Cold fingers, cold doggy, and the look

        The screen shot below is from my watch that was tracking my walk through the forest the other day. I did one mile but then arrived home and decided to get the chores done. I literally forgot to turn the 'Walk' tracking off.

The orange line on the left was me taking sleds of hay out to the mules and putting the hay in a protected area.  The stuff off to the right was me caring for the pony. 

I bring the old fella warm water three times a day and keep his hay feeder full at all times. He gets special 'calf' hay which is easier for elderly equine to eat and digest. Little Richard is somewhere between 33 to 35 years old.

The blue in the middle? My activities in the house, doing the bird feeders, and apparently doing things indoors. 

I must be a very restless sleeper too as when I woke up in the morning, the walk tracking was still on and I had 3 miles of 'walking'.

Note, I do not sleepwalk, so I must be a very active and restless sleeper.

I finally did get off the farm. The temps moved up to 9 F or -12 C. Charlie gave me such a mournful look that I decided to take him with on a walk near Weister Creek. I had an idea in my head to take a shot of a trail through the trees, snow, and open field both still and ICM. 

Most of the tutorials for Intentional Camera Movement discuss not taking shots in bright situations as they don't work well. 

So a bright sunny day with bright white snow was probably not going to work. Of course when I am told not to do something with photography I like to try and break the rules.

Below is the wide trail through the stand of trees. In the summer, it is a walking trail only and in the winter it is a snowmobile trail. This runs alongside Weister Creek which attracts trout anglers all season long.

Below is Weister Creek trail in the summer 
shot in Infrared. Going
through this particular spot is very 
scenic in the summertime.

It took about 20 ICM shots before I found one I could probably use. I didn't care for the full blown blurred look as I wanted to 'picture' the trail too.
I blended two shots together for the end which I ended up really liking.

Maybe my ICM will not be full blur but a nice pleasant way to direct attention. Plus! I did it a full blown sunny day. I did have to use a Neutral Density Filter to get the exposure to slow down to 1/4 of a second.

I froze my fingers and got one shot I can live with after about 20 tries.

It was unfortunate that Charlie stood still by me while I did this as he got cold too. So I picked him up and walked back to the car where we were out of the wind.

The goofy dog then decided to take the trail and ran happily forward. He is so familiar with the trail that we take often that he just assumed we were there for more walking.

I let him go and in about a half a mile he stopped and started doing the cold foot hop. We were done and I carried him back.

I know all about booties, blankets, and coats. Charlie back feet are tiny compared to his front paws which are meaty and thick [for digging]. I should have known better that anything below 19 or 20 is too cold for long snowy walks for him. 

But the guy gave me such a look when I was gathering my stuff to leave I couldn't resist. 

We did drive around to check out some other scenes and then drove home to cuddle.

The hardest thing about having a pet is how much my heart strings can be pulled by them. It is hard to see his face turn grey. 

He is suffering from missing Rich too. Rich was always here for him. Being alone is difficult for him. Definitely separation anxiety.

Experimental

Your eyes are not blurry. 

These are intentionally taken while moving the camera.

I feel a bit odd trying to do this type of photography. I've seen some absolutely beautiful ICM abstract photos.

I'm still one of those that is on the fence with this method. I've also learned that trying to do it on a bright snowy day is really not the way to start.

This is obviously the outhouse. I moved the camera forward when pressing the shutter on a 1/2 second shot. 

So it ended up looking like a double exposure.

It isn't something I will put on the wall. 

I consider this as play and experimental photography.

 

I can always say that I am pretending to be Monet with a camera.

This shot was done by simply moving 
the zoom lens as I hit the shutter button.

It doesn't hurt my brain to look at this one. 

It was my first experimental shot I did of the day.

It is actually nicer than the others.

Really beautiful ICM takes a LOT of practice and generally
shooting when there is quite a bit of contrast along

with color.

Of course winter is not the best time to 

try to make ICM fine art. But it

is fun to practice.

Here is a sample of an image that really defines the beauty of ICM.

A flower by: 
KarenWallerphotography

It looks like a stunning painting and something I'd hang on my wall for its soothing effect. 

Obviously none of my shots have reached this caliber!

This summer, I did do a few shots with ICM and absolutely you do need brilliant color to do this with any good results. 

I did this shot in September and it is the only one so far that I really like.

----

So without further ado, I went back to something I know when I defrosted myself after my hike.

Some high key work. I put a white sheet over a kitchen chair and arranged some dried flowers to photo their textures.

When the outdoors suck, I can always do Still Life.

