The Fight

This battle lasted most of the morning with intermittent breaks for rest and recovery. Only when the hen from the previous post arrived did the attention of these males turn away from fighting. I would have loved to captured this in slow motion but was afraid to switch cameras and miss the action. The light was also a little low for the higher shutter speed needed to record slow motion ( 1/250 vs 1/60).

Courting the Lady

This frenzy of activity took place on the lek last weekend. The first two hours were spent keeping warm, watching males dance, and then stare at each other. The next hour flew by with this nonstop activity.  I hope this will entice you to visit the blind in the future.

Technical: Recorded one morning using a Canon C100 and Sony a7r2 with a 100-400 lens and Rode Videomic.

Mornng Mood

Cool colors and light, early morning fog: What more could you ask for? As the sun was rising I raced to the west side of Namekagon Barrens to catch it and the back lit bushes.  Landscape photography is an intense race to the best location in quickly changing light all with the goal of creating a calm, peaceful scene.

Technical: HDR technique with blending in Lightroom

Sunrise Web

Spider webs were motionless as the sun rose through the ground fog. This web caught my attention and was motionless long enough to get images for HDR processing. My imagination tells me the sun will soon be dropping into the web basket.

Almost in time

I had a brief opportunity to record the milky way this weekend.  I set the alarm and arrived at Namekagon Barrens just as nautical twilight was starting, hence the blue sky. The beauty of Namekagon is the ground fog that obscures light pollution for cities along the 35W corridor. I was a little late, as the sky brightened the milky way faded with a few minutes. Always a next time...
 

Lines and Space

Sometimes simple lines and space represent the state of mind which occurred as I was looking over the south unit of Namekagon Barrens. Space, distance, curiosity, dreaming, wonder, peace are words that come to mind looking at this image

Technical: Red leaves anchor the front of the image with curved lines gently leading into the distance. 

Moonlight at Dusk

We see snow as white in almost all light conditions just because that is what our brain is telling us the color should be, then we take a shot and see the color as the camera does. Sometimes that color works to create the mood we have envisioned, other times it doesn't. This night shot was taken recently and blue snow bothered me. Using the split filter in Lightroom I desaturated the snow making it white. 

Kestrel in the Storm

This guy was waiting out the snow while still looking for lunch. I was impressed by its delicate nature and small size. The gray sky and the kestrel's subtle color made this a perfect shot to convert to black and white.

Technical: converted to b & w in Lightroom

September Color

I love early morning dew on prairie wildflowers.  The prairie wildflower rainbow of color is now in its blue/purple phase. Subtle early morning side lighting makes the dew drops leap off the petals. The composition question is "Where is the best location for the center of the aster?" or "Should this be a square frame?" Life was so much simpler when an image was a slide and the only question was "Why didn't I think of that when I took the picture?"

Blue Dawn

I went to Namekagon Barrens for sunrise yesterday and instead had fantastic ground fog to play with. It seems ironic that an area almost devoid of trees needs one to create a landscape image. Technical: Daylight white balance, foreground lightened in Lightroom

Sleepy Duskywing

I love the names!  I spent yesterday at Namekagon Barrens in NW Wisconsin with several butterfly enthusiasts.  Butterflies have an incredibly complex life history whether they are brightly colored or more subdue like the duskywing group.  Namekagon is off the beaten path but an ideal macro photography location with prairie wildflowers and their associated butterflies, bees, and other insects.