I’m sure I’ve said this before, but here it is again: Backroads are often the best way to find uncommon beauty. Or maybe that should be common beauty, since it is all around us, but maybe taken for granted.
Is this a natural scar or a portal into another world? If a portal, would the other world be weirder than our’s today?
Until next time,
Ken
Traveling an Indiana backroad I saw a group of old, rustic farm structures in various stages of structural failure. The roadway was narrow. Parking alongside the roadway and photographing from the roadway would not be satisfactory nor very safe. There was only one house nearby, so I stopped and knocked on the door. A lady with her hair in curlers opened the door and I briefly explained why I was there, asking if it would be ok for me to photography those old structures. She quickly said she was sure it would be ok, although, I’m rather sure she was not the owner, but maybe others have asked her this same question.
There was a short grassy, dirt road at the old buildings. I parked on that dirt road, just off of the pavement far enough for safety and proceeded to walk around the area photographing the buildings from various angles.
A rolling stone may gather no moss, but a stationary wheel can gather grass.
I lived in a house with this same number many years ago.
After photographing the rustic farm building, I continued to meander around the backroads looking for other fall photographic opportunities. This final photo is a teaser for the next post.
Ken
In Brown County State Park I walked along a creek capturing fall color alongside the creek bed.
Having an interest in geology, I had to include some of the rock layers exposed along the creek bed.
There were only a few shallow puddles of water in the creek, so walking in and along the creek bed did not require getting my feet wet.
More fall in Indiana later,
Ken
My wife and I began a tradition of spending a couple of weeks in Indiana in the fall a few years ago. There are multiple reasons why we established this tradition. 1. My wife has relatives in the area, having lived in Indianapolis during her early childhood. 2. A relative allows us to stay in their weekend cabin that is very near Brown County State Park, which is a very popular place in the fall. 3. We both enjoy seeing fall color in the hardwood forests in this part of the U.S. 4. I get to photograph the fall color and write about it in this blog.
Timing our visit to see the best of the fall color is always hit or miss. Sometimes we are too early, sometimes too late and sometimes we see the peak fall color.
Photographing in the same location at the same time of the year is a challenge and I often worry about my photographic images being too repetitive. After all, how many ways can one photograph trees, forests, barns and fall scenes? Lots, actually, but how many are unique? Trying to get unique and interesting images is a challenge. I can only hope that the scenery varies sufficiently, year by year that my images will not be too boring.
Driving the backroads of Indiana is a good way to appreciate the fall color and other rural fall country scenes.
The barn in this image sits far back from a roadway on private property. I shot it with a telephoto lens from the edge of the roadway, hand holding the camera. I shot from different perspectives trying to get shots with the least amount of that pile of debris in front of it in the image. However, this image may be the best overall, even with that unsightly mess in front of the barn.
I was a little late for the actual sunrise at this location in Brown County Park, so I walked down a slope into the briars, weeds, grasses and brushy growth, thinking a shot from within all that foreground clutter might at least be different than that of the early photographers that were wrapping up their sunrise shoot from the top of the slope and there was no way to avoid getting that messy foreground in a shot from anywhere here.
I had to spend a considerable amount of time picking the stick tights from my clothing after this mornings’ shoot.
Until next time,
Ken
This post is a catch all for a number of photos taken during a couple of road trips in 2022.
One might need to look closely to see the string of green Mardi Gras beads in this tree in old downtown Ocean Springs, Mississippi.
Standing on a Mississippi Gulf Coast beach, I observed clouds creating abstract forms.
These cypress trees in Lake Chicot, Arkansas show how much the water level is below normal due to drought in the U.S. mid-continent area. Lake Chicot is a horseshoe lake formed by an abandoned channel of the nearby Mississippi River, which was at an historic low level, at the time this image was made.
The link in the photo above, actually takes one to another, slightly different composition, than this one.
Until next time,
Ken
Homeward bound from the Badlands National Park of South Dakota and traveling through Nebraska, I needed a place to pull over for lunch. Seeing a sign indicating a historical bridge loop, I was too slow to react to take the first exit to that loop, but I was able to take the second exit.
I pulled over just before a bridge at a small parking lot with this historical marker.
I made a sandwich, taking it with me as I walked onto the bridge. Soon another person joined me on the bridge. He informed me that the Niobrara River had no fish in it. I found that quite surprising, as it looked like a nice, but shallow river. His theory as to why there are no fish in this river is because the river water gets too hot for fish, since it is shallow and completely open to sunlight all day. My research indicates that there are fish in this river. However, I did not see any fish in the clear, shallow water at this location. So maybe the range of the fish is limited in the Niobrara River.
