I returned to the old outlook tower that I found earlier, where a trailhead into the Charles C. Deam Wilderness originated. This time I was prepared to hike with my DSLR.
To be continued,
Ken
Indiana, Fall 2021, Part 16 – Charles C. Deam Wilderness
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Indiana, Fall 2021, Part 15 – Hoosier National Forest
While examining a digital satellite map image of the forested area near my operational base in Indiana, I noted one area designated as a wilderness, so I decided to drive into that area and check it out.
All of the photos in this post are via my iPhone.
I pulled off of the forest road through the Hoosier National Forest on my way to check out the Charles C. Deam Wilderness area at a camping/picnic area to look around. There were restroom facilities, shelters, picnic areas and a few visitors. I noted a hiking trail that went into the forest from here, but I did not take time to check it out. There were a few colorful trees in near peak fall color, so I made a few iPhone images, with the one above the best.
I continued down the forest roadway, spotting a number of “No Parking” signs along the way.
This roadway is narrow, so parking along it would impede traffic and probably would create a danger, since visibility over hills and around curves is limited and one could easily crash into a parked vehicle that appears suddenly in the narrow roadway. The $80 fine seems steep, but maybe necessary to discourage parking here.
I found a parking lot just off of this roadway at an old fire lookout tower that is no longer in use, but open for visitors to climb.
Apparently, there were farmlands in this area at one time, but those have been taken over by the forest, after this area was designated a wilderness area.
I chose to climb the 133 steps to the top to get an overview of this area. As I started up the first flight of stairs, I had second thoughts about my choice as the stairs wobbled with each step. After a brief hesitation, I continued the climb.
Near the top of the tower, I noted that someone else had the same reaction as I did to the wobbly stairs.
I shot a few iPhone photos from the observation floor of the tower. Being above treetop level, I had a good overview of the vast forest around the tower.
After enjoying the view, it was time to descend the “sketchy” stairs and get my feet back on firm ground.
I saw a trailhead marker near the tower, so I walked over to check it out. I was not prepared to hike in this wilderness today, but I decided to come back another day for more exploration.
There was an old road beginning at the end of the tower parking lot that was blocked off with a steel gate. I walked over to take a look down the roadway and found this sign about an old cemetery that was apparently here prior to the wilderness designation. There was no indication of how far it was to the cemetery, but I decided to walk the roadway, hoping to find something interesting.
I found remnants of old structures that were mentioned in the information sign at the tower and continued to walk the roadway for awhile. I never found any indication of how far it was to the cemetery and I eventually turned back, since I did not see any noteworthy reason to continue.
This final image, looking into the wilderness woodland, was taken somewhere along the route.
Until next time,
Ken
Indiana, Fall 2021, Part 14 – Indiana Backroads
This is a continuation of the previous post of my fall 2021 photography along Indiana backroads.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Driving the backroads can lead to unexpected discoveries in the many small country communities.
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.
A community church shared a parking lot with the school. There were interesting storm clouds above the church, so I had to shoot that.
Continuing along the backroads, I took a gravel road through a portion of the Hoosier National Forest, stopping to shoot along the roadway.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Indiana, Fall 2021, Part 10 – Ogle Lake, Brown County State Park
It was a relatively calm morning as I hiked around Ogle Lake in Brown County State Park, Indiana. As the morning advanced, enough of a breeze developed to sometimes make small ripples in the lake, distorting the reflections of the trees and sky.
Fog remained just above the lake surface in the shadows near the end of the lake.
This ends my hike and morning photography at Ogle Lake.
Until next time,
Ken
Indiana, Fall 2021, Part 9 – Ogle Lake, Brown County State Park
As I had coffee and a light breakfast early one morning in the Indiana cabin, I noted that it was a foggy morning and if I got out soon I might get some interesting photos before the fog burned away.
As I drove the main road into Brown County State Park, I was regretting not getting up a little earlier this morning. I could see that the early morning fog would be good for photography and it was lifting rapidly. The park does not officially open until 7AM, but I was told at the entrance the prior morning that the gate was always open, so I could come and go whenever I liked. The gate keeper even offered that getting there early would let me avoid the entrance fee, which at $9 per day was a bit steep compared to many such parks, but I never got there before 7AM, even though it would have been best for photography had I done so.
When I arrived at the Ogle Lake parking lot well after sunrise, I glimpsed the fog coming off of the lake, and I hastened to grab my gear and walked rapidly to the dam.
My first composition this morning is my favorite one of this morning shoot.
After shooting a few images from the dam, I walked on to the hiking trail around the lake.
A small tree limb in the lake caught my eye and I shot a couple of compositions with it as a focal point. These images are best view on a big screen to see the details.
Enough for now. I will continue this hike and photography in the next post,
Ken
Indiana, Fall 2021, Part 8 – Ogle Lake, Brown County State Park
I continued hiking the trail around Ogle Lake and shooting images in and around the lake.
The big lens allowed me to zoom into the edge of the forest across the lake, eliminating the sky and the lake from the scene.
Reflections in water are always a good subject. The scene above drew me to it as soon as I noticed how the log divided the reflections and calmed the surface just enough to create the impressionist forest reflection.
Before I left the park, I stopped and hiked along a trail through the forest. I shot many images, but most were not all that appealing, so I’m just sharing a few of the better ones.
Thanks for following,
Ken
Indiana, Fall 2021, Part 7 – Ogle Lake, Brown County State Park
Brown County State Park, near Nashville, Indiana is a lovely park with hardwood forest, lakes and miles of hiking and biking trails through the forest. We were staying just a few miles from the park, making it an easy place to access for Autumn photography.
Possibly my favorite place to photograph in this wonderful park is around Ogle Lake.
I regret that I did not get out as early in the mornings as I should have for the best of sunrise. Even though I got up early enough to get into the park at or before official opening time, I lingered over my coffee and light breakfast too long, as it was so pleasant doing so in the cabin.
My first morning in the park, I decided to use my big lens, a Nikon 80-400mm with a 1.4 extension. With the fall color still not being near peak, I figured I would try to get more intimate shots, rather than wide angle images.
Walking along the dam at the end of the lake, I took time to get close ups of some of the colorful leaves, back lighted by the early morning sun light, on small trees or bushes at the waters edge, before hiking on the trail around the lake.
From the dam and the hiking trail, I shot across the lake into the forest on the opposite side.
That’s enough for now. I will continue this photography hike in the next post.
Ken