WI
Angel Forlorn
I spent a good deal of time trying to figure out the expression on this angelic sculpture. One moment it strikes me as uncaring, the next deeply compassionate. As you can see from the title, I settled on forlorn. Maybe the title reveals more of my own feelings about the setting than the statue, itself.
I found this angel in a dark recess among the complex, eclectic collections found at House On the Rock – a notable Wisconsin tourist attraction. We visited this attraction of oddities last August. I took a lot of photos, as you would expect, despite it’s unusually dark atmosphere. There is so much to see there, and yet, they seem to want to make viewing difficult and photography near impossible.
As a photographer, there was a lot at House On the Rock to grab your eye…and frustrate your technique. Setting my camera aside and looking at it as a common tourist, I did not like the place. It was all too dark, dreary, strange, unkempt and macabre for me. My favorite parts were the gardens outside the buildings, where there was sunshine and life, paths and ponds, goldfish and waterlilies, flowers and honey bees. The dark, cavernous, foreboding nature of the indoors is such a shame because there are so many very cool items in this gigantic and wildly diverse collection.
Twenty years ago, American novelist, Jane Smiley, offered her thoughts after a visit to House On the Rock. I think her description remains accurate today…
Though most people outside of the Midwest have never heard of it, the House on the Rock is said to draw more visitors every year than any other spot in Wisconsin. …it is hard not to be overwhelmed by the House on the Rock. The sheer abundance of objects is impressive, and the warmth most of the objects exude, the way that the toys ask to be played with, for example, makes the displays inherently inviting. But almost from the beginning, it is too much. The house itself is dusty. Windowpanes are cracked. Books are water damaged. The collections seem disordered, not curated. In fact, there is no effort to explore the objects as cultural artifacts, or to use them to educate the passing hordes. If there were informative cards, it would be impossible to read them in the dark. Everything is simply massed together, and Alex Jordan comes to seem like the manifestation of pure American acquisitiveness, and acquisitiveness of a strangely boyish kind, as if he had finalized all his desires in childhood and never grown into any others.
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Beyond the Veil
The sun had risen well above the Lake Michigan horizon, but the clouds, acting as a veil, kept its full glory from illuminating the Algoma, Wisconsin lighthouse and pier.
I really like the subtlety of texture and light behind the thin clouds and the blue hues of early morning.
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Grassland Lighthouse
In a few moments, the sun will rise in the middle of this image. Before the blinding light breaches the horizon, the clouds create a dramatic background.
I’ve taken countless photos of this lighthouse and decided to take a lower angle. I lowered my tripod to just a foot or so above the ground – shooting through the beach grass.
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Catching Some Waves
Two fishing buddies are casting for the early bite from the pier at Kewaunee, WI. The waves seemed particularly excited to see the sun that morning.
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Lighthouse Eclipse
The sun is rising in this scene, however, you can’t see it because it is positioned directly behind the Kewaunee, WI lighthouse. The colors are bright and vivid, creating a unique atmosphere. The light of the lighthouse looks like it’s shining brightly, but it’s not from its own electric light; it’s the sun’s illumination. I particularly like the play of light on the water created by the low angle of the sun.
A few days ago, I posted another photo from this same location and angle. I processed it as the black and white image – Powerful Peace. They are similar images, but taken a day apart.
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Morning Rest
As the sun was rising over lake Michigan it appeared to pause for a moment’s rest on the Kewaunee, WI lighthouse.
This seems like the perfect Autumn color scheme, but this photo was taken last May.
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Star Bright
I went out to photograph a full moon…but ended up focusing on a star.
This is a long exposure, early evening view of the Kewaunee, Wisconsin Lighthouse. This is not the shot I was going for, but that’s the way it works sometimes.
I’d been watching the lunar calendar and decided the best evening to capture the full moon rising over Lake Michigan would be Friday. When it was time to head for the beach, I noticed a band of clouds in the sky but thought they might be high enough to not block the horizon. Turns out, there was enough “atmosphere” between me and the moon, I didn’t see it until much later in the night.
Since I was at the beach and had everything set up, I thought I’d fiddle around getting a night shot of the lighthouse. While fiddling, I thought the star filter I have might add a nice effect to the bright lighthouse light. The star filter is threaded so you can screw it on to the end of the lens. It creates an X pattern over any bright light source in the photo’s frame. I’ve often wanted more lines then the four it’s designed to create, but it is what it is. …or is it?
I took the star filter off the lens and decided to try and just hold it very still, by hand, in front of the lens. That worked better than expected. Next I took a shot and held the filter still it for a few seconds and rotated it a few degrees and, again, held it still. That gave me more points to the star…and it looked pretty good. I experimented a bit more to end up with this version.
This is a 20-second exposure. (20-sec, f/11, ISO 200) I was holding the filter in front of the lens – as close as I could without actually touching the lens. When I tripped the shutter (with a remote), I would count to five, rotate the filter, count to five, rotate the filter, count to five and quickly remove the filter for the remainder of the exposure. As you can see, that gave me three separate sets of star points.
Let me point out a few other interesting effects from the long exposure time. The lake wasn’t as smooth as it seems in this image. The long exposure has a tends to smooth out any motion. You might also notice a small, dark, oblong spot near the corner of the pier, just to the right of the lighthouse. That is actually a man who was fishing off the pier. He moved enough over the 20-seconds that all you see is a blur. And finally, there are a couple of thin lines of light that run horizontal through the frame…about level with the deck of the pier. Those are lights from a boat that was leaving the harbor, traveling left to right over the span of the 20-second exposure.
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Gold Fusion
The morning light provided a beautiful scene for a lone fisherman next to the lighthouse on Kewaunee’s pier.
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Zeros
Three vintage fighter planes circle back for another simulated strike during a reenactment of the attack on Pear Harbor. This was part of a spectacular air show at the 2013 EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
Though I’ve had little opportunity, I could really get into aviation photography. I am not a pilot, but I love to fly and love all type of aircraft.
These planes are Japanese Zeros. Here’s some info gleaned from Wikipedia…
The Mitsubishi A6M Zero was a long-range fighter aircraft operated by the Imperial Japanese Navy from 1940 to 1945. The A6M was usually referred to by the Allies as the “Zero”, from 1940, the year in which the aircraft entered service with the Imperial Navy. The official Allied reporting name was “Zeke”.
When it was introduced early in World War II, the Zero was considered the most capable carrier-based fighter in the world, combining excellent maneuverability and very long range. In early combat operations, the Zero gained a legendary reputation as a dogfighter, achieving the outstanding kill ratio of 12 to 1, but by mid-1942 a combination of new tactics and the introduction of better equipment enabled the Allied pilots to engage the Zero on more equal terms.
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Shades of Dawn
The morning clouds were thick enough to obscure the rising sun but light enough to create a stunning, luminescent backdrop for the Kewaunee, WI lighthouse and pier on the western shore of Lake Michigan.
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