Tag Archives: landscape photography

Many Bridges

Posted by dkrashb on

Many years ago, about 6 months after I started learning how to use the manual controls on my PowerShot G3, I was sent to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on 3 separate trips for several days at a time.

I took my camera with me on the 2nd and 3rd trips after seeing how interesting the town is.  As I browse through the photos now, I am reminded of Chattanooga.  Harrisburg is about the same size as Chattanooga, has a river running through the heart of downtown (the Susquehanna River in the case of Harrisburg vs the Tennessee River in Chattanooga), and even has a Walnut Street Bridge that’s been converted to a pedestrian-only bridge.

Like Chattanooga, the riverfront offers endless photo-ops, although it seemed as though Harrisburg might not have created as many destinations along the riverfront as away from it.  Harrisburg has more bridges that cross the river within a short section.  But Chattanooga has two giant advantages:  mountains and warmer weather.

It’s not really a competition.  They are both cool towns with great architectural features and lovely rivers.  I really enjoyed walking down by the river when I had the opportunity in Harrisburg and working on capturing an interesting view of the bridges.  While I was able to improve these old photos somewhat by reprocessing them, they were taken with a point-and-shoot camera with 4 megapixel resolution 8 years ago.  Digital photography has come a long way since then.

I, also, have learned a few things.  For starters, shooting with the sun high in the sky was not optimal.  Making sure the water is level before pushing the shutter button was another big miss–I had to straighten these in software.  It’s interesting that with experience, the world acquires less and less tilt.

I particularly enjoyed shooting through the bridges to see more bridges behind.  There are so many bridges that from the right angle, the bridges seem endless.  I had a good time playing with different angles, but as the light faded, I learned why one of my photographer friends kept urging me to buy a tripod.

I learned quite a few things that trip.  For one, having a camera on a business trip can be quite entertaining when you’re traveling by yourself.  For another, taking a warm hat on a business trip is a requirement if you’re planning to entertain yourself by shooting a scenic river in January in Harrisburg.

I left Harrisburg after my last trip there feeling enchanted.  Having made the round of the downtown cathedrals and the state capital building, I was pleasantly surprised by the historic buildings and the overall grandeur of the town.  I suspect that had I spent more time there, I would have continued to discover wonderful secrets about the place.

 

King of the Hood

Posted by dkrashb on

I needed to get outside, I needed exercise, I wanted to shoot, and the dog needed to go for a walk.  The perfectly logical course of action was to take the camera, the dog, and go for a long walk on a beautiful fall day.

The dog has his own agenda.  He’s determined to claim the neighborhood between our neighborhood and Stringer’s ridge.  It’s a neighborhood full of dilapidated chain-link fences and scary looking dogs who bark at us endlessly.  Tisen ignores these dogs.  He takes a cat-like approach to tormenting these fenced-in dogs.

He takes his time sniffing every blade of grass, marking each clump taller than 6 inches–he does this so slowly I expected him to sit down and start grooming himself.  The poor neighborhood watch dog goes ballistic throughout the whole show and I try to get Tisen to move on quickly.

Having two hands free might have come in handy, but letting go of my camera and bending down to reach Tisen was not an option–at least not without risking knocking Tisen in the head with my swinging camera.

At the ridge, I sit on a tree log placed at the overlook to shoot the view.  Tisen pulls on the lead and I knock the lens hood off my camera and watch it roll halfway down the hill.  I manage to leave Tisen at the top leashed to a branch in full view as I slide my way down to retrieve my lens hood.  Being a klutz and a multi-tasking photographer are probably a bad combination, but I make it safely back to the top where I am treated to exuberant adoration from my dog who apparently had little faith I would return at all, let alone safely.

As we return home, we pause once again in front of the barking dogs.  I look around and realize that if you value having a really affordable place to live with beautiful surroundings, this is a great neighborhood.  There are nothing but colorful trees on the three hillsides that nearly form a bowl around this little valley.

But then, we pass a house with a porch covered in glass objects.  They were scattered around, fallen over, abandoned like the porch was a miniature dump.  This might not have been so disturbing by itself, but the glass was mingled with a child’s toys that looked like they had been left in the middle of play.  It made me shudder.

A motion in a tree above the porch caught my eye and I spotted a Eurasian Collared Dove sitting there, looking at me as if it wondered how long it would take me to notice him.  It’s a somewhat rare sighting here at the edge of their range, and rarer to me having grown up in a part of the world where they don’t roam.  I smile and wonder what this bird thinks of the neighborhood.

