Fishing and photos....

 We had a perfect day ... to go fishing. 

With Steve's help, we made it to Lee Lake in Cazenovia once more. And...the fish actually were biting. It was only the little fish, but at least the guys had fun deciding which one was going to be the BIG one.

It was a great day to take my Infrared Camera and more than one light spectrum filter. Below are the two guys deep in conversation...or they are just sitting quietly enjoying each others company. These two do chat but have long silences in between.

Some conversations start with ... Do you remember when....???  I listen intently to those stories because it is a history of things that occurred before I met Rich.

To think these guys are in their late 70's ... and have known each other since they were in their late 20's. 

Their friendship never ended but their lives took different directions with the two of them connecting up every once in a while.

Below...Steve tied a table umbrella to the dock so Rich can stay cooler in the shade. He thinks of everything!

Infrared Photo...

Bassy the stuffy fish did come along! Rich said she couldn't stay on the dock with them. He was afraid that she'd blow off as we actually had a breeze.

Cell shot....

The cool thing about Infrared is that you can get so 
many different looks with one filter. This
bench was filmed in the spectrum of

550nm.

This first shot is what it looks like

in camera. Startling blue foliage

and an orange hued sky.
Red becomes pink.

This is the black and white version. Basically I just desaturated the shot

and upped the contrast a bit.

The shot below is achieved by

what is called Channel swapping.
IR only picks up a few colors.

This is very hard to explain and it

is pretty technical.

I know that I enjoy the results.

The world looks foreign.

Here are a couple more views of the man made lake in Infrared using different light spectrums.

I really had fun with the Infrared camera. Hot sunny days are the best for using this camera.

Below are shots I did with my upgraded but not very fancy Google Pixel 9a. My 6a was on its last legs. What did surprise me [aside from the price] was the new ability of the camera to take 'long' exposures. So I went and tried it out by the Caz Dam.

I've been fighting off using my cell phone as a camera for a long time. But I can see its uses while hiking a long distance and not lugging along heavy camera equipment.

I did some other experimenting with a clearfield center diopter filter I found at a second hand store for $1. It was the filter I used in the very first shot which allowed the center to be in focus and the edges become blurred.

I can see where it will be very very handy in some toy photography.

This is the Lady of Pain from the Dungeons and Dragons collection. I thought she'd go perfect with a poison dart frog.

We had more adventures after leaving the lake. 

Eventually we did make it home safe and sound and tired out. But Rich and I are looking forward to our adventure next week.

Bad weather fun..

First off, here is Charlie doing his duty as a Comfort Dog. I was changing the bed and folding laundry just before it should have been Rich's 'nap' time. 

He moaned and groaned and then nudged me repeatedly until I put him on the bed. 

Just as I finished with putting things away, arranging the commode [yeah, there is that] and  filling the CPAP water container, Rich announced he was ready for a nap.

 I laughed and told him that Charlie had anticipated this and everything was ready.

Charlie pushed the blanket with his nose and nested right next to Rich's pillow. 

When Rich came in, Charlie moved over and waited, tail wagging furiously. Rich laid down and Charlie nudged under the blanket to nest at hubby's back.

That is where I left the two of them.

With the house clean, laundry done and put away, chores finished, and supper thawing, I decided it was time to get back to some creative photography.

But first, a couple of Infrared Shots of Friday evening's wild clouds and weather. We live in a hollow, the winds sounded like a C-130 airplane flying over the house. 

Things got crazy Friday night but we suffered no damage near our house.
Shot with IR camera with a 720nm filter. Infrared really brings out the contrasts in the skies.

I've been 'off' of most photography since the beginning of March for obvious reasons. 

However, I was feeling the need to 'create' something, anything just to get the juices going again. The land is brown, the dull outdoor season is upon us. It is exciting in a way because the first plants to poke their leaves up will cause intense joy. So March may be wild, but it also brings joy [unless you are caught in a March storm].

This is a photo of the Cheese Maker's shop in the Medieval Town. I thought it would be fun to greet the cheesemaker with Nina and her herd of goats. 
The mat that the characters are on is simply a cheap 'grass' mat of paper glued to cardboard.

The background of the sky and field is an AI picture I created with DDG. I set everything up in front of our old Smart TV and used the digital image as its background.

I used the Lensbaby lens to shoot this. I am enjoying the weirdness of this little lens and how creative it can be. So most of what I do for a few weeks will be pushing the limits of this little lens.

I think this is my favorite shot of yesterday. The foreground is just a piece of brown cardboard, the 'stuff' on the cardboard are the dried bits of tea from a tea bag. I used my pipe cleaner tree an alien Lego and the minibots. This too is a digital background. 

It appears to me that these guys jumped through another worm hole into a place they shouldn't be!

I wanted to do an 'action' scene too. 

I set this up and really...I shot it using all the WRONG colors.

I wanted the mood to look like night. So I used what I thought would be bluish lights...

It turned out crappy. But with some ON1 magic, I may have saved it enough to try it again in better light. I can work with this and reimagine what I'd like. For now, it is this:

I'm happy to experiment and make mistakes as that is the only way I can improve anything I do.