Since I had the white sheet set up, I pulled up the embroidered border and thought that Teddy Bears exchanging flowers would be cute.

I thought I'd work with my Lensbaby and the Teddy Bears. I really enjoy working with that lens as it makes you slooooowwwww way down and really work at getting the exposure and area of focus just right.

The ICM tutorials make everything look so easy. I have so much to learn!

I will try some more practicing to figure out what movements might look good. I wonder if I set up my dried flowers and did an ICM with Still Life?

Ahhh, you will have to wait to see what I may do next!

Otherwise. Have a good day and stay warm.

outside

Finally, the temperature rose to zero this Monday afternoon.

So I decided to go for a walk to our creek bottom and see what it looked like. I haven't been there in a couple of weeks which is unusual for me since I used to make it a daily trip.

Charlie is grounded right now. Not because he is a bad boy, but because it is breeding season for coyotes and in our area they can get aggressive with dogs out walking even in the daylight. Now that I said that, I can say that in 30 years of walking with dogs in this time of year, I've only come across coyotes twice.

One was stalking my female Feist Terrier and I the first time 20 years ago. I fired off a .22 round and it skedaddled. 

The second time was only two years ago. I think the coyote was looking for open water and perhaps a mate. It stood and watched us from a distance. I hollered *Boo!* at it and it ran off. In our area coyotes are pretty timid.

I just don't take Charlie into our woods because they are big and he is little so why not? Just a good precaution right now.

It was not surprising that most of the animal tracks were in the narrow valley along the creek. It is out of the winds and there is water in some places where the springs bubble up.

Here the creek it about a foot wide and it looks as though it was flash frozen.

When I climbed under the large downfall and came out the other side I found a solitary sparrow taking a drink of water.

It didn't move off while I squatted there and pulled out my cell phone.

This reminds me why I adore and appreciate the heated bird bath at the house. I even wished I could tell the bird where it was located. I know, how weird am I?

Because this valley is very narrow and very steep, it doesn't get a lot of sunlight. Though there are places where there is open water like below. This is very likely a spring. IF it stays below zero for longer, the surface would still freeze and the water may move slowly under the ice.

Cool ice formations from the quick freeze.

Here is where the whole creek froze. The spring water seeps up over 

the ice to freeze in lumps and bumps.

This spot is near several springs and I've never seen it totally freeze over in 30 years. 

I found all of these variations in just a half mile of walking in the valley.

Of course I stopped by my favorite Ice Wall which isn't impressive this year as it has been in the past.

Three years ago------>

This was a nice break from being stuck inside. I have been trying out different methods of photography and might have some to share later this week.

Stay warm, stay safe.

 

Ahhhhh!

It would be a good weekend to play the music from Frozen!

Let's talk weather for one second!

Or pretend it doesn't exist. Maybe I'll put up summer photos on my computer and have them scroll through so I can pretend it is summer.

Huh.

Saturday:

Sunday:

The weather icon says it it 'Fair' outside. I think they mean that it is mostly clear. I'm not even going to talk wind chill.

The truth be told though, winter is partially my favorite season. 

No bugs. 

No lawn mowing. 

No weeds to contend with. 

No humidity.

Can't get naked to cool off on a hot day.
The wild animals might see me and die of fright.

But I do like all seasons...just mainly not bugs and humidity.

Chores went well on Saturday morning despite the temperatures. 

Charlie had another opinion. He'd gone out did his thing quickly and then settled in on the couch blankets with some of my gear.

But at -20F [-29C]? I'll wait until it comes up to zero to go out and enjoy hiking.

I find it interesting that Fahrenheit and Celsius get closer and closer as it gets colder. But that is not true either!

Absolute zero is weird too. 0 Kelvin, -273.15 C, and -459.67 F.  Supposedly that is zero point energy. 

I looked that stuff up because I was curious about cold and how cold could it ever be? Zero point energy would mean, I guess that nothing would be alive.

Yikes!

So in thinking about cold weather, I got out my Ice Planet Minifig and decided to do a portrait of her. Yes, it is a she! I love that Lego has both genders doing tough jobs. I'm going to call her Shelly. 

Apparently, she doesn't mind icy places as she lives [according to Lego] on a planet of ice and snow.

Looks like she has a Robot Penguin. I guess it will need a name also.

Lastly. I did do some experimental photography yesterday with my Lensbaby Sweet 50.

I was in the mood for pink. Well, that was the one color of dried flowers I had.

In the evening, I tried watching some mysteries on the Boob Tube. Nothing held my attention. Instead I turned on some music via YouTube and let it keep me company.

