A cold front blew through on one of our days in Indiana in October, 2020, bringing rain and significantly colder temperatures. The wind caused a temporary power outage in our country cabin that lasted for a few hours.
My wife had been out into the local area with relatives, visiting antique and craft stores, while I was out shooting photos. She wanted to see a few more of these places and venture further away, so we made plans to do this, during the colder, rainy weather.
I did not take my DSLR on our outing, but I used my iPhone to capture a few images of some of the items on display in the antique stores.
Antique Jars with Lids, iPhone PhotoA collection of old woodworker hand planes, iPhone Photo
I’m not much for acquiring these old items, but am intrigued by some of these items. Especially, the old craftsman type tools, maybe because I’m a bit of a do-it-yourselfer, with some experience with woodworking.
Old Woodworker Chisels, iPhone PhotoOld Carpenter Rules and Tools, iPhone Photo
I actually have a collection of old rules (and a few marking gauges, too). My rules are very much like those in the photo above. I was into collecting these years ago. I still like these old rules and I’m tempted to purchase others, but so far, I’m resisting the urge to acquire more.
Golden Wedding Whiskey Bottle, iPhone Photo
I wonder what the honeymoon was like after consuming a bottle of Golden Wedding Whiskey?
Norma Jean, aka Marilyn, iPhone Photo
Maybe with Marilyn it would still be a good honeymoon.
To find places to get out into nature and find prospective places for outdoor photography, I frequently look at maps, either paper maps or digital maps with satellite views. Using this method I found that the Yellowwood State Forest was only a few miles from the cabin, where we were staying. So I had to take time to explore that area.
There is a sizable lake in Yellowwood State Forest with a trail that goes around the lake. The first part of the trail beginning at a parking lot was not of great interest. It was sandwiched between the lake and a roadway for maybe a half mile before it began to depart from the roadway at the end of the lake.
Near where the trail turned away from the roadway, I found an old dead tree that looked like a good photography subject.
A dead tree in Yellowwood State Forest, Indiana.
On the opposite side of the lake from the parking area, a branch went away from the lake; but I continued along the trail that followed the lake shoreline. The trail became more scenic there with the lake on one side and deeper woods on the other side.
Big Leaf. Yellowwood State Forest, IndianaHiking Trail in Yellowwood State Forest, Indiana
It was a little early in the afternoon for the best light for outdoor photography, so including any portion of the sky produced unpleasant results and I did not try to use any filters, while shooting handheld. I posted a cropped version of the hiking trail image (above) on Flickr. I think you will agree that taking out the sky improved this image.
Four Left Turns. Yellowwood State Forest, Indiana.
I found the growth pattern of the vine in the above photo interesting. Why did it make those right angle turns? It eventually went up the tree in the normal direction. Maybe it got its directions from Apple Maps.
I began to look for ways to exclude the sky from my compositions. Sometimes portions of the sky were necessary to get the desired parts of the landscape into my compositions with my lens of choice, then I cropped the sky out in post processing.
Fall in Yellowwood State Forest, Indiana
There is also a cropped version, isolating the back lit leaves on the forest floor, of the image above on Flickr.
Fall in Yellowwood State Forest, IndianaA red leaf in Yellowwood State Forest, Indiana.A Toadstool in Yellowwood State Forest, Indiana.
The toadstool image here is a cropped version of one that is posted to Flickr. I thought that there were distracting parts of the original image, so I severely cropped it; but I actually still prefer the original version.
Fall in Yellowwood State Forest, Indiana
Back lighted leaf and shadows, Yellowwood State Forest, Indiana.Yellowwood State Forest, Indiana.Pink leaves of fall, Yellowwood State Forest, Indiana
The portions of my images from this trip that include the upper parts of the larger, more mature trees, show the lack of foliage on them. This would have been a much more successful visit for outdoor fall photography had I been here a few days earlier; but that is the gamble one makes, with long range planning. One has to adapt and being outdoors in natural surroundings is always a joy.
I left Ogle Lake and drove back towards the main roadway. I stopped at a pull out before getting to the main route and walked along the roadway to shoot more just off the road. As I walked beside the road I came to a trail, so I decided to take a short walk along the trail.
