reflections

This Photo #3
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This Photo #3

Canoes with Morning Reflection

Image 5105     Date:  April, 2016

A couple of years before this, I had begun photographing the canoes at Devil’s Den State Park.  Probably, I had seen similar photographs of canoes elsewhere (I know – who hasn’t?), and was inspired to make my own version.  Each time I revisited these canoes, I would make new photographs, and with each visit, it seemed my photographs improved.

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On this day, we were holding our spring macro photography workshop in the park.  I arrived early, and while waiting, I walked to the canoe docks.
From early spring to late fall, the park rents the canoes and paddle boats for use on the Park’s little lake, formed from Lee Creek.  It’s a very small lake.  Besides the lake, the Park has miles of hiking trails, waterfalls, and plenty of the rugged beauty Arkansas is known for.  It is my favorite Arkansas State Park. Continue reading →

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This Photo, #2
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This Photo, #2

Paintbrush Reflections
Image 00842, date 2007

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Years ago, I saw my first image of water drops refracting a background flower, probably in Outdoor Photographer magazine.  I was fascinated, and began the  pursuit of my own water drop reflection photos…

Occasionally, I am asked if the photos are real or if I created them in the computer.  Signs of the times, I guess.  These are 100% “real.”  The water drops are from dew, occasionally rain, and the reflected image (“refracted”, actually) is just as I saw it.

This morning was bright, sunny, and humid at Cherokee Prairie Natural Area, but with a slight breeze, so I needed to keep the shutter speed up and still shoot at f/16. However, the photo was dark – very underexposed.  I either misread the meter’s suggestion or ignored it, or the camera erred, and underexposed the image.  The problem probably was not the camera.  So, I adjusted exposure and made another photo, then moved on to another composition.

Later, in post-processing, when I looked on the computer, that second photo was blurred – that pesky breeze.  My first thought was that I had blown the shot; one was blurry, and the other was underexposed.  And, I had only made 2 photos…

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original image, unedited

I opened the first image, the dark one, in PaintShop Pro and increased overall exposure of the RAW file by two stops.  It was amazing – the Sony .ARW image was beautiful!  It held up really well to being lightened.  (For comparison, I tried the same adjustment on the camera’s jpeg version, and it was not pretty…)  I have always shot RAW ever since.

Over the years, I have made a good number of water drop photos like this, but “Paintbrush Reflections” is still one of my favorites.  Just the same, I look forward to wildflower season, and more attempts to make the perfect image.

May we all continue to look for great light!

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Red Reflections

I first saw reflections in water drops in a magazine – probably Outdoor Photographer.  The photos were fascinating, and I decided it was a subject/technique I needed to learn.  There were a number of failures over the years, until this photo.

On the day I took this, I was visiting Cherokee Prairie Natural Area.  In fact, I had been there for a while, searching the Prairie for just the right combination of water drops, grass tangles, flowers, and light.  I had no success, and was walking back to my truck, when at the very edge of the parking area was a perfect arrangement.  I set the tripod up in the short grass of the parking area, and made a number of exposures…

One of the problems with making these photographs is that all of the vegetation – grass, flowers, shrubs, briars – is connected!  Setting a tripod up without causing the water drops to fall is sometimes impossible.  Often, I get it almost just right, move the tripod – or the camera & lens – and bump or pull something, causing the water drops to disappear.  So, finding this at the parking lot was exciting!  Ever since that day, I always look around the parking area before heading off into the grasses of the prairie…

Wild rose reflected in water drops on grass

Wild rose reflected in water drops on grass
Cherokee Prairie State Natural Area, near Charleston, Arkansas

I have always like the sharpness of this image, but would like to have the same situation again; I think it deserves some different compositions, and would like to shoot it with one of today’s higher resolution cameras.  However, photographs are the reflection of a moment, then it’s history.  As much as we might wish to relive our past, we cannot…  😉

 

Minolta Maxxum 7D, Minolta Maxxum 100 mm macro lens, Manfrotto tripod.