Prairie Rose Cafe

I'm continuing my exploration of the prairie using high speed video recording on the iPhone. These small flies were busy one morning last week and tolerated the close up attachment that requires a distance of about an inch for optimum focus. Recorded at 240 fps which means one second of action translates into 8 seconds of video. Now if I could afford a more sophisticated camera that records in high speed. Most cameras limit the shooting time to a few seconds because of the intense onboard computer commitment to process and store that volume of information. The high end cameras have a pre-record feature so you can save the action after it has happened. This is a great feature since it can take several seconds for a camera to transfer the information to a memory card.

A Tripod & iPhone

Standing out in the crowd

You can't get much lighter than that. My initial attempts iPhonography were dismal. Of course, it was the quality of the phone's camera. Then I noticed I was ignoring all the principals of photography. Getting back to the basics, a tripod and shooting the light, changed my shots. Technology in the 21st century may have changed but photography is still the same as it has been since the 19th century. Now I just have to remember to turn off the phone when out in the prairie.

Iphone, Instagrams, & Nature

Can an iPhone6 capture an image your brain sees? That's the question I have been exploring since upgrading an old iPhone. Then what do you do with the images?  There are real challenges to getting a good iPhone image.  The stock camera app is weak for someone spoiled by DSLR settings, a much better app is Pro Camera which has full DSLR features for tweaking WB, exposure, and focus. It also has a good enhancing  platform. Of course, you can always use Lightroom to enhance your images. However, unless you go directly from the phone it is a lot of work to go to Lightroom and then back to your phone to get the images into Instagram.

Technical: Instagram only accepts square images. Image on left shot with fill flash. On the right human diffuser used on a sunny afternoon.

Bottomline: Share nature your images of nature any way you can. It is disappearing from the hearts and minds of too many people.

Hepatica and insect

I have been getting rusty with video so was happy to find this common bug on a hepatica group last month. My knowledge of bugs is limited to the categories of common or uncommon. This is a common insect I have not taken the time to identify. That's the beauty of photography, I can enjoy it without naming it.

Wild Ginger

There is "wet belly" photography on the prairie and "nose to the ground" photography in the woods. In this case it helped that there was a steep hillside. This intricate flower has an unpleasant aroma that attracts flies for pollination.

Winter Textures

I went to Flandrau State Park to look for winter prairie images.The textures in the flower and snow caught my attention on the background of white and blue.

Take a Break From the Big Picture

In photography we tend to concentrate on the big picture, the grand landscape, and charismatic megafauna. In life at this time of year we are focused on the number and size of presents. Take 30 seconds to watch one of God's little creatures. Say thank you to the harried clerk, look for the twinkle in the eye of a child, and remember how this all started.

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?"

The Digital Sketchbook

I often talk about doing a digital sketchbook when teaching.  The idea is that a subject attracts my attention for a reason that is not readily apparent but through a visual exploration the reason eventually is found.  Last week this image was the final result of a sketchbook.  I lost count of the time and number of sketches during the process, part of the joy of photography. The starting image is below. Technical: no cropping, saturation -57.