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What if winter came without warning

Like a deep, sudden slumber?

Snow and ice and sleep

And no time to spend with the falling leaves.

Be ready,

For when the first snow falls,

Dusting everything with its frost,

It will put this place to sleep.

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Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Halfway through December and I'm still sharing photos from early fall.  These are from Cuyahoga Valley National Park, the last stop along my trip through the national parks of the Great Lakes region. You'll have to put up with one more fall-themed post in the coming days with pictures from my hometown of Rochester, NY and then that will be it… for now.  I assure you, with a fresh foot of snow, I have begun shooting for winter.

For more on Cuyahoga Valley National Park visit the NPS website: http://www.nps.gov/cuva/index.htm

Also, in case you haven’t heard, as of today the U.S. has seven brand new national parks!  For lack of a better news link I give you CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/12/politics/national-parks-expansion/

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Effigy Mounds National Monument

Effigy Mounds National Monument is one of this country’s sacred places.  You know when you’ve found one of these places because you can feel it.  You instantly and naturally gain respect for the ground you are standing on.  I’ve only had a feeling like this a couple of other times in my life, one of those times being a visit to the Gettysburg battlefield. Hopefully that provides a little perspective.

The park sits on the banks of the Mississippi River in the state of Iowa and for a National Park is fairly small, only about 2,500 acres, but it contains over 200 burial mounds.  The mounds were built by ancient Native Americans between the years 1400 B.C. and 750 A.D. (let that sink in for a moment).  They range from simple, rounded cones to more complex animal shaped configurations, the largest mound being bear shaped and measuring more than 120 feet in length.  Though the more complex mounds, like the Great Bear Mound, are identifiable and impressive from the ground they are quite difficult to photograph. Thankfully the National Park Service has provided aerial imagery of a couple of the mound groups so you can get a more straightforward view of what they look like: http://www.nps.gov/media/photo/gallery.htm?id=60ECA6BA-155D-4519-3EB59AA211503AD0

You can also read more about the park and the mounds on the NPS website: http://www.nps.gov/efmo/historyculture/effigy-moundbuilders.htm

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Voyageurs, Apostle Islands, and More

     Voyageurs National Park, Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, Pikes Peak State Park, and other awesome places were stops along my way through the Great Lakes.  I still have a couple more parks to highlight but I wanted to dwell for a moment on these shorter stopovers. Though Voyageurs and the Apostle Islands are grand places, I stayed landlocked and didn't venture into their waters to fully experience them.  Despite this I made good use of the beauty of each to create a few really striking pictures.  Pikes Peak made for a wonderful place to set up camp with easy access to an incredible view over the confluence of the Mississippi and Wisconsin Rivers.  I shot in the early morning, evening twilight, and night to capture different views of the same amazing place (all three versions are available in my image galleries). Other spots like Seney National Wildlife Refuge and Canyon Falls added intrigue and surprise, two feelings every road trip should come with.  

     Anyway, this is just a stopover before posting pictures from the last of the places I visited this past fall (a couple of really cool yet overlooked National Parks), and a reminder that the holidays are upon us and there is barely enough time to order prints for presents! ; )

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Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

In 1966 Pictured Rocks was established as the very first U.S. National Lakeshore.  It protects 42 miles of Lake Superior’s shoreline which, considering the scale of Superior, seems insignificant, but the natural features of the park are impressive and deserve the recognition.  The shoreline is dotted with arches, sea caves, and waterfalls which create a grand statement for the east when compared with the more famous red-rock icons of the west.

When photographing Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore it quickly became clear what these images would be about: erosion.  The park’s most significant features are carved from sandstone.  The cliffs are windswept and battered by waves.  They are unstable and the trail that leads along their precipice grows closer to the edge every year.  The view beckons you to stand too close and the delicateness of the place becomes obvious when you approach the edge.  Tree roots are exposed and cracks in the earth predict the next piece that will be lost to the lake.  You become aware of every footstep and the slightest disturbance of rock or dirt causes irreparable damage.  It makes you wonder how long the more delicate edges of the park will withstand visitation.

