05-14-13 Finally!

I call this post "Finally!" because after what seems like and endless winter and cold spring, it finally feels like summer. And my wife's daffodils are celebrating the occasion by blooming.

This photo, incidentally, started out as a completely different concept. In the failing light of a beautiful day, I noticed the heads of these daffodils bobbing in the gusty wind. And I thought this would be a perfect time to try dragging the shutter, a process that uses camera flash and a fairly slow shutter speed. I took 5 or six using this technique but didn't really like any of them.

So instead, I put the camera as close to the ground as I could and tried to focus on on a single daffodil. After I took the photo, I noticed the camera was seeing a very interesting deep, blue bokeh in the out-of-focus boughs of the a pine tree behind the garden. And so I ended up with this photo. I will probably try the dragging the flash thing another time.

05-10-13 Flow

Yes, I'm stuck on streams. And, once again, I didn't go looking for this photo, which was buried in my 2008 collection. What fascinates me about this shot is that it is of the same place in the stream as the photo you see below. The camera position is different, but if you compare the two, you'll see the same old rocks. And they haven't changed.

This photo was "adjusted" with Nik Color Efex 4 and OnOne Perfect Effects 4. (I'm in a filtering phase and I need to get over it because years from now these filters won't seem so cool to me.)

By the way, I still have 5 spots left for the July "Black Hills Photo Adventure." You should join me and I'll teach you everything I know (or can teach in two days) about photography similar to the kind you see here. And we will visit all of my secret spots along Iron Creek.

Canon 5D I 5s f/22.0 ISO100 40mm

05-01-13 Cathedral

If you were lured to this post because you thought you were going to see a beautiful church, I apologize. But there is something dome-like in these trees that arch over the snow-covered ground and that's what inspired today's title

To be honest, I posted this photo mainly so I could post a link to a short video I made a little bit after I took the picture. So you should watch it.

Where am I? The photo was taken in the "front yard" of our family cabin in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The snow was still falling when I took this and altogether we got between 10 and 12 inches. And it was beautiful. . . The video was filmed with a GoPro Hero 3 stuck to the front of a 4 wheeler. Why is the video black and white? The white balance kept shifting on me. (I'm still learning how to use a GoPro.)

If you go to the YouTube site, you'll be able to watch this is glorious 1080p HD. Look for the gear icon on the bottom right. . .

04-30-13 Lake Lakota HDR

This is the 4th in a series of recent posts that are photos I took to my recent visit to the Black Hills. It is also another surreal looking HDR photo. Generally, I am very conservative about filtering my photos but I guess I am captivating by the alternative reality that HDR brings to the world we see.

And now my mind is wandering to people from the 1960s and 1970s like LSD guru Timothy Leary ("Tune in, turn on drop out") and peyote promoting Carlos Castenada (A Separate Reality, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, etc.). Mushrooms, peyote and LSD were considered "mind altering" drugs. I will admit that I never tried any of them.

Nik HDR Efex Pro 2 is my mind altering drug. It may even be performance enhancing. It has no side effects and its use is legal in all 50 states.

Canon 5DIII 1/10s f/18.0 ISO100 16mm

There are still 6 spots left in the July "Black Hills Photo Adventure." How about joining me?

04-29-13 Rite of Spring

By Scott Shephard

2013 04-29 Rite of Spring by Scott Shephard

I would be the first to say that my crocus photo is nothing to write home to Mom about. But these flowers are significant to me for two reasons: first, they are the first flowers to appear in my wife's garden this spring. And given that we have endured a fairly long winter here in South Dakota, even little yellow flowers are cause for celebration.

The other reason is that this photo is one of about 240 photos of the same subject over a two hour period that I took as part of a time lapse study. This was my first effort at this kind of photography and though I don't know that I have the patience to do it often, I am happy with my first attempt. Here's the exciting YouTube video, soon to go viral, no doubt. Incidentally, the two hours have been compressed into 14 seconds.

This short video is really a composite of over 240 still frames taken over a two hour period. It is my first attempt at a time lapse video.

04-25-13 Whose Woods These Are . . .

Here's another photo from the snowy walk I made with my friend Dennis N. This was taken a little bit before the one from yesterday. And what stopped me in my tracks were Dennis' tracks.

As with almost all of the photos I took on this outing, this is an HDR photo. I think that HDR is one way to preserve detail in snow, which would normally be fairly non-descript in its pure white form.

