Another Surprise Lily

Posted on August 20, 2011 by Craig

A bit closer to home, here’s a flower from my own backyard. Last year I posted a photo of a surprise lily that I noticed while mowing the yard, and this year I repeated the process. Maybe I’m just more attuned, but it sure seems like we have a much better crop of lilies this year.

Surprise lily

I did a few photos in the yard, but I ended up bringing a cutting into the studio for more control. The lighting couldn’t be much more simple, just a large softbox to camera left and a large reflector on the other side. The background is actually white seamless paper, but it’s so far back and away from the light that it’s rendered as nearly black.

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Honeymoon Lake at Jasper National Park

Posted on August 16, 2011 by Craig

Here’s one last photo from Canada. This one shows Honeymoon Lake in Jasper National Park in the Canadian Rockies. We were camped about 100 feet from the lake shore, so all I needed to do was walk over after supper. I love the way the reflections turn a sunset photo into something more abstract.

Honeymoon Lake in Jasper National Park

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Waterfowl Lake in Banff National Park, Canada

Posted on August 12, 2011 by Craig

Here’s another photo from Canada. This one is Upper Waterfowl Lake in Banff National Park. We had a beautiful campsite right along the water, but the weather gods were against us that day. Sunset was cloudy and rainy, and sunrise the next morning was not much better. However, by the time we got on the road, the sky was clearing. This photo was from a short trail that led down to a beautiful lake.

Upper Waterfowl Lake in Jasper National Park

We both fell in love with the Canadian Rockies. We’ve always heard they are spectacular, and they didn’t disappoint us. With beautiful sights around every corner, you just can’t take a bad picture.

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The Value of Being Prepared

Posted on August 6, 2011 by Craig

This is one of my favorite images from Central Canada. We were camping at Audy Lake in Riding Mountain National Park, and as we were registering for the campsite, I ran into another photographer. He was much more prepared though, and had brought along a canoe and an extra tent to serve as props. We decided to pool our resources and got set up for a sunset photo shoot.

Fisherman on Audy Lake in Riding Mountain National Park

As luck would have it, there were also a couple of fisherman on the lake. Amazingly, they trolled past the dock area at just the right time to be silhouetted against the twilight glow in the west.

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Windmills on the Illinois Prairie

Posted on July 25, 2011 by Craig

It seems that I’ve been chasing windmills lately. I went out last night for a sunset photo shoot and ended up around the wind farm east of Delavan. There wasn’t any wind at the time, so all of the windmills were parked. I was able to get a sharp image of the blades even though I was using a long exposure. Normally, when you use a long exposure, the blades become so blurred that you can’t see them.  These two windmills were positioned perfectly with the near one parked head-on and the more distant on sitting in profile.

Windmills on the Illinois Prairie

Twilight is one of my favorite times for photography. This photo was taken about 20 minutes after sunset during the civil twilight period. The orange glow on the horizon and the sky fading from light to dark blue is completely natural. In fact, this is one of those rare photos that seemed to just fall out of the camera ready to print.

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