outdoor photography

A Foggy Morning This past weekend I went out with a friend to a marshy area near Dothan, AL. It was a beautiful marsh, and there many birds singing.  But as the morning dawned, fog moved into the area. As we walked back to the car, this scene struck me.  Thankfully I had my point and shoot camera with me, allowing me to get a couple shots. A Foggy Morning

Sunrise Over Lake Monroe This past Saturday I had to be at a little park on the southern shore of Lake Monroe before 7 am.  He was running in a 5k race, so I brought my point and shoot to photograph him during the event.  The sunrise over Lake Monroe that morning was pretty spectacular, so I found a couple spots to brace my camera (since I didn't have a tripod) and took a few landscape photos of the sunrise.  The top image is an HDR composite image, and the image below is a single image.  Both of these were taken with the Canon PowerShot S100HS. Oh, and my son came in first in his high school and first in his age group.  So it was a win all around. Sunrise Over Lake Monroe

Palm Coast Sunrise In December 2010, a friend and I drove out to a beach by Marineland near St. Augustine, FL.  I took these photos, but I wasn't too happy with them, and I didn't work on them much.  But I didn't delete them either. This evening I decided this evening to do some more work on them and see if I could make something out of them.  These aren't my best sunrise photos, but they're better than I thought they'd turn out. The vertical shot is an HDR image from 5 exposures.  I had take 5 exposures for the two horizontal shots as well, but these are from one exposure each.  I didn't want to mess with the waves. Palm Coast Sunrise Palm Coast Sunrise

Trees with Rolling Hills One of the things I miss the most about Maryland is the scenery. I love the rolling hills found throughout the state. This photo was taken on some farmland in northern Baltimore County. For this shot, I waited for the sun to strike the foreground trees while the clouds cast a shadow near the bottom of the background hill to help separate the two hills. Also, they're growing barley on the farm, so I also had some fun photographing some of the barley. These photos were taken with my point and shoot Canon PowerShot S100 HS. Barley

Gateway Arch I've driven by the Gateway Arch on I-64 before, but I've never actually visited the park, which is called the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.  My colleague and I will be conducting interviews here in St. Louis tomorrow, so we we decided to drop by the park to see it up close.  I have one very profound thought to share about the experience: that's one big arch. It was pretty cloudy, so I thought it might be fun to accentuate that with some HDR work. Gateway Arch Gateway Arch Gateway Arch Gateway Arch

Monroe Run Our family used to vacation in Western Maryland every August.  In 2009, I found a trail in the Savage River State Forest following a stream called Monroe Run.  At the time, I don't think I cared too much for these photos, and I never did anything with them.  I wanted bigger and better waterfalls and clearer skies I guess.  But now that I live in the land of flatness, I'm somewhat drawn to them, so I figured I'd share them with you. Scenic Overlook of the Savage River State Forest Scenic Overlook of the Savage River State Forest

Burke Lake Sunrise Lately I've been trying to clean up my Lightroom database of images.  I've been going through photos that I've taken years ago but never did anything with.  This one caught my eye.  This is from Burke Lake in Northern Virginia near where I grew up.  I used to fish here, and I used to run around this lake for cross-country training. I took this photo in December 2009.

North Tract of Lake Jesup CA Yesterday my son had an appointment about five minutes from the north tract of the Lake Jesup Conservation Area. I've never been to this area before, so I thought I'd take a few minutes to check it out.  The area is mostly open fields with palm trees.  Like the Marl Bed Flats tract, you have to share the fields with cattle, so you have to watch where you step.  Anyway, the area is pretty enough.  I didn't see a lot of wildlife, but mid-afternoon isn't the best time to be out there anyway.  It was great to see several Eastern Meadowlarks there. North Tract of Lake Jesup CA North Tract of Lake Jesup CA North Tract of Lake Jesup CA Eastern Meadowlark