I have more images from Pictured Rocks which can be found HERE (not all of them are about erosion) along with other images from around Michigan and Lake Superior.  All in all an incredibly beautiful part of the country worth many more visits, and my visit didn’t stop at Pictured Rocks, there are more pictures of more parks to come.

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Isle Royale National Park

     Isle Royale is one of over four hundred islands clustered in the northern reaches of Lake Superior.  45 miles long, 9 miles wide, and roughly 200 square miles in surface area, but it sits amidst 850 square miles of protected lake water and wilderness that make up the entirety of Isle Royale National Park.  It is roadless; it is a park for hikers and boaters.  One of the least visited parks in the entire NP system, yet it boasts the highest backcountry camper use per acre than any other park.  The island is home to two very elusive packs of wolves and is the only ecosystem that contains populations of wolves and moose but no bear, making it unique to the world and aiding in its designation as an International Biosphere Reserve.  Like most great features on the surface of our planet, Isle Royale was created through unimaginable force and the passing of time, but on a more personal scale it is a place that people go for peace and for quiet, and to just get away.  

     I have wanted to go here for a long, long time.  I remember seeing Isle Royale on a map for the first time and wondering how I would ever get there.  Turns out I just needed the time.  Time to make the drive, time for the six hour ferry ride across Lake Superior, and time to spend nine days hiking the island.  The day I arrived everything was wrapping up.  The camp store was closed and it was the last night the lodge and restaurant would be open.  You could feel the recess in the air.  The staff who had been living there for months were relaxed and ready to go.  The island itself seemed to sigh with relief.  The ferry that brought me here loomed at the dock, dwarfing the harbor and the wilderness around it, a surreal gateway onto this island.  The place felt like a well described setting to a novel, exhaustively detailed yet distinctly foreign.  You had to trust that in its creation the author of this great place had reimagined it perfectly.

     In meeting other campers it became clear that for most people who visit the park more than once it wasn’t about seeing how much of it they could traverse.  It wasn’t thrill seekers or people out looking for adventure in some far reaching place.  Those who came back came to relax.  They would backpack or paddle just far enough and then settle in.  Especially those who came this time of the year, after the summer rush, facing the chance of cold weather with the knowledge that any amenities on the island would be shut down by the time they got out.  This was a chance to get away.  We had cast ourselves out into the largest lake in the world knowing we would be found again, but knowing too that that rescue wouldn’t come until we had scheduled it.  Even then, there was a chance of missing it, so when the time came we would pack up our belongings and head for the harbor.

     The shipped pulled away from the dock, moaning and vibrating.  It began to turn but felt as if the island itself were rotating around us.  The ship slowed and rested, coming to a peaceful stop, and then it started moving forward, out into the lake.  I thought back to my last day of hiking; knees cracking, feet sore, and chilled to the bone, on my way to catch the last scheduled ferry of the year.  I passed old men (and one young woman) hiking in the other direction, they were on their way into the wilderness of the island.  During my stay the weather had transitioned from summer to fall in the blink of an eye.  It was cold now.  I thought I had been there for the off season... but little did I know.  These folks had come out on the ferry that would take me back to the mainland and it had no scheduled return after that.  These were hardy souls.  I felt a little jealous but ultimately I was happy to be on the boat, sipping coffee, and watching Isle Royale National Park slip to the horizon.

     I could break my stay down for you day by day, describing each wildlife sighting, each mile of trail, what each campsite looked like.  I could go on about the natural history of the place and how it was formed (which is interesting)... but I won’t.  Instead, you have these pictures.  I had many to choose from and you can find them all in the depths of my image galleries, but I wanted to tell a specific story about Isle Royale with these images.  So I chose those that showed best its mystery and tranquility, because these are the feelings the island brought to me.

