Post on 14-Jun-2020
transcript
"Aster Veins" © Hank Erdmann Big Leaf Aster Leaves, Roadside, Door County, Wisconsin
Great shots happen in strange places, this image was made just off of the Highway 42 shoulder in a roadside forest.
Blog #15, Mid-August 2014
Photographing the Midwest; Part 2
Food for Thought:
"Be careful - The toes you step on today, may be connected to the behind you have to
kiss tomorrow!" -Quincy Jones, Jazz Musician and Composer (heard on the Tavis Smiley
show recently)
"I always thought good photos were like good jokes. If you have to explain it, it just
isn't that good."
- Anonymous
"Sometimes I get to places just when God's ready to have someone click the shutter."
-Ansel Adams
"Leelanau Sunset" & "Leelanau Sunrise" © Hank Erdmann, Leelanau State Park, Leelanau County, Michigan
Leelanau State Park sits atop the Leelanau Peninsula which forms the western shore of Traverse Bay and is an eastern shore of Lake
Michigan and has he benefit of being able to photograph both sunrise and sunset from its shores!
Feedback. It's a wonderful concept and we who write blogs and articles and stories don't get
enough of it, but what we do get is so valuable... if we take the time to read, digest and use it.
The entire discussion of Midwestern Photography in this and the last blog came from such
feedback. So keep it coming, I'm listening, reading and taking note. The one thing I thought I'd
hear was "you missed site X in your top ten list" or "check out site X". Actually I'd hoped to get
some of that, not just for new leads of places to photograph, but to see what overlap might exist
in folk's hearts for their favorite places, both local to Northern Illinois and across the Midwest.
If you have such thoughts, send them by. Not only would I like to hear about your favorites, your
undiscovered gems, and the places you want to visit (I've got lists of the last two categories at
the end of this blog), it will make for an interesting continuing conversation and I'll report back
on that feedback in the next issue or two.
If you would like to hear a discussion on a given topic, send me a note, I'll certainly consider it
and thanks again to those of you who've sent me suggestions, all of them good and valid,
whether I end up using one immediately, later or not at all. I do appreciate hearing about what
you want to hear about!
A Great Honor! This past Saturday I was awarded an incredible honor. A couple weeks ago I
received a call from Mary & Lloyd McCarthy, long time friends and members from the old
Morton Arboretum Nature Photography and
Study Club. Mary asked if I was going to attend
the CACCA (Chicago Area Camera Club
Association) Banquet and Awards Ceremony
coming up in a couple weeks. I said no, I hadn't
planned on it and Mary replied; "well, you
should be there"! So I knew something was up.
What exactly I didn't know, I've been on the
CACCA speaker's list and Competition Judges list
for years but otherwise not really active with
CACCA save being a member of a number of its
member clubs on and off over the years.
On Saturday, I received a very prestigious honor,
The John & Kitty Kohout Award which honors
long term service to the Chicago area
photographic community in the areas of
photographic education and sharing of
knowledge. The Kohouts were photographers
who I believe were among the founding
members of the original Arboretum photography
club, leaders in the club, and leaders in sharing
their depth of knowledge of nature photography
"Mammatus Coneflower" © Hank Erdmann, My Front Yard, Will County, Illinois
One of my favorite sites in the Midwest is my own yard which I've landscaped of course with photographs in mind!
across the Chicago area. They also served as the "un-official" photographers of the arboretum
on a mostly volunteer basis. Look at an Arboretum publication today and you’ll still see an
occasional Kohout byline. I sadly only met them once, right after I joined the club. Shortly
thereafter they were tragically killed in an auto accident in Hawaii on a photo vacation. As a
thirty year member of that club (now MaysLake) it is impossible to not know the great legacy
they left and one that continues to support the sharing of knowledge and the art of nature
photography .
An even greater honor I received at that banquet was to be in attendance as CACCA and PSA
(Photographic Society of America) honored one of the real great people in Chicago and National
Amateur Photographic circles; Bailey Donnally. Bailey has probably put more time and effort in
service to the greater photographic CACCA and PSA communities than at most a handful of
folks. This award was supposed to be presented later in the year at the PSA conference but
tragically Bailey is fighting a terminal illness and most certainly wouldn't have been able to
attend the event. Instead some of Bailey's friends and CACCA officials got together and asked
PSA if they could move up the presentation of their Lifetime Service Award, one of their highest
honors and bring it to Chicago. Not only was it sent, PSA's President flew out at the last
moment to personally present the award to Bailey. It was a moving tribute to a wonderful man.
