Capturing Autumn in the Driftless Region

While autumn can be captured by merely walking out your front door with a camera, I did go in search of the season this year.  There are so many spots in the Driftless area of Wisconsin and Minnesota to explore and photograph.  I picked a couple of popular spots in La Crosse, WI and La Crescent, MN for a little fall season photo safari.

Grandad Bluff--La Crosse, WI

Grandad Bluff

County Hwy FA--La Crosse, WI

The following images were taken along Apple Blossom Drive in La Crescent, MN.

The sunshine and light starts to recede around us, the chlorophyll moves down into the roots of those trees, the colors shine orange and red, the leaves fall all around us and the next season waits just around the corner.

UW-La Crosse Photo Shoot

So I took some shots of my friends a few weeks after their marriage celebration.  It has been fun watching the arc of their relationship and to see them form their little family in the midst of their busy lives.  Whether taking pictures at their music shows or in our backyard, they are just fun to photograph.  We went walking through the UW-La Crosse campus on a sunny Friday night and shot loads of photos.  College campuses are a nice spot for photos, flowers tucked in between big brick buildings with benches all around.  We walked and talked and laughed and posed.  It was really fun to see pictures that looked just like them but also see some shots that captured something I hadn't seen in them before.   I'll just share a few.

I've never tried a photo shoot before but these guys made it fun and carefree.  Maybe I'll try it again sometime.

Springtime Bliss

As the Springtime sun gains momentum and warms up our pretty Driftless town, I've started thinking more about inner happiness and what that means. I was recently describing to my husband a feeling that I had in my Servant Leadership class.  I told him that the ideas being talked about in class were so identifiable and exciting and thoughtful.   I  wish I had my own language to describe the ideas themselves but they are still sifting through my mind.  My experience in the class was one that I've had repeated during other "peak" moments in my life.  Whenever I have one of these moments or experiences, I want to grab onto it and make it last, whether it's endorphins during a run, listening to a great story,  learning about a new idea, listening to a piece of music that transcends in some way or sometimes just a walk outside or a really great conversation with my husband or a friend.  Psychologist Abraham Maslow describes "peak experiences" as:

feelings of intense happiness, and well-being, wonder and awe and possibly also involving an awareness of transcendental unity or knowledge of higher truth (as though perceiving the world from an altered, and often vastly profound and awe-inspiring perspective).  They usually come on suddenly and are often inspired by deep meditation, intense feelings of love, exposure to great art or music, or the overwhelming beauty of nature.

Check, check and check.  The experience definitely comes on without planning or prodding.  You can't schedule a peak experience.

I watched part of Joseph Campbell's TV series The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers.  This is not something to be devoured quickly.  The documentary is steeped in Cambell's study of mythology, religion and faith as well as personal quests.  He talks about the importance of rituals, particularly in primitive cultures and the subsequent  loss of rituals in modern society (which was also covered in my Servant Leadership class, hmmm...worlds collide).   He also talks about a Hindu concept that is a blend of three Sanskrit words, "sat" which means truth, being or the eternal, "chit" which means consciousness and "ananda" which means bliss.  The idea is that the path an individual ought to take exists inside him or her at all times.  Bliss is the method by which this path reveals itself.  To follow your own bliss is to identify your own purpose and pursue it.  Campbell refers to this as "the Hero's path".  The Hero's journey is a process of moving from a lacking state to the fulfillment of one's individual potential, not as an endpoint, but through the course of life.

I think my favorite thing that Campbell says about this quest is the fact that this is not a concept you go out and find or learn.  This is something already within you.  You just have to let it reveal itself.  It would be easy to misunderstand his message about following your bliss because it sounds simplistic when taken at face value.  Identifying and engaging with your bliss, though, is in Campbell's words "an intricate process of making choices in life and work direction."  Sometimes when I least want to do something, go exercise, attend an event, this personal breakthrough happens.  It can be a matter of breaking through the noise of the day. It also feels good but it isn't about hedonism, doing whatever feels good at the moment.  There is a higher power at work, "hidden hands", Campbell calls them. And I think his words reveal more of the meaning being finding one's bliss:

How to get rid of ego and turn it into messenger and servant and scout, 

to be in your service, is the trick.  

Servant Leadership approaches personal transformation in a similar way in discussing the importance of our own deep story and "taking a long, loving look at the real" (Fr. Walter Burghardt).  These things are discussed as a way of finding the deep meaning within yourself to discover what you then have to offer the world.  It's about connecting and social justice and eventually moving outside of self.  At least that's the way I see it.  I know there are those people out there that seem born knowing who they are and where they want to go and are out there doing great things.  And then there are those of us that took the slow route.

