"Aster Veins" © Hank Erdmann Big Leaf Aster Leaves, Roadside, Door County, Wisconsin

Great shots happen in strange places, this image was made just off of the Highway 42 shoulder in a roadside forest.

Blog #15, Mid-August 2014

Photographing the Midwest; Part 2

Food for Thought:

"Be careful - The toes you step on today, may be connected to the behind you have to

kiss tomorrow!" -Quincy Jones, Jazz Musician and Composer (heard on the Tavis Smiley

show recently)

"I always thought good photos were like good jokes. If you have to explain it, it just

isn't that good."

- Anonymous

"Sometimes I get to places just when God's ready to have someone click the shutter."

-Ansel Adams

"Leelanau Sunset" & "Leelanau Sunrise" © Hank Erdmann, Leelanau State Park, Leelanau County, Michigan

Leelanau State Park sits atop the Leelanau Peninsula which forms the western shore of Traverse Bay and is an eastern shore of Lake

Michigan and has he benefit of being able to photograph both sunrise and sunset from its shores!

Feedback. It's a wonderful concept and we who write blogs and articles and stories don't get

enough of it, but what we do get is so valuable... if we take the time to read, digest and use it.

The entire discussion of Midwestern Photography in this and the last blog came from such

feedback. So keep it coming, I'm listening, reading and taking note. The one thing I thought I'd

hear was "you missed site X in your top ten list" or "check out site X". Actually I'd hoped to get

some of that, not just for new leads of places to photograph, but to see what overlap might exist

in folk's hearts for their favorite places, both local to Northern Illinois and across the Midwest.

If you have such thoughts, send them by. Not only would I like to hear about your favorites, your

undiscovered gems, and the places you want to visit (I've got lists of the last two categories at

the end of this blog), it will make for an interesting continuing conversation and I'll report back

on that feedback in the next issue or two.

If you would like to hear a discussion on a given topic, send me a note, I'll certainly consider it

and thanks again to those of you who've sent me suggestions, all of them good and valid,

whether I end up using one immediately, later or not at all. I do appreciate hearing about what

you want to hear about!

A Great Honor! This past Saturday I was awarded an incredible honor. A couple weeks ago I

received a call from Mary & Lloyd McCarthy, long time friends and members from the old

Morton Arboretum Nature Photography and

Study Club. Mary asked if I was going to attend

the CACCA (Chicago Area Camera Club

Association) Banquet and Awards Ceremony

coming up in a couple weeks. I said no, I hadn't

planned on it and Mary replied; "well, you

should be there"! So I knew something was up.

What exactly I didn't know, I've been on the

CACCA speaker's list and Competition Judges list

for years but otherwise not really active with

CACCA save being a member of a number of its

member clubs on and off over the years.

On Saturday, I received a very prestigious honor,

The John & Kitty Kohout Award which honors

long term service to the Chicago area

photographic community in the areas of

photographic education and sharing of

knowledge. The Kohouts were photographers

who I believe were among the founding

members of the original Arboretum photography

club, leaders in the club, and leaders in sharing

their depth of knowledge of nature photography

"Mammatus Coneflower" © Hank Erdmann, My Front Yard, Will County, Illinois

One of my favorite sites in the Midwest is my own yard which I've landscaped of course with photographs in mind!

across the Chicago area. They also served as the "un-official" photographers of the arboretum

on a mostly volunteer basis. Look at an Arboretum publication today and you’ll still see an

occasional Kohout byline. I sadly only met them once, right after I joined the club. Shortly

thereafter they were tragically killed in an auto accident in Hawaii on a photo vacation. As a

thirty year member of that club (now MaysLake) it is impossible to not know the great legacy

they left and one that continues to support the sharing of knowledge and the art of nature

photography .

An even greater honor I received at that banquet was to be in attendance as CACCA and PSA

(Photographic Society of America) honored one of the real great people in Chicago and National

Amateur Photographic circles; Bailey Donnally. Bailey has probably put more time and effort in

service to the greater photographic CACCA and PSA communities than at most a handful of

folks. This award was supposed to be presented later in the year at the PSA conference but

tragically Bailey is fighting a terminal illness and most certainly wouldn't have been able to

attend the event. Instead some of Bailey's friends and CACCA officials got together and asked

PSA if they could move up the presentation of their Lifetime Service Award, one of their highest

honors and bring it to Chicago. Not only was it sent, PSA's President flew out at the last

moment to personally present the award to Bailey. It was a moving tribute to a wonderful man.

I'm sad to say our paths crossed only a couple of times, mostly a function of living on opposite

ends of the Chicago region, but I plan on send Bailey a note to congratulate him. Speaking of

that, if you know him, or even know of him, if you would like to send him a note of

congratulations and or comfort, I am certain that it would be so appreciated. It would help lift

his spirit just a bit as he fights his battle with cancer, but please do so soon.

Concerning A Critique Service: Thanks for

all the feedback concerning a critiquing

service. It helped a great deal in deciding

to try this on a trial basis and see how it

goes. While first I was hesitant to start up

another program I was convinced that

such effort wasn't necessary just to

provide critiques services to those getting

this newsletter. It's not that I won't offer

such a service to anyone interested, I'm

just not going to market the service much

beyond this newsletter, at least at this

time. If you know of other folks who

might be interested, if you want to

mention it within your circle of friends,

wonderful! Thanks for any mentions or

passing news of this service along should

you consider it of value to those you know

or those who may be looking for critiques.

My biggest issue in offering critiques as a

paid service was mostly just what to charge.