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Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

     A small taste of what's to come.  I recently spent a month traveling around Lake Superior and Lake Michigan photographing as many of the national parks as I could.  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was the first stop on my trip.  A remarkable place worth much more than the time I gave it.  I only spent one night in the park but was able to do a great hike through the expansive dune field and even made it to a "secret" spot in the park just in time for sundown; a skeletal forest (or ghost forest), found a couple miles off the main trail system.

     Like I said, I only had one night to spend.  I was on a tight schedule, I had to get up north to catch a boat.  A six hour ferry ride across Lake Superior to majestic Isle Royale National Park.  More about that soon!

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Ghost Gardens of Detroit

     We all know about Detroit; the ruins, the fires, the collapse… but there is a phrase that stuck out to me amongst all that I have heard: Ghost Gardens. The phrase was coined by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Charlie LeDuff while showing Anthony Bourdain around Detroit on his show, Parts Unknown (you can watch the segment HERE if you so desire). The idea of Ghost Gardens was intriguing to me; abandoned homes, left to rot, and their flower beds left unattended.  A resurgence each spring, a spec of beauty and color poking out through ruin.

     I wanted to see it for myself, not the ruin of this great city necessarily, but the flower beds, the growth.  I didn’t find it, I looked but it wasn’t there. Maybe I didn’t look hard enough.  I certainly didn’t explore a wide swath of the city, but the ghost gardens were gone.  Grown over and pushed out by weeds and wildflowers.  There were signs of the old gardens here and there, but nothing recognizable. Occasionally, settled amidst ruins on an empty block, would be a tended garden; mowed and weeded. But there was little sign that much had returned or would again in the coming years. Despite all of this I found beauty and interest in the wild growing fields and deserted lots filled with wildflowers. The twitter of songbirds sprang from tall grass, as did the occasional rabbit.  It felt like the beginning of a return to something much older than the city itself. If I traipsed far enough into the weeds, closed one eye, and leaned to one side I could block out the telephone poles behind a tree.  I could crouch just enough so that the potholed road became hidden by the tall grass.  I could wait for the bleeding sound of a distant siren to dissipate and let the silence of the place fill the air.  The gardens were gone and the apparition of something much more significant had taken over.

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My New Book: Camera Crazy

     I have just returned from a lengthy road trip and have brought with me wonderful news, my newest book is out: Camera Crazy!  I use the pronoun “my” loosely considering that I did not author the book, but the photography for the most part is mine.  Camera Crazy documents an array of novelty and toy cameras and the history behind them.  Ultimately, it’s a collection of photos of some really funky looking cameras.  Cameras in the shape of Micky Mouse, or Charlie Tuna, or even a donut.  Not only did I photograph hundreds of these cameras I also had the opportunity to shoot with them! For the most part these cameras shoot film, some shot formats that were tricky to get ahold of and have developed, but after a bit of trial and error and a few expired rolls I was able to get some pretty interesting shots. Many of these will be in the book but some are only available on my website.  I’ve included a few examples below side by side with the cameras that shot them.  Follow the links below to view my image galleries, read blurbs about the book, or to check out a couple of events we (myself, the authors, and the publisher) will be having this fall to promote Camera Crazy. Enjoy the pictures, buy the book, and come visit me at one of our events!

Portfolio Page: http://www.jkputnamphotography.com/portfolio/camera-crazy/

Gallery Page: http://jkputnam.photoshelter.com/gallery/Camera-Crazy/G0000DY.RWOdk_t8/

About Camera Crazy via Lomography.com: http://www.lomography.com/magazine/news/2014/09/22/new-book-documents-toy-and-novelty-cameras-through-the-years

About Camera Crazy via The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2014/sep/16/novelty-toy-cameras-crazy-snoopy-he-man-indiana-jones

Come to our New York Public Library event: http://www.nypl.org/events/programs/2014/11/19/camera-crazy-buzz-poole-christopher-salyer-arezoo-moseni-and-special

