ANOTHER FROSTY MORNING

Even though our fall in southern Wisconsin has been incredibly mild, winter is inevitable, including another frosty, but snow-free, morning.  Here are a few more photos that I got of the frost.

In the first shot, I chose to include a young sprig as a point of interest.

In the second, I was more concerned with the overall compositional balance.

I wound up liking the second shot more, despite the fact that it had no specific focal point of interest.

The elements of the third shot below were more diverse, including both new and old and a variety of colors.

 

All of these were shot with the aid of a tripod.  I thought it was important to keep as much of the image in good focus, so I chose narrow apertures, running from f/16 to f/22.  As a result, exposure times were from 0.3 to 0.6 seconds, much too long for me to take on a hand-held basis.

Finally, while I was at it, I grabbed a photo of my favorite park bench in Mequon, this on the bluff overlooking Lake Michigan in Mequon's Virmond Park.  Colorwise, there wasn't much going on, so I converted the shot to a black & white.

John

BACK TO MITCHELL PARK DOMES

The Mitchell Park Domes, Milwaukee's indoor botanical gardens, have been a mainstay of mine for getting macro shots of flora.  Unfortunately, last winter it became apparent that the facility was going to need major repair.  The Domes were closed for several months to install netting as a stop-gap measure to prevent chunks of the glass-paneled domes from falling on visitors.  Recently, all three domes were re-opened, and this weekend I paid my first visit since last winter.  Here is what I got.

This first was a more or less traditional shot of a chrysanthemum (or similar) flower from the Show Dome.

The next was of a trio of pincushion cacti in the Desert Dome that I converted to a black and white.

I intended this to be a symmetrical shot that would include the "centers" of all three cacti, but it didn't work out that way, and I decided I was happy with the asymmetrical composition.

This following was of a simple leaf in the Tropical Dome that I also converted to a black and white.

Because the leaf was relatively flat, I could go with a relatively wide open aperture of f/3.5 to eliminate any background distractions.  The conversion to black and white seemed to bring out more of the subtle texture in the leaf's surface.

My preference in these shots has been to crop the composition.  This serves the function of allowing more emphasis on detail and leaves to the viewer the task of completing the overall composition.  That could be said as well for the next shot, also of a leaf in the Tropical Dome.

My goal in the following shot of a detail of a large banana leaf was to bring out the fine pattern in the structure of the leaf, which was being backlit by the late morning sun streaming through the glass dome.

My favorite of the shots from this visit to the Domes was of what appeared to be a chard-like plant in the Show Dome.

In this photo, because it was shot at close range (less than a foot) and because the plant's leaves had quite a bit of depth, I used a very narrow aperture of f/40 to preserve as much depth of field as possible.

John M. Phillips

FIRST FROST

This fall weather in Wisconsin has been very kind, and it was only this morning that we had our first real frost in the Milwaukee area.  On my early morning walk in the crisp, calm air, I noticed the heavy frost in the fallen leaves along the quiet streets, so as soon as I got home I grabbed my camera to capture some of the heavy frost before the sun burned it off.

The morning was sunny, but I realized that the colors would be richer in the shade than in the sun.  Moreover, including both sun and shadow in a shot would create distracting contrast.  So I focused on shaded areas.  I wound up taking about 35 shots, but as often happens, I kept only a few.

Generally, I try to stick to "unstaged" scenes, which is what I did here.  I did think to bring my tripod, which was important because I wanted to keep as much of the scene in reasonably good focus.  That meant that I needed to employ narrow apertures for the shots, requiring relatively long exposures.

John

ON WALDEN POND

I first read H.D. Thoreau's Walden when I was about 15 and then reread it for a literature class in college.  But until earlier this month, I had never visited the site of Thoreau's memoir.  We had spent the weekend at a "retreat" in the beautiful hills of central Massachusetts, and our flight back to Milwaukee was scheduled for late on that Sunday evening, so we took the time to visit Walden Pond for a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon.  It was a beautiful fall afternoon and the place was lovely.

The National Park Service has, I believe, done a great job of maintaining the pond in as natural a condition as practicable, given the amount of tourist traffic it must receive.  The pond is about 60 acres in surface area and is largely surrounded by deciduous woods.  Surprisingly, the shores of the pond are sandy and one can circle the pond entirely on the shore.  It is approximately 1.7 miles around the pond.

Alternatively, there are well-manicured paths through the surrounding woods that also circle the pond.

The woods were in great color, as the following photos indicate.

The site of Thoreau's cabin has been located, perhaps 200 yards from the shore, and is marked by stone posts.

The footprint for the cabin appears very small.  My guess is that it was about 10x15 feet.  The site also included this slightly damaged sign, containing a quote from Walden.

