September 18 - Springfield

Just a quick post from two trips into town with a camera. When I woke this morning, it was raining so I headed downtown. To me, city scenes like this look so much better when it's cloudy and wet.

This was take with a really long lens that compressed the background - there must be thousands of electric and phone lines in this picture.


These first three pictures were taken from roughly the same location - here's another view.


My camera was right next to the ground for this picture to get the reflections where I wanted.


Later in the evening a few folks from the camera club met at Sequiota Park, and photographed the nearby lime processing plant (at least that's what I think it does). The image was processed with a relatively cool white point, and during its 60 second exposure a few cars found their way into the picture. This looked good in black and white, but I like the color version better.

September 17 - Hercules Glades Wilderness Area

I had in mind a hike for this morning that would put me on top of one of the pilot knobs in Hercules Glades in order to watch the sunrise. To get there before dawn was going to take about an hour of hiking in the dark, but that's no problem. Once I dropped down to the creek, though, I found water! I knew there would be some, because it had rained heavily earlier in the week, but this creek had enough water that the falls upstream were probably running. So I changed my plans and hiked instead into the falls on Long Creek - I'm glad I did.

Long creek has many nice places to visit, but these falls are probably the most popular. Normally, you're sure to see other hikers, but this morning I had them all to myself.


A view from the other direction...


And a leaf caught between some rocks a little further upstream...

September 11 - Springfield

Normally, I avoid taking pictures in the middle of the day, but I thought I'd give it a try this afternoon. I was after an effect I'd seen in a recently purchased book where the photographer used a diffusion filter that kind of bled the hilights and shadows. I don't have one of those filters and thought I could do something similar in PhotoShop. I think I came fairly close.

These pictures are from the pedestrian bridge just North of Commercial (a site familiar to all, I'm sure!)

September 10 - Busiek State Forest

Marty from the camera club joined me for a short hike in Busiek State Forest this morning. Busiek isn't a location with a lot of places to view a sunrise, so we just hiked around (just about 5 miles) in search of things to photograph. It was nice to have Marty along, especially since he helped me find my glasses after I lost them in a field of tall grass - thanks Marty!

Horse Nettle. This small flower blooms from May to October, and is very common at ground level.


Gaura (also known as "butterfly flower"). This is a plant that I've been seeing recently and have been meaning to get a picture of it. Its flowers turn pink as they get older.

September 3 - Hercules Glades Wilderness Area

It was a nice morning for a short hike in Hercules Glades. I was there early in order to catch the sunrise from Coy Bald (a familiar trip!). This picture is from about 30 minutes after I arrived and the tiny orange dot on the horizon (click on the image for the bigger version) is the sun just starting to peek through. This was taken with a pretty wide lens and the clouds at the top of the picture were behind my head.



False Foxglove - this was catching the warm morning sunlight quite nicely.


After the sunrise, I bushwacked my way down to Long Creek, which actually had a trickle of water - an improvement over my last visit. This is a picture of Long Creek with a blue/gold polarizer.