Category Archives: Spirituality and Photography

Indian Summer

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It’s been cooler but now it has warmed up into Indian Summer.  Great day to be out in the woods and down by the water.


I’m trying to turn over a new leaf and not spend so much effort shooting leaves in the water but it’s hard to break away, there are so many interesting opportunities.


But progress is being made.


Still shooting leaves but at least they are now on dry land.  Very dry land.  We’ve had little rain in the last couple of months.


I’m going down to Brown County with friends tomorrow.  Maybe there will be opportunities other than leaves in the water.  Maybe.

A few small things

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My friend Sally and I went to a nature preserve outside of Cicero, IN this morning.  The sky was clear and it was rather windy.  The wind was sporadic and in between gusts there were opportunities for photographing plant life.


I go with every intention to photograph landscapes but I keep coming back to the small things.


I think one reason for shooting small things is that there are so many of the them and they are often overlooked.  Lots of opportunities there.

There were opportunities down by the creek as well.


There is something about these images that connote both motion and stillness, the ephemeral and the permanent.


These two images were shot a couple of minutes apart.  I was not aware of how pronounced the effect of surface tension is until I started photographing leaves in water.


Perhaps I’ll get out again tomorrow.

More than color

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There is no doubt autumn foliage can be beautiful.  New England, for example, will soon be filling up with ‘leaf peepers’ who travel significant distances to see what fall has to offer.  There are even websites tracking the status of autumn color.


We’ve had a lot of dry weather in Indiana this year, there are bans on open burning in over 50 counties in the state.  No one expects the leaves here to be very colorful this autumn.  But if the foliage in general will be comparatively dull in color, there are exceptions.


And one needs to be in the right place at the right time.


The sun backlit this maple leaf for only a few minutes and then it was gone.

But if the color is not there as we would like to see it, the texture of leaves is still with us.


If you picked up these leaves you would have to be careful with them or they would crumple and fall apart.  But as long we just look at them, preferably closely, the texture is there and it is beautiful.


Time to go do some more shooting.  Today’s leaves will be different from yesterday’s.

At Fall Creek

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I went back to Fall Creek today intending to shoot more leaves in the water.  That had worked nicely the other day but today, unlike then, there was virtually no wind.  Hence few leaves falling in the water.  But there were some.  I especially like the way surface tension shows up.  That can be a design element for photographers.

If there weren’t many leaves there were logs in the water and this was interesting too.

I liked the symmetry here.


There was a lot of color but I thought it distracted from form.  Jay Maisel, an outstanding photographer, repeating what he had been told, once said that color is the enemy of form.  I can see what he means.


A few leaves did show up eventually.  I’ll go back tomorrow.

Indiana Transportation Museum

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Our camera club went to Noblesville, IN last weekend to photograph at the Indiana Transportation Museum.  There were a lot of old train cars on sidings and there were many opportunities for photographers.






Lots of opportunities for simple, graphic and vivid shots.

This image is a combination of three shots, one overexposed, one underexposed and another at the recommended setting.  It was processed with high dynamic range software.  Yes, the colors were that vivid.  The dynamic range of a single shot would not have been sufficient to capture the detail in the lighter and darker areas.


It is well worth visiting the Indiana Transportation Museum.

Leaves and water

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I went over to Fort Harrison State Park yesterday morning.  We had had a long spell of hot weather (record breaking on at least one day) and cooler air followed a front into the area.  In other words, it was still pretty warm but it was windy.  Not a good day for exacting close up work.  But it did mean that leaves would be falling on the water at Fall Creek.  I went down there and it was a bonanza.




The wind did die down long enough to do a little close up work.


I wonder what is out there today?

Wondering around

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Mom patted me on the shoulder and said to the aide: ‘He’s a good boy.’  I turned 71 last week and I’m a good boy.  Well, Mom is 94.


This ‘boy’ doesn’t walk as fast as he used to and that’s good.  The faster you walk the more you have to treat the rest of the stuff in the world as potential obstacles to be avoided.  Walking slower, moseying, means you can see what else is there and perhaps appreciate it more.


One’s eyes don’t have to be old to see what is nearby though.  I ran into a librarian friend of mine this morning who had a young teen-age girl with her.  While we were talking the girl spotted a dead mole and a six inch garter snake and who knows what else within a six foot radius of where we were standing.  My friend tells me the girl is interested in photography.  She indeed has a good eye.


The cycle of the year is approaching its last quarter and if the year is aging it doesn’t appear to be slowing down.  We have defined time in an objective way in hours, minutes and seconds counted off by an atomic clock.  But the experience of time is anything but objective.  It does seem that days rush past faster as we get older but walking more slowly helps bring a bit more sanity to it.


And we can see more interesting stuff.

It’s a time for wondering.

Some flowers

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Going into the woods, a field, anywhere, for that matter, where there are good opportunities for photography is, for me, akin to going into a beautiful cathedral.  There is beauty and if I am still enough inside, there is a Presence.  I spell Presence with a capital ‘P’ because it is something beyond comprehension and while elusive, present none the less, open to awareness at some level.  I think this is one of the main reasons for loving photography.  It brings me closer to the Presence.  I’ll say no more about it now and simply ask you to go out yourself and be open to the Presence.

Here are some of the images I got today in the Presence.





It was a good day.

Life beyond butterflies

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I went over to Fort Harrison State Park this morning and instead of heading to the area where I’ve seen the most butterflies, I went in another direction.  It wasn’t that I didn’t expect to see butterflies in the old location, the question was whether I could find happiness in subjects other than butterflies (soft plaintive violins in the background).


A leaf in the water.  Not bad if all we want to do is aim the camera away from butterflies.  But not too good either.  Try again.


Jewelweed is nice, very bright and I can’t say I have ever noticed an insect like that before; one of the benefits of macro photography.


Now I like that.  I can’t count the number of times I’ve walked by little beauties like this.  Once again, a benefit of going out with a macro lens.  I’ve noticed that when I have a telephoto lens on the camera, I tend to see more telephoto opportunities.  Today I was using my 100 mm macro lens.  This lens works as a moderate telephoto but I tend to think of it more in its macro application.

Here’s the high point of the morning.


I love back lit shots.  A very important lesson came out of this morning’s jaunt.  I was headed east on the Fall Creek Trail because I picked up the trail at its western end – walking toward the sun, accidentally creating the opportunity for back lit shots.  There were many opportunities.  I went a couple of hundred yards past the area of this shot and turned around looking for what other opportunities I could find.  There weren’t many.  If you like back lighting try going east in the morning and west in the evening.  Writing this down is a little embarrassing.  Of course that is what we would do to get back lit shots.  This is one of those points that is so obvious it needs to be stated.

And yes, there is happiness beyond butterflies.

The days grow short when you reach September

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A few days ago the thistle blossoms were covered with butterflies and now the numbers are much reduced.  In the hot weather morning was a good time to see them but cooler weather is here and afternoon is now the better choice.


Photographing butterflies on a windy day is good exercise for toning up the reflexes.  Whoops, that wasn’t a butterfly at all.


And with the cooler weather September Song is the background music.

Oh, it’s a long, long while from May to December
But the days grow short when you reach September
When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame
One hasn’t got time for the waiting game

Indeed with the shortening of days the butterflies are fewer and all the more precious.





Don’t wait, go out and shoot.