I'm hoping to get out and take a walk today to look for mosses and lichens. I'm in a 'close up' macro kind of mood.

I want to crawl around in the dirt and smell the forest floor. Yeah, I am weird, but there you go...good weather, bad weather....I can usually find something to do....
We also finished the Plum Blossom Lego set!

Busy day

The other morning, before my appointment, I went to feed the girls and they were in a place they weren't exactly supposed to be in. All I had to do to get them back was rattle the feed bin and bring out their hay. 

[BW shot with my Infrared Camera out the door]

I just shut them in this large paddock until I could get out to check fences.

The culprits of fence wrecking showed up the next morning.

We did end up counting over 30 deer congregated by the place where our fence and two other neighbor fences intersect.

Well after breakfast, I went out and fixed about 500 feet of hot wire. The barbed wire fence that belongs to the guy west of me is bent over and mostly broken. He knows it is a mess, but he sold his cattle and so he basically doesn't care. 

That said, I don't mind either because I use a hot wire on the inside of his barbed wire. Hot wire was the only way we could keep our jumping mules in our pasture as they were taught to jump fences. That is a competition with a history of hunting behind it. 

The mules I have left don't jump fences. But keeping them out of tangled barbed wire is my goal.

Winter Pasture

The winter pasture looks flat, but it isn't, there are a lot of trees, nooks, and crannies to go around.

Below, my fencing supplies.

It wasn't that hard to repair the fence since I use a fence product that is easy to put back together. By the time I finished in my chore boots, my feet were chilled.

But I had a couple of more spots to take care of before quitting. You know, once you start a job, you finish it before having to put all the supplies away again.

I'll just have to keep a closer eye on the deer. 

After lunch, I decided to get outside as it was so warm! 22 F or -5 C. I'd been bummed about the 'order' not to 'go' hiking so Charlie and I decided to go for a 'walk'. Semantics, it works for me. 

I dusted off my Infrared Camera and thought it would be interesting to see how things looked in a different light. 

Finally an hour to myself to relax! No phone calls to answer, no appointments to work out, no deliveries of meds that need to be signed for. Just me and my little dog.

We went down the good part of the trail to the creek.  It looks quite different with the snow on it. I like to try and get out to 'shoot' this trail before the critters mark it up with footprints. 

That little black dot is Charlie watching 8 deer running up the hill from the valley below.

I turned around and hot straight up the trail. Yep, one isn't supposed to do that with a camera, it causes a lot of sun flares especially when you are using an Infrared Camera. I didn't care, I liked the footprints.

I checked my watch, time to get back and make sure someone had their meds on time and prepare for the 100 questions about "What is for lunch?"

I wanted to take an IR shot of this oak leaf stuck in the snow. Yes, the leaf looks blue as the light spectrum I chose to shoot in reflects anything that has chlorophyll in it a shade of blue in camera. It just looked pretty.

As we walked back home, I kept looking for interesting shapes and shadows in the snow. I like a solo branch sticking up out of the snow with a cool shadow. But our snow is not deep so I was stuck with little weeds. 

Back under the large oak, I found a small spot that did not have animal tracks in the snow and had interesting shadows from the tree above.

I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning house since I hadn't really done so since I'd been sick over a week ago.

Chasing ice

 

Thursday after lunch I took off to go look for ice along the bluffs of the Kickapoo River. I waited until after noon to head out as I was hoping for it to warm up above 10 F. It did, but the windchill was still at something like 9 F, if you were facing the winds.

I knew that hiking along the bluffs would keep me on the east side of the river with the forest and the bluff blocking part of the cool breeze. However, since the sun never shines on this section of the bluffs ... except on late summer evenings, it would be chilly next to the rocks.

That is perfect for the formation of little ice falls. Last year there was almost no ice or water in this area due to the drought we'd been having. This was promising sign to see. There is a small 'pond' under the rock that was frozen solid.

Light reflects strangely on ice and water which is why I took my Infrared Camera again.

I'm not sure why the mosses don't turn out with the same amount of colors. I suppose it is just how the light reached the moss and the ice in these two areas.

What the ice looks like in camera:

I channel swap, which means I swap the colors and blue can become pinkish, reddish, or with this filter more orange colored. The ice will almost turn blue with most filters [except the 850nm range which is a B&W filter...very useful for white fluffy clouds against a black sky]

Here was another unpredictable shot. I thought this would just turn out yuck with nothing fun. I wanted to see if I could differentiate the ice hidden inside this fern and moss covered area. It turned out to be my favorite shot of the day.

Some IR photographers call this 'Candy Colored' and I think it is! But the detail in the ferns turned out pretty neat. 

I did take some normal shots, but not many.

Hiking down Willow Trail.

Long Tall Shadows on old 131 Trail.

Charlie, the Explorer. 

Infrared in Winter?

 Are you nuts? Infrared is so much better in the summer. 

Except.

Sometimes I just think I like a challenge. I took a filter that I didn't like so much and a 25mm lens which is 'fast' so I could shoot in the low light that the weather had gifted me.

