The Wood River

Nature Trail along the Wood River, Oregon
(c) Darlene Lyon Kruse - All Rights Reserved

One of my favorite places to photograph is along the Wood River in Klamath County, Oregon.  The river is shallow and narrow, laps softly against low-lying banks, loops and snakes through the valley in ways that beg to be photographed.  Willows and other trees dot the banks, interspersed among wooden fences, grazing cattle, rustic barns and ranch houses.  And from some locations, the mountains that ring the east side of Crater Lake form a dramatic backdrop.  This image was made at a nature trail that winds along the Wood River on the east side of the small cattle-ranching town of Ft. Klamath.  The trees and pasture on the far side of the river are part of a ranch.

Getting there:  From Medford OR, take highway 140 east to the Rocky Point/Ft. Klamath turnoff which is well-marked.  Follow this road to Ft. Klamath.  At Ft.  Klamath turn right at Highway 62 which goes to Klamath Falls -- also well-marked.  Turn left onto Sun Mountain Rd. just before you reach the old military fort.  The nature trail is poorly marked -- it's a left turn at a small brown road sign that says something like day use park.  But the sign is small and postitioned right at the turn off into the park.  The  access road is a loop road -- park, and then follow the trail. The trail is nicely developed, providing good access for everyone. 

Klamath County has been suffering through a severe drought, and the effects of the drought were apparent on this trip earlier this fall -- the aspen had not turned color yet, and the leaves looked like they would shrivel and fall off before the color came up.  Willow trees still had green leaves on them.  I chose to work in infrared, a format that doesn't need color to create dramatic images.

Metadata.  Nikon D90 camera, converted to infrared.  14-24mm f/2.8 Nikkor lens at 24mm.  1/125" at f/11.

Developing work:  I have created a user preset in Lightroom 3 for use with my infrared images.  The preset worked perfectly on this image (though it doesn't work on all images; I tried it on the photo of an oak tree made last week, & it didn't work at all).  The steps the preset automatically executes include black & white conversion, adjustments to the B&W mix in the HSL/Color/B&W panel,  increasing contrast, adding grain, & split toning.  

 

A Taste of Autumn

Stone path & fall leaves

(c) Darlene Lyon Kruse - All Rights Reserved

Between the demands of my current workload & a sudden series of storms with high wind and heavy rain, I thought I had missed autumn entirely.  Last Friday morning a friend and I went to Ashland's Lithia Park to check on fall color - there was still lots of color.  One of my favorite places in autumn is the Japanese Garden in Lithia Park. With its collection of Japanese maples, it is a colorful display every fall. 

The photograph I chose to share comes from that morning and is a stone path that curves through the garden and the leaves that have fallen from the Japanese maples. There were still lots of leaves on trees so I hope to get back this week for more.  The weather is supposed to be warm-ish, clear and dry most of the week so there should be some excellent photographs to be made.

About this photograph:  This photo was made October 29, 2010 at 11:17AM. It was an overcast day with nice, even light.   Nikon D300 camera.  24-70mm f/2.8 lens at 24mm (35-mm equivalent = 36mm).  ISO 100.  1.5" at f/16.  White balance: Shade (I use Shade or Cloudy as my default settings regardless of conidtions -- I like a warmer image). Polarizing filter.  Camera mounted on tripod (Gitzo carbon fiber, Linhof head).

Memories of Summer

Memories of Summer, Brookings, Oregon
(c) Darlene Lyon  Kruse - All Rights Reserved


Let me say, straight up, from the beginning, that this is not the best photograph I've ever made, not even the best I made on that particular day.  But it reminds me of a sunny, fun day I spent on the Oregon coast.  Today, here in Ashland, it is wet and gray.  We are experiencing the first storm of the season, & it's a doozy.  Clouds hang low on the mountains.  It's too wet to get out to photograph.  The possibility of snow on Siskiyou Pass.  A taste of what's to come.  And when I started looking at photographs for my blog this weekend, this photo just said what I felt -- I'm not ready for winter -- I want more 75 degree, sunny days before diving into umbrellas, jackets, gloves and boots. 