Hiking Trail in Brown County State Park, Indiana
The trail was covered with fallen leaves along much of the route that I walked. The trail is just barely discernible in the lower left of the image above.
Fall in Brown County State Park, IndianaYellow Leaf and Moss on an old log, Brown County State Park, IndianaLeaf and Fungi on an old log, Brown County State Park, IndianaBrown County State Park, Indiana
It was mostly overcast on this day. The dullness of the sky in the background gives the images too much of a fuzzy look for my taste; but it was what I was given today.
Brown County State Park, IndianaBrown County State Park, Indiana
My short walk along the trail turned into a longer hike than I had planned. The trail meandered through the forest with frequent changes in direction, eventually following high above a ravine. The trail followed the ravine for quite a way, then crossed the ravine, then went along side the ravine in the opposite direction. I eventually came to a junction in the trail near a park roadway. I walked out of the woods to the road. I did not know which road I was on, but I knew the direction I needed to go to find my vehicle. I walked the roadway to a junction, which turned out to be the route to Ogle Lake. I only had to walk a short distance along the road towards Ogle Lake to my vehicle.
On my way out of the park I stopped to shoot at an overlook.
Brown County State Park, IndianaBrown County State Park, Indiana
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, IndianaBrown 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, IndianaBrown 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 ParkFall Reflections, Ogle Lake, Brown County State Park, IndianaFall Reflections, Ogle Lake, Brown County State Park, IndianaFall 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, IndianaBrown County State Park, IndianaGrafiti Tree, Brown County State Park, Indiana
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, IndianaIndiana Fall, Brown County State ParkBrown County State Park, IndianaBig Fall Leaves, Brown County State Park, IndianaAutumn Gold, Brown County State Park, IndianaYellow and Green, Brown County State Park, IndianaA Trio of Fall Maple Leaves, Brown County State Park, Indiana
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, IndianaFall Woods, IndianaFall Woods, IndianaMossy Log, Indiana Fall
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.
The third stop on day two of photographing Indiana covered bridges was the Dick Huffman Bridge. I’m including a link to another bloggers site for his coverage of this bridge, rather than my usual links to an official government site.
Dick Huffman Covered Bridge. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/11, 1/160s, ISO 640, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
As I was making my first shots of this bridge a number of vehicles crossed at intermittent intervals, stirring up dust, which I had to wait to clear. One pickup truck stopped just passed the bridge. The driver got out and walked towards the bridge. As he passed, he said he was going to check the water flow. I thought maybe he was doing some sort of official survey. As I walked back through the bridge and was passing him, he explained that the following day was the youth duck hunting season opening and that he was taking his son duck hunting by putting a boat in at another location and floating down the creek. He had hopped to not have to paddle the boat, but the flow looked very minimal, so he was going to have to paddle down the creek.
Dick Huffman Covered Bridge. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 14mm, f/11, 1/160s, ISO 250, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
The bridge is not really leaning as much as it appears in the above photograph. Shooting from this angle the wide angle distortion accentuates the tilt and I could not remove it without tilting the roadway in the process.
Back on the other side of the bridge, I walked through the wooded area bordering the creek and found a way to get down into the creek. It was a little muddy along the creek edge, but I managed to avoid the worst of the mud. However, I had a limited area in which I could move around in the muddy channel, unless I wanted to get really muddy.
Dick Huffman Covered Bridge. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 16mm, f/11, 1/125s, ISO 250, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
The log makes a good leading line object, but I wish I could have gotten closer to the bridge.
The second bridge I visited in my second day of photographing Indiana covered bridges in October, 2019 was Houck Bridge. Although Houck Bridge seems to be in very good condition, it has been by passed and is now closed to traffic.
Houck Covered Bridge. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/11, 1/125s, ISO 400, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
One can still walk through the bridge, but not drive through it. Access to the creek level is most easily gained from the west side. There is also a sizable parking lot on the west side of the bridge, so I am guessing that this bridge is now set up as a prime tourist attraction. A couple of people did come and go, while I was here.
The interior photograph is an HDR image made from multiple exposures.
Houck Covered Bridge. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/11, multiple exposures, ISO 64, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.Houck Covered Bridge. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 14mm, f/16, 1/125s, ISO 640, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
