Best of 2013: August

                    
                      

Building the Pod

             
On this Eighth Day of Christmas, a photo from my Louisiana Agriculture project. I grew up on a farm in Iowa. It's a cliché but true: You can take the girl off the farm but you can't take the farm out of the girl! And in 2013, in part because I made such a successful image out of an irrigation unit in the fog (see Best of 2013: January: Delta Dragon, I began working seriously on documenting Louisiana agriculture. Going for publication in some form this year!
                 
      

Best of 2013: July

                   
                            

In Memorium

On the Seventh Day of Christmas, I offer a new b&w edit of an image shared last summer. The color of this monument is warm cream--or at least that is what I saw when I visited after dark and it was flooded with artificial light. So I found the color pleasing, but it is another of those images that kind of demanded to be converted to b&w.

Interestingly, this image got little response on G+ back then, but I choose it as one of my best anyway. I admire minimalism, but have trouble doing it. So much to see! Color and light and clouds and botanicals and machinery and critters and people, etc., etc. It all cries out to get into the camera frame! So I go out determined to shoot minimal and I come home with frames packed full of stuff!

But on this occasion, minimal spoke the loudest. This is the memorial to those who died in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Being there commands silence, reflection, prayer (however you define it).

And a resolution on this brink of a new year to live every day as if it is my last. To get rid of clutter and go for what matters.
                 
           

Best of 2013: June

                      
                              

Enders River, Connecticut

  
On this Sixth Day of Christmas, I chose this memento of a totally wonderful and fun trip to Connecticut and Massachusetts. The official excuse was to attend a friend's wedding, which I did and it was great fun.

But for three days before the wedding, I roamed and took pictures, and spent one wonderful day climbing mountains along with Google+ friend Craig Szymanski and his family. What a blast! They were so nice they didn't even walk off and leave the oldster struggling along in the rear! Truly great folks!

This is Enders State Forest. Craig put me on to the site and I spent a half a day there. Inside the State Park, the Enders River is mostly a series of lovely waterfalls. I take pride in this shot because I really had to innovate to get it. No tripod, of course, and it was cloudy, plus the tree canopy filters out lots of light.

So... I'm perched on a rock over the falls. I put the camera on a bit of bubble-wrap on the sloping surface of the rock, ease it over the edge to point down but keep it from falling with a foot on the strap, and take the picture with the cable release. Miraculously, it took only three tries to get the framing I wanted.

A 1/4-second shutter produced just the right balance of motion blur and texture in the water--at least for my taste! And in celebration of my continuously improving editing skills, I just did a bit more post on the image and it is better than when I first shared it last summer.
                     
                    

Best of 2013: May

                         
                           

Inner Light

On the Fifth Day of Christmas, I am reminded why this is both a fun and occasionally frustrating way to produce a "best of" album. It's fun because going through a month's photos looking for a pick if a great way to reflect on the year. It's frustrating because some month's you have a wealth of choices and others, the pickin's are rather slim!

May of 2013 was a good month. The semester ends in early May, and I celebrated with a trip to South Louisiana. I went to Baton Rouge first, where I met Google+ friend Irene Kato for the first time, not to mention her delightful family. After a lovely photowalk of her back yard and the neighborhood encountering many wonderful flowers, I sat in her kitchen and enjoyed her children, good conversation and watching her husband skillfully make delicious pot stickers, which we all consumed with abandon.

From BR, I went to Lafayette, Opelousas and New Iberia, then home by way of Camp Hardtner and my beloved quarry, and I shot all along the way. But perhaps the most amazing place of all was Lake Martin, southwest of Lafayette on the eastern edge of the Atchafalaya Basin. There I shot dragonflies, a great blue heron, egrets, and an anhinga, plus cypress trees draped with Spanish moss and the most amazing dinner-plate size American lotus (Nelumbo lutea) flowers.

A group of dedicated photographers on Google+ established a community they call "High Quality Sharing Photographs" or HQSP for short. Every day they pick and promote winning photographs in a variety of categories. picked this one. This shot was honored to be selected an HQSP Winner. You can see the winner post here: HQSP Winner July 6, 2013
               

Best of 2013: April

                    
                                 

Ruffled Steel

On this Fourth Day of Christmas, I chose an image I did not process and share back in April when 14 boxcars derailed about two miles from my house.

How do you make visual sense of piles of jumbled steel? How do you say something about the astonishing force involved when tons of coal and steel fly?

Of about 95 shots, I have processed four, three that I shared back in April. None of them are great photos, but today this one makes me shiver at the sight of steel folded into a ruffle.
                 
     

Best of 2013: March

                   
                 

My Friend the Beast

On the Third Day of Christmas, I chose this photo for two reasons.

First, I took it at the Chicago Zoo on an outing with my Google+ friend, Tom Tran. It was a blast, even though quite cold, and resulted in many wonderful photos--not only from the zoo, but also from the conservatory and an icy beach. Indeed, I have many yet to process from that day!

Second, it is another photographic accomplishment for me. The sun was too bright and the shadows too deep that day, and this creature mostly stood with his butt toward me and his head in the shadow. I snapped a couple of shots anyway, with little hope of having anything worth working on.

Then he turned sideways for just a moment and our eyes met. I got one shot and then he walked into the shadow. The shot didn't look all that promising in the camera. But on my computer using Photoshop, I was able to bring out detail in both shadow and highlights, and the b&w conversion seemed a perfect treatment for this subject.

When I was an undergraduate at the University of Iowa, I had a reputation for being able to do this kind of thing in the wet darkroom. I am finally beginning to believe I'll be as good someday in the digital darkroom!!
     
        

Best of 2013: February

                        
                            

Open Water

On the Second Day of Christmas, I chose a photo of the cattail pond at ULM's  Charles Allen Biological Station near Columbia. I have taught at ULM 17 1/2 years, but it was not until fall 2012 that I learned we own almost 100 acres of wonderfully diverse habitat along the Ouachita River just about an hour from home. The first two times I visited, this pond was completely covered with a vigorous green and red algae bloom. On this, my third visit, I was thrilled to find open water--and a perfectly still mirror surface.

I love this image, first, because of the detail in the reflection--not only of the trees but of the late afternoon light, and, second, because even though the light was fading and this is handheld, I achieved sharp detail throughout an extended depth of field. And that was my goal, in contrast to the shallow depth of field I often use. Recently I printed this one 11 x 14 and want to get it framed for the next time I do River Market.

And now I am reminded that I am overdue for a visit to CABS. Must get there before this all-too-short break is over.