A brief look at my camera screen in the early morning, showed that I at least got star photos during the night. I always have some concerns that the program worked as planned, after setting up the camera to shoot well after dark and then retiring to bed. Unfortunately, upon reviewing those images on a big screen it was obvious that the stars were big blurry bright spots. So apparently I either accidentally shifted the focus a little, during the final set up or maybe I forgot to switch off auto focus. I think it was most likely the first, since I vaguely recall having to shift the lens back into auto focus mode for early morning sunrise shots, after realizing the first shot was not in focus. I don’t completely trust my eyesight to get really good focus, when in manual mode.
But I still have two batches of star images to process, which I will have to get to soon.
After shooting a few early morning images, we decided it was time to move on and headed towards the Moab area. Moab has become much more popular than it was during my first few visits here. Now it is very crowded all the time it seems and the rapid growth rate is highly evident. We considered several possibilities for finding a campsite in this high demand camping area, finally selecting a small public land camping area not very far from Dead Horse Point and we were lucky enough to have two or more empty sites from which to select.
After setting up camp, we did a bit of exploring in the local area, stopping by Dead Horse Point to scout it briefly.
Dead Horse Point 1, iPhone Image
This scene reminded me of hiking in Canyonlands NP many years ago.
Dead Horse Point 2, iPhone Photo
After this brief visit to Dead Horse Point, we will return later for sunset photography.
An early rancher in this area left his name on much of the area and there is an old log cabin that he built alongside one of the easily traveled roadways that any vehicle can travel to, at least in good weather. However, just past the cabin that roadway becomes a “moderate” 4 wheel drive as rated by trail books, but has some intervals of what might be better be described as “difficult” 4 wheel drive sections, which we decided not to venture very far along.
This concludes this series on fall leaves in an Indiana creek. I expect readers are breathing a sigh of relief, but trust me the photos presented in this series is a subset of many more and since there are infinitely many ways to photograph this subject matter, it would be possible to continue such a theme forever. [And maybe I will do more in the future].
At first it was just a pretty leaf lying on a mossy rock that got my attention, but the more I looked at it the more it looked like an elegant female model posing like a naturalist in an outdoor environment. (Maybe I had been wandering alone in that creek bed too long).
Looking for ideas for a title, I found that fallen leaves are refered to as “leaf litter” or “tree litter”. Is it really appropriate to describe such natural beauty as “litter”? Can’t we show some respect for these fallen, natural beauties?
I set out one morning with a National Forest hiking path as a destination. When I arrived, there was a crew working at the limited area parking access. The young ranger in charge said they were just wrapping up setting posts for a kiosk and would be out of my way in a few minutes. So I drove on down the road to kill a few minutes, took a side road, stopped beside a creek and went down into the creek bed to look around. There was not much water in the creek, just a narrow stream with a few shallow puddles. There were many fallen leaves in the creek, which looked like good photographic subjects, so I returned to my vehicle, retrieved my camera and spent some time photographing those leaves.
Ok, I’ll admit to placing those leaves around the tire sidewall. Firstly, it is a shame that folks discard such items in manners that are detrimental to our environment. Secondly, other than photo documenting this litter, it might as well be dress up a little.