Intrinsic PatternsPosted by admin on March 15th, 2008

After a short spell, I finally made it back to the arboretum. The very first hints of spring are just arriving in Omaha and little bits of green are appearing, albeit among some remnants of snow and dead leaves. I took a walk through the mostly wooded portion of the park, stopping to look at some of the interesting patterns on the trees and within the leaves. I have walked by a particular dead log countless times, but for some reason it has never caused me to pause for more than a few seconds. Today was different. As the sun ducked in and out of the clouds, patterns emerged on this log and coupled with the intrinsic lines created a scene I felt compelled to record.

Technical Details:

Canon 5d, 50 CM, f/32, 1/125 sec.
OPPD Arboretum

To view other photographs, order this photograph as a print, or purchase licensing rights, please visit my website at http://www.journeyoflight.com/.

From the Archives: Radiant OmahaPosted by admin on March 11th, 2008

A combination of being ill with having the pre-spring muddy mess outside contributed to another review of the archives. As spring is just around the corner I went through the old season shots to see what I should be getting ready to shoot. I almost skipped over this old downtown Omaha file taken from the Gene Leahy Mall from 2006, but decided to give it another view. I had processed a vertical of this same shot about a year and a half ago and it didn’t give the scene the sense of grandjuer I had witnessed. A new Photoshop version later and more experience with the tools allowed me to process this image more like the actual scene I witnessed. Yes, the godbeams and clouds were actually brilliantly like this, it was a very calm nice spring stroll through downtown. I only used a polarizer, I didn’t even carry my tripod with me. Goes to show what you can capture when you make sure to have your camera with you.

Technical Details:

Canon 20d, 10-22 ef-s lens @11mm, f/11, 1/200 sec., Polarizer
Downtown Omaha (June, 2006)

To view other photographs, order this photograph as a print, or purchase licensing rights, please visit my website at http://www.journeyoflight.com/.

From the Archives: An Eastern Nebraska FieldPosted by admin on March 7th, 2008

For today’s image I dug deep into the archive, way back to May of 2006 and found this image. On this day in May my wife Holly and I had been on a driving excursion looking for hay bales to photograph. We didn’t find any, but we found this field and I stopped and snapped a few images. I have never processed this image previously since it did not have the dramatic landscape light that I prefer. While going back through my old images again, however, I stopped on this image due to the contrasts between the yellow of the field and the cyan in the sky. Further exploration fo this image led me to the barn and the trees in the background of the image. I consider this to be a stereotypical Nebraska image, which I sometimes try to avoid, but it is still a serene view. Incidently, this was taken the same evening as one of my most popular photographs, “A Country Road”.

Technical Details:

Canon 20d, 10-22 ef-s @ 22mm, f/10, 1/60 sec., May 2006
Eastern Nebraska near Greenwood (I think)

To view other photographs, order this photograph as a print, or purchase licensing rights, please visit my website at http://www.journeyoflight.com/.

A Frozen WorldPosted by admin on March 5th, 2008

After nearly a week of being closed, the arboretum opened and I took the opportunity to take a look around. It had been a fairly nice weekend with Saturday close to 60 degrees. The first part of Sunday was also nice, but then the temperature dove below freezing. This gave me another opportunity to look for ice that had thawed and refrozen which can create for some interesting natural patterns. For the most part, however, the ice and snow were scare and there was only a mucky muddy residue left. I did manage to find some nice rock patterns that continued below the ice in a small pond. In this image I particularly liked how the edge of the ice went around some of the rocks that poked above the surface.

Technical Details:

Canon 5d, 50 CM, f/9, 1/125 sec.
OPPD Arboretum

To view other photographs, order this photograph as a print, or purchase licensing rights, please visit my website at http://www.journeyoflight.com/.

Cold SurroundingsPosted by admin on February 29th, 2008

Today’s black and white image is reminiscent of my older images from when I was in college and shortly after. I used to photograph nature items almost exclusively in black and white. Back then I used a Pentax all manual camera (including focus), first a k-1000, and then later a ZX-M. I would normally use Kodak Tri-X 400 or T-MAX 100 film. After this phase I moved onto carrying two cameras, one with black and white and one with saturated slide film like Fuji Velvia and Provia and for a long time that is what I shot with. In January of 2005 when I bought my first digital SLR camera, the praised Canon 20d, one of the largest selling points was the ability to set a Black and White mode on the camera. I would often go out and shoot both and see how they would turn out. The Canon 20d even had the ability to simulate yellow, red, or orange filters which I used to carry everywhere. It was like 2 cameras in one! Since then I have tempered my use of the function since Photoshop has excellent conversion utilities for black and white. I still shoot images I plan to convert later and this is one such example.

This particular photograph was taken on an overcast day at the OPPD arboretum in Omaha, Nebraska. I wanted to focus on the contrast between the trunks and the snow so when I converted this image I wanted to make sure the snow was as white as possible without blowing out the highlights. Additionally, I processed this so that the tree trunks maintained their darker density.

Technical Details:

Canon 20d, 50 CM lens, f/18, 1/250 sec.
OPPD Arboretum

To view other photographs, order this photograph as a print, or purchase licensing rights, please visit my website at http://www.journeyoflight.com/.

Orange and BluePosted by admin on February 28th, 2008

Tonight’s image of a sunset over DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge was taken the same evening as “Petals in the Snow”. As I get my prints ready for my upcoming exhibits at the refuge I came across this one and processed it. This one will not be in the exhibit as I already have several other wintery type frozen lake photographs and I am trying to avoid too many of the same type of image.

Anyway, I have a story related to this image. That evening, as I was composing this photograph I saw what I thought was a dust spot in the view finder. I looked at my filters, looked at the view finder itself and tried to figure out what it was. Finally I just looked up to see if it could be something on the lake. Lo and behold it was a deer standing in the middle of the frozen lake looking at me, still as can be! It was too far away to really be made out with a wide-angle lens which made it look like a spot, but it was definitely a surprise – for both of us.

Technical Details:

Canon 5d, 17-40 f/4l @ 28mm, 1/4 sec., f/22, Singh-Ray 2-stop Hard ND grad, Singh-Ray 3-stop ND Filter, 2 exposures combined in Photoshop CS3
DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge

To view other photographs, order this photograph as a print, or purchase licensing rights, please visit my website at http://www.journeyoflight.com/.