Now was that a catchy title or what..

I guess my family has now joined the exclusive worldwide Swine Flu club this past weekend. I say guess because we were told by the Doctor he was positive we had it but the test came back negative(go figure) so now after plunking down a lot cash we now have Tami Flu as part of our dietary regiment.  High temps, body aches and being lethargic(my wife always calls me that and now I know what it means) was the big giveaway symptoms so I will go with the medical establishment and take their advice.

I looks like my son and I will be spending a lot quality time watching Sponge Bob Square pants and Star Wars over the next few days and generally being lethargic. The bad part is no photography either and wouldn’t it figure that the weather has been and remains absolutely perfect for the first time in weeks and I will be stuck in the house !!

Seriously though I am really not making light of this subject I know there are a lot of people who contacted this virus and become seriously ill or even died and I am not making fun of that at all, it’s just with all the media hype and fear that has been associated with this I knew when we got it(we always catch everything) I would have to write a post about the experience just to let people know it will be alright and you will get thru it.

And hopefully my family and I will not suffer any complications from it and can move on with our life and get ready to take on whatever new calamity will be coming our way !!

Oh and for the photography part of the title, with a little down time on my hands I think I might get caught up on all the images I have gotten behind on. I shot this one of The Broadway Fountain in Madison Indiana not long ago I went with a horizontal comp just to try something a little different any thoughts or suggestions would be great !

Thanks for stopping by and taking a look !!

For best viewing click on the image !!

Here is a couple more shots from last week when I had a chance to get out before the fall colors were blown away.  Both of these shots came within a few yards of each other, the top one on one of the staircases that lead down to Clifty Creek and the other was just along the loop road that travels thru the park. At this point the weather conditions were optimal but windy and rainy weather set in later that day and downed most of the leaves in the park, without this one day my entire fall would have been a bust but sometimes things go right and you can get it right and fill your card with a bunch of images.

There are just a few trees left here and there but I have a feeling it’s going to be winter very soon, one of my least favorite times of the year, and hopefully the winter won’t be miserably cold I can take the snow but the cold gets worse the older I get.

I hope you had a great fall and were able to capture some great images,thanks for stopping by and taking a look.

Well the fall has pretty much come and gone, lots of rain and high winds put a quick damper on the Fall Leaf display, I was able to get a few shots but didn’t even close to what I had planned on getting this year.  I was able to make a quick trip to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and I came back with a few nice shots. The leaf display here never really lived up to the expectations that I had for them this year,shows what I know, and the high winds and rain took them out before I even had a chance to really get out and work them.

But all in all it wasn’t a total wash and I got a few shots from here in Madison Indiana, Clifty Falls State Park and the GSMNP, so as time permits I will share them here with you and if you have any time, I would love any feedback you could add to them.

This shot came from Littler Clifty Falls, I had some limbs in the FG that were impossible to move or clone out so I am hoping that don’t hurt the image too much. I also had to shoot from the walkway along the top of the falls and could only get an over the edge type of perspective, which I thought added a neat touch to the scene, we had a lot of rain their night before which stained the water a  bit and had knocked many of the leaves down. The light was really nice when I shot this, there was a strong yellow light that seemed to envelope the entire gorge and surrounding woods due to all the leaves that had that as a predominate color.

This was about the best day that I got to shoot, nice overcast skies and very little wind made for idea shooting conditions that day, one upside from all the rain meant water levels were high in the park which added to the fall colors.  Hope you enjoy the shot and if you have any feedback I would appreciate you sharing it, thanks for taking a look.

If you click on the image you will get a larger view as well.

Here is another shot from my recent hike, I shot this right below Schoolhouse Falls in Southern Indiana, the color in the forest hadn’t really turned  yet but a few early leaves did happen to land on this rock which I thought added a lot of character to the scene.

The great thing about shooting in these canyons and gorges that surround our community is the fact there are just an amazing variety of shots you can get in just a short hike in this area. You can go for your classic large landscape waterfall shots like the ones I posted before or you can do more intimate abstract shots like the above or even work your way down to spring wildflower or macro leaf shots.

Just make sure you bring lenses to cover all your focal lengths and a tripod to work off of and then find yourself a beautiful place to work, I am sure wherever you live there is somewhere close by that you can photograph many of the same subjects I have in my area. Try to get out in the morning and evening or a cloudy windless day also look for the extraordinary in an ordinary world, shoot things other people overlook and you never know what you might find.

With Fall quickly approaching now is the time to get out and enjoy the beautiful weather and surroundings and bring home a few good images as well, thanks for stopping by and taking a look !!

You need to click on this one for the larger viewing size as well.

Here is the other waterfall from my hike last weekend, this one does have a name and it’s Butler Falls, just outside Hanover Indiana near Madison. Butler Falls looks to be at 60-70 ft. tall with a really nice flow of water, the Falls is at the back of a canyon with the only way in or out is from the creek below, once again no easy way to get there so I would be wary of such an excursion.

This Falls is not real far from Hanover College and its 3 waterfalls that reside near the campus. I am hoping to take a hike into that canyon in the next couple of days to see how the water flow is and see if I could get a few images. The fall color looks to be coming along nicely and I am hoping for a decent amount color to photograph this year, hopefully it will stay wet and I could get a few waterfall and color images which would be great !!

Thanks for stopping by and taking a look !

Click for larger size.

I thought it might be time to post more waterfall images that I have shot recently, in earlier posts I have shared with you the fact that Jefferson County Indiana has an abundance of waterfalls in the gorges and canyons that lead down into the Ohio River, I have shared some of those images with you earlier and here is one I shot last Saturday that I thought might be worth taking a look at.