I'm sad to say our paths crossed only a couple of times, mostly a function of living on opposite
ends of the Chicago region, but I plan on send Bailey a note to congratulate him. Speaking of
that, if you know him, or even know of him, if you would like to send him a note of
congratulations and or comfort, I am certain that it would be so appreciated. It would help lift
his spirit just a bit as he fights his battle with cancer, but please do so soon.
Concerning A Critique Service: Thanks for
all the feedback concerning a critiquing
service. It helped a great deal in deciding
to try this on a trial basis and see how it
goes. While first I was hesitant to start up
another program I was convinced that
such effort wasn't necessary just to
provide critiques services to those getting
this newsletter. It's not that I won't offer
such a service to anyone interested, I'm
just not going to market the service much
beyond this newsletter, at least at this
time. If you know of other folks who
might be interested, if you want to
mention it within your circle of friends,
wonderful! Thanks for any mentions or
passing news of this service along should
you consider it of value to those you know
or those who may be looking for critiques.
My biggest issue in offering critiques as a
paid service was mostly just what to charge.
"Coneflower & Monarda" © Hank Erdmann, Starved Rock State Park, LaSalle County, Illinois
Starved Rock is better known for its canyons and waterfalls, but it also has some great prairie edge lands on its perimeters..
I spent quite some time looking at services out in internet land and noted few if any
recognizable nature photography photographers providing critiques. Most included critiques of
a wide range of types of images, everything from fashion portraits to wedding photography,
kinds of photography I may have done in the past, but to be totally honest, I'm the last person
I'd want to pay to critique wedding or pet portraits. (Just the fact that I put those two things
together probably says more about why I shouldn't critiques such things as anything else I could
say!)
I think I know nature and related types of photography well and critique it fairly, honestly and
with respect to the maker, or so I've been repeatedly told. This service is for photographers
making such images; nature images and images under natural light of things outdoors and
abstracts and photo impressionistic images using nature as the image's inspiration. It's not that I
want to exclude photographers of other things, it's just that there are better folks for critiquing
such images. Send me a picture of your pet, a fashion portrait, a product shot, and I'll just return
them with a polite note saying that's not what I do. If you are not sure, just send it and I'll let
you know if I feel I can provide a critique of value and also if I don't feel qualified to critique an
image.
In the online services I looked at fees were all over the board as well. I've come up with a fee
schedule that keeps things fairly simple, isn't too expensive (in fact, my first feedback was that is
was too low), and structured to make it worth doing for the time it takes, but still is affordable
to most folks who might want a critique. I've since conducted an initial critique session and I
think it went quite well, the client expressed approval so I'm opening the service with this
newsletter. The fee schedule follows at the end of the blog below..
Again if you have contacted me in the past about such services but are no longer interested,
please don't feel any obligation, just continue to enjoy these blogs.
"Autumn Edge" © Hank Erdmann, Governor Dodge State Park, Iowa County, Wisconsin
One of my "Little Known Gems"
Photographing the Midwest, Part II I read once in a national photography publication, with some consternation to be sure, that
"one can't make great landscape images in the Midwest". I think the author lived in your typical
mountainous western state, and either had water envy due to the drought, was high, or was
suffering from both conditions. (No western US, you can't have great lakes water, start
conserving your own and stop over populating the desert!) To flat out state you can't make a
certain kind of image in any given location is sheer ignorance, ineptitude or probably both. This
author had some great landscapes with majestic mountains in magic time light so he knew how
to make a landscape image. To say great landscapes are not possible without mountains or
without any such "majestic" element is to ignore great work done by generations of big name
photographers and great amateurs alike in other environments. Where I will agree with the
author and with the point he was so inadequately trying to make, is that there is a difference, a
big difference in the Midwestern landscape versus the western, or the mountainous landscape.
One great difference is the light, it takes some time to get used to it; to get a feel for it, the light
has a different intensity when you're less than a thousand feet above sea level. I actually find it
easier in many cases to make a "big" picture without mountains blocking the view. Therein lies
the difference in making mountain landscapes, and in the transitional areas where big sky meets
big mountains, the Great Plains for instance, therein lie some similarities with Midwestern
landscapes.