Mingle with me and the authors at the book launch party at the Lomography Gallery Store: https://www.facebook.com/events/372703356212352/?notif_t=plan_user_invited

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Bruce Peninsula National Park     

     Bruce Peninsula National Park is a small but significant park in Ontario, Canada perched on the northern tip of the Bruce Peninsula itself.  The “Bruce”, as it’s known, divides Lake Huron from the Georgian Bay and is the perfect size for a couple nights of backpacking with big payoffs in the form of expansive views out over the lake and rugged, rocky shores fit for exploring. The bay’s water along the shore of the park is a rainbow of perfectly clear tropical tones which beg to be swam in.  The shore is lined with geometric slabs, cobbled stones, and jagged boulders of dolomite limestone.  The rock in the area is ancient, pre-dating the dinosaurs by a mere 50 million years or so. The park sits midway on the Niagara Escarpment which runs south past the world famous Niagara Falls.  The same forces that shaped the massive falls on the U.S./Canada border are responsible for the dramatic cliffs, overhangs, and geologic features of the Bruce shoreline.  Bruce Peninsula is a World Biosphere Reserve and is home to many unique species of plants and a collection of centuries-old Eastern White Cedars, the oldest living tree being around 850 years of age (the oldest discovered tree in the area, a cedar that died 1500 years ago, was almost 2000 years old).

     Time has been on the side of this magnificent place, it was given the chance to form and grow.  It’s a shame I could only spend a couple of nights there, it deserves much more than that.

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Home Sweet Home

     Home sweet home.  Rochester, NY is mine.  It's where I grew up, it's where I go to visit family, and it was there that I gained an interest in photography. Maybe it began in high school, sporadically shooting with my dad's old Nikkormat, taking months to fill a roll and spending my allowance on processing and purchasing film.  Film school may have advanced this interest, but it wasn't until after college when I moved back home and began exploring the surrounding landscape that my interest really took off.  This time turned out to be the beginning of something amazing for me.  I gained a passion for nature and with that a desire to share it with other people.

     You could say that Mendon Ponds is the place where this passion was born.  It's a county park south of Rochester filled with unique glacial features and plenty of wildlife.  It's known for its chickadees, so tame they will land in your hand if tempted with seed.  Even the more timid birds such as cardinals and nuthatches will get close if you stand perfectly still.  Songbirds like these are what you will typically run across in winter.  In the warmer months the ponds are alive with snakes, snapping turtles, beavers, and muskrats.  Deer traverse the meadows year round and migratory birds pass through every year.  It stands out as a truly beautiful and diverse natural landscape.  There are plenty of spots like it surrounding the Rochester area, many of which I have never visited. With a week to spend in the area over the holidays I had time to travel around and visit other small parks. Sterling Nature Center, a beautiful spot perched on the shore of Lake Ontario, is known for its great blue heron rookery.  The herons are nowhere to be found this time of year but the lake shore is dramatic in winter and was worth the drive out (I considered the trip as reconnaissance and after checking out the empty rookery promised myself that I'd return later in the year after the herons return).  I also spent a good amount of time looking for snowy owls, though it wasn't until my last day in town that I finally found one. Thankfully the owl was cooperative and it didn't take much effort to get a few shots.

     Maybe it's me, but I feel as if people take for granted what they have right in front of them. For as much as I appreciated Rochester when I lived there I never took full advantage of what I had access to.  It makes me wonder if I'm missing anything where I live now.  It's hard to comprehend the fact that I will never see it all, no matter where I live and no matter where I travel something will be missed.  I think it's a nice idea to pick a place, somewhere you will always return, somewhere to explore and to memorize.  Maybe mine will be a small park outside of Rochester, or perhaps it will be a huge one in a place like Alaska.  Time will tell.