So, thank you Joseph Campbell for revealing some insights into these recent blissful Springtime moments.  Maybe it will lead me along my own Hero's journey.

And lest, this all seem too preachy:

"As you proceed through life, following your own path, birds will shit on you.  

Don't bother to brush it off. Getting a comedic view of your situation gives it spiritual distance. 

Having a sense of humor saves you."

--Joseph Campbell

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Campbell, Joseph. The Power of Myth. 1991.
Joseph Cambell and The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers, TV mini-series. 1988.
"Follow Your Bliss: A Process of Career Happiness."  Journal of Counseling and Development, 78 (Summer 2000): 305-314.
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"The job of an educator is to teach students to see vitality in themselves".

--Joseph Campbell

Spring Photo Safari

The Driftless Area has come alive with color this past week.  Thank you rain and unseasonably, record-breaking warm March weather.  It was time for a walking photo safari. I grabbed my camera and off I went.  Flowers are the perfect subject when shooting with a DSLR camera.  I used a 280mm zoom lens so I could get up close to the blooms from the sidewalk.  Each Spring I try to remember the names of the various flowering trees that only bloom for a few weeks in March or April.  I can't promise total accuracy with tree names but I'll give it a shot.  Corrections are welcome  I was all about the photos.

This is our Rhododendon and I can still barely remember the name from season to season.  The blooms look better than ever though.  I insisted to my husband that it was because I took special care to water it and talk nicely to the little shrub.  

The day was obviously overcast so I started with a high ISO of 1600.  The ISO settings determine the camera's sensitivity to light.  So when we used to buy film with a 100 or 200 speed film setting, for example, this would be for outside daylight, good conditions.  The ISO works in the same way and can be changed according to the amount of light in your environment.  Increasing the ISO increases the graininess or noise of the photo so I prefer low ISO's when I can have them.  But today that was not an option. 

Crabapple?  Also looks like a Dogwood to me.

I used a wider aperture, my setting was 5.6 on all of these pictures.  I wanted a shallow depth of field which would focus on the blooms and blur the background and I also needed a lot of light due to the overcast weather.  I mostly shoot in manual mode now but  as a beginning photographer, I wish I had understood more about the settings AV and TV.  AV is aperture priority and TV is shutter priority.  You just need to get comfortable with one of these modes and the camera will decide on the other mode.    Shooting manual can be overwhelming at the beginning so AV and TV are a great way to begin controlling the shots.

Redbud

I love these trees. I remember them being all over Nashville and I really thought they only grew in the South.  I'm clueless.   Owning a house with a little yard is a motivating factor because I want to see all these trees and shrubs in our own backyard.  I could have done better with my focus on some of these shots.  Instead of using autofocus, with such a small subject farther away, I should have been manually focusing everything.  Live and learn.  This is where Unsharp Mask in Photoshop can at least do some sharpening of photos.  

The forsythias were calling my name so loudly, I went directly to the store and bought and planted one after my walk.  Good neighborhood marketing.  As the day lightened up, I had to move my ISO down to 800 so I wasn't getting so much light in my shots.

Easter eggs for giants.  I don't know this tree, anyone?

Lovely daffodils  (I did use a Photoshop Action called Fresh Color to enhance the colors in some of these photos.  It is available for free from http://thecoffeeshopblog.com).

At this point, I start seeing the way the blooms contrast or complement each house.  So I began aiming my camera more toward people's homes, trying to catch shutters and house paint as a backdrop.

Once I started noticing the houses as the backdrop to the shrubs and flowers, in a very Pinterest way, I was seeing collages and color relationships everywhere.

As I pondered this great new idea, I thought about some reference I'd seen on the Internet to photographing a person's house.  The person reporting this was very suspicious because they had seen someone with a camera in front of their house.  It dawned on me that it probably looked weird that I was aiming my camera even in the vicinity of people's homes..if they happened to glance out their windows.  

Hmmm....

As I pondered this, a police car slowly drove by.  This gave me pause. 

But I innocently continued to take pictures in this little schoolyard park.  Open to the public.  However, at this point, I ratcheted down my front yard photography. I looked into this when I got home and it's perfectly legal to take pics of a person's house as long as you're off their property.  Oops.  I thought about myself stepping into a couple of yards in order to get closer to their blooming trees.   Just something to think about.  Always good to keep safety in mind on a photo safari.  Walking photo safaris are easy to accomplish.  Picking a subject is a good way to focus your photographic energies.  Practicing camera settings is easier to do in a quiet setting at your own pace.  And if you don't get arrested, you end up with a bunch of fun photos at the end of your walk!

