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Not in Africa….
No, I’m not in Africa… ;-) Yesterday I just left Düsseldorf, Germany, where I spent last week at DRUPA, the world’s largest trade show for the graphic industry. It still goes on for another week. It was as always an exhausting event. I’m now in my old home town Bautzen, Germany and look forward to be tomorrow at the wedding of my son and his future wife. There was no time for good photography during the last nine days but this sculpture at the airport was worth a quick click. Just wanted to say hello to all my friends and followers of my blog. Stay tuned, I hope I have something better to show here soon.
Nature clicks #101 – Red-winged Blackbird
- Nikon D300s, Sigma 50-500mm / f4.5-6.3 APO DG HSM
It is easy to neglect the birds that we can see all the time along the roads. The Red-winged Blackbird is present at many places here in Iowa. It is a very dominant bird and can attack humans or other birds that interfere with the territory they claim as theirs.
I checked a place in the Green Island Wetlands for the arrival of its cousin, the Yellow-winged Blackbird, but I couldn’t find any so far. It may have been still a few days too early. I hope they will be back again. In the meantime I just enjoy making pictures of the red-winged. ;-)
Nature clicks #100 – Great Egret
- Nikon D300s, Sigma 50-500mm / f4.5-6.3 APO DG HSM
It was a great day for wildlife photography today. A thin layer of clouds made for nice and soft light. The only requirement for a decent image was to keep the clouds and their gray reflections on the water out of the frame. Lots of birds are in the Green Island Wetlands right now. However, birds in flight against the sky or swimming on reflecting water were not really an option today. I looked for spots were the water did not reflect so much but that was not always easy. The Great Egrets are back and if you can get close enough they are always worth a click. They are usually not as shy as the Great Blue Herons.
I really wanted to go to the Green Island Wetlands today. Because of my recent business travel my last visit there was already more than three weeks ago and my next visit will be probably not much before the end of May. Yes, I look forward to travel again next week. I go over to Germany for a big trade show in Düsseldorf and after that I fly to my home town for my son’s wedding. As you can imagine the long lens will be left home but I hope to snap a few pictures while traveling.
I may post a couple more shots from today’s adventure, so please stay tuned…
- Nikon D300s, Sigma 50-500mm / f4.5-6.3 APO DG HSM
Nature clicks #99 (or Arizona, part 5)
The only wildlife I had in front of my lens in Arizona was this lizard, who was very well camouflaged on this old tree trunk. While I processed the image on my computer I became aware that this is actually a “butt shot” and but shots are rude. Lizards are not running around here in Eastern Iowa in great numbers and so I think it is ok to show this picture anyway ;-) . I still like the shot because the lizard placed himself in this sunny spot on the tree trunk. The picture was taken just below the Montezuma Castle, a pueblo that was built in the cliffs of the Verde Valley. The Southern Sinagua, a culture that lived and farmed in the Verde Valley, built these pueblos by about 1150 but they were abandoned by the early 1400s for unknown reasons. Montezuma Castle is one of the best preserved prehistoric structures in the Southwest. (Source: Visitor information brochure Montezuma Castle / Tuzigoot, National Park Service)
Montezuma Castle
More from Arizona, part 4
I’m still working on my images from last week’s trip to Arizona and I like to show you a few more.
The little miner town Jerome has a very interesting attraction. The Gold King Mine and Ghost Town is just a mile north of Jerome. A fascinating place, hard to describe with words (at least for me).The location of the Gold King Mine was originally the community of Haynes, a suburb of Jerome in 1890. If you like to read more about it click HERE. This will lead you to the Sedona Verde Valley Tourism Council website, which has a pretty good story about this place and its owner.
As a photographer you may get lost. It is not hard to make up your mind where to point the lens first. Lots of good old stuff. As an engineer, I just got carried away by looking at all the old mechanical wonders of the past. From old mining equipment, to probably more than a hundred old trucks and cars, machines and tools, and of course the old buildings of the ghost town.
The museum closes at 5PM and light is harsh during the day. But hey, we have HDR these days and subjects, like you can find them in a historical place like this, can bare quite a bit of “HDR-retro-tweaking”, as I like to call it. Nothing to loose for me… ;-)
Red Rock Country, part 3
Slide Rock State Park
A wonderful place to be is the Slide Rock State Park, located in the Oak Creek Valley between Flagstaff and Sedona, Arizona. I stopped there yesterday morning. The colors of the surrounding canyon walls were still not washed out, like later during the day, and I tried to capture the essence of this lovely landscape.
The house at the entrance of the state park caught my attention. I love how the white trim and the stairs speak a clear graphic language and emphasize the design of the house in its natural setting.
- 3413 + 2164
Today, on my way back to Phoenix, I stopped at several interesting locations. One of them was the train depot in Clarkdale, Arizona. Unfortunately the passenger train had already left for a tour with visitors, but those two diesel locomotives were parked at the depot. The puffy clouds made for a nice background and nobody was there to bother me while I took the pictures between the railroad tracks. More to come…
Red Rock Country, part 2
Street in Jerome, Arizona
Another quick post from my short trip into RedRock Country. Yesterday I went from Flagstaff to Jerome. Jerome is an old miner town tucked to the slope of a mountain. Lots of tourists and bikers, and there is always something interesting to see. The harsh light during the day made me keep the camera in the bag for landscape photography most of the time but some of the fun stuff I saw in Jerome needed to be captured. On my way back to Flagstaff some clouds developed over the desert and I gave it a trial.
- Bar in Jerome, Arizona
Red Rock Country