True Colors

Posted by dkrashb on

As Tisen and I stroll along Stringer’s ridge, my feet drag through a thick layer of leaves.  As they crunch and swirl in front of my feet, I remember what fall meant to me as a child.

Halloween was, of course, central to the fall experience.  Dressing up in some costume that never quite looked as glorious as I expected it to (except the year my mother cut and sewed her wedding dress into a Cinderella gown for my costume), parading through the yards of our neighbors to go door-to-door for halloween candy.

Even though it was a special occasion, we were only allowed to walk through the yards where adjacent neighbors had their porch lights on and were giving out candy.  Some yards, we got to crunch our way through un-raked leaves while other yards were sparsely dotted only with leaves that had fallen in the past hour.

Stringer’s ridge has no gardener to obsessively clear the leaves away.  They fall and create a weaving of color over the broken and dilapidated asphalt that marks the ridge’s recent history.  As we leave the nearby urban residential area and enter into the preserve, the leaves become denser and the views become more colorful.

Tisen has taken his time getting here.  Me with my camera stopping to shoot frequently had nothing to do with how long our walk has taken, I’m sure.  Tisen needed to sniff and mark every mailbox on the way through the neighborhood.  I tried to coax him on his way, but he insisted in at least making an attempt to leave his mark, even if it was only a gesture by the time we got to about the 10th mailbox.

As we crunch our way through the leaves now, I don’t hurry him, but I do occasionally try to get him to sniff a yard or two in one direction or another so I can shoot while he sniffs.  I wonder how many photographers struggle to get the angle they want because they are walking a 70 pound dog who doesn’t always cooperate?  Sometimes it makes me wonder if I’m the one on the leash.

Given the slowness of our progress and my need to be somewhere in the near future, we take the shortest route to the overlook.  It’s not an overlook in the sense that anyone built a structure or anything.  But, they did clear a few small trees so the view of downtown was unobstructed.

I love this view.  You can see the best part of the riverfront as you look across a sea of colorful trees.  It’s hard to believe there are so many trees between me and home as I look down the ridge and across the neighborhood Tisen and I have just walked through.

I say a silent thank you to the good people of Chattanooga who had the foresight to make this a preserve and then we turn to walk home.

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Fall Impressions

Posted by dkrashb on

With no yard, no rake, and no worries, I was feeling a little detached from the experience of fall.  But a long walk up to Stringer’s Ridge, currently peaking in color, got me back to a childhood full of crunching through leaves.

As Tisen and I made our way up to the ridge, I looked up and there was an oak tree shaking its top like my grandmother shaking out a rug.  It looked like it was trying to shake its loose leaves free like a dog shaking water out of its fur.

By the time I was ready to shoot, it stopped.  I stood still and waited.  I could hear the wind, I figured it would start again.  I just had to be patient.  Tisen pulled at the lead, catching a new smell just out of reach.  I took a step forward to give him something to do and then stood still again, waiting.

We were still at the edge of urban neighborhood and nature preserve, standing in the middle of a residential street.  I had to step to one side when I realized a car was barreling down the hill.  We walked a little ways further and I stopped again, Tisen stopping and giving me a puzzled look as I once more turned my eyes to the tree top.

Eventually, I turned and shot some brilliant leaves across the street until I realized there was a car stopped, waiting for me to finish so it didn’t drive through my shot.  I smiled and waved and turned back to my tree.  It was starting to wear me out.  I checked my watch and realized I couldn’t afford to stand there waiting much longer; we were going to run out of time for our walk.  I sighed and off we went with no shots of the swirling cloud of leaves.

Somewhere between that uncooperative tree and the start of the Stringer’s Ridge trail, I thought of trying to pan with a falling leaf.  I don’t know exactly what made me think about trying it, but I sure did amuse myself in the process.  It’s not easy to pan in general.  You have to start the motion of the camera so you’re smoothly following the thing in motion, then press the shutter while you continue to smoothly pan.  This is more difficult than it sounds.

A falling leaf is not predictable.  It gets picked up, shot off course, and suddenly picks up speed when the edge starts slicing through the air.

I didn’t think a single one of my panning shots turned out when I was standing there reviewing my shots.  But when I looked at them on the computer, I was actually quite pleased.  These are minimally processed, although in some cases I brushed in adjustments to the single leaf I was panning with to make it more noticeable.

I am beginning to see a wall covered with images of falling objects in my future.