This photograph was made last summer (June 30) when I was on a scouting trip with David Lorenz Winston, looking for locations for a summer coastal workshop we were doing together.  On the beach near the Port of Brookings, the Banana Belt of the Oregon coast.  A bit of history:  On a photo trip here in the mid-1990s with a photographer-friend, we watched a dead whale (gray whale if I remember correctly) being buried right at this same stretch of beach (somewhere I have slides of a worker digging a trench and then burying the whale).  Anyway, the family was nowhere to be seen but there was something in all the beach toys, towels , flip flops etc that appealed to me. And the warmth and color definitely appeal on this gray, drizzly, autumn day in Southern Oregon.

Metadata:  Photographed with Nikon D300.  24-70mm f/2.8 lens at 70mm (35-mm equivalent = 105mm).  ISO 200.  1/350 at f/6.7

Tashi Choling

Tashi Choling

(c) Darlene Lyon Kruse, All Rights Reserved

Last week Bill Exley, a friend and photographer, and I spent the morning photographing in the Colestine Valley, a rural valley south of Ashland that straddles the Oregon-California border.  We were treated to old barns at historic farms, railroad tracks, and the serenity of the meditation garden at the Tashi Choling Center for Buddhist Studies.

This photograph is of the pond. To the right you can see prayer flags and the top of a roofed area that houses one of the three statues in the garden.  I love the contrast of light and dark in this photo.  And the feathery-ness of the trees.  I have a feeling of serenity and balance when I look at it.

Metadata:  Nikon D90 camera converted for infrared.  14-24mm f/2.8 Nikkor lens at 18mm (35-mm equivalent = 27mm).  Hand-held.  ISO 320.  1/320" at f/11.  This photograph was made at 11:20 AM PDT.

All the post-processing work was done in Lightroom.  I converted it to black and white. In the point curve box, I selected strong contrast.  In the Color/HSL box, I adjusted the red, orange and yellow.  I also experimented with adding grain, hoping to make it look a bit more like infrared film.  I used the split toning option again -- I really like that look. This time I selected a gold/mocha-like color (hue 22; saturation 18) for the highlights.  For the shadows, I chose lilac (hue 271, saturation 18). I placed the balance slider at +70.  And then added a vignette.

Thanks for coming by to take a look -- I hope you like it.  It's a beautiful, peaceful, serene place. I hope I've done justice to it.   ~ darlene

Up, Up & Away

Montague Balloon Festival, Montague, California

(c) Darlene Lyon Kruse - All Rights Reserved

This was my first time to go to the hot-air balloon festival in the small ranching community of Montague in Northern California. It's an annual event on the last weekend in September so this won't be my last time to go there. What a great time!!  A fabulous backdrop provided by rolling hills.  Large enough to be interesting and still easy to find places to park, easy to get great shots of the balloons.

This photo was made on Saturday, September 25, the second day of the festival.  Ascension was at sunrise (roughly 7AM). This photo was made about an hour later.  What I liked about it enough to want to work with it was the position of the two balloons, the foothills in the background, and the two people in the left foreground. Everything works for me.

This is an infrared photograph. The lack of the bright white foliage so typical of infrared comes, I think, from two elements -- one, there isn't alot of foliage and, two, the early morning light meant less infrared radiation in the environment.  Here are the details:

Camera: Nikon D90 converted to capture invisible light (infrared).  14-24mm f/2.8 Nikkor lens at 24mm.  ISO 160.  1/200" at f/13.  Hand-held.  

Post-Processing.  I developed this image in Lightroom.  The steps were:  Converted to black & white.  In the Tone Curve panel, I selected "Strong Contrast" (a personal preference -- I like stronger contrast for most of my infrared photographs), lightening the lights and darkening the blacks.  In the split toning panel, I used my usual color combination of bronze for the highlights and mauve for the shadows.  (Highlights: bronze set at 37 for hue and 37 for saturation.  Shadows:  mauve set at 261 for hue and 20 for saturation. Balance set at +52).  Kodak HIE (high speed infrared film) had a lovely grain to it and so I played around with the Grain feature in Lightroom 3 to see if I could come close to what film used to do. This is my first try with it and I'm mostly pleased -- I'll keep playing with it though. And then of course I finished off with a little vignetting in the corners.