The title? It's the first line of Frost's famous poem "Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening":

Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village, though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound's the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

04-24-13 Ready To Fall (HDR)

When I saw these leaves a couple of days ago on a photo walk in the Norbeck Wildlife Preserves along Iron Creek in the Black Hills, I was intrigued that they had hung on for the whole winter. Most leaves drop in the fall, of course. But these high marks for persistence.

The other intriguing feature is that if you look closely, you can see that tiny buds are starting to form and I'm guessing that is a week or so the old leaves will drop and the new ones will debut. Sadly, I won't be there to witness it, since I live 8 hours away from this scene.

And now for shameless commerce: If you would like to join me this summer is the Black Hills for a Photo Adventures, check this out. But hurry, registration is very limited.

04-23-13 After the Snow

A late spring snow storm hit our part of the Black Hills and left 10" of beautiful snow. And so, a friend and I ventured back to Iron Creek to see what things looked liked. As much as I have photographed this spot, I have never photographed it with this much snow. For me, then, it was a rare opportunity.

Hiking along the creek for a half mile was made difficult by the relatively deep snow but ours were the first footsteps along the trail and there was something satisfying about that.

I took quite a few HDR photos but this is one that I'm keeping. Stylistically, it is similar to yesterday's post and I guess that's what I was after. Is is a good photo? I don't know - I have an emotional (and physical) investment in this one right now and so my judgement is clouded. But even if I hadn't gotten a single good photo yesterday, I would have said that my "photo walk" was worth it. As Harry Chapin said, "It's the goin' not the gettin' there that's good."

In the event that you might be interested in joining me this summer in the beautiful Black Hills for my Black Hills Photo Adventure, check it out here.

04-22-13 Spring Melt (HDR)

I am in the Black Hills to attend the annual TIE convention. But given a little time yesterday morning, I went out to my favorite spots to take even more photos of the same scenery. But this time there was good flow in Iron Creek and there was snow left from the most recent snow fall. And so I got a look unlike others I've taken along this creek. The other feature I liked about this scene were the bright orange tree leaves along the right side of the photo. I'm guessing in another week or two, those leaves will disappear and the new ones will bud out.

So this is a transient scene, in many ways. In fact a Greek atmonist philosopher named Heraclitus said that you "could never step in the same stream twice" because all of nature is in a constant state of flux: panta rei or "everything flows." Good photographers understand this and their best photos are captured at the right moment.

(I should say that this is an HDR photo and that's why there is a bit of a surreal look here.)

A few more photos here.

04-21-13 Not Done Yet

2013 04-21 Not Done Yet by Scott Shephard

04-18-13 California, Not South Dakota

In case you think I'm finding real beds of flowers popping up through the permafrost of South Dakota, I'm not. But I do have photos of beds of flower, like these, which I found at the Mission at San Juan Capistrano in southern California.

04-11-13 Aspirations

Regular readers of this blog might have noticed that what I call "A Photo A Day" has recently been "A Photo Once and A While." Quite honestly, I'm fighting through the worst "blogging slump" I've had in four years. I can't say why except that I'm a little jaded right now. I enjoy teaching photography at Lake Area Technical Institute, and I love my students but I am realizing that as much as teaching photography has given me, it also takes something away. I'm not complaining and I'll have plenty of time to recharge in a few short weeks.

I will also admit that I'm a little bored with the dew dappled flower photos I post. But I posting one today, mainly because yet another winter storm has hit South Dakota and I'm looking out my window at at least 8 inches of new snow with more coming down. So my impulse was to find something colorful, and a set of iris photos I took last spring jumped out at me. I hope you like the one I've "developed."

And, before I leave, a word about words. . .

Finding a title for my photos is sometimes hard. And it could be that even my title today is a bit redundant. But I like the word "aspiration," which has the Greek word "spiro" as its root. Spiro means "to breathe." Per-spire literally means "to breathe through." Re-spire means "breathe again." But "aspire," or as in the title, "aspiration", is a little more complicated. I'll take the dictionary definition: an aspiration is "a hope or ambition of achieving something." This iris aspires but probably doesn't know it, especially today as it sleeps beneath a soft blanket of fresh, white snow.

Do I dare say that I am inspired (look that one up!) by what I just wrote. Today I have hopes and ambitions. I hope you do, too.