The Sunrise Club

Everyone started drifting downstairs slowly. Charlie and I had already been up and at 'em for a while.

Daryl took their dog out, and as soon as Scout came in, Charlie commenced to wrestling with him.
We mumbled good mornings and soon had our cups filled with fresh coffee.

I nodded towards the brightening eastern sky. Amanda soon appeared, more coffee shuffled around. Scout ate his breakfast, Charlie was sent to his crate...and Daryl went to wake up his youngest daughter who wanted to go see the sunrise with us.
She walked into the kitchen rubbing her eyes as we gathered our things and a set of car keys.

In no time at all we were headed up the driveway. I got to the mailbox and decided to go out on PeeWee's Ridge instead of our usual spot.

The view to the east was proving to be fantastic and colorful.

The view to the west, however was even more beautiful.

I lamented to my friends that corn had been planted on both sides of the drive and this would be one of the last times I could take a sunrise without the corn obscuring the ridges beyond the fields.

However, perhaps there is a solution after all...

That or I could bring a stepladder. I know now that it would fit in the 'Ru if I laid the back seats down.
Something to consider anyway...hmmm.

And then the sun burst over the field of corn...

...and a new day started.

Fun with Topaz Studio

I'm not a huge fan of one particular photo program over another. I did try Lightroom and used the Free Trial for a few days. I didn't like how the program tried to force me into 'cataloging' my photos. I simply date my shots with a date taken and where/or what it was about.
I wish I could afford the Lightroom editing program, there are some nice features I could use for some of my more experimental shots such as star shots. However I don't see my self going into astro-photography.

I switched to Corel a few years ago and downloaded Photoshop C2 which was free at the time. I have used Topaz products and plugins ever since they came out.
Topaz offers 'Topaz Studio' in a free version. It works pretty darned well and has lots of tempting effects.

Below is the original shot. I did use RAW or the Nikon version of it called NEF.

With Topaz Adjust I was able to get this. I actually used a Toned shot setting called Vintage.
Now the shot was not perfectly in focus and I would have tossed it. In fact I probably will toss it as it really is nothing spectacular.

However this gives the view a better view of what I 'thought' I imagined when I took the photo. A quiet beautiful man made lake. It was built to prevent further devastation and flash flooding along the Bad Axe River around the year 1960.
You can see the dam in this shot.

Original:

Edited version with Topaz Studio. I used a Toned Sepia color here to bring out the fall colors and added some contrast. I had hoped in this shot to catch the mist rising off the water, but everything washed out in the original.

And then just because I had Topaz Studio open, I thought I'd visit Van Gogh and see how he'd see this shot. 'Van Gogh' setting:

That was pretty fun. As an experiment is worked nicely.

I used an HDR edit on the shot above to bring out the shadows.

My favorite shot of the morning was this reflection shot. The mist is nearly impossible to see, and the original shot had so much grey in it.

Original:

I used Topaz Adjust to bring out the colors and the trees I had to use a method similar to HDR processing.

And since I just wanted to fool around with it, I went into 'Trending' in Topaz Studio and found this effect:

I think it was an Orton glow effect.

Fun, but then again not something I'd print.

In truth, I don't think I picked the best time of day to come to Sidie Hollow to take photos. Sure it was right at sunrise, but the sun ... well, it doesn't peek into valley until at least an hour after the sun comes up.

I came away with a few shots I like, but I had to do some processing.

I'm not sure I'll purchase the full version of Studio. But I'll keep experimenting.

The Sunrise Club

Thank goodness the sun rises later in September. It makes it slightly easier to get up and out to certain places for a 'sunrise' adventure.

Our friends arrived late Friday night from the east side of the state. I love their visits. It means there will be a crazy fast and furious weekend of trying to do a million things.
I think they have fallen in love with this portion of Wisconsin. I must admit when I did the very same thing about 20 some years ago. I did the crazy thing of driving to visit Rich on Friday nights after work and spent until late Sunday afternoon enjoying his company and this area.
Until I realized that I would just move here and it would solve a lot of my traveling and driving issues.

I never looked back. And I am happy I did.

Anyway we were up early. Daryl came quietly down the stairs. The coffee was brewing and I was thumbing through my Smarty Pants Phone checking the Nautical Dawn, Civilian Dawn times and the actual sunrise times for one of the county parks I like to visit through an app called Sun Locator Lite.
Amanda came down the stairs, then Evelyn was next and finally Grace came down the stairs.

Ready? Ready.
We piled into the Subaru and headed out.

When we came down the steep road into the valley and made the bend everyone in the car said, "Wow!" in some sort of form. There is a curve that allows you to peak at the man made lake just before it reveals itself.
Yeah, it is breath taking every time I see it. And I have not become immune to it.

We parked and everyone stepped out at once, scattering quickly to get the 'best' view. The Sunrise Club had arrived. Only this time we weren't in PJ's!

I wanted to be everywhere at once but couldn't. I stood next to the car and admired the colors as the daylight began to make the area glow with light.

Having the place essentially to yourself is another bonus.
Look!
No parking issues!

We eventually migrated to the floating fishing dock and watched the skies change.

Time for a bit of goofing around.

Even the girls found interesting things to do.

And I discovered my 'best' shot of the weekend because of that. Nope, it wasn't the spectacular scenery or the incredible colors. No, it wasn't something like that at all.
It was one of Daryl's daughters playing with some wild flowers she picked.

This shot made the morning for me. I photographed it in color, but the but in my mind saw it as black and white.

Once I took a series of her picking up the flowers and setting them back on the lake's calm surface, I sat back.

My morning couldn't have been any better. I got the shot of the day. I was satisfied. This image struck me as a powerful one.

I wanted to jump up and down and shout out, "I got it!"
But I didn't. Although my friends would have totally understood it if I had.

The clouds moved in and the sun disappeared.

Time to end our morning adventure and head back to the farm.