Shortleaf » Photography

The Winter Landscape

Ryan — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 16:06:58 +0000

Winter in Missouri can be a pretty drab time considering most of the undeveloped landscape in the state is either farmland or deciduous forest. Even in spite of that I find the bleak winter landscape enjoyable. I like the change from the almost baroque greenery of the spring and summer months to the more muted browns, greys and yellows. One exception to the rule is waterways, or at least the one near my house. In the cold of winter, the water typically becomes clearer and more blue.

The winter landscape can be messy, especially in forested areas hit hard by the ice storms of recent years, but it can also be more interesting with the foliage no longer hiding the contents of the forest from view.

Probably the most annoying thing about winter is scraping frost off my windshield in the morning. I absolutely hate that!

The Unexpected

Ryan — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 20:20:21 +0000

Lens: 24-105 f/4L @ 35mm, f/5.6, ISO 500, 1/10sec.

There is a spot near Table Rock Lake that I keep wanting to photograph. Given the right conditions, I believe this particular view would make a stunning photo, however I cannot seem to position myself there with any kind of decent lighting present. While spending a week down there a few weeks back I decided to get up in the dark of the morning and drive to the spot to wait for sunrise. I selected a morning when fog was in the forecast, thinking the fog would fill the valleys and make for a great sunrise photo.

As it turned out, the fog was so dense that I couldn’t see anything other than this tree until well after 10am, at which point the magical morning light was long gone. I didn’t get the shot I wanted, but I did get a pretty neat photo of something unplanned. That is the way it often works with nature photography. I rarely get what I expect or intend to get. Nature always throws a curve ball, but if I’m lucky I still manage to get something worthwhile. Even when I don’t, I still enjoy the pursuit of captivating images.

A Year of Greatness

Ryan — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 02:24:24 +0000

This weekend marked one year since Steph and I took our vows. What a great year the past 12 months have been! More than I could have ever dreamed!

Over the last several weeks there have been tons of photoshoots here at the farm taking advantage of our “Sugar Maple Alley” and various backdrops. It has been fun to compare what all the photographers use, the locations and angles they select, and just the different style each has.

It dawned on me that if everyone else takes photos out here, maybe I should take a stab at photoing my loved ones (minus Emma, she was at the zoo with Nonna and Papa)! So here is my attempt, you can click on the image for a larger version…

For those of you interested in how I did this shot, here are the settings I used:

35mm @ f/1.4
1/1000 sec
ISO 100
Circular Polarizer Filter

Most of the shots I’ve seen done here were more of a longer perspective looking down the row of trees, but since I had a wide angle lens on the camera, I opted to do more of a side angle. I think it worked pretty nice!

Fall at the Lake

Ryan — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 03:23:52 +0000

Last week we loaded up the fam and spent a week at mom and dad’s lakehouse enjoying the beautiful weather and scenery of the Ozarks. I was very much looking forward to a getaway and some relaxation.

The weather was a bit chilly the first few days but that didn’t stop us from getting outside…

Steph and Emma

Eily wore her bear coat when we went for a walk.

Emma rode around on her tricycle. She's getting pretty good at it!

One morning Emma and I went for a hike at a nearby conservation area. Emma hiked 2 miles all on her own! I was so proud! Some stray dogs tagged along.

A small stream near a spring.

Hayes Spring, from which this conservation area gets its name.

One of the dogs jumped into the spring and couldn't get out so I had to extract it. Emma was excited to tell Steph how we saved the doggy.

I asked Emma where she wanted to eat lunch and she said "under the big (pine) tree!". To which I responded, "thats my girl!" Ha!

I have always wanted to check out the historic "Y Bridge" in Galena so we took a quick detour and walked across it.

Nice view of the James River, which is quite clean and clear here.

Eily Beth enjoyed her time at the lakehouse.

Eily snuggling up to daddy before bedtime.

We went to Silver Dollar City on friday. Emma had a good time doing some new rides.

Emma rode the teacups and enjoyed it immensely. She's becoming such a big girl!

I rode the 'big swings' with her.

Nonna and Papa came for a visit at the end of our trip.

A nice sunset over the lake at the end of our vacation! Good times!

Among the Wildflowers

Ryan — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 17:27:15 +0000

I keep finding patches of wildflowers and envisioning some great photos of wee-Emma amongst them. I’ve managed to get a few decent ones here and there but still not the shot I am after. Last night I took a few as the light was waning. I can’t help but get Tom Petty’s song stuck in my head as I look through these shots.

Papa may not have realized that when I joined the fam that he was agreeing to be regularly featured on my photo blog.

One of the better smiles I managed to get away with.

I was fighting massive amounts of flare this late in the day. A hood would have helped a bit, but I don't have one for this lens. A flash would have also improved some of these shots.

This probably would have been a great one if she were looking at the camera, or at least making one of her signature mischievous faces looking off camera!

