Cedarburg Mural
Just a quick reminder – Cedarburg’s Wine and Harvest Festival is this Saturday and Sunday (September 19-20, 2009) in downtown Cedarburg, Wisconsin.
The festival and art fair runs Saturday 10:00 am until 6:00 pm, and on Sunday from 10:00 am until 5:00 pm. I will be exhibiting at the art fair, located behind the Cedarburg Cultural Center (just a few spots from where I was for Strawberry Fest).
If you’re in the area, stop by and say hello!
Hillsboro Lighthouse
My picture of the month for August is from a series of early morning photos I took at Hillsboro Inlet in Pompano Beach, Florida.
The clouds were benign, although they look quite threatening in the dawn light. They help set the mood for the scene and create interest – indeed, the picture would lack feeling with an empty sky.
The lighthouse also has just a touch of the rising sunlight on its left edge – adding some warmth to an otherwise stark, black lighthouse.
To see pictures of the month from previous months, click here.
Snow Serpent
Today’s post is a change of pace. While not trying to rush the season, I thought I’d go back to earlier this year and share some snow sculpting photos.
The occassion was the 2009 Flakeout Festival, held every year in the Wisconsin Dells.
The harsh sunlight, long shadows, and cold tempertures formed the primary challenges on a crisp February day. This sculpture was of a serpent – the detail on the face and mouth is amazing – and the snow sculptors worked all day Saturday and part of Sunday to get it right.
Snow in and of itself can be a tricky subject to photograph. The bright white surface often fools the camera’s automatic sensors, which don’t quite know what to do with the preponderance of white – and often photos turn out grayish and without definition.
WALL-E
If your camera allows you to adjust the white balance setting, this is the time to use that feature. Some cameras will have a setting for snow, or will allow you to set a custom white balance.
Setting a custom white balance is the best way to go – but prior preparation is key, since this involves photography a known neutral source in the target light and then telling the camera to use that photograph for setting the white balance on subsequent photographs.
Much more common is changing the white balance in your post processing software, but you must shoot in RAW (the photograph, not you) for this to work. Setting the proper white balance will give you back the crisp whites you saw when you took the picture.
Hope this cooled you off on a warm summer evening – enjoy the rest of the summer before it gets away from you!
Watery Reflections
The August A. Busch Conservation Nature Center is located just a short drive from Lake Saint Louis in St. Charles, Missouri. The nature center is home to many lakes, wetlands, trees, wildflowers, and wildlife – barely removed from an urban setting.
I chose for this post to show a couple of photos that were not what I went looking for when I first visited the nature center.
This first reminds me of a somewhat abstract water painting – the water in the lake was disturbed by light winds, and the reflections of the trees in the water seem to shake and shimmer. This feeling is enhanced by not including the trees themselves in the picture, leaving only the reflection.
Fish in a Pond
This next picture is also different in nature from my standard landscape-type photograph.
As I was standing next to the water’s edge, I noticed these small fish swimming through the rocks in the bottom of the pond. The water was very clear, so I was able to capture the fish in their natural habitat.
Taken in mid-afternoon, there was plenty of light, so I didn’t need a tripod or a slow shutter speed. This photo was taken at f/11 for 1/100 second (ISO 200), using my Tamron 28-300 mm lens fully extended.
I expect to visit the nature center often over the next few months, watching it change from summer to fall to winter. And as I do, I’ll share the pictures here.
