I stared out early this summer morning on a long hike up the mountainside, after three hours of back breaking hiking I slid off my back pack and camera equipment for a much needed rest. The beautiful light was just starting to build and it looked to be a good morning of photography.

I worked my way over the misty ridge in search of a flower shrouded landscape shot, but the clouds moved in and all I could accomplish was a scene of wild daisies that dotted the mountaintop meadow. What a wonderful day it was to be in the Great Smokey Mountains and being able to photograph such a beautiful environment, or was it ?

Now for the real story, I got up this morning before my wife left for work and walked four blocks down to the banks of the Ohio River in my hometown of Madison Indiana hoping to get a fog shrouded river shot. But instead with no fog present this morning I decided to head back home and go to bed, along the way I stopped for a diet mountain dew and a blueberry bagel, kinda hurts the purpose of the diet dew doesn’t it, and made my way back up the street to my house.

I decided to take a short cut thru the alley and came across an abandoned old car and garage with all the windows and siding knocked off. And it was here I came across my beautiful meadow of wild daisies, a patch about 4 x 4 feet, just glistening in the early morning dew.

I quickly shot off a few frames and continued on home, after loading the images into my computer it became apparent to me on what a deception photography can be sometimes. Many of or not all of the images I get are never exactly what I see when I shoot them, it is not something I go out and do intentionally, but it always seems to end up that way.

I think that is why I love photography so much, the ability to be able to take a scene or subject and somehow improve upon it’s beauty thru a camera’s lens. I guess some purists would find that objectionable but I guess art is in the eye of the beholder, I was just wondering what your thoughts on this are ?

Here is another wildflower shot from this spring, and this one might get me into trouble because I always get the exact title of this flower wrong, so I think I will go with Wood Anonme on this and if I am wrong I will be able to take anyone else’s positive identification as a learning experience.

There is a whole group of these little flowers that look so much a like that I guess you have to go by how many leaflets or stamens to get a good idea on exactly what it is, so I hope I am at least close on this one.

The many wildflowers that I shot this spring all have there own qualities that add to their beauty, this one seemed to be growing along side this large green leafed plant that added a wonderful contrast to the blooms of this flower. Also the white blooms themselves are a work of art with the intricate white petals and stamens, that is why I love macro photography so much, all the intricate and beautiful details we miss seeing in the world above them.

I have found that the area in which I live is a mecca for wildflower photography, Clifty Falls State Park is just one example of the many great places that are full of photographic wildflower opportunities, all the hardwood hills that line the Ohio River is another wonderful place to shoot as well. And having my hometown of Madison Indiana right in the middle of this beautiful area doesn’t hurt as well.

So if you live close by and don’t want to travel far you might give this area a try and I would be glad to help you out in any way.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by and take a look !

Here is a closeup of a clematis thought I shot, the colors in this and the spiked stamens make this an interesting bloom to photograph, when I can’t get myself motivated to shoot I can always fall back on flowers to give me a subject worth working with.

How about this, another post in one week, I had a little time today so I thought I would post this shot of a Wild Columbine shot just outside of my hometown of Madison. This little wildflower was shot up in a “holler” as we call our canyons around here, just outside the city limits.

The hills and “hollers” that surround our community offer a suitable environment to host the numerous wildflowers that appear each spring, many can found growing into the town itself. They actually make a beautiful addition to the more cultivated gardens that dot our city, some adapt very easily and others don’t seem to fare as well.

Flowers such as the Columbine have flourished in many of the local gardens but others such as the Large Flowered Trillium have never been able to adapt, I guess this gives me a reason to get out and hike and shoot a few images each spring.

Thanks for stopping by and taking a look.

I thought I might post another b&w image, this time of a barge traveling up the Ohio River near Madison Indiana shrouded in fog. The barge had just moved under the Madison Bridge when I captured this image, I felt like the fog added a mysterious and surreal feel to the scene, the river traffic along the Ohio can be a great place to shoot images if I would just take the time to search them out !

I need to concentrate more on this aspect of my work, but sometimes when you live someplace long enough you don’t get the same feel for it as people who don’t witness it as often get. There are many beautiful buildings in my hometown of Madison that people travel many miles to come to see and photograph, but I guess I take it all for granted because it always seems like more of a chore to photograph them and the other tourists stops in my area.

