As promised in my last post, here is a photo from the cool wildlife encounter that I had yesterday at Cascade River State Park. For the past several years there has been a Ruffed Grouse drumming on the same rock in the park campground. After photographing the waterfalls I figured I'd head over and see if he was there again this year. Sure enough, he was!
As I slowly approached the rock I could see him standing atop it. I got within about 12 feet then stopped and set up my tripod. After just a minute or two he started drumming. I watched him for about the next hour. In my past experiences photographing drumming grouse they seem to have drummed 3 or 4 times, then leave their post for about 10 to 15 minutes before coming back to drum again. This time, however, he drummed at least a dozen times in an hour without ever leaving the rock. After that hour of watching him I figured I better leave him alone as a female was probably not likely to come around while I was standing there taking his picture :-)
Yesterday I spent part of the day at Cascade River State Park with my camera. The goal was to shoot both stills and video of the many waterfalls along the river as it makes its final descent to Lake Superior. I ended up with a nice wildlife surprise which I will tell you about in a later post. For now, the focus is on the waterfall. My favorite waterfall image of the day is one that I made with my new Tamron 150-600 lens. This is the most photographed waterfall along the entire length of the Cascade River and it is the section from which the river derives its name. The tendency here is to get a wide angle shot that shows all of the cascading drops, but this time I chose to focus on individual sections of the cascades, using my telephoto lens to isolate smaller areas of the falls. This image was taken with the zoom set at 250mm. It certainly is a beautiful river to photograph and is at its prime right now in terms of water flow. Be sure to watch for my video (coming VERY soon!) from the day's adventures, I'm sure you'll like it!
Here is a follow-up image to "The Path to Enlightenment", the image I posted this morning. You may have been wondering from that photo what lies at the end of that path. Well, here is the reward for walking that path. If you take that path in late afternoon on a sunny day you will be treated to one of the most amazing views I've ever seen in the Minnesota north woods. A full, end-to-end rainbow hovering over the gorge just below High Falls on the Pigeon River. What can I say, the title for this image was a no-brainer as that is exactly what I felt when I saw this beautiful rainbow!
Here is an interesting capture that is the result of circumstance. I was photographing the high water level at High Falls of the Pigeon River and my camera was quickly getting to the point of being too wet thanks to the copious amounts of spray coming from the falls. I retreated to the cover of some nearby trees along the High Falls boardwalk to take a moment to dry off my camera. I had left the camera in live view mode and when I set the tripod back down it just so happened that the camera was facing in the direction of the sun. When I lifted my cleaning cloth to wipe moisture from the camera I noticed that the water on the lens was creating this surreal effect to the image on my live view screen. I thought it made for a rather intriguing "fantasy world" type of view with the boardwalk leading into the forest and these light flares from the water droplets on the lens. I think the photo has a very mystical feel to it and I felt I had to come up with a suitable title for the image. My title of choice became "The Path to Enlightenment".
The Pigeon River is finally running freely after a VERY long winter. Right now the water height on the river is very high and should stay that way for a while as there is still a lot of snow yet to melt in the river's watershed.
Well, as I sit here laid up for the third day in a row, I find myself wishing I was more mobile and able to be out in the woods appreciating a magnificent night sky. With that in mind, I went back to some photos from October 2013 to post a shot that conveys what is on my mind for today. This was during a very nice aurora outbreak that started at around 11:30 PM on October 1st and carried on until at least 4 AM on the 2nd. The picture shown here was made at 2:36 AM and is looking straight up at the sky. When I first viewed this image I immediately saw the shape of a bird within the lights of the aurora and it made me think of flying away from Earth towards the stars. It was an amazing scene to witness at the time and is equally amazing, I think, to view the images today.
Here is another close-up study of the spring water flow on the Gooseberry River. I was really intrigued by these tree roots near Lower Gooseberry Falls and thought they would make for an interesting photo along with the flowing water. The trick was in composing a nice shot of the scene, as it was a very "messy" scene with a lot of elements to try and make into a pleasing image. I messed around with both vertical and horizontal compositions. My initial thought was that vertical was going to work best but in the end my favorite was this horizontal shot. I hope you enjoy viewing it as much as I enjoyed making it!
