Drifting Focus
Tried a little different technique on this shot. I would say on about 95% of my landscape shots, I am shooting at an aperture of f/16 or higher. In this case, I wanted to separate the drift’s edge from the sunset by utilizing a very low aperture of f/2.8. I really like how this separates the image and really draws your attention to the foreground. May have to try this out more often.
Snowy Sunset
Another sunburst sunset shot from the same night. Like I said. I was just a composing mad man during that 10 minutes or so when the sun creeped out from under the cloud deck until it disappeared below the horizon.
Yucca by Winter’s Light
Hope everyone was able to experience some good times with family and friends. I know I sure did. Today’s shot is another from the night after our big snow storm rolled through. I was hoping for a little more snow than we got, but it was still enough for my boys to enjoy and enough to hang around for a white Christmas, so you won’t hear me complaining.
Drifting Sun
I love how photography has changed my view on the world. If you would have told me a couple of years ago that all I would have to work with in a photo is a snow drift, I probably wouldn’t have even bothered trying to take the picture. Now days, it seems that some of the simplest subjects can make the most interesting shots. It all depends on your perspective.
I wanted to take a quick moment on here to thank all of you for your encouraging words and continued support on my blog. It has been just over a year now that I have began posting a picture a day (almost everyday) and it has been the greatest year in photography for me by far. I’ve learned more in the past year than I have all the other years I’ve dabbled in the craft prior to this one. I hope you all have a Merry Christmas surrounded by the ones you love and hold dear! Cheers!
Winter Wonderland
One of the things I seems to enjoy most when out taking pictures is the rush to find a new perspective in the little time you have during a setting sun. On this night, I managed to capture 4 or 5 different comps with the sunburst as it transitioned from the clouds to the horizon. I was sprinting like a mad man in upwards of a foot and a half of drifted snow trying to find different looks. I kept running higher up the hill in this shot as the sun continued to drop lower in the sky. This shot was one of the earlier sunburst shots I took that cold snowy evening. But it was a blast (not to mention a little exercise as well, it’s hard to sprint when there is snow up to your knee caps).
Weeds of Winter
As all of you may have noticed, there has been a serious lack of new posts on the blog lately. The reason is pretty simple, just haven’t had time. Weekends have been eaten up with football, weddings and holiday family time. And as I’m sure you all know, there isn’t much time after work to go shoot with the sun setting only a half hour after five. Fortunately I was able to get out and shoot a little last night after we had a pretty nasty blizzard move through the area. Quite a bit of snow and a lot of wind. A lot of drifting occurred and left some pretty sweet lines in the snow. Hope everyone has been doing well and preparing for a very merry Christmas!
Sprinkler Sunrise
A couple of early morning shots before the sun crossed the horizon. There is no shortage of these irrigation sprinklers around Garden. The irrigation engine that is at the center of the sprinkler pivot has a light on top of it that blinks periodically at night. When driving down the country roads at night, it’s cool to look around and see just how many irrigated circles there are around.
‘Tis the Season’
Another year has flown by and once again it is time to untangle the huge knot of christmas lights and throw them up on the roof. Decorating for the holidays is always something I’ve enjoyed doing. I try to set out a big display for halloween as well as for ol’ Saint Nick. This year I added the candy cane appearance to the poles on the porch and my wife added a strand of multicolored lights to the front bush….what’s that, you don’t see the multi-color strand. Well, they were “accidentally” unplugged for the picture… 🙂 Hope everyone is having a great holiday season!
Water Strider
Hope eveyone had a great Thanksgiving. I had lots to be thankful for this year, and I was able to spend this past week with those people that I am thankful to have in my life.
Today’s shot is another from, you guessed it, the River Pond on the south side of Tuttle Creek Damn. Now back to the grind…
Foggy Convergence
Today’s shot takes us back to the iron railway bridge that crosses the Big Blue in Manhattan, KS. As I mentioned in an earlier post, this location was a complete accident and the fog was just complete luck. This was my “backup” location due to the fact that there wasn’t any water flowing over Pillsbury Crossing. I really wanted to get back to the bridge with the fall colors setting in, but I just didn’t have the time while up visiting in the little apple.
Once again, I am torn between the color version of this shot and the B&W. I still think I like the purple hues of the foggy morning enough that it puts the color version up top for me, but I still like the classic look of the B&W as well. Opinions?
Autumn Shore
Back to the third location on River Pond. I have a seven shot panoramic to stitch at some point involving this area of the pond, but I’ve yet to get around to it. You never see days like this in Kansas with no wind and a lake surface like glass. Was really a pretty fortunate morning.
Serenity at Sunrise
Found a nice little relaxing spot at the end of a dock on Tuttle Creek Lake to sit back and enjoy the sunrise.
Hidden in the Mist
Another shot from the first location the morning of the Tuttle Creek Lake shoot. More of a telephoto landscape shot. This one shot at 85mm. Love the mood the fog and reflection create in this shot.
Tree & Trees
I found this awesome tree extending out into the lake from the banks of the south side of Tuttle Creek Lake that I really wanted to incorporate into a bunch of different pictures. This tree looked like it was an arm with a hand at the end grasping into the water. Really cool looking. However, the angle that which it was facing the trees across the pond made it very tricky to compose in a pleasing manner. Ultimately I only took two or three sets of brackets with it because I just couldn’t find a comp that didn’t have the tree blocking the background or just look out of place. Here is one of the sets that I took.
