due to the bright light at the end and from the top side vents, I made multiple exposures, combining them into an HDR image in post processing.
I walked on through and made other images from the opposite end.
Bakers Camp Covered Bridge. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 14mm, f/11, 1/125s, ISO 2500, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
