Tamron

In late March, I took a week off from work. The first day, I went to see a waterfall along the Mulberry River. It’s one of those only showy during the rainy season, and the week before, we had substantial rainfall; unfortunate for those on spring break, but a nice set up for waterfall hunters. 🙂 Three years ago, my friends Mike Leonard (www.michaelleonardphotography.org) and Jim Anderson showed this particular waterfall to us, and Gayle and I were fortunate to sell some prints from this location.

So, I drove there again this year. Here’s what I found.

To get to this spot requires a climb of about 150 feet up the side of the steep hill. I think it’s worth the effort. After a series of photos at this spot, I moved to the other side, and further up the hill:

What I didn’t notice in this image were the white wildflowers at the lower left. My excuse is that I was concentrating on the waterfall and on not falling! It was steep and slippery…

So, recently, Mike Leonard was printing this photo for a display at Bedford’s, and pointed out the flowers to me. I looked them up in Audubon’s Guide to North American Wildflowers on my iPhone. They are “Eastern Shootingstar.” I’d never taken a photo of them. But – they bloom from April to June, so a few days ago, I went back to see if they had bloomed again.

Back up the hill. This time, the waterfall was only a trickle. No shootingstars bloomed. Not surprised, but I was disappointed. However, the spiderworts were in full bloom and everywhere! 🙂

Spiderworts have long been a favorite of mine, and I seldom pass on an opportunity to photograph them. After this photograph, and others, I headed back down the hill, then the short walk back to where I had parked. Beside the road, so close that my tripod was partially in the road, was this little flower.

Looks to me like a freshly bloomed Eastern Shootingstar! There was only one bloom, but to the left are several buds. I didn’t see any others in the area, nor during the walk back to the car. So… my biggest disappointment that morning was that the enemy Time passed far too quickly. 🙂

All photos were taken with the Sony Alpha 77. For the flowers, I used the Minolta 100mm macro lens; the waterfall photos were shot with a Tokina 11-16 f/2.8 and a Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 lens.

After record breaking heat in the summer of 2011, many of us, including me, did not expect much in the way of “color” in the fall. However, we were pleasantly surprised and had a very colorful fall – one of my favorite seasons.

Autumn in Arkansas and Oklahoma is brief, and each year brings a different look. Occasionally, as in 2009, we’ve had an unusually wet fall, giving us water falls, and flowing streams to complement the color. But, more often, it’s a relatively dry season. It’s a time of change, and a photographer is challenged to be at the right place at the right time to make an image to represent the season.

On this morning, I was driving to work, but had left home early enough to stop if I saw the right scene, in pleasant light. Here’s one image I stopped to make. Initially, I pointed my camera toward the just-risen sun, but that wasn’t the image I wanted. So, I turned around, and saw the clouds, the sky, the yellow leaves, and the tree line.

What you see here, was shot as a RAW file, cropped slightly to rid the image of a light pole on the right, and some pavement on the left. Using Corel After Shot Pro, and Corel Paint Shop Pro X4, I’ve adjusted color balance, levels, and sharpness. Camera was the Sony Alpha 700, with a Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 lens. Exposure was 1/250 sec. at f/5.6, ISO 200.

Fort Smith Park is on Wheeler Avenue, just west of Midland Boulevard in Fort Smith, and includes numerous picnic tables, a boat ramp to the Arkansas River, and is visited by a large number of area residents throughout the year. It’s an old park, with old trees; a park I often visit for photographs, and I’m seldom disappointed…

November 2011

Millican Photography

Photography by Larry Millican

Of Waterfalls and Wildflowers

Fort Smith Park Autumn