I hope you enjoy this image.

The Oaks

The Oaks

(c) Darlene Lyon Kruse -All Rights Reserved

The Rogue Valley in Southern Oregon once was covered with oak savannahs.  Clusters of oak trees still populate the valley floor, in greatly reduced numbers though.  Often on private land that is inaccessible. For a couple of years I've been looking for a good pair of oaks and a single oak near my home that I could return to easily, in all kinds of weather and at all times of day.  I wanted them on some kind of low knoll, without a lot of telephone wires, houses etc to clone out.

Well, a couple of weeks ago I stumbled on the perfect oaks - two on a knoll and then a single oak a few hundred feet to the left on its own little knoll.  This photograph is of the pair.  Love the road in front that can lead the eye right to them. And they are within a couple miles of my home in Ashland OR, easy to reach in 5-6 minutes.  There's even a rural driveway at the base of this road where I can park my car off the main road which is an important thing on country roads that often have no shoulder.  You'll see the single oak one of these days soon and all three will undoubtedly make frequent appearances here, in color and in infrared.  They are just so beautiful!  Look at the curly-que limbs on the left-hand oak. They are just yummy to my eye.

About this photograph:  This is an infrared photograph made on a September morning, just before noon.  With infrared the time of day isn't as important as it is with color and traditional black & white. Different times of day create different levels of intensity but infrared can make magic during the times of day when color images get harsh and unattractive.  The beauty & grace of an infrared photograph made at noon or at 2PM was the tipping point in my decision in the 1990s to begin shooting infrared film.

Camera: converted Nikon D90. Lems: Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8.  Settings: 1/200 at f/13; 70-mm (35-mm equivalent = 105mm); ISO 200.

I developed this image completely in Lightroom.   After converting it to grayscale, I deepened the blacks and made some color adjustments in the HSL/Color/Grayscale panel.  I substantially increased red and orange, slightly increased blues, purples & magentas, decreased green and aqua. Then I went to the split toning panel.  For the highlights I selected a dusty yellow-bronze color (hue 48, saturation 37).  For the shadows I picked a soft mauve (hue 237, saturation 24).  I finished by adding a slight vignette -- I  like a subtle darkening of the corners, sometimes just barely visible to my eye. 

I hope you enjoy this minimalist photograph of two elegant oaks.

Oregon's oldest lighthouse

Cape Blanco Lighthouse (infrared)

(c) Darlene Lyon Kruse - All Rights Reserved

The Cape Blanco Lighthouse is Oregon's oldest continuously operating lighthouse AND its most westerly.  Poised on the point of a bluff six miles north of Port Orford, Oregon, with no protection from south, north or west, the winds can be fierce.  The fresnel lens was lit for the first time on December 20, 1970.  The lighthouse is still active today.  You can learn more about this exquisite lighthouse here http://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=125

Besides being Oregon's oldest and most westerly lighthouse, it is also elegant -- with beautiful lines and textures.  From any angle, it presents an intriguring, strong, beautiful face to all who visit her.

This photograph was made during the workshop David Lorenz Winston and I co-led in August.  When we arrived at the lighthouse, it was enshrouded in fog, barely visible from the road.  The fog lifted, allowing us to photograph it with fog swirling around it and then completely clear of fog.  In all kinds of weather, the lighthouse at Cape Blanco never disappoints. 

While this is very much a photograph of the lighthouse, the addition of the people interacting with the lighthouse -- one entering, one leaving -- was important to me.  For my eye, other photographs made at the same time but without people lack the power and emotion of this image. 

About this photograph.  This is an infrared (invisible light) photograph made with my newly-converted Nikon D90,  using my 14-24 mm f/2.8 Nikkor lens at 21-mm (35-mm equivalent = 33mm). Minimal post-processing: I converted the image to grayscale and increased the blacks, clarity & contrast to enhance the black-white contrast.