Greasy Spoon Comfort Food

Posted by dkrashb on

The Longhorn is a long-standing tradition.  It’s not the steakhouse chain, although people show up with gift cards and expect to be able to use them there.  I think if they’d ever been to the steakhouse chain, they would realize immediately that this place isn’t part of the same chain.

I’ve never asked why it’s called the Longhorn, but the building seems to have been architected to simulate longhorns with the roof.  Who knows if the building or the name came first?

It’s been around since the 50’s and the minute you look at it, you know it.  This is true both outside and in.  It’s possible the counter and stools have not been replaced since the restaurant was originally opened.

But that’s part of its charm.

Its real charm, though, is the wait staff.  It only took going in there twice in one week before they started looking up, smiling and saying, “Hey, Guys!” when we walked in the door.  By our fourth visit, 2 servers had our “usual” pretty much down.  There’s nothing like having someone remember you, look happy to see you, and manage to remember even part of what you like to eat considering how many people these ladies serve every day.

When you’re in the mood for a down-home, greasy-spoon, fill-you-up kind of breakfast, the Longhorn is top notch.  If you’re trying to lose weight, don’t go there.

But, if you’re in the mood for eggs, they’ll be cooked to order perfectly (assuming you know what you’re ordering–I’ve heard people complain about over-easy eggs being runny, someday they’ll figure it out).  The “scattered tatters” are crispy, traditional hash browns (shredded potatoes, fried) and are always tasty.

The bacon is usually perfect, but can be a little overly crispy if you get there at the wrong time.  But whatever you order, prepare yourself for grease.  There’s a lot of it.

Unless you order pancakes.  The pancakes are awesome and not greasy.  But don’t expect anything fancy like real butter or genuine maple syrup here–this is a place that pays tribute to its 50’s heritage with whipped margarine served in a cup and corn syrup with maple flavoring.

This is the kind of place you go when you feel like being low maintenance.

When you walk in the door and Sandy and Terry pause in the middle of slinging food because they’re genuinely glad to see you, you remember there are more important things in life than having real butter.

I love the food.  For better or worse, it’s comfort food to me.  But what keeps me coming faithfully back is the sense of belonging to a community of regulars.  We update one another on weekend events, discuss what haircuts will look best on me, the server, or someone sitting down the counter.  We trade barbs and tease one another.  When people are waiting, we scoot down to make space.

It’s a nice place to eat.

Foggy Moments

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The fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.

–Carl Sandberg, 1878

Fog whispers secrets in barely audible hisses

Hinting of terror shrouded in its mist.

I watch as it crawls and creeps

Rises and disappears

Revealing nothing.

I love fog.  Now that the weather has been cool long enough, the water temperature has dropped.  This results in a giant, natural fog machine running through downtown.

At sunrise, if I happen to be down at the river at the right time, I love to watch the tiny wisps of fog swirling off the water’s surface, rising and joining the large cloud of fog above.  It’s so fascinating to watch the formation of a cloud that I may have to figure out how to make a video of it.

Eventually, a large cloud forms over the river, with strands of fog still connecting it to the river like a balloon vendor at a carnival with an endless collection of monochromatic balloons.  From up high, the fog looks so thick you wouldn’t be able to see your own hand in front of your face.  But when you’re actually down on the ground, the fog just looks more like an low-lying cloud.

On this particular morning a day or two ago, I had been meaning to go up on the roof to try to shoot some of the fall colors at sunrise.  When I saw the fog, I figured it would be a good morning to go shoot.  I shot from 3 corners of the roof.

I’m still trying to figure out how to shoot Stringer’s ridge well.  There’s a lot of crap between our building and the ridge that I can’t quite figure out what to do with.  I also seem to end up with more sky than I want in the frame.  I’m talking myself into shooting it with my 70-200mm so I can get in much tighter.  I’ll have to try that before the leaves fall.

I’m amazed how long the leaves are lasting down here.  They just keep getting brighter and brighter in color (still not as bright as midwestern color, but getting pretty close).  I keep thinking one morning I will wake up and all the leaves will be gone.

Of course, I couldn’t stay on the Stringer’s Ridge side of the roof for long.  Switching back to the opposite side of the roof, I tried to get an angle on the smoke monster crawling up the river.  It almost looked like it had a head on the other side of the smoke coming out of the chimney.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t a great angle.

As I watched the fog shift, the BlueCross/BlueShield building peeked through a sudden window that appears in the fog.  It looked like it had been hung in the sky and was floating on a cloud.

It was a lovely morning.

Skin Problems

Posted by dkrashb on

I have one last story from our wedding/elopement (that always seems like a fake word to me) to share with you and then I will return to current events in tomorrow’s post.