This falls has no name that I know of but since it is close to a school I thought I might dub it Schoolhouse Falls, kinda of corny but what the heck, it has a sheer  50-60 ft. drop that is located in a beautiful wooded canyon near Hanover Indiana just outside Madison. At the top of the Falls it also has a smaller 10 ft. Falls that leads out onto the ledge before it plummets to the bottom of the gorge.

I can also tell you this one and most other Falls in our region are very hard to get to and are not for the week of heart or body to try to hike to, very steep cliffs and boulder strewn creeks make the hike treacherous for the novice hiker. Even though I may be getting up there in years I do pride myself as a strong hiker and none of these Falls are easy for me to hike to so be very careful if you ever attempt to hike to one.

Thanks for stopping by and taking a look.

You can also click on it for the larger size if you like.

I know I know another corny title but what the heck it just might give you a chuckle.

Another insect shot, I seemed to have gotten more of these this year than I have ever before, and this one was hand held to boot. For me shooting anything without a tripod is almost blasphemy but for this little guy there was no other way, his almost nonstop flying from flower to flower kept me working so fast I finally just threw the tripod down and chased him around till I got a few satisfactory images.

I still didn’t get 100% focus but I think it worked out well and after about 50 shots I was  able to capture a couple that were worth keeping. I have found a new appreciation of the true macro shooters who specialize in insects they are definitely a talented group who knows their craft and produce amazing images, maybe someday I can get to that point but now I will take whatever I can get !!

I also captured quite a few butterfly images this year that at some point I will share with you, it was a nice end of summer and I came away with some nice work, but now I am anticipating a wonderful fall with lots of color and hopefully a few waterfalls sprinkled in as well.

I thought I would leave with the obvious video by The Beatles, I know I am predictable but it was way too easy to do !!

Sorry about the long absence but I’ve made some commitments to coaching again and have been very busy with that aspect of my life, I am going to try to squeeze some time in now and then to share my images with you until the season ends and I can get  more time to shoot.

I have shot quite a few image during the late summer that I was happy with including this little image of a couple of ladybugs having a little afternoon delight.There are all kinda of places I could go with this or I could stoop to sophomoric humor and have a lot of fun, but thankfully I don’t have much time so I won’t go there…I will let the viewers handle that !!

Actually this image was a little hard to get because the lady ladybug wouldn’t hold still long enough and kept dragging the male around with her, always finding a place to hide to do their dirty work, must have been a privacy issue.  After about 50 exposures my foray into bug pornography paid off and I nailed the shot, I still was a little disappointed with the lack of sharpness in her head but I had to give something to get the shot so that was the payoff.

Maybe I should have consulted with Hefner or Flynt on this, since they were a little more experienced with this aspect of photography but for my first foray into bug porn it still worked out pretty nice. I hope you enjoyed the image and thanks again for stopping by and taking a look !!

Is that catchy or what ?  Seems kinda of appropriate now with the decision to go ahead with bridge committees decision on the Madison Milton Bridges future.  Seems we are going to get a new bridge but not new columns to support it, don’t get it well neither do I.

The plan now is to take down the old bridge and build a new one on the existing pillars, they say it will be safe and and a lot less expensive, who knows maybe they are right and it will all work out in the end, but we will just have to wait and see what happens.

Everyone knows without a doubt that we need a new bridge in the worst way, and with the way the Government is throwing around money these days now is the time to get this project done.  They will be shutting down this bridge for two years while a new one is constructed over the existing pillars  I just don’t see how having no bridge for two years is going to help  our community, especially with the way the economy is now,  it won’t take much to send us deeper into an already bad situation. They say that we are going to have ferries to shuttle people back and forth across the Ohio River, but that unto itself could end up being a nightmare with over 10,000 vehicles traveling back and forth across this structure daily. Will people have to pay daily, how many ferries will be in use and what about weather conditions and flooding. And the big problem will be an approach for vehicles.

And another question would be about the pillars themselves, can an 80 year old structure take the type of traffic this bridge will get everyday and continue to be able to perform in an safe and efficient manner ?  I just don’t see how a structure that has been thru that much weathering and other environmental conditions could be as sturdy as they recommend, I could be wrong I am not an engineer, but still it just doesn’t seem right.

I just hope the committee has made a wise decision and this doesn’t adversely effect our community, I know when the construction is done and everything is back to normal it will be a boon for Madison and Milton, lets just hope we get it done right !!

And here is a song I thought might be appropriate for this..

A few weeks back I spent some time at a fish and wildlife area near my home here in Madison, when I came across this really cool mimosa tree.  I know a lot of people and most biologists consider this an invasive plant, and they can make quite a mess in your back yard, but this one was out in a field and was blooming profusely. The aroma of this tree seemed to float for miles and the blooms were quite extraordinary. It set back in a wood line and was hard to photograph as a whole so I spent my time with the macro lens and tripod and picked it apart !

The blooms were really amazing up close with all their intricate and beautifully colored stamens. They made quite a subject to work with and they came with a surprise or two as well. I shot some of the blooms as a whole subject but decided to move in close and work with the individual stamens. The long slender parts of the bloom made for a wonderful collection of abstract shots. Many of the images came out a bit “Blurry”. At first I wasn’t sure if I liked them or not but after getting home and processing them I came away feeling pretty happy with the results !

The first image came with a little visitor to the bloom in the form of a caterpillar which I thought added a really cool touch to the shot. The second image came out nice as well resembling some type of Alien life form or microscopic creature. All in all I was pleasantly surprised and pleased with all the images from that single tree. I shot over a hundred images from that one tree and got quite a few keepers. I was fortunate to have another productive shoot which makes up for all those bad days afield.

I thought the song by Puddle of Mudd was kinda appropriate for the images as well !!