Within that line of thought is the real issue at hand in making landscape images. Just where is
the horizon, both in the scene itself and within your composition? Is the horizon an obvious part
of the scene? Is it hidden to some extent or is it hidden completely? Is it broken with structures
of various kinds or with things you do not want in the composition. Is the horizon the main
feature or focus of the scene? All such considerations will impact your composition as will the
light, clouds and other features of the land including man-made objects which you may or may
not want in the image. In the Midwest, we are much more cognizant of such things, especially
those, many man-made, we don't want in our compositions. Such distractions are so much a
part of our Midwestern environment. Even some of our larger spaces of interests, prairie
preserves and lake shores are often more difficult to photograph without man-made intrusions
sticking up everywhere in the backgrounds when we go "large" or wide with the scene. In the
Midwest we learn quickly to crop the whole to eliminate distractions of unwanted elements in
the scene.
Landscape versus Intimate Landscape; It has often been said that when you can't find a
landscape, get intimate with the land! And the defining feature of an intimate landscape image
is the lack of a horizon. One key concept for me in photographing the Midwest is to keep this
thought of intimate landscape foremost in presence of mind when looking at a scene, a scene
that needs defining, needs compression, that needs simplification. By looking at the intimate we
rid our images of the confusion created by distracting elements in a scene.
Make it your own; There are great benefits to intimacy with the land. Understanding an
environment is easier, quicker and clearer, the visual statement you are making is more obvious
in an intimate landscape image. Possibly the greatest advantage of the intimate landscape is its
propensity to make an image your own, to make an image that is unique to you and your vision
of nature. Make a landscape at an iconic place, say Canyon de Chelly or Snake River overlook,
and try and find some unique view that hasn't been seen or imaged, and that you can physically
set up at and shoot from. No matter how good your "version" is, it's just a variation of what has
gone before, it's just not that different than the iconic image that pervades everyone's mind.
Make an intimate landscape of a feature of part of that scene and it might have been made
anywhere with a similar environment or look, but it is your own, your unique vision of what
nature inspired you to create.
Even smaller scales and Close-up possibilities; No matter where we are, the small shot, close-
up, the Macro is always available. On a trip a few years back to Isle Royal National Park, I was
hobbled with a real bum ankle, I had stretched but not torn my Achilles and while I limped
everywhere, I was not about to give up my chance to get to that fabulous place. My physical
limitation made it hard to get around, harder to walk great distances, and hard to get anywhere
quickly. Isle Royal is a place that is all about walking, it's the only way to get around on the land.
While I didn't get many of the Lake Superior lake shore landscapes I had envisioned, despite the
ankle I was able to get to many sites within hobbling distance and there I concentrated on the
intimate, the intimate landscape and close-ups. Many of the images I made that trip could have
been made at thousands of similar environments around Lake Superior. Still they are good
images, and images that I could make versus sitting at home complaining about a bum ankle.
"Reflections in Warren Creek" © Hank Erdmann, Warren Dunes State Park, Berrien County, Michigan Warren Dunes and Warren Woods is just an hour and a half from Chicago, Both are great in all seasons.
Different approaches for different folks: We are a product of our environment, our upbringing,
our education and our experience. I have noticed over the years that photographers that came
of age in the traditions of landscape photography and especially in the traditions of large format
photography in the 80's through the early 2000's tend to have a more studied, concentrated
working process that uses fewer variations of a scene and a less scattered or experimental
approach to making images. This approach to making images is as much a process of the fact
that even back then 4x5 and 8x10 film and processing was considerably more expensive that
digital capture or even 35mm film. It's a much slower process as well, the view camera just takes
more time to set up, and use, even in the hands of an experienced photographer. A different
approach is to use the advantage of the lower shooting cost factor to one's advantage, shooting
more variations and in effect bracketing your composition to ask it is sometimes called "working
a scene". I often used such an approach when I shot 35mm film, but even 35mm film had extra
costs in shooting lots of film. When I switched to my 4x5 gear, I switched operating modes as
well.
Now in digital days I do bracket compositions quite often, there is little cost but time, but I do so
with some thought in mind of the conditions. With changing light and changing conditions I am
concerned more with getting the best initial shot first and making variations second if at all. The
ease of set up and making images with 35mm style gear, can give one bad habits, especially in
the digital age and we all I'm sure have been guilty in this area, I know I have been. I saw so
many photographers in film days bracketing exposures willy-nilly across the board because they
didn't know or really understand exposure. They did not understand the concept of judging
exposure by understanding mid-tone tonality and how meters work. With current and having a
histogram to accurately show us where our exposures are and what our media will record,
exposure has become far, far easier to get right.