On the day after our “wedding,” we decided to go to Taliesin West–the Frank Lloyd Wright school of architecture that was out in the middle of nowhere the first time I visited  in the early ‘90s.  As of 6 years ago, it was on the outskirts of Scottsdale.  Now, it may be in the middle of downtown.

I like Frank Lloyd Wright buildings when it comes to interesting places to visit.  However, I wouldn’t want to live in one.  For one thing, he apparently sized everything to make himself look taller.  I am tall.  I don’t feel the need to be made to look taller and I don’t really appreciate being forced to duck through doorways just because the man had a complex.  It is a great tour, however.

Only about 5 miles away, McDowell Mountain promised a nice hike in the afternoon, so we took the long route back to the resort and made a stop at McDowell.

Mountains in Phoenix are like miniature versions of the mountains of the Pacific Northwest minus all the foliage and, of course, snow.  Without the trees and snow caps, they resemble acne.  The desert is suddenly, almost rudely, interrupted by a big old brown bump that looks like some sort of underlying infection caused it to swell above the surface of the landscape.  I mean this in the most loving of ways.

While the sudden appearance of these bumps on the landscape might be somewhat odd, one of the great advantages of these isolated, suburban mountains is they afford amazing views across otherwise flat land.

How could we resist making the short drive to one of these pimples to check it out?  Unfortunately, we didn’t really pack hiking clothes.  We had many layers and waterproof jackets/pants for the Grand Canyon tour, but waterproof clothes are really hot.  While it wasn’t scorching hot in Phoenix in December, it wasn’t “wrap yourself in plastic and hike up a mountain” cold.  Having just come from Taliesin West, we were wearing our “good” clothes.  We looked the paved, gently graded trail and decided we would be just fine.

For once, we were right.  Although the climb got a little steep, we managed to make it to the top without sweating through our shirts too badly.

And the views were completely worth it.  It was at that moment I realized why so many people move to Phoenix.  That little pimple makes for quite an overlook!

Cliff Driving

Posted by dkrashb on

I should start this story by saying I’m terrified of heights.  That said, after our mini-adventure at the Grand Canyon, we decided to take the scenic route back to Scottsdale via the Apache Trail.  This is a scenic drive, not a hike.  I use the term “drive” loosely.  Crawl might be more appropriate.

Somehow, in my meticulous planning of our trip and research on the Apache Trail, I failed to understand that a good portion is a 1 1/2 lane wide, two-way dirt road hung on the side of a cliff so steep and high that I couldn’t manage to look down it.  RVs apparently travel this road from time to time.  I’m convinced had I managed to gather the courage to look over the edge, I would have discovered where those RVs end up.

Since I had rented the car with my frequent traveler points and we hadn’t added Pat as a driver (they charge a lot for that), I had the great pleasure of driving in the outside lane with the cliff on the right.  This was OK since I could mostly drive on the left side of the road, leaving a 1/2 car-width gap between us and the edge of the cliff.  However, panic ensued when a car came the other direction.

This required finding a wide spot in the road, pulling as close to the guard-railless edge and stopping while I gripped the steering wheel so tightly my skin melded with the vinyl covering on the steering wheel.  I can’t claim I was the most pleasant person on this drive.

When the second car approached, it didn’t slow down.  It just came barreling at us like we were on some four-lane highway in the desert.  I got as close to the edge as I dared, stopped, and braced for impact.  The car slipped by so close that had our rearview mirrors been at the same height, they would have hit.  I suspect this was a local who takes great pleasure in terrorizing tourists.

At this point, I didn’t care what the rental car policy said.  I got out of the car and informed Pat I was not driving one more inch.

Unfortunately, sitting in the passenger seat next to the cliff where I couldn’t see the edge of the road was not exactly comforting.  It says a lot about my husband that he didn’t drop me off at the Phoenix airport instead of continuing straight to our hotel by the time we got off that road that was never meant to be a road.

The net of this “scenic” drive was that we didn’t get to enjoy the scenery except when we stopped to stretch at the periodic pullouts.  It also took about the same time to drive the dirt stretch as if we were riding mountain bikes.

My advice: follow the lead of the Apache and walk the darn thing!

Like life, it’s beautiful, but best enjoyed as a destination rather than a route.

Honeymooning

Posted by dkrashb on

Ah, dear readers, you are in trouble now:  I have been digging through my old photos again!  Guess what I dug up?  Yes, it’s my wedding.  Well, more accurately, my honeymoon followed by my marriage.  We don’t often do things traditionally.

