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).

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.

The Mary D. Hume

The Mary D. Hume

(c) Darlene Lyon Kruse, All Rights Reserved

Most of the work I've done on the Oregon coast over the past 20+ years has been done between Port Orford and Newport so, when David Winston and I scouted locations for our upcoming workshop at Port Orford and Cape Blanco, it was an opportunity for me to explore Gold Beach. The Mary D. Hume is much photographed but this was my first time. Here's a little info about the boat, first:

Built in Gold Beach in 1881, she is named for the wife of the builder and first served as a steamer serving Mr. Hume's cannery business. Later she became a whaling ship and, when the whaling industry ended, she served as a tugboat, a tender for halibut fishing boats and a towboat before being retired to the harbor near where she was born. The Mary D. was in service until 1978, the longest serving, commercial boat on the Pacific coast. Now she sits at the mouth of the Rogue River, slowly decaying, becoming part of the river.

I was drawn to the texture of the timbers -- there's something SO seductive about peeling paint & old weathered wood --, the bright green of the moss growing at and below the waterline, and the tilt of the ship against the pier, as if leaning on it for support. I hoped for a soft spring sunset to warm her up, maybe some clouds in the sky. But the sky was cloudless, and the sunset didn't manifest its full potential. Sometimes you just have to do the best with what you're presented with. So...I have helped it along in Adobe Lightroom. I did that by adjusting the color temperature to bring in more warmth & using Lightroom's graduated neutral density filter to intensify the existing color in the sky.

My vision was to create an emotionally satisfying image of the Mary D., one that is warm, sweet, nostalgic, even romantic. That didn't happen when I was there -- so I'm really grateful for the technology that allows me to come close to expressing my vision for her. I can't wait to go back and photograph her again...



Metadata: 6/30/10. 8:28PM. Nikon D300. 24-70mm f/2.8 Nikkor lens at 70mm (35mm equivalent - 105mm). ISO 400. 1/180 sec. at f/8. Gitzo tripod with Linhof ballhead.

Unexpected Beauty

Reeds, 12th Street Boat Launch, Port Orford, Oregon

(c) Darlene Lyon Kruse - All Rights Reserved

Last week David Winston and I scouted locations for a workshop we're doing together in August - Port Orford and Cape Blanco on the southern Oregon coast. Driving around Port Orford, we saw signs pointing to the "12th Street Boat Launch". Sounds pretty unappetizing. I think of boat launches as being all about that sweep of concrete that makes it possible to launch boats into a lake or bay. Something tugged though -- call it curiosity -- and at the last moment at an intersection I decided to follow the sign, to see what was there.

As a photographer one of the gifts to me is permission to find out what's there, to satisfy my curiousity, to take the winding, meandering, indirect way from one place to another. Sometimes there's nothing at the end of the trip. But then again sometimes there is. The 12th Street Boat Launch in Port Orford ends at Garrison Lake. David and I found a sweet little dock, some interesting angles, and these reeds. I was totally captivated by the reeds, their reflection & the deep blue of the water. I did several compositions, some verticals, some horizontals. This is one of my favorites.

Photographed with Nikon D300. Lens: 24-70 f/2.8 Nikkor at 55mm. ISO 400. 1/90" at f/8. Circular polarizing filter. Gitzo tripod with Linhof head.