Haunted by What?

Saturday morning's forecast was for the potential for the northern lights to be visible in our area. I have seen many pictures of the aurora borealis. I knew what I was looking for or at least I thought. I tried one night last summer to get a look at the spectacle without success. This time I found out I needed to be able to get a view of the northern horizon. I drove a couple of miles from here and parked next to a sod farm. I set up my camera on my tripod and waited. Staring at the horizon I could hear Canadian Geese and a dog barking off in the distance. I saw the occasional car headlights driving along a nearby road. The moon was very bright that night, bright enough that I did not use a flashlight I had brought along. I made a couple of exposures finally ending up along a bank of a ditch that got me up off of the road.

This exposure is at f 8.0 at 30 seconds. The bottom left horizon is light pollution from a town several miles away.The moon's brightness reflecting on the melting ice intrigued me so I turned around and snapped a picture with my Iphone and stuck my phone in my pocket. I waited around for about an hour before deciding to make my way back to my vehicle. Before leaving I made this image which includes our new used vehicle backlit against the night.

 I hopped in and drove home and went back to bed. I did not see the northern lights that night and made a few images just for the fun of it.

The story does not end here. As I was taking a look at my images so I could post them. I thought what about that picture I took with my Iphone? I took out my phone and brought up the picture I had taken. I am posting this image below as a composite and levels adjusted in Photoshop.

I have been around photography for about ten years and have come to the conclusion that this is a picture and there is a face in it. I've never seen a ghost. I've been creeped out before but usually have been able to rationalize each situation.  I have also given some thought about that night. The top of the image is the horizon and the field had melting patches of ice. What are the chances of ice patches in a field melting into the image of a face? Possible I guess. I can't go back and recreate this image..  The warm days and rain we have had has melted much of the ice. Was I not alone that night? I do know that there was not a physical body around me for at least a mile in every direction at 3:48 a.m. when I turned around from the direction I was looking and snapped it. I made a couple of images in a pretty dark room using the same program and settings with different results. I also contacted Hipstamatic where I was informed that they do not use a layer containing a face within the program. So, what happens now. I don't know.

 

2012 Landscape

Back in November, while driving around on stretch of road I rarely travel, I noticed an image of a rural landscape I needed to capture.  For the last couple of months have been stopping by there to try to recapture what I had missed. I have returned there several times checking it out. Yesterday, I went there with some success.  Today, I returned and while it is not exactly what I wanted it's close. The snow in the cut cornfield is an important element in this image for me. As is the power line. I have spent a lot of time over the years trying to exclude power lines from my images for aesthetic purposes but here it works.  The field was disc ed up at the end of the season making it a rough surface and it shows.  I will return again in the spring when the melting snow just exposes the ground and glistens in the sun.

The Fog

As I ventured out to run some errands this morning, I found my self looking for something out of the ordinary. Something I have not seen yet. This morning was foggy. By the time I had finished my errands the sun had started to clear out the fog allowing me to see further and lighting the landscape with diffused light. While I did not see anything out of the ordinary,the fog helped make things extraordinary.    

Red and Round.

 Several of my recent posts have a lack of color and are more monochrome due to the season. The limits of  photography allow me to be limitless.

Just down the road is one of the only round barns in Portage county.  This true round barn barn was built in 1898 and fell into an era of building from the late 1800's to the 1930s. I had never seen one until moving to Wisconsin. It is nice to see a piece of history like this still standing.

I have been waiting to make exposures of this barn for over a year. Today was the day.

Mack Truck Yellow Breakdown

Last week, we got another fifteen inches of snow over the course of two days. I thought the snow was winding down. I was deceived by the warm weather days ahead of the storm by temperatures in the fifties. The snow had receded enough to see the ground  in some places but it did not last. The snow reminds me that spring will be coming someday.

Monday morning found me clearing the driveway with our snowblower.  The drifts in our driveway were well over the top of the mouth of the mouth of the blower which stands at about sixteen inches tall. Afterwards I needed to make a path in our backyard to a secondary wood pile. Upon the return path I was making towards the house, the snowblower quit throwing snow. As I looked down the chain that drives the inner auger paddle was still attached meaning that the belt that drives the auger directly from the engine had broken. I got the blower into the garage and removed the access panel to find the belt shredded.

Lower gear box of the snowblower. Mack Truck Yellow.

 

I bought this snowblower used when we moved here. I found out this week that that the blower was made in the early 80s and belt that drives the auger is a specific size and obviously was going to be hard to locate. I did find the replacement belt online and was ready to order it when I heard of the forecast of more snow coming next week. If I ordered it online it would have taken several days to receive the belt. I called every small engine repair service to locate the belt locally. Luckily, I found one at a farm implement dealer just down the road. What Luck.   Today, I replaced the belt and will continue to use the snowblower until it decides that I need to tinker with it some more. I must say that the blower is a very handy machine that beats shoveling a lot of snow and makes quick work of our driveway.

Boo, our cat,

Burr Oak

There are a lot of Burr Oak trees around here. I had not given them much thought about photographing them until this winter. They have really grown on me in the last couple of months. In December, I had seen a row that included a Burr Oak during a heavy snow and remarked how beautiful it was. With still a lot of snow on the ground and the temperature in the forties, causing a dense fog, I drove to their location. I found a safe place to park and walked along a snowmobile trail that paralleled the tree line and here it is.

Migration 2010

My wife, Melissa,  mentioned a couple of days ago that she had noticed many butterflies hanging around. I didn't think anything of it. I thought she was just talking about some little yellow butterflies that always seem to be out in the field just behind the back yard.  Yesterday, afternoon I noticed three or four Monarch Butterflies out on a branch in the backyard . The Monarchs were very wary of me. As I got close, to get a picture they fluttered off to different parts of the yard. My plan was to go out later in the evening and try to catch them where I had seen them on an elm tree limb earlier. I got to witness firsthand and capture something spectacular.

I saw hundreds of them floating around the yard looking and finding different spots to roost for the evening. I hope they stay for a few more days.