Reach to the Sky
Well, I fell asleep last night on the couch and didn’t get a chance to process any new material last night, so I had to upload one that is similar to the Fall tree picture from a couple of weeks ago. I must be getting old because I just can’t stay awake late in the evening like I used to. Hope everyone had a great weekend, I know myself and my KSU wildcats did! Did everyone catch the four overtime thriller in the little apple? It was quite a game!
Reflected
Third location of the day here. This is from a little access pond area on the southeast side of the River Pond at Tuttle Creek. This is where I would say the best colors of Fall were showing up. It took about a 15 foot climb down a pretty steep bank to get to the recessed shore line. I’m never a fan of trying this with my gear, but sometimes you have to get a little risky to be where you want to be for the right composition. Hope everyone has a great weekend filled with incredible light. Cheers!
Autumn Road
Another shot from mile marker 17 in SW Kansas. Nice little dirt road right off the highway with a plethora (“Jefe, what is a plethora?” <- Great movie) of trees that were an amazing golden yellow hue lit by the evening sun.
Recommended Preservation
Hope you all don’t mind more shots from Tuttle Creek. I went through almost two 8gb cards that morning from three different locations and lots of different comps at each. This one is back at the dock. It’s hard to see in the first dock shot, but there was a painted life preserver at the very end of the dock that I felt added an extra element to this shot. The fog was starting to thin out at this point so the reflection became more and more prevalent as the time went by.
Hidden Dock
Another shot from Tuttle Creek. I wish I could have had a whole day to shoot this location, but alas, college football got the best of me. I shot near the lake shore the whole time I was there, but the truly great colors were located about a quarter of a mile off the lake in the park area. But I definitely wanted to chance to get as many lake shots as I could so I stayed close to the water.
Fall at Tuttle Creek
Took a “few” panoramic shots while up at Tuttle this past weekend. This is one that I ended up cropping down a little because I felt the original was too long. I ended up cropping off about 1/4 of the original picture from the right of the scene. I went ahead and put up a little larger file today so you can see the details a little easier. To me, it always seems difficult view a panoramic shot online because the shot is so small on the screen, even though it is more detailed than a normal shop typically. The pixels for this shot ended up being 3942 x 14355, so I think I’ve got enough detail to print out an 8″ x 30″ or so…. 🙂
(click to see a larger view of this shot)
Autumn’s Reflection
This shot was taken pre-dawn by about 5 minutes here, so there is no direct sunlight on these trees. This and the fog slightly mutes the colors, but it was still light enough to pick up all the different hues in the trees. From my education as an optometrist, I’m always curious to see how colors turn out in pictures compared to what my brain saw them as at the time the picture was taken. Have you ever noticed that a blue flower looks more vibrant and colorful when the sun is low in the sky or in total shade? And how that same blue flower may look completely different in the middle of the day. This is because your color vision is associated with two different types of vision: Scotopic and Photopic. In short, the rods and cones in the back of your eye are responsible for capturing what you see. There are 120 million rods and around 6-7 millions cones. During well-lit vision (photopic), the cones are primarily used and they perceive three main wavelengths of blue, blue-green and yellow-green, which essentially provides normal color perception. However, during low-light vision (scotopic), the cones are essentially non-functional and the eye uses mainly rods for color perception. These rods are most sensitive to the blue-green wavelength and therefore, objects that reflect this specific wavelength appear brighter and more vibrant than during a well-lit time. And I guess my thought is, if I look at a picture that was taken during low-light conditions, do I still perceive the scene the same as I would while I was standing there. Just a cool thought about your eyes and color perception that I thought all you photogs would enjoy.
Dock at Tuttle
This was my second stop on Saturday Morning. There was a spot on the north side of Tuttle that had two docks on either side of a boat ramp. The larger was occupied by a family fishing and this long walkway was empty. The trick about this shot was the motion of the dock. It was a free-floating structure and would move when you walked on it. The good thing about this morning was that the water was calm enough, it wasn’t moving at all.
Highway Foliage
Some of you may recognize this shot from a tweet last week. I took this just off of Highway 156 near mile marker 17 on the south side of the road. An incredible assortment of varying fall colors lined the single track road. My sister had passed by these earlier in the day and gave me the heads up.
Fog at First Light
Had one of the best outings I’ve had in a while this past Saturday morning. I was fortunate enough to find that the fall foliage was hanging around, waiting for me to get back up to Manhattan before making it’s total transition. Last time I was up, I spent the morning at the River Pond on the south side of Tuttle Creek Dam and basically spent the morning scouting locations. There wasn’t that great of color change and the conditions were just so-so. Well, this past weekend was another story entirely. I woke up early, before twilight lifted, and made my way to the park to buy my vehicle permit. After that I made my way down to the water’s edge to find a spot overlooking the lake. There is a small centralized island of trees in the middle of the pond that I was hoping to shoot this time with some fall colors. What I didn’t expect was the amount of fog that was laying on the surface. Huge pockets of dense fog rolled across a lower lying sheet of fog that lied directly above the smooth water surface. I couldn’t shoot fast enough. Reflected Autumn colors all around and the sun was quickly rising. I debated about breaking out my ND filters but I didn’t want to get complacent in one location and miss out on some other opportunities. So I grabbed a few (25 or so) shots per location and then moved on. This shot was taken at the first spot I stopped at and it was about 10 minutes or so before sunrise.
Scott Ackerman Photography 