Toadstool Park, Nikon D7000, Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 @ f/11, 5 images stitched in Photoshop

Here’s a couple more photos from my trip to Toadstool State Park in NW Nebraska.  As you can see, I’ve included a color image just to give you an idea of what you can expect  – except here I’ve intensified the depth of the color a little.  I just have to muck about! I find the black and white images much more compelling in these photos – this landscape fits monochrome images beautifully.

Toadstool Park Rocks, Nikon D7000, Tokina 12-24mm f/4 @ f/11, 20mm, ISO 100

I’ll be back early next week (Monday probably) with another post. See you then.

Thanks for reading,

John

Toadstool Park, Nikon D7000, Nikkor 50mm f/1.4, Composite of three images

Desolate, washed-out, barren.  These are words that describe the area.  There are no trees to provide  cooling shade against the intense heat and you feel as drained of energy as the hills are of color.  These are the badlands – a treasure trove for geologists and paleontologists and an attraction to people like me who feel the tug of desire to find locations like this.  The banded layers of clay and ash deposited over millions of years and subsequently eroded by the forces of nature have an eerie, attractive beauty.

I’m the only person around on this visit, though when I’m packing my car to leave on the second day a local family shows up to hike the 1.1 mile self-guided tour.  I came twice – the evening before when the wind howled and dark, threatening clouds slid in, and the following morning when the temperature seemed to jump 5 degrees at a time.  The quiet here is astonishing.  You may hear a train whistle in the distance once in a while, or a rustling of scrub in the breeze, or the cry of a hawk, but outside of that only the crunching of your shoes as you walk and the noise of your mind keep you company.

Toadstool Park, Nikon D7000, Tokina 12-24mm f/4 @ 24mm, composite of three images

Some of the formations, with giant slabs of sandstone resting at precarious angles on eroding clay mounds, are a bit reminiscent or mushrooms, or toadstools, though to me a series of smaller formations are more toadstool like.  This is Toadstool State Park, in Northwest Nebraska, 20 miles from Crawford.

I saw the turnoff for Toadstool Park about 10 years ago while driving  to South Dakota to visit Mt. Rushmore and made a mental note to research it when I returned.  I did, and for years I’ve wanted to visit, but you know things are when it comes to time, and before I knew it the years had passed and it was still only a dream. But no more!  This last weekend I decided I’d go for a short visit  - drive there Friday, return Saturday.

Along the way, I caught a few other attractions:  Jail House and Courthouse rocks, Chimney Rock, County Court houses for three counties, a monument literally in the middle of nowhere commemorating the Pony Express, a colorful, deserted schoolhouse.  So the trip was a success for me.  I got to do something that had been a desire for years, it was salve for my soul and I returned with some 530 photos, the most I’ve ever taken in a single trip.  The downside?  I have to go through them all!

I hope to return to more consistent posting, at least once a week, from here on out.  I can’t promise, of course, but I’ll try. In the meantime, I’ll post a few more images from my trip in the coming days.

Thanks for reading,

John

Father and Son, Nikon D7000, Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 @ f/4.0, ISO 100, 1/5000 sec

This is one of my all time favorite photos, even though I only took it a few weeks ago at our family reunion.  It’s one of those shots that, to me at least, is reminiscent  of images I’ve seen from others in which I engage in “I wish I’d taken that shot” type of thinking.   These are relatives of mine, but they could be anybody; who they are is not as important as their expressions.

I’ve always thought that overall, photos of people are more compelling than those of inanimate objects or animals.  Catching the range of emotion, the texture of one’s skin, the soul in someone’s eyes – it can be a profound experience. I’ve discussed this in the past and won’t dwell on it here,  other than to say I feel like this is really my first genuinely moving image.

The original exposure was about 1.3 stops underexposed, but fortunately there was plenty of good data in the image to draw out what you see here. Good old Nikon D7000.  (Don’t think the metering on the camera produced the underexposed image – I’d left it on bracketed shots!)

Thanks for reading,

John

Dried Flowers #2, Nikon D7000, Sigma 105mm, f/2.8 @ f/5.6, ISO 100, .5 sec.

I’ve been mulling this subject over for a while, trying to decide how to approach it.  I have a very strong conviction on this subject, but there are a lot of people out there that don’t share that conviction.   Should I try to convince them my position is correct? No, I don’t think so – I’ll just toss some ideas out and see if it strikes a chord with anyone.  For the most part, trying to change someone’s mind about something is a fool’s errand.

I hear it all the time: a photograph should tell a story. I couldn’t disagree more.  A photograph reflects a slice of a story, a moment in time, a “snapshot” (pun intended) from a story.  It isn’t the story.  That would be like taking a word from a novel somewhere in the middle and saying, “this word tells a story”.  Or even a phrase.  Could you imagine Herman Melville writing the opening line “Call me Ishmael” from “Moby Dick” and deciding that was all he needed  to tell the story? From a photograph you can mentally fill in gaps, perhaps, and no doubt come to entirely wrong conclusions based on an image taken at 1/500th of a second.

The classic definition of a story is a narrative with a beginning, middle and end. The closest a single image can come is top, middle, bottom or left, center, right.  For example, Sally Mann’s photo “Candy Cigarette” shows a young girl standing in a provocative pose, holding what could be a real or candy cigarette. You can see the image here: http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5165266  To her left is another young girl, facing away from the camera, hands on her hips, and in the distance a figure on stilts.  According to the accompanying article, this tells a powerful story.  No, it doesn’t.  It’s a pretty powerful image yes, but you as the viewer have no clue what the story is except for whatever you make up.  It raises questions.  If you’re familiar with Sally Mann’s works you know these are her children, otherwise, you know nothing.  If you know they’re her children you still are no closer to the story – only a facet of it.  Is that really a “candy” cigarette?  Is the girl with it mad at the photographer (her mother), or is that simply boredom?  (Ah mom, another photo?).

Maybe a photograph does provoke a story – one that’s strictly between the viewer and the image.  A work of fiction, certainly, but the idea of being curious about the background of a photo is, or should be, a goal of good photography. This photo accomplishes that, nicely.

For me, a slice of story feels just right.  I believe I’ll hang on to that perspective.

Thanks for reading,

John