This is in no way implying that one way is right or wrong, but they are very different and
whichever way works for a photographer to make great images is just fine. The cost of willy-nilly
composition bracketing of compositional variation and bracketing of exposure has little or no
financial cost (unless your consider storage which is so cheap today as to be somewhat
inconsequential) but I'll make a point that it can have great images cost. That cost can and often
is while you are fidgeting with your camera, changing this or that, creating confusion in your
own mind, and worrying about the gear, you miss the shot as the light changes, moves, get's
covered by a cloud, etc, etc. Add to the equation a moving subject, like an animal, waving grass
or flowers, and you lose the best image, the decisive moment as the great street photographer
Henri Cartier-Bresson called it.
Last; Consider the environment type itself;
Prairies and grasslands - Grasslands are everywhere across the globe, but the true tall grass
prairies of the Midwest are uniquely ours. While tall grass prairies have been converted by the
plow to less than one percent of their former range we're lucky to have a number of prairie
preserves within an hour or two of Chicago. Most prairies aren't (or weren't) mostly flat, which
is good as by August most tall grasses are taller than most people and pretty hard to photograph
from within the grasses. Most of the prairie remnants and many of the restorations are on
unlevel ground less suited to plowing and agriculture. Look for elevation; small outcroppings of
rock or hillsides, some way to get above the grass for good photo opportunities.
Hardwood forests - The northern
hardwood forests of the Midwest were
cut over almost 100% in just forty or so
years. Small remnants do remain and
are impressive, both photographically
and visually. What remains are mostly
second and third growth forests, but
many of these feature succession
species like maple and birch which turn
spectacular in the fall. I'll match
northern Michigan's color to anything
in New England. One isn't necessarily
better than the other, they're both
stupendous! I used to say that while
the color is even, we don't have the
leaf-peeper crowds of the east. No
more though, not only do hordes of
tourists populate the forest edges, so
do hordes of photographers. Solution;
it's simple, just be willing to walk. I'll
admit I've done my share of car trunk
photography, there's nothing wrong
with grabbing what's known in the
"Trillium Forest IV" © Hank Erdmann, Aman Park, City of Grand Rapids, Ottawa County, Michigan
One of the finest spring wildflowers sites in the Midwest!
business as "a roadkill shot". If you walk a hundred yards however the crowds will thin
somewhat. If you walk a half mile the crowds will no longer be crowds, but a just a few folks
who like to walk and most of them not carrying a heavy photo pack. If you walk more than a
mile you'll likely have a place to yourself! So seek out those places a bit farther down the trail
and you can avoid the crowds and have some peace and connection with nature. Most
photographers won't walk more than a half mile, many physically can't, so if you can and are
willing to put some time and footsteps onto a trail, your work will benefit.
Boreal Forest - The northern edge of the United States is for the most part the southern edge of
the boreal forest range. There are some exceptions that are farther south, most notably a few
sites in Door County, Wisconsin. These wetland forests, tree swamps to the uninitiated, are
tough places to make images but very unique in their make-up and species mix. Many rare wild
orchids love such wet mosquito infected places. They are fragile environments so travel lightly
on the land with great care and pay the fee of a few mosquito bites to get some great images of
rare plants and environments. Shoot small and tight for the most part in such places,
backgrounds can be hard to control.
Great Lakes shores - The shoreline of a huge body of water is like no other shoreline, the water
has more effect on the shore and really large bodies of water make their own weather.
Changing weather usually means clouds and clouds and great late or early light make for
incredible landscape images. Big water also means big variety and diversity of environments and
micro ecosystems. You can travel less than a
hundred feet and go from a beach of stones
and rocks to pure sand and grasses and back
to rock, but big rock. You can have cliffs a
hundred feet high and waterfalls flowing onto
the shore... and that's just in Pictured Rocks
National lakeshore in Michigan UP on Lake
Superior. One could make a career on just
shooting Great Lakes shorelines.
Small lakes - Small water is different, their
shores are usually quieter, calmer, and more
intimate. Photograph them intimately. Go in
small groups or by yourself and let their
solitude sink in. Water in general is the place
to head when any other subject matter
doesn't work, and quite often just as good or
better even when other environs do work.
Rivers - More water! Use the "linearity" of
rivers, streams, creeks and brooks for great
effect in your compositions. Vary shutter
speeds for varying effects, feel and mood.