Here is an original shot and then the edited shot of the creek in my neighbor's valley.

The filter I used is a 590nm filter. The camera has been modified to be able to 'see' Infrared Light. Most cameras have a filter to shut that light out.
Shooting IR is pretty technical when it comes to finding a proper white balance along with something called channel swapping in post work.

I like both versions of this shot. It was certainly more colorful than normal color. [I hear that winter can be rather colorless...]

The bluish color in the first shot shows the plants that still have chlorophyll in them and they reflect light in a different way.

This time of the year can be a bit dull, so I figured I'd have some fun with the colors that we don't see with our eyes.

I even used the improper white balance for this filter to pick up a different type of color. Though, really I feel that it is up to the person with the camera to decide what they want to visually see.

What I saw through the lens:

And then my version of what I liked. In some cases, I like the odd blue above a bit better. 

How far can I push the illusion of what we can't see with our eyes?

Why not do this? It is like creating a fairy land.

The challenge just like any challenge in photography is to find an interesting composition or subject. And I had a particular tree in mind.

Charlie and I hiked across PeeWee's valley to a particular tree that has roots that climb the steep hill.

The weather was supposed to get gnarly around 11 or noon. The winds were to gust up to 50 mph and as the temperatures dropped, there was to be snow squalls along with some sleet.

Charlie and I headed back home before the bad weather hit.

And boy did it ever hit!

It was time to hunker down and drag out some things for the Christmas Chair. I going with the old Captains Chair this year. 

It was a good way to stay out of the bad weather and trees that might blow down.

Feeling Free

I finally got to toss my bicycle in the back of the 'Ru and head out on Sunday morning. It was another one of those blistering hot and humid days. 

Sometimes I just 'gotta' get off the farm and blow a bit of energy off. What better way than to get on a decent bicycle and make your own breezes?

I bought this bike in August of 2019. I've really enjoyed the adventures I've had with it. It is a quasi-mountain/road bike. It wasn't the color I wanted, it wasn't as cool as other bikes in the shop, but I wanted a good sturdy bike to get from point A to point B. [And that did not cost me an arm and a leg]

I wanted a bike that could handle gravel roads as well as paved roads and perhaps an easy bike dirt track.

It does get me around and sometimes I am lucky enough to get out early and catch some beautiful morning light. 

I love taking my Infrared converted camera while riding the nice paved trail at the Kickapoo Valley Reserve. The ride I take is along the old original highway that runs between the small towns of LaFarge and Rockton.

The trail is not terribly difficult and there are two hills that do challenge the legs. The scenery varies as it goes through the valley. There are little ponds where I often go in the spring and fall to see what waterfowl is migrating. There are bridges that cross the Kickapoo and there are meadows and rock formations to see.

I packed my IR Camera along with my pocket camera. On a whim, I put the 550nm filter on my IR camera. I've never had good luck with that filter so I thought I'd give it another go. The best time to shoot IR is in the middle of the day in the summer. The different wavelengths of light are just so interesting.

Infrared Photography can be so interesting and challenging. In camera for this filter, the white balance setting is done on something neutral like concrete or a grey card.

I won't go into all that 'developing' the shots entail, however, as you can see, IR can give the photographer a wide array of Creative Fun.

The shot below is what the colors look like in the original shot. It was cool here with a slight breeze. The river was on the left and on the right was a small bluff with large cracks that allow cold air to come from below the ground to vent out.

I tossed a lot of shots as they just didn't work out well, but these were my favorite from the IR Experiment.

I normally stop at the ponds and spend some time, but the deerflies were absolutely vicious and unrelenting. 

I did stop long enough to grab a shot with my pocket camera of a Highbush Cranberry! These are starting to turn and were show stopping!

The yellow cone flowers in this Meadow was so stunning, it was worth the quick stop and a few shots of all the stunning flowers.

By 11AM, the heat and humidity was brutal and I was back at the Subaru. It was worth it. 

Yesterday I dropped my bicycle off at the bike shop in town. It desperately needs a tune up, new cables, and a new chain. I'm going to have them install a back rack also. I'd like to be able to add some 'stuff' to carry. Right now I use a fanny pack and a little pack on the front of the bike. I'm also looking to get a carrier for the 'Ru.

The guy at the shop said they had some on order and he'd walk me through setting it up and adjusting it for me. Once it is set up, it should be easy to take on and off. 

Currently I pick up the bike and sort of shove it in the long bed of the 'Ru for going places to ride. 

The shop guy also gave me some ideas on other trails at KVR that are nice for a beginner trail rider like me. 

In the 1980's my sister and I both owned 12 speed Raleigh's that weighed a ton. We took a sister sister trip on bikes together. We rode 70 miles on rural back roads to get from my dad's house to my Aunt's lake cottage for an overnighter and then ride back. We had no GPS, no cell phones in that era.

I'd driven most of the route with a map before we did our trip. I highlighted the back roads with a marker and that was our guide.

I still look on that two day adventure as the one of the coolest trips of all time.

We were young, we were free, and we were awesome.

[and we had two days off from being moms!]