Following is another photo I took from the path circling the pond looking out toward the water.  I thought it worked fairly well.

Not perfect, though.  I wanted to overexpose the water to create a blank, non distracting background, without overexposing the foliage.  But the small, reddish-leaved tree remains a little washed out.

Finally, on the way back to the car, I caught this sign.

John

CENTRAL MASSACHUSETTS SCENES

Last weekend we enjoyed our first trip to central Massachusetts, a visit that coincided nicely with the fall color season.  We had a great time.  I thought I would post a few of the photos that I took during our visit.

Some 75 years ago Massachusetts dammed a river in the middle part of the state creating the Quabbin Reservoir, a large, beautiful body of water nestled among the hills of the central part of the state.  Unfortunately, I didn't get any decent broader landscape shots, something I simply am not particularly good at.  Instead, I offer the following.

Paw prints in the sand.

Some lovely ferns along with a sprinkling of pine straw.

A sampling of the fall color leaves.

We also had a wonderful picnic lunch along the Swift River, the stream that was dammed to create the Quabbin Reservoir.

I also took some shots of manmade objects.

I know, I know, this is at the kind of shot that only the photographer could like.

Then there was the sign in a convenience store, Ye Old Grog Shoppe, near where we stayed.  Seriously.  (And the owner of the shop admitted that he did not know what grog actually was.)

A dilapidated duplex that was for sale, along with a closeup of some failed paint.

Finally, the entrance to a lovely stone church that was under renovation.

This last shot I liked for the rose colored doors, the ornate black hinges, and the symmetry.

John

MILWAUKEE POT POURRI

Wandering around Milwaukee during the Doors Open event earlier this month, I took a few random shots mostly unrelated to the venues that I visited, and I thought I would post them here.

I took the first three shots along the Riverwalk, which borders both banks of the Milwaukee River in the downtown area.  The first I converted to black and white to emphasize the abstract pattern the shadows from an iron railing were making in the bright sunlight.

The next was of a coiled rope on a dock along the river.  Someone had taken the pains to wind the rope into a tight spiral.  I wanted to put the rope off-center and focus on the planking, and I thought it worked to convert the image to a black and white to create a semi-abstract.

I left the following as a color photo, even though the image didn't include much in the way of color.  But I wanted to retain the yellow stripe as a point of interest.

The following was actually taken at one of the Doors Open venues, which was a disappointment, as the only portion of the building that was open was the marble-clad foyer.

I took the following shot of a light fixture at the Mackie Building.  I liked it as a black and white abstract.  The one aspect I didn't like was a dark area in the lower portion of the main light globe.

I liked the alley doorway in the following shot enough to keep it.

Wandering another alley downtown, I noticed that I was looking at the Federal Courthouse two blocks to the south and decided to compose the following shot.

I have realized through trial and (a lot of) error that when taking such urban landscape shots it is generally important to include the pavement to "ground" the shot.

In walking from one venue to another, I discovered one of the newer nightclubs in the downtown area called Plum Lounge.  The place was closed, but what caught my eye was a row of plum-colored high-backed chairs.  I took the following shot, which I underexposed to isolate the chairs' color.

My favorite shot of this series was one that featured an interplay between black, steel-wire tables and chairs of an outdoor cafe and the shadows they were casting on the pavement.

In post processing I actually softened this shot a little to create more of an abstract quality.

John

CALVARY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Calvary Presbyterian Church is an enigma.  The church is something of a Milwaukee landmark.  It is located on Wisconsin Avenue west of downtown and just to the east of the north-south freeway.  It's red painted brick exterior and extremely tall and narrow spire set it apart from other religious venues. Here are a couple of shots of the exterior.

The interior of the church is surprisingly bare.  Here is a shot looking toward the rear of the church.

The colored glass windows above the balcony are lovely, even though they are "fake."

I found the prominent dark-stained support timbers informal and somewhat off-putting.  But the most prominent feature of the interior was the cloth drapery in the sanctuary area, as shown in the following shot taken from the balcony.

I asked one of the church representatives what the function of the drapery was.  I assumed it might have an acoustic function.  No, he said, it simply serves to reduce the apparent size of the church.  The congregants, he said, don't feel as overwhelmed.  I asked him what the size of the church's congregation was.  He said it was about 50!  But, he said, it is growing.

John

STAINED GLASS AT ST. JAMES

One of the venues I visited during the 2016 Doors Open Milwaukee event was St. James Episcopal Church, located on Wisconsin Avenue between downtown and the Marquette University campus.  The interior of the church is undistinguished. (or maybe I'm just getting jaded).  Here is the one wide-angled shot of the interior, looking toward the rear, that I kept.

But the stained glass windows are much more impressive, including a pair commissioned to Tiffany.

John