Lake Jesup CA - East Tract This morning I went for a little while to the East Tract of the Lake Jesup Conservation Area. It was my first time visiting the area. It was a little difficult to find the trail head.  I walked to the observation tower and back.  It's a very pretty area.  I took a couple scenic shots along the trail as well as a shot from the observation tower. I didn't see anything too exciting, but it was fun to photograph an Eastern Phoebe, an American Robin, a Tree Swallow, and some White Ibises. Lake Jesup CA - East Tract Eastern Phoebe White Ibis Tree Swallow American Robin

Marl Bed Flats Over the last two days I've visited Marl Bed Flats, I've photographed this same tree.  The photo above was from this moring as I was leaving.  The photo below is from a few days ago as I was arriving just before sunrise.  I took both with my Canon S100 HS.  Unfortunately, I had to shoot the photo below handheld, so I set the ISO to 1600.  I think the photo below is stretching the limits of what this camera can handle, but I still find it fun to see how different the same tree can look from two different angles, at two different times of day, and with differing amounts of cloud cover. Marl Bed Flats

Canal St. Fence It doesn't look like much, but this little fence on Canal St just south of Lake Jesup is quickly becoming one of my favorite places for photographing sparrows and other perching birds.  This morning was one of my best sparrow photo days.  I was hoping to find a White-crowned Sparrow here, which I didn't find, but I did find many Savannah Sparrows, two Grasshopper Sparrows, one Vesper Sparrow and one Swamp Sparrow, and all but the Swamp Sparrow posed nicely for photos.  And if you stand in the right place, you can sometimes get photos of birds with the sun behind you and nothing behind the bird, giving you a clean background.  Oh, and this morning I also found an Eastern Phoebe perched quite nicely, and the photo below may be my all-time favorite phoebe photo. Vesper Sparrow Grasshopper Sparrow Savannah Sparrow Savannah and Grasshopper Sparrow Eastern Phoebe

Sunrise Beyond finding the Brown-crested Flycatcher and other flycatchers I was looking for, I had fun finding other birds as well.  Several birds posed for photographs, most notably Red-winged Blackbirds, Eastern Phoebe, and Ospreys.  Also a Red Admiral landed on a tree trunk for me. In my haste to find the flycatchers, I didn't stop much for photos, but here are a few I did take. Red-winged Blackbird Red-Admiral Eastern Phoebe Osprey

Trees at Lake Jesup Park Canon Powershot S100, Joby Gorillapod It's well known that Central Florida is so flat that it's hard to find picturesque landscapes to photograph.  There are some genuine hills along the central spine of the state, but that's about it.  It's not too much of an exaggeration to say that, within an hour's drive of my house, the tallest things that stick out of the ground are trees and landfills.  Last year, I decided to try to take more landscape and nature photos that do not include wildlife (basically that means photographing trees).  I rarely did that, though, largely because I didn't want to change lenses all the time or carry two cameras.  My solution this year is to use the Canon PowerShot S100.  So far, the solution has worked pretty well, as I'm taking many more landscapes than I did last year. Canon Powershot S100, Joby Gorillapod This is how I set up to take the first image above But there is a challenge I'm st...

Live Oaks at Marl Bed Flats Yesterday at Marl Bed Flats most of the birds kept their distance, but thankfully trees can't move.  There were a couple of Live Oak trees that I found rather interesting, so I paused for a moment to pull out my point and shoot.  I think Live Oaks are some of the most beautiful trees in Florida. These are both HDR images. Live Oaks at Marl Bed Flats  

Marl Bed Flats HDR Canon Powershot S100 The other day I walked down the trails of Lake Jesup Park (Sanford Ave).  At one point the trail takes you along a row of palm trees which you can follow parallel to the lake.  But occasionally the land dips down and becomes extremely wet with several inches of standing water.  On this particular day, that was the end of the road for me. This little spot is a great place for Marsh Wrens, but they wanted to be heard not seen on this day.  I thought the sky was pretty, though, so I pulled out my point and shoot camera and took a few shots.  The above shot is an HDR image and the lower shot is is a single image from the middle exposure of the above image. Marl Bed Flats Canon Powershot S100