So I created my own murder mystery with the Film Noir Detective from Lego. I processed it as 'Film Noir' also because it just seemed fitting.

Now I have to garb up and go water my little pony. The gals are still eating the huge pile of hay I put out last evening.

We are already up to -10!

A bit of fun

Just goofing around.

When the temps get way below zero and the winds are blowing, I do stay inside and mess around with photography experiments and make a mess.

I check in on a photographer who does 'macro' work indoors when the weather is nasty. He has some extremely creative ideas and he explores them.

He used a piece of cotton [like thick cotton balls] glued to a popsicle frame he made. He put a small hole in the middle of it and shot his flower shots through the cotton.

I thought this was interesting so I grabbed an old picture frame and did something similar with felt and bubble wrap.

I set things up on the table and then used a colored light to bounce of my background made out of tin foil.

Of course there were quite a few shots that didn't turn out as I would have liked, but then I kept experimenting. These were tiny dried flowers for crafting.

Finally I got one I could live with. 

I didn't have to do any editing for this shot as 'shooting' through the torn cotton gave the edges a soft hazy look. I thought I'd try it again and do a Lego Minifigure portrait.

Here are two samples. In the first you can see the foil background that creates a cool pattern behind this Dnd minifig. Her name is Lady of Pain. 

This second shot is with more of the cotton in the way and the lens slight pulled back. I also stood her on a Lego brick that lights up red to highlight her from inside. This shot almost looks as if she has cold air circulating around her or a mist of some sort.

What the set up looked like. 

What my table looked like on our first subzero day:

I had three sets of scenes built. My $1 dinosaur fit into a storyline I'd was creating for a series on Flickr.

The Queen of Pain sent her Zombie Emissary to the Minibots and spoke to Iggy [the minibot with one eye]. She wished to have a custom Ferrari built for her.

Iggy can usually get anything or steal it so he agreed to get a red Ferrari for her.

They got parts but had no idea how to put things together. Todd, the maintenance guy offered to help.

Since Iggy and his Minibots were taking too much time to do this. The Lady of Pain sent her messenger to Iggy to tell him to hurry up. Pretty nasty threat, I'd say!

[Don't worry, no toys were actually harmed in this photoshoot]

I guess all they had to do was ask Todd the Zombie Maintenance guy to help out.

It seemed Todd took it upon himself to help out the Minibots. He called in a couple of Zombie friends....they worked all through the night sorting and building.

I guess if you want a job done quickly and correctly, you hire Zombies. After all, they don't sleep and apparently their work ethic is fantastic.

Hopefully the Lady of Pain will enjoy her new ride.

Yippee! It is the Polar Plunge!

 

 

Take a hike

~~~

After a few days of staying indoors except for chores ---> which I did with my wonderful get up of goggles, mask, insulated coveralls, and insulted boots...and pasture checks in said sub freezing temps....

I decided that 18 F [-7.77 in C] was a really warm day and a good one to go exploring. Even Charlie wasn't going to let me outside without his permission.

He does have the bossy characteristics of a Dachshund when he really wants something.

Off we went. As soon as we hit the road, it started snowing. Well, I do have a Subaru and it is meant to deal with my steep driveway and poor weather, so we just continued on. 

We had ice to explore [the good kind that Mother Nature makes].

We went looking for some familiar ice formations.

I took my Infrared Camera so that I could photo the ice and it would show up better against the snowy background.

For anyone interested, this was shot in IR Chrome. Chrome was used during WWII to differentiate between camouflage and real foliage. The filter was developed to make anything with chlorophyll to show up as red or hot pink. Any 'fake' camo would show up easily.

The Infrared filters are for more creative photography. I like to use it in the winter to separate the ice formations from the snow surrounding them.

Here is the view on the last part of the trail through Hemlock trees.

Below is a glimpse of the Kickapoo River which still has a bit of open water showing. I imagine by Saturday or Sunday that will be all ice. However, the river still flows underneath. 

I've walked this trail more times than I can count. Each time I go, I seem to discover something different.

What I discovered this time is that the 'pines' I was walking through are actually Hemlocks. Frankly, I never thought of what kind of pine tree it might be until I was fascinated by the snow falling on the little needles and then the tiny pine cones that reminded me of Tamarack trees.

Chippy accompanied us, however, Charlie wouldn't sit with him at the end of the trail. He was more interested in the coyote tracks in the snow.

Still, the scene was quite beautiful with the falling snow making everything look soft.

The roads were snow covered by the time I drove home.