Playing by the River, Catching the Light

(These animated gifs can be created at http://gifninja.com)

Spring is backyard play,
long light,
ice cream at The Pearl
and walking by the river.
That is Spring.

The Parenting Place in LaCrosse has a great blog.  They have a March posting that reminds us that outdoor activity, at best, is simple, free and can be enjoyed by oneself or with the entire family:

March is here, the clocks have sprung ahead, daylight is extended and soon it will be Spring.  This is definitely the time of year to get outside and enjoy.  The season welcomes you.  Here are some things you and your family might like to do in March.

Go for a walk and watch for the first robin of the season.

Put on rain boots and find some puddles to splash in.

Put on old boots and find some mud.

Fly a kite or run along holding streamers in each hand.

Look to discover the first crocus of the year.

Put some dryer lint, ribbon, raffia in a mesh bag and hang on a tree for the birds to build their nests.

Look for worms after the rain.

Plan your summer garden.

Set up a discovery table or basket to hold the things you find on your walk – pieces of bark, a stone, pine cones, moss.

Bring a branch of a flowering bush in now and put in water to watch it bloom early.

Find a large branch to hang colored eggs.

Go to the Playground.

Bring out the chalk .  Offer a container of water to dip the chalk in for very vibrant colors.

Line a basket with plastic, add dirt and grass seeds and watch it grow.  Perfect place to put your colored eggs.

Go for a walk in the marsh, or in the woods, or along the river.

Go slowly.  Let your children lead the way.

Soak in the beauty of the season.   This kind of appreciation for simple beautiful things is contagious.  Share it with your children.

The Parenting Place (http://www.theparentingplace.net/)

My February Face

A cold winter Saturday.  The whole day ahead of us.  We went to Fayze's for breakfast, my husband and me.  The park beckoned to us (or to me and my camera).  As I scrambled around Friendship Gardens, my husband was on the lookout for birds.  I was trying out my prime lens which offers no zoom feature so you have to be right up on your subject.  Kind of acrobatic.  But I love the shallow depth of field and the background blur with the prime.  Photography and short, brisk walks seem to be the only things combatting the February blues.  Though we haven't had the cold temperatures here in Wisconsin, I seem to be freezing to the core.  Unless I'm submerged in a bubble bath or under four layers, I'm just not warm. 

"There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you ..... In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself."

- Ruth Stout

One of the things I do like about winter is this quiet time where we all crawl into our caves for the coldest months.  Dark at 5pm, either cold or damp and windy or wet, none of it is fun or preferrable.  So in we go for soup and blankets and at my house, Netflix. Now is the time to get caught up on all of the shows I can't watch during the season either because we don't have HBO or I don't find the time during other seasons of the year.  So while I want February to be whisked away quickly, I am savoring this private, quiet time.

"Why, what's the matter,

That you have such a February face,

So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?"

- William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

I'm pretty sure I do have a February face.  And it's much different than my July or August face because that spells body warmth, so many more hours of daylight and countless festivities to choose from.  But it is not July or August.  It is February.  

I remember an acquaintance one time saying that he "didn't live according to seasons."  I don't remember anything else this person said other than this crazy statement.  How can seasons not affect a person?

So I kept on walking through the park. And I thought, 'to everthing there is a season'...now how does that go?  

To everything there is a season,

a time for every purpose under the sun.

A time to be born and a time to die;

a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

a time to kill and a time to heal ...

a time to weep and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn and a time to dance ...

a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing;

a time to lose and a time to seek;

a time to rend and a time to sew;

a time to keep silent and a time to speak;

a time to love and a time to hate;

a time for war and a time for peace.

ecclesiastes 3:1-8

So I put on my February face.  But took stock in these words.  

And I enjoyed the birds.

The Christmas Farm

Remember when we had snow a couple of weeks ago, for like five minutes?  That was fun.  That also just happened to be the weekend we went to get our Christmas tree.  We cut it down ourselves.  So very Little House on the Prairie.  This farm was beautiful and the drive out there was just Driftless gorgeous, rolling hills, blufflines, cruising through rural scenery with our urbanite eyes.  I loved it.  And I think the kiddos liked it too.  You'll see.

Shaking the snow off.  This thing is coming in our house.

Emma looking for the best one.

Ian contemplating.

Let the snowball fights begin.

Could it look any more like Christmas at this farm?  I feel like I should preserve these photos for posterity...see we did have snow in December!

But back to the snowball fight.

And off we go to drag this heaping, wet somewhat lopsided beauty into our home.

..The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep

--Robert Frost (Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening)

And I loved it.  A mess of needles and snow all over the floor, the fresh smell of pine, covered in lights and a mix of homemade decorations, colored balls and Packers ornaments.  Bring on the snow flurries and the Christmas cookies.