Rivers are linear in nature so use that
attribute to draw the viewers eye where you
want it to go. Make a river or similar linear
"Pine Creek Autumn" © Hank Erdmann, Fall Creek Gorge Nature Conservancy, Warren County, Indiana
This site has a lot of photography in a relatively small preserve.
feature "disappear" from the image within the image (versus out of an edge) to create interest
and mystery.
Trees and leaves - Of course you can find trees and leaves in just about any environment but I
am especially aware of these subjects mostly in an abstract sense. Because of our wealth of
forest environments, I look for this kind of subject matter.
Buildings; barns & lighthouses - Structures in the environment, mostly under natural light are
always something I pay great attention too. There are more lighthouses in Michigan than any
other state and while they are one of the most over covered subject photographically, I greatly
enjoy photographing them and learning their individual histories, legends and lore. Barns are a
disappearing species, in as much as they have been constructed in the past, with wood, love and
style. There's about as much of those qualities in an aluminum pole barn as there is in an
aluminum tooth pick. Photograph these structures now as they are not making more of them
and many are being torn down in favor of those ubiquitous pole barns.
Winter and seasons - It is obvious that you can make great images in all seasons if you have
great light and great subject material. My favorite season for image making and just to be
outside in is in the autumn. Autumn color is also obvious as a photographic "pilgrimage" takes
place every October to northern forest and the woods are full of leaf peppers and leaf shooters.
It is those less obvious and more difficult places and times when the light and subject combine
with seasonal variations to make images that are not only unique but uniquely yours. The great
Eliot Porter surprisingly made few images of brilliant fall color preferring to look for the more
understated and less obvious images of autumn subjects and to truly seek out the essence of
the season and not hide behind the brilliance of the color itself. I do make images of brilliant fall
color, quite a few actually, but in doing so I keep Porter's thoughts in mind trying to always keep
the essence of the season in the image. That might mean featuring yellow and tan and crimson
colors and keeping nearby more brilliant color out of a composition when adding would only
confuse the essence of the image.
I'll end this blog with two lists of favorites. My 10 Favorite Lesser known sites. At the risk of over
"photo-populating" or over exposing these sites, I'm giving you the site name, but not the
location. They are all in the Midwest, the photographic interest may be a full place or a piece of
one, but do your own research to find these gems, and why, where and when to visit them.
10. Fall Creek Gorge
9. Apple River Canyon State Park
8. Braidwood Dunes and Savanna Forest
Preserve
7. Pikes Peak State Park (NOT Colorado)
6. Jubilee College State Park
5. Leelanau State Park
4. Pere Marquette National Scenic River
3. Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge
2. Aman Park
1. Wyalusing State Park
For those of you who might wonder "where do I" want to visit that I haven't yet been, I've
compiled my list of Midwestern sites to visit for photography in the coming years. This is a list
that is not locked in stone, and has had additions and subtractions as I've seen images from
places and as I gain information from other photographers and as I finally get to visit such sites.
It will continue to evolve as my knowledge of the sites and interest in the sites evolve as well.
13. Hocking Hills State Park and State
Forest, OH
12. Hoosier Hills National Forest, Indiana
11. Voyageur National Park, Minnesota
10. Pere Marquette State Park, Illinois
9. Clifty Falls State Park, Indiana
8. Touch the Sky Prairie, Minnesota
7. Drummond Island, Michigan
6. Delabar State Park, Illinois
5. Interstate State Park and St Croix
National Scenic River, WI and MN
4. Elephant Rocks & Johnson Shut-Ins State
Parks, Missouri
3. Gooseberry Falls State Park, Minnesota
2. Hocking Hills, Southern Ohio
1. Pewit's Nest and the Baraboo Hills, WI
Again; Photograph and enjoy the Midwest, it is uniquely ours! Grab a gazetteer and pick a page
and explore.
Allbest, Hank
More Food for Thought on Seeing and Photographing the Midwest ...
"Whether a watercolor is inferior to an oil [painting], or whether a drawing, an
etching, or a photograph is not as important as either, is inconsequential. To have to
despise something in order to respect something else is a sign of impotence." - Paul
Strand, Camera Work, 1917
"As our eyes grow accustomed to sight they armor themselves against wonder."
- Leonard Cohen, Canadian Lyricist and Musician
"We tend to be blinded by our own works, and sometimes need to have our sight
adjusted by an honest appraisal from someone else." - Gertjan Zwiggelaar, Canadian
Author
"There are many schools of painting. Why should there not be many schools of
photographic art? There is hardly a right and a wrong in these matters, but there is
truth, and that should form the basis of all works of art." - Alfred Stieglitz, American
Photographer
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