I think maybe my biggest problem would be I am not much of people person, and when I would set up on these spots to shoot people would invariably come and ask questions and try to shoot the same thing I was trying to photograph. I always ended up feeling rushed or hurried and I worried that would affect my work, so I always try to concentrate on images away from people and the other distractions in life.

I think thats why I like the internet so much, if someone asks a question I can answer in a little slower pace or I don’t have someone down my throat. And don’t get me wrong there is nothing wrong with someone asking a question, sometimes I just don’t feel like talking to people, I know that sounds bad but after coaching basketball for fifteen years and working with the general public for thirty I just feel like a little piece and quite sometimes.

I know this probably makes me seem like an old grouch, but I really am not, I do enjoy the blog world much more than the outside one it has a much better pace that I enjoy. So I hope my rambling doesn’t scare you off and I also don’t have a problem answering any questions it just might take me a bit of time to answer them.

Here is a shot of a not so wildflower, Lily of the Valley, a women I work with brought me a cupful of these not to long ago wondering if I could get her an image of her favorite flower.

After she dug them up and presented them to me I didn’t think I stood a chance of getting anything remotely positive out of this bunch of flowers, everything I usually shoot is either fresh cut or still in the ground, but with digital photography just about anything is possible and they actually turned out pretty nice.

I had to tape them to the back ground to keep them from drooping any farther and really had to work with the cloning tool to take out the brown and dried spots that had begun to form. What had started out to be a no way situation actually ended up being kinda of a challenge that I really enjoyed trying to pull off.

That has to be one of my favorite things about photography, and that is the ability to take a mundane object and turn into something beautiful, with the help of Photoshop and tape !!

I thought I might post another shot of the Madison Milton Bridge that spans the Ohio River in Madison Indiana, I shot this one and a few others one foggy morning a few days back, I liked how the bridge disappeared into a fog bank and left you with a feeling of nothingness ( is that a word)

What was really strange was to be standing under the bridge and when a semi-truck would rumble over you could actually see the vibrations of the bridge thru the veiwfinder of the camera, I had it mounted on a tripod, which made seeing it possible. I always hate crossing that bridge, if you lived here you would know what I am talking about !

I actually printed this one off and it came out really nice, the B&W really looks cool with subjects like this, I might post the color version of this as well sometime, usually an image looks good in color or b&w, but this one is nice in both.

Thanks for stopping by and taking a look !

I have a lot of images I need to post but have been very far behind because of work related issues, this is a shot from Clifty Falls State Park, it took me a long time for this one and I am not really sure about the bg in this as well.

The wind had been blowing very hard that evening as it has been all spring, and when it finally died down I was almost out of light, but I waited it out and come out with this shot of the Wild Columbine. We had just experienced a little shower that just added to the beauty of this flower, but I am not sure if the bg in this might be a touch busy, I guess I can leave that up to the viewer since I am up in the air on it.

David asked me for a little commentary but right now I have been so busy with work that not much has been happening here, I hope everyone is having a nice spring, ours has been very cool and wet which has led to a lot of nice images for me.

Thanks for stopping by and taking a look.

Took a long weekend down to the Smokies a couple of weeks ago, to get some of the beautiful wildflowers that bloom so profusely there, I came across this scene off the Little Pigeon River.

It was getting very close to dark which gave it this blue color and mood, I could tell by the footprints that this subject had been shot pretty frequently so if you see the same shot somewhere on the web I promise I didn’t steal it !!

In between all the wildflower images I captured this year I was able to gather quite a few of these tasty little morsels, or should I say Morels, this little guy is the Black Morel one of the best edible mushrooms that grow anywhere.

You can usually find them in a lot of the same places that I get most of my wildflower images, deep humus rich hardwood forest with an abundance of Poplar or Black Cherry trees. If you can find the “right” place in the woods ( a very closely kept secret) and the conditions are right you can definitely pick a great harvest of this fungus.

I usually find my biggest crops after a few nights of 50 degree or higher temps and couple good soaking rains, finding them by the hundreds is not unheard of, but to be quite honest I couldn’t possible eat that many so I now leave plenty to propagate for the next years crop. I also like to make sure I pinch them off at the stem as not to disturb the underground system that keeps them coming back, and when picking them I always carry a potato bag so that the spoors can fall from the bag and reseed the population.

There is also the Yellow and White Morels in this area as well, but not nearly as many as the Black, that are just as edible. Just be very sure of what you are eating because there is just not that many mushrooms that you can go out and pick and bring home to eat, it is always better to go with someone who has hunted them for a while to make sure you know what you are doing.