I love the time right after sunset on the prairies when the deep blue night sky slowly descends. It squishes the glowing magenta light of the magic hour into the horizon below it. I pass this railway crossing all the time, and I always think about stopping to have a better look at it. But I rarely do. I’m glad I did this time because the light was stunning.
I saw this big Buck standing in a farm field watching me as I drove past, and I really wanted to make a great portrait of him. Unfortunately the whole herd of Deer took off running shortly after I stopped. It was already past sunset and really quite dark, so my shutter speeds were very slow. Instead of trying to make really sharp images I worked on making some pan-blurs (where the background is blurred by panning along while the main subject moves, keeping the subject relatively sharper) as they ran past me instead. I really like the granularity of the final image and to me it has a great vintage look and feel.
I saw these granaries in a farm field with a conveyor parked in front just as the sun was setting. The last remnants of daylight were starting to fade on the distant horizon. The nearby farmers had only recently finishing up with the harvest and it seemed like a fitting metaphor that the equipment was still parked there as the light faded into night. Everything will soon be put away for the winter, ready to be used again when the time comes that they are needed.
I stopped to make a few images of a really great sunset tonight, with a couple of grain bins in a massive Prairie field. It was very beautiful and I managed to catch the indigo sky rising up out of the horizon while the pink glow remained above it. It was one of those magical skies that you really have to visit the Prairies to see.
While I walked back to my truck when I realized that I had parked underneath a beautiful Snowy Owl perching on a power pole. I’ve spent many hours searching for these elusive birds over the last couple of winters and have only rarely seen them. This one wasn’t very happy to have me there, but it must not have minded too much or it would have flown away when I first arrived. I can’t believe I didn’t see it when I first pulled up, and it’s even more amazing that it just stayed there and ignored me. I got to watch it and make images for several minutes before it got too dark. I’m still excited about it several hours later!
I posted several pictures of some hay bales the other day. The main reason I was attracted to that particular field, and to those particular images, was because of the vivid colors of the field and the sky. But after processing them something made me think that they might look really good in black and white. So I converted them all and I’m really excited about the new images that I was able to create!
I don’t do a lot of black and white photography, but every once in awhile certain images lend themselves to it. I don’t necessarily think that all of these images look better in Black and White than they do in color, but I really like them. This is a simple reminder or me that there are almost always several ways to make every image look great, and that experimentation can be lots of fun!