The river at this location, at this time, was quite shallow and one could easily walk across it.
This bridge has been bypassed by a newer bridge nearby, but the Bryan Bridge still seems to be in good condition and is open to traffic.
The water level was too low, at this time, to float that downed tree in the middle of the river; although, the fact that the fallen tree is in the middle of the river, indicates that the river level was higher and flowing rapidly to deposit the tree there.
The newer highway and railroad bridges are just downriver from the old Bryan Bridge.
In the river near the bridge are square blocks with round holes in their centers. Were these an original part of the bridge structure or were these dumped here for another reason?
Maybe there is a reader that can answer this question.
More later,
Ken
On the final day of my visit to Badlands National Park, South Dakota, I drove to the Visitors’ Center, where I would usually stop early in a visit to such a place; but so far I had ignored the Visitors’ Center, perhaps because it had been so far from my base of activity in the park and it is a large park to explore.
Somewhat past the Visitors’ Center there is a parking lot and walkways that let one get a wide view of some of the Badland features.
Continuing past the Visitors’ Center there are other areas of this park that I had not yet seen on this trip. Although, I recall being in this area the first time I came here years ago. There are hiking trails, long and short, in this area. Now that my time here is ending, I’m wishing that I had come this way earlier and hiked some of these trails.
The image above was taken after hiking a short trail from a parking lot.
I had picked out a place from which to shoot at sunset today. Yet on the way to that destination, I saw the distant features that I had planned to shoot were visible from a view point. On a spur of the moment, I decided to change my plans and shoot from this viewing area. I hiked out onto some features down from the viewing area in an effort to get better vantage points.
I quickly realized that those distant features I had planned to shoot were too far away, but I did not think I had time now to revert to my original plans, so I stuck it out here and tried to make the best of shooting at this location.
The nearby feature quickly began to fall into shadow, even though the sun was still relatively high in the sky.
As I noted how the light changed and how those distant features were getting the best of the golden hour light, I realized how bad my spur of the moment decision to shoot here was. I would have been much closer to those distant features at my initially chosen location.
As the shadows began to quickly progress across the landscape, I began to retreat towards the parking lot. In that retreat, I noted that I could navigate around some of the nearby features to the east and get better views than from where I had been shooting.
The image above shows an area into which I could have hiked and gotten much better golden hour images, but it was too late now. Live and learn. If I’m here again, I will know how to get here and when to be here.
I shot this final image of the sunset sky with my iPhone as I was making my way back to the parking lot.
This wraps up my 2022 photography in Badlands National park. I will begin the multiple day journey home tomorrow morning.
Ken
This is a continuation of my sunrise shoot on day 5 of my time in Badlands National Park, South Dakota, September 2022.
As I was about to wrap up my morning shoot, I decided to experiment with compositional variations using the wide area of grass in the area where I had been shooting as a foreground with Badlands features in the background.
I changed my distance from the Badlands and modified the zoom to include more or less of the background and more or less of the foreground.
I like all of the images that I shot in this manner,
however, I think this final image, shot by going down a slope and shooting up at the background feature is the most dramatic. This gives the impression of a vast sea of grass with the Badlands emerging from the grassland.
Until next time,
Ken
I arose early on the last day I had to spend in Badlands National Park, once again driving that slow, washboarded gravel road from Interior to SD 240.
I went back to an area from which I had shot a couple of morning already, when the sky were cloudy. Today the early morning sky was mostly clear and I anticipated a good sunrise golden hour.
To be continued,
Ken
As the sun sank lower into the western sky, I walked back into the grassland area to the east of the gravel road connecting Interior, SD to SD 240 in Badlands NP. I had pulled over maybe a half mile before the intersection with SD 240 and scouted this area a little earlier.
I always try to begin shooting a little before golden hour, since one can never predict what will happen with the light and today I have a large area from which to shoot, so I want to have time to get a number of compositions and hopefully have sufficient time to move around and vary my compositions as golden hour advances.
What happened to all those big fluffy clouds that had been so prevalent in the sky as I was scouting here? They’ve all disappeared, leaving a blank, bland sky.
For the image above, I stood in the shadow of a ridge to avoid having my shadow in image.
Time to head back to my campsite,
Ken
