Yesterday was the first day of Spring. We are pretty excited about that. This year, February in Central Illinois was rather drab and depressing. Day after day of overcast skies, rain, and sleet quickly becomes mundane. I think we had maybe three days of sun during the whole month. And when we did have those few days of sun, they were days of sun but cloudless skies. Landscape photographers hate cloudless days. More about that in a future blog post.
Typical February day in Central Illinois
The photo above is a perfect example of the weather in February in Central Illinois. The photo below, taken at Miller Park In Bloomington, Illinois, is another example of the weather.
A bridge at Miller Park in Bloomington, Il
April and I were delighted when March finally arrived. Yet, we knew that March weather in Central Illinois can be rather tricky. Rarely does the old saying “March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb” happen. In fact, it is usually just the opposite. This year, the first couple of days of March came in with fifty degree weather and plenty of sunshine. Two weeks later; cold and snow.
Now it is spring. The plants that had emerged from the ground survived the arctic blast. The next few days rain but temperatures in the fifties. A month from now, flowers will be blooming, winter clothes will be replaced with spring and summer attire. Yes, hope truly does spring eternal. Soon April and I will be traveling the back roads of Illinois, visiting small towns, searching for that photo that has never been captured. All will be well.
We have received a couple of emails asking us about past blogs that have disappeared. Yes, we did some severe editing of our past blogs. I probably deleted at least a hundred of them. I felt they just wasted space and to be honest, I actually was embarrassed by some of them.
Our new website keeps getting closer to being completed. It should be finished with a few more updates by this coming Monday. You can check the website out by clicking on the Galleries Link at the top of the page.
I got to end this here. It is Spring and our day is rather busy.
Before I leave, two more pics from February in Central IL.
Walkway and Bridge at Miller Park Bloomington, Illinois CLG
From Miller Park, Bloomington, IL CLG
All photos in the blog post taken with the Nikon Z6 and Nikon Z 35 mm 1.8 lens.
Hmmm, this might be another blog post that I will probably delete in the near future. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoyed. – CLG
Hmmm, about twelve years ago when we moved from Illinois to the west I was excited to be so close to some of the greatest national parks in the world. I figured all I had to do is show up early in the morning in Yellowstone, Grand Teton or Rocky Mountain National Park and I would experience a smorgasbord of animals doing all sorts of wonderful things. Heck, there would be bison running, herds of bison forging rivers. Bears would snarl, wolves would howl and run. Moose would be drinking from a river, and elk prancing about. Eagles would be soaring high and of course antelope would roam. I could not wait to witness animals chasing each other. So on and so on.
Well, on very rare occasions I did experience some fantastic action scenes. But mostly, no matter what time of the day it was, I watched elk slumber or eat grass. Most of the time when watching a herd of elk they seemed to want to show their butts to me. Or they just laid down and did nothing. When it came to bears on occasion I got some pretty good closeups which were nice photographs but, to be completely honest, nothing that one would say “hey that is an outstanding nature photo.”
Probably my best bear action photo was a brown bear sitting on a huckleberry shrub eating the fruit. How that bear maintained its balance on those flimsy branches is beyond me.
Over the course of time I have gotten some nice pics of antelope roaming or running. Note to readers: If your thing is to take photos of pronghorns (antelope) Wyoming is the place you want to be. In Wyoming the antelope are everywhere.
When it comes to elk photos one of my favorites is this photo of a herd of elk crossing the road.
I kind of consider the “elk crossing the road” photo to be a documentary photo of life near a national park in the west.
Of course I have a lot of photos of elk standing and posing for me.
At this time I think you should understand that when I moved west I wanted to dedicate myself to being one of the best wildlife photographers in the west. Then reality set in. To accomplish that goal I would have to spend days at a time away from home and family. I would have to go into the back country maybe for weeks at a time. I would have to return over and over to the same location realizing it might take months, if not years, to get those special photographs that would awe the photographic world.
To become a successful wildlife photographer I would have to shirk my family responsibilities. I neither had the desire or lack of conscience to do that. So my photography slowly started to evolve into landscape photography.
Still, I never lost my desire to be a wildlife photographer. I understood that it would take tremendous luck to get those wonderful capture that we all visualize when we think of wildlife photography. I could not rely on luck. Instead, I had to figure out how do I take an ordinary wildlife scene and make it different? Yep, make the ordinary in nature seem interesting.
To accomplish this I started using what I had learned from other photographic disciplines and applying them to wildlife photography.
In street photography and portrait photography shooting your subject in black and white brings out its emotion.
Again street photography: Look for a normal scene in an odd situation.
Another rule of street photography: Hey stupid it does not matter what the camera is, be ready to be a photographer at all times.
The previous two photos were taken from my car parked on the side of the road with a small old Nikon V1. If I had to get out my bigger camera and lens most likely I would have missed the shot.
In portrait photography start close and work outward. Well, this is a crop of the other photo. With thirty-six megapixels you can do that.
These next two photos I ignored the standard elk photo and concentrated on the face. While taking closeups of the elks face I moved around so I would get different perspectives of the elk.
Portrait and street photography: It is the expression in the face that makes the image.
Sports photography: Remember the horse bet. When photography was in its infancy two men made a bet on when a horse ran if all four legs left the ground at the same time.
Streetscapes and landscape photography: Lines.
Ok, I am never going to be a famous wildlife photographer. Nevertheless, I am still learning and most important of all I am enjoying what is around me and not fretting over what I wish I could photograph.
Hope you enjoyed my little growths in photographing the normal wildlife in our national parks. It is a work in progress. All photos, with the exception of the antelope photo, were captured in either Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park or Rocky Mountain National Park.
The antelope photo was taken about twenty miles southeast of Yellowstone National Park. Like I said, antelope are everywhere in Wyoming. – CLG