Technically speaking, this isn't a stellar photo, but I like the moment it captured.

Rain at Last

Ryan — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 03:25:01 +0000

After about 12 weeks of drought, the skies opened up in spectacular fashion. While the rain is too late for all my dead trees, the clouds and lightning were certainly worth getting excited about. Although the clouds almost have that fake cheezy HDR look, it is not because i processed the image. In fact I did virtually nothing to this image aside from sharpening a bit.

For those interested…
Exposure: 4sec @ f/4, ISO 200
Focal Length: 24mm

The small photo to the right isn’t nearly as good, but I felt like I had to post it because it’s not every day you capture lightning with a camera phone.

I find it interesting that I took only 3 shots with my phone (with one hand I might add) and got lightning (33%). I took 88 shots with my Canon and captured lightning in only 3 of them (3.5%). Maybe I should use a phone more often!

Ozark Trail, Missouri

Ryan — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 18:19:43 +0000

It’s been a few weeks now, so I’m finally getting around to posting some pics from Ian and I’s hiking trip. As you may recall, we opted to stay in Missouri this year and backpack on the Ozark Trail. The mountain we planned to climb was Stegall Mountain, which at 1,348′ was nowhere near the magnitude of previous climbs. However, 25 miles with 40 pound backpacks combined with the ups and downs of the trail made for an equally challenging trip. Not to mention the forecast was for severe thunderstorms all weekend.

I didn’t get any great photos of some of the cool features we saw, mainly due to hazy midday lighting conditions and the fact that I was too tired to go climbing around looking for the best angles. Nevertheless, we saw a lot of great scenery without having to travel very far!

Packed up and ready to head out on the trail. We started at the Powder Mill Trail Head.

We hiked the “Current River Section” of the trail, although aside from this crossing, we really never even saw the Current River. On a side note, I am very fascinated by the beautiful teal colored streams and rivers of the Ozarks. I’ve seen lots of rivers all over the world, some very clear ones, but nothing that compares with the deep teal colored streams so common throughout the Ozarks. I am not sure what causes this, but I like it a lot!

I took entirely too much photography gear and food. Better safe and exhausted than hungry and needing a tripod I guess.

This area is called Klepzig Mill and was one of my favorite spots along the trail.

We enjoyed lunch at this nice overlook of Klepzig Mill.

Here is a clear pool of water below another series of rapids and waterfalls called Buzzard Mountain Shut-Ins.

Buzzard Mountain Shut-Ins

I like this area because it contains a lot of pine forest. Most of the trail was Oak, Hickory, and Pine mix, however this mile or so was mostly just Pine, so it smelled really nice!

We opted not to carry 2 days worth of water and instead got water from this clear creek and purified it. It tasted quite nice, maybe better than the tap water we brought!

Rocky Falls, another cool area along the Ozark Trail. This was actually a spur off the main trail, but well worth the side trip.

The trail started getting steeper as we made our way up Stegall Mountain. A massive t-storm hit us as we were approaching the summit so we were unable to safely explore the area and enjoy the view. Had the weather been more cooperative we would have enjoyed this view…

Thanks to Ozark Bill for allowing me to use his photo from a more successful trip up Stegall.

We hiked back down a ways where lightning would be less of a risk and setup “camp”, which consisted of a couple rainproof hammocks. Actually worked out very nicely and we stayed nice and dry even though it rained non-stop for about 15 hours!

More shut-ins as we made our way back the next morning.

Crossing was a bit more of a challenge on the return trip due to the rains the night before. I hopped across but Ian was a bit nervous at first.

Crossing here Ian almost completely lost it. Somehow we both managed to get to the other side ‘mostly’ dry. From that point on I didn’t really take any photos because I was too tired…

So in summary, while being less exotic than previous trips, it was still a great time and we saw some great scenery here at home!

Morning Photo

Ryan — Mon, 16 May 2011 16:33:45 +0000

Here is a cool shot I took the other morning as I was walking out to my car. It was one of those unusual set of conditions where it had been unusually warm and was then suddenly unusually cold (and sunny!). So we have lots of dew and haze with some patchy fog in various places and the early morning light shining through it all… almost looks a bit surreal!

For those of you interested in the technical stuff:
1/1250 @ f/8
105mm
ISO 200

Pics From Tuesday

Ryan — Thu, 12 May 2011 02:28:56 +0000

Here are a few pics from the other night…I managed to capture of few smiles (one of which was actually in focus!) of Emma running in the field.

Here she is studying a rock she found… makes me proud!

Flower

Ryan — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 01:43:07 +0000

While Emma was scoping out the creek I took some photos. Here are some random purple flowers. This is an example of how the macro lens is intended to be used. I have no idea what kind of flower this is but they are fairly plentiful around the creek in the spring. When I first got my camera a few years ago they were one of my first subjects.