We decided to elope.  We, coincidentally, had purchased a special deal on 3 nights in a resort in Scottsdale, Arizona earlier that year and had yet to set a date to use it.  This, combined with the fact that, in Arizona, you can get a marriage license the same day you get married set our destination for us.  The dates available for the resort picked our dates.

I imagined a grand adventure to the Grand Canyon–getting married on an overlook before hiking off into the sunset with our backpacks. Then, a luxurious honeymoon in Scottsdale.

Although I had flown over the Grand Canyon many times, I’d never been to it.  It didn’t occur to me that the rim of the canyon is at high altitude.  As I started planning the trip, I soon learned that not much is open at the Grand Canyon in December.

That’s why we ended up doing the honeymoon part of the trip first.

In the end, we drove from the Phoenix airport to Williams, passing through the mountains over icy roads in a snowstorm that seemed to have appeared from nowhere compared to the weather we’d left behind.

We spent the night on Route 66 in a “Honeymoon Suite” Caboose.  It sounded romantic when I booked it.  If you’re looking for a recommendation, I’d say it would be a great place to stay when the outdoor temperature is perfect for sleeping.  Turns out an old caboose has zero insulation and . . . you guessed it . . . it’s made of metal.  You can imagine how thermally efficient that was on a night when it was way below freezing.  Let’s just say it became clear to me why they called it the honeymoon suite (refer to hypothermia survival tactics if you’re confused).

In the morning, we took the train up to the Grand Canyon.  However, we had to make a quick stop at a local general store first.  This is how the discussion went:

Pat:  “You can’t wear your hiking sandals and socks in the snow!”

Me:  “It’s all I brought when we decided we weren’t going to backpack.  I’ll be fine.”

Pat:  “Let’s just get you a pair of snow boots before we get on the train.”

Me:  “Snow boots!  The train leaves at 7AM!  Where are we going to find a pair of snow boots in the off-season in a tourist town at 6:30 in the morning???”

Pat:  “I’m sure there will be a place open.”

Me:  “Why would anyone be open at 6:30 in the morning???”

(This was a pre-coffee conversation.)

Believe it or not, there’s a general store in the middle of Williams that’s open at 6:30AM who sells snow boots in December.  Go figure.

HDR Life Lessons

Posted by dkrashb on

Between “feeling puny” (as a former relative used to say) and being caught off guard by the early sunset (I somehow failed to notice that the sunset an hour earlier yesterday), I didn’t make it out to do a new shoot today.

But, never fear!  I have new photos to share.  I did a series of 5 exposures each of two compositions from the balcony at the same time I shot the images I posted yesterday.  These were just taken later in the shoot.

I included 3 images for comparison for each composition.  The first is exposed based on what the camera thinks is the correct exposure.  The second is under exposed by 1 stop.  I included the second image because I am particularly drawn to the high contrast of post-sunset skies at this exposure level.  To me, it looks the most like reality.  However, the buildings and landscape features get completely clipped at this exposure and I’d like to have a more detail in the landscape below the sky.

Since I shot 5 exposures, I thought I’d give HDR a try.

Even when I was shooting the 5 exposures, I knew HDR was going to be a long shot.  Literally.  By the time I got to the over-exposed images, the exposure times were multiple seconds.  The wind was blowing at about 15 miles per hour on the ground and who knows how fast higher up.  I could stand there and watch the clouds moving faster than a multi-second exposure.  Rapidly-moving clouds blur in long exposures.  Even the under-exposed image shows some blurring; the over-exposed images turn the clouds into undefined wisps.

But, I’m slightly feverish, so I have a good excuse to think it might create something interesting anyway.  I selected the options to remove ghosts and noise and to align the images when I processed the 5 exposures.  The third image is the result.

Photomatix got confused when it tried to align things and remove ghosts because of the differences in the amount of blurring between the multiple exposures.  So, the really dark clouds turned into floating dark blobs.  It actually did a better job than I predicted, so kudos to Photomatix.

The second series of photos is a different composition, but otherwise the same as the first series.  Same results.

I guess today’s life lesson from photography is that even though a camera can capture many moments in a single image and HDR processing can multiply that effect, sometimes we really are better off just enjoying each moment individually.

As a side note, Nurse Tisen seems to be ready for retirement.  Moving from the couch back to my office chair has him convinced I’m no longer in need of special attention. It was all I could do to keep him at a normal walking pace when I took him outside today.  Tomorrow he’s going to doggie daycare so he can run around.