Tag Archives: Fort Harrison State Park

It’s all in how you look at it

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I’ve been shooting reflections in water for a long time and this autumn has been no exception.  Here’s a very typical shot:

Nothing especially interesting about that but look what happens when I turn it upside down:


Now it starts to take on a different meaning.  It is as if we are looking at a scene through wavy glass.


I especially like that one.

And they can take on an abstract quality:


They can be interesting when rotated a quarter turn:


I purposely do not look for shapes in clouds.  My mother used to look for faces and animals but I just want to appreciate the shape without labeling it.  But here is an exception.  This just looks like someone pushing against something that doesn’t want to move:


And finally, one of the charms of a reflection is seeing it disturbed:


Hard to get tired of doing this.

More leaves – it’s autumn

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It’s difficult to avoid leaves when out with a camera this time of year.  They’ve received little attention while living and now that they aren’t, they seem to find their way in front of the camera whatever the original motivation might have been.


Fascinating though, aren’t they?


Theses blades of grass (also leaves in my book) look as if they were perfectly still.  They weren’t.  The wind was blowing as if a front were coming through.


For all the wind, the leaves in the water were in a protected area and a slower shutter speed sufficed.


Weeds.  Appealing weeds.


The teasel has done it’s biological job, farewell.

Smorgasbord day

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Today I went out without any specific focus, in fact I was trying to avoid any preconceived notions of what I would shoot.


It’s a day in autumn so color would be part of it.

Not a day to be hung up on any particular theme except autumn.


That’s enough of the puns, visual and otherwise.


I wondered around a patch of milkweed;  they are coming along.


I used to be in R&D at AT&T and then at Lucent Technologies.  In other words, the telephone business.  When I first saw these teasels with the spider web connecting them, it seemed to represent a communications network.  I guess that isn’t a pun but a metaphor.


Teasels are easier to work with than some people.  Not as communicative though.

Another beautiful autumn day

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The ‘good’ weather continues.  With Indianapolis being down 18% in rainfall for the year, a nice day is a not nice day.  But we will enjoy it anyway.


In a normal year this leaf in this spot would have been a foot under water.  People are commenting on the lack of color in the leaves (caused by the lack of rain) and it is true that we have to look harder to see good color but it is there.


Time to quit complaining and just enjoy what there is in the woods.


This shot of the leaf in water was 1/15 sec. in duration.  Look at how viscous and ‘sticky’ the water seems.  This effect is enhanced by the comparatively long exposure.


Love that surface tension that produces the blue framing of the leaf.


Autumn comes and plants die back.  Seeds have been broadcast and that part of the work of the plant  is done.    What remains can be beautiful, can’t it?

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.

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.

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.