Winter on the Upper Mississippi

Winter on the Upper Mississippi River is a fantastic time to capture images in another little photographed location.  Wisconsin, with the possible exception of Door County, is not much of a vacation destination, let alone a photography destination.  However, do not let that fool you.  Here on the Upper Mississippi River south of the Twin Cities is a true gem of a photography destination.

Most people presume the Midwest is all flat, they are wrong.  The glaciers of the last ice age missed this area and the bluffs along the river here are around 500 feet tall.  It is like being in the hill country.

I was lucky enough to have to do a several week job assignment in the area and jumped at the chance to photograph this place in January and February.  Yes, it was cold.  Several mornings were minus 25 or so.  However that did not deter me from getting out early with the camera to chase the winter light.

Here is a set up and shot I made in the marshes along the Mississippi River near LaCrosse, Wisconsin.  It was below zero this morning as I hiked into the area in the dark.  I found a view of the bluffs and slowly began to set the camera up.  Slow and methodical being the key here.  Large Format is naturally slow, but the cold adds another layer to it.  You have to think about things and you have to be mindful of how you breath.  In other words do not exhale under the dark cloth as that will freeze on your ground glass and your day will be over very quickly.  

I took my time and then waited for the shot.  In the clear morning sky the moon hanging over the bluffs was the best composition I could see.

You may also notice the bag hanging from the tripod.  I stored my lightmeter and digital camera there and wanted to keep them out of the snow.  My large pack was sitting upright in the snow behind me in an area I had stamped down to keep the bag from sinking in the powder.  That helped keep things dry and the snow out.

Autumn on the Great Plains

Autumn on the Great Plains is a little different than most places.  Primarily that means you have to look harder to find fall colors since you have to work more to find trees.  The grasses of the prairies can put on their own colorful display but let's be honest, most people still want trees to photograph.

That usually means looking for cottonwoods along streams and rivers.  However, if one knows where to look there can be other places of color.  

One such place is the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge in southwest Oklahoma. Smack dab in the middle of the south plains between Wichita Falls, Texas and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma a small range of granite mountains pop out of the flat prairies.  

Some of the rocky hills here rise around 800' above the surrounding flatlands.  Streams and small lakes fill the flat valleys between the hills.  Bison, elk, and longhorn roam the refuge.  At some 50,000 acres it is one of the largest areas of public lands on the Great Plains.  It is a fantastic location that is off the beaten path of all but a few local photographers.

It also can put on a great little fall color display.  The rocky slopes of the hills and some of the narrow zig-zag valleys contain some oaks that will put on a little color display in early November.

Here are a couple of images of one early November a couple of years ago.  This is Mt. Sheridan (I presume named for General Phil Sheridan of Civil War fame) in predawn light.

The colors were in great shape that year and this display was one of my favorite scenes.  I am glad I captured it then as the drought of 2011 was severe here and hundreds of acres of the refuge burned that year.  This mountain was one that the fires raged on and today many of those trees are just charred remains.  So while nature has renewed itself, it may be a few years to capture this scene again in full autumn glory.

West Fork Falls

Another view of the falls on the West Fork.  After taking the image in the last post I got in closer for more of a profile view of the falls.  I really wanted to compress the scene as best I could so I went with a bonus lens I have-the old Bausch and Lomb Rapid Rectilinear. 

This is 80+ years old that a buddy found and gave me.  The shutter only partially works.  It will not stop down, so you have to shoot wide open.  The speeds are inaccurate at best, but if you need a 2 second or four second exposure, those are easy to do by just counting. It is also a convertible lens, meaning I can remove one element to double the focal length.

So with on element removed this is about a 300mm lens which makes it my longest.  Now when I go this long that means I also have to have my extra rail and my standard sized bellows as my normal rail and the bag bellows I normally use are too short for this.

With the right set up I am able to bring in my view of the falls to make the water a center piece of my image and not just a small element.

The sky is overcast and I have no problem making it a long exposure to get it right.


One morning and two images/compositions in about 15 minutes.  You know in large format, that is a pretty good day!

Great Falls of the West Fork

The Great Falls of the West Fork of the Trinity River are a little visited spot in Fort Worth.  Hidden under steep bluff in an old park one can find this fantastic 10 foot river spanning waterfall.

It has been one of my favorite places to photograph over the last year.  This was a late winter day when the clouds were thick and I was not even sure if there would be a sunrise.  It seemed like a good day to take out the 4x5 and shoot some film.  

I arrived onsite early in the morning and started picking out a spot for the camera.  I framed up an image with the 210mm lens for a slightly longer than normal view.  Put on my 2 stop grad ND filter to allow for the sky.  Took a meter reading.  It would be a long shot, factor in reciprocity and it was roughly a minute in the dim light.

Decided to go with color and grabbed some Velvia 100F.

Made the image.

Then did a longer exposure with Efke 25 B+W film.

Several weeks went by until the the film was processed.  After looking at them both, I decided the color version, as muted as it was, made the better image.

Fog and Rain

Here is a day we had fog and rain in north Texas and I was west of Cowtown out in Palo Pinto County.  I like doing this drive as it is an interesting place of winding roads, some hills and valleys, some neat views, and you are highly unlikely to run into other photographers interested in the same subject.

This was a large format day when there were several of us with our 4x5 cameras and we had driven west in the dark, stopped for some Dublin DP, and gotten here in the early gloom of a rainy day.  

I like days like this, it is ideal for moody black and white and being in the green of summer, it was the order of the day.

I waited out some rain as it seemed to vary in intensity.  Set up and went into focus mode.  Ended up covering the camera with my jacket once when it picked up a little and then finally got my shot ready.  Efke 25 was the film.  DR-5 was the processing so I could get a chrome.  Scanned it and tweaked for contrast in Photoshop.

One of those good days.  I think I ended up with 3 or 4 nice images that day.  Also, if memory recalls we made it down to Granbury for fried chicken, and that was pretty good too!