Rising Water

Isolation

The area of North Dakota where my mother grew up used to be fields as far as you could see. However, that has been changing the past several years. Water has been rising throughout the region. Roads have been cut off. Farms flooded out. Devil's Lake, Stump Lake, and Lake Lorretta have all overflowed their banks and inundated hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland. In many places instead of wheat fields, there are now plains of cattails stretching as far as the eye can see.

We saw this old, abandoned farm house on a small hill. It's fields taken over by Lake Lorretta. The county road we were on had obviously been elevated to stay above the lake water. Even then, it was only a couple of feet above the water.

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In North Dakota

Rolling Field, Big Sky

Everything up in North Dakota is so very different than here in South Carolina. The fields, prairie, and sky seem to go on forever.

The lines in the field make me think that the closest hay bail was trying to roll toward the ones in the distance. The nice clouds also added a great texture to the sky.

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Back in town

Riverboat

I've been out of town the past couple of weeks to celebrate my grandmother's 95th birthday. She lives in North Dakota, and we made some sightseeing side trips on the drive up and back.

The photograph above is a riverboat on the Mississippi River near the town of Bellevue, Iowa. I thought the split-toned treatment looked best for this shot compared to the straight color image.

More stuff from the trip to come.

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And here is the rest of it.

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No Parking, Any Time

No Parking, Anytime

Another shot I took during our club meeting. This one I processed with Topaz Adjust 4 to get the general look, but tweaked it a bit in Photoshop so that the Topaz Adjust filter wasn't quite so strong.

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Light & Curves

Light & Curves

We had the monthly meeting of the Spartanburg Photography Guild earlier this week. One of the members discussed elements of a good picture and we all then went outside to try to practice with some of those tips. This image is an abstract that I made from the sign for a new building near Spartan Photo Center in downtown Spartanburg. I took some "normal" shots of the same detail face-on, but thought they looked kind of ordinary. Then I stepped up to it and looked down on the sign and saw the shapes blending together nicely. This is basically a close-up taken and an unusual angle. I am always reading that we need to change our viewpoint to make our images better. That certainly seems true with this one. Of course, it helped that I am tall enough to look down on the sign from this angle.

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In the dark

In the dark

We drove up to the mountains and visited Linville Caverns. During the tour, there is one area where the guide turns out the lights so you can experience "total darkness". The guide then turns on an old lantern so you can get an idea of the amount of light that the first explorers in the caves had with them.

There isn't much in this photograph, but I still like it for some reason. I suppose it gives a sense of the isolation of being in a cave with only a small light to guide you through it.

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Retirement Roses

Retirement Roses

My sister-in-law recently retired after 30 years with the Gaston County Library System. For most of that time she worked at one of their branch libraries. This is just a simple photograph of one of the flower arrangements at her retirement party.

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