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Bicycles of Japan

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Young Girl on Subway, New York

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Eastern Sierra: Subject and Light

     I don't often speak about light.  In order of importance it comes second after subject.  There are many that disagree with me, but reading through these posts anyone could see that my discussions are always based around the subjects of my photos not the light they are in.  Is it hard to take a quality photo in poor light? Yes, it can be, but what is poor light?  Midday sun, overcast skies, darkness?  It can be challenging to work under these and other circumstances but there are ways around them.  When faced with an interesting subject that I don't want to pass up, or perhaps will never see again, I will always try to find a way to create an interesting picture using long exposures, filters, or artificial light. The trade off is that I have to carry more stuff, which can be a problem in itself when the subjects I'm after are 10,000 feet above sea level in California's Eastern Sierra Mountains.

     In the Eastern Sierras there is little escape from the sun.  From the valleys below to the tops of the alpine peaks the Eastern Sierras are desert.  The sun is hot and shade is little.  It is a dry place without much water, just a handful of alpine lakes and streams, all benefitting from the winter snow fall.  When shooting midday I tend to shoot into the sun, photographing the shady side of things.  As a rule I tend to shoot in the shade.  1) It's cooler in the shade, and 2) the sun's light is harsh and hard to control, so I try to avoid it as much as possible.  This may sound backwards but it works.  I make up for this with either artificial light (strobes) or bouncing the sun's light back into the subject with a reflector. With both of these methods I am able to control the direction and quality of the light.  This method worked wonders when photographing the gnarly, textured trunks of the foxtail pine trees that live and die in the Eastern Sierras.

     An incredible photographic situation to watch for, and one solution to shooting in outer darkness, is the full moon on clear nights.  With a 30 second exposure you can light up the landscape like daytime and retain the star filled sky in your image, creating a scene that appears made up and fantastical.  The trade off on these bright, moonlit nights is that you can't see as many stars.  So if you're looking for the milky way wait for a new moon.

     After all of this there is of course the beautiful times of day that provide the highest quality of light to shoot under; sunrise, sunset, and of course twilight.  And then there are the surprises; like the moon rising behind a giant cottonwood and reflecting the sun's light through the dusty desert air (bottom of the page).  In any event, light is nice but subject is better.  If I didn't own a camera I still would have hiked through the Eastern Sierras just to see what was there.

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Epic Landscapes: Crater Lake and Redwood National Parks

     I know, I know... where are the Ireland pics!?  They're coming, I promise... I have something special in mind for those.  Since returning from our trip to Ireland my wife and I took some time and traveled west to the Pacific Coast.  We wanted to check out new places.  I love California but had never been north of San Francisco.  Besides that, the two of us have long desired to see Oregon.  We flew into Portland and drove south checking out a few towns along the way.  Ultimately we ended up spending most our time in Crater Lake National Park and Redwood National and State Parks.  Both places are dominated by massive natural features.  So big and so grand that as a photographer (from the modestly beautiful east side of the country) I was intimidated.  It's difficult to grasp a place photographically when only spending a couple days there.  These epic landscapes differ greatly from one another but both are remarkable.

     Forest fires were (and still are) burning strong not far from Crater Lake.  The effect was hazy views across the crater and ominous colors in the evening sky.  On a blustery night on the rim of the crater the wind blew in smoke from over one hundred miles away.  Ash floated past and the air made my nostrils twinge, it was as potent as a campfire.

     The air was clearer in the coastal redwood forests.  The trees stunned the mind with their size and greatness.  The forest was lush, overwhelmed with ferns, and enchanting in it's volume.  Redwood NP also encompasses one of my favorite features of North America; the Pacific Coast.  In my opinion, you haven't seen the ocean until you've stood on the western coast of the lower 48.

     An expansive crater, a towering forest, and an endless horizon... truly epic landscapes.

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T-Model Ford: An Early Farewell

     Years ago, when my favorite record store was closing it's doors for good (damn you Napster!) they held a huge going-out-of-business sale.  They only music I left with that day was  T-Model Ford's She Ain't None of Your'n.  I had never heard of T-Model Ford but for some reason when I saw that CD sitting on the shelf it spoke to me.  The album was a late addition to T-Model's discography.   It was one of many blues albums released in a relatively short span of time by Fat Possum Records (that would be the same Fat Possum Records that produced the early Black Keys albums).  Fat Possum had rounded up a number of no-name musicians who had been discovered at honest to god juke joints in and around the Mississippi delta.  These were musicians who were self taught and had distinctly unique styles. Their music and lifestyle was similar to that of the greats; Skip James, Robert Johnson, Son House, etc.  But now, like these great blues revolutionaries, the Fat Possum generation will all soon be dead.

     T-Model Ford, born James Lewis Carter Ford, has always been my favorite of the Fat Possum blues artists.  Sadly, he is the last and he is in poor health.  Over the past few years he has suffered a number of strokes.  For a short while he toured and played through his pain, but further damage to his health has left him incapable.  For all the stories I have heard of T-Model's rough and criminal past (both from interviews and from his own mouth), in person he was a sweet man. He loved the attention his sliver of fame brought him.  He loved flirting with girls and he loved his whiskey.  He would talk to anyone and he would tell you anything; about himself, his past, even his shortcomings.  Even though he's alive I find myself speaking of him in the past tense.  It's probably because my time spent with him is in the past, but I can't help feeling that he's already gone.

     Supporters of T-Model Ford are raising money to help him get through his final days/weeks/months.  The medical bills are surly high but at this point his family is looking ahead and tallying funeral costs.  There is a five-track tribute album available for download for $10 or you can make donations directly to T-Model Ford.  That info and more about his situation can be found here: www.americanbluesscene.com/2013/07/jack-daniel-time-a-tribute-to-t-model-ford/

     Included here is a link to a video from a performance of T-Model Ford's I sat in on at Engine Studios in Chicago (you'll notice the lighting in the video is similar to that of one of my images), the song is Sallie Mae:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOIU9l4WiuQ

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Microphotography: Nanoha Style

     The sexuality of a flower is enhanced when you get this close.  Maybe it's me, but the suggestive nature of their form is hard to ignore.  They have evolved to attract and there is no denying that they have succeeded at that.  Taking these photos was an intimate process.  Working this close with such delicate living things has to be.  At times I had to cut away pieces of the flowers to expose their innards.  The cutting and peeling of flesh felt invasive.  Often, I would look through the viewfinder and catch small insects scurrying and disappearing down the tubular petals; an indication that I had disturbed another world.

     You must understand the scale of what you are looking at.  The opening at the end of each of the proboscis seen in these images is a fraction of a millimeter.  The detail in each image can not be seen with the naked eye.  Keeping my eye to the viewfinder and making slight adjustments to the position of the lens would hurl me into a biotic world; sending me down sparkling, rose colored tunnels or across fields of purple tentacles.  Nothing our eyes can distinguish looks like this.  I used a very specific lens to capture this world; the Nanoha 4-5x macro lens which is designed to be used only with specific mirrorless digital cameras.  Its only purpose is to take pictures at this scale.  The vote is still out as to whether or not the digital mirrorless movement will stay strong but companies like Yasuhara, who designed the Nanoha lens, seem to be putting stock into it (they just released their second specialty lens for DML cameras).  My intention is not to write a review on this lens but I did spend some quality time with it and even got to compare it to the monster 65mm 1-5x Macro lens that Canon produces.  The Nanoha has its flaws but they are few, the pictures tell that story.  It is much easier to work with than the Canon.  It's a fraction of the size and weight and because it only works with mirrorless cameras you save size and weight there too -this is beneficial when making slight adjustments.  Check out the lens HERE, or Yasuhara, the company that makes it, HERE (use Chrome so you can translate the page).

     I like this quote from the Yasuhara website: "NANOHA is the gate to the nano-meter world."  Look at the pictures, you will see that it's true.