"Coneflower & Monarda" © Hank Erdmann, Starved Rock State Park, LaSalle County, Illinois

Starved Rock is better known for its canyons and waterfalls, but it also has some great prairie edge lands on its perimeters..

I spent quite some time looking at services out in internet land and noted few if any

recognizable nature photography photographers providing critiques. Most included critiques of

a wide range of types of images, everything from fashion portraits to wedding photography,

kinds of photography I may have done in the past, but to be totally honest, I'm the last person

I'd want to pay to critique wedding or pet portraits. (Just the fact that I put those two things

together probably says more about why I shouldn't critiques such things as anything else I could

say!)

I think I know nature and related types of photography well and critique it fairly, honestly and

with respect to the maker, or so I've been repeatedly told. This service is for photographers

making such images; nature images and images under natural light of things outdoors and

abstracts and photo impressionistic images using nature as the image's inspiration. It's not that I

want to exclude photographers of other things, it's just that there are better folks for critiquing

such images. Send me a picture of your pet, a fashion portrait, a product shot, and I'll just return

them with a polite note saying that's not what I do. If you are not sure, just send it and I'll let

you know if I feel I can provide a critique of value and also if I don't feel qualified to critique an

image.

In the online services I looked at fees were all over the board as well. I've come up with a fee

schedule that keeps things fairly simple, isn't too expensive (in fact, my first feedback was that is

was too low), and structured to make it worth doing for the time it takes, but still is affordable

to most folks who might want a critique. I've since conducted an initial critique session and I

think it went quite well, the client expressed approval so I'm opening the service with this

newsletter. The fee schedule follows at the end of the blog below..

Again if you have contacted me in the past about such services but are no longer interested,

please don't feel any obligation, just continue to enjoy these blogs.

"Autumn Edge" © Hank Erdmann, Governor Dodge State Park, Iowa County, Wisconsin

One of my "Little Known Gems"

Photographing the Midwest, Part II I read once in a national photography publication, with some consternation to be sure, that

"one can't make great landscape images in the Midwest". I think the author lived in your typical

mountainous western state, and either had water envy due to the drought, was high, or was

suffering from both conditions. (No western US, you can't have great lakes water, start

conserving your own and stop over populating the desert!) To flat out state you can't make a

certain kind of image in any given location is sheer ignorance, ineptitude or probably both. This

author had some great landscapes with majestic mountains in magic time light so he knew how

to make a landscape image. To say great landscapes are not possible without mountains or

without any such "majestic" element is to ignore great work done by generations of big name

photographers and great amateurs alike in other environments. Where I will agree with the

author and with the point he was so inadequately trying to make, is that there is a difference, a

big difference in the Midwestern landscape versus the western, or the mountainous landscape.

One great difference is the light, it takes some time to get used to it; to get a feel for it, the light

has a different intensity when you're less than a thousand feet above sea level. I actually find it

easier in many cases to make a "big" picture without mountains blocking the view. Therein lies

the difference in making mountain landscapes, and in the transitional areas where big sky meets

big mountains, the Great Plains for instance, therein lie some similarities with Midwestern

landscapes.

Within that line of thought is the real issue at hand in making landscape images. Just where is

the horizon, both in the scene itself and within your composition? Is the horizon an obvious part

of the scene? Is it hidden to some extent or is it hidden completely? Is it broken with structures

of various kinds or with things you do not want in the composition. Is the horizon the main

feature or focus of the scene? All such considerations will impact your composition as will the

light, clouds and other features of the land including man-made objects which you may or may

not want in the image. In the Midwest, we are much more cognizant of such things, especially

those, many man-made, we don't want in our compositions. Such distractions are so much a

part of our Midwestern environment. Even some of our larger spaces of interests, prairie

preserves and lake shores are often more difficult to photograph without man-made intrusions

sticking up everywhere in the backgrounds when we go "large" or wide with the scene. In the

Midwest we learn quickly to crop the whole to eliminate distractions of unwanted elements in

the scene.

Landscape versus Intimate Landscape; It has often been said that when you can't find a

landscape, get intimate with the land! And the defining feature of an intimate landscape image

is the lack of a horizon. One key concept for me in photographing the Midwest is to keep this

thought of intimate landscape foremost in presence of mind when looking at a scene, a scene

that needs defining, needs compression, that needs simplification. By looking at the intimate we

rid our images of the confusion created by distracting elements in a scene.

Make it your own; There are great benefits to intimacy with the land. Understanding an

environment is easier, quicker and clearer, the visual statement you are making is more obvious

in an intimate landscape image. Possibly the greatest advantage of the intimate landscape is its

propensity to make an image your own, to make an image that is unique to you and your vision

of nature. Make a landscape at an iconic place, say Canyon de Chelly or Snake River overlook,

and try and find some unique view that hasn't been seen or imaged, and that you can physically

set up at and shoot from. No matter how good your "version" is, it's just a variation of what has

gone before, it's just not that different than the iconic image that pervades everyone's mind.

Make an intimate landscape of a feature of part of that scene and it might have been made

anywhere with a similar environment or look, but it is your own, your unique vision of what

nature inspired you to create.

Even smaller scales and Close-up possibilities; No matter where we are, the small shot, close-

up, the Macro is always available. On a trip a few years back to Isle Royal National Park, I was

hobbled with a real bum ankle, I had stretched but not torn my Achilles and while I limped

everywhere, I was not about to give up my chance to get to that fabulous place. My physical

limitation made it hard to get around, harder to walk great distances, and hard to get anywhere

quickly. Isle Royal is a place that is all about walking, it's the only way to get around on the land.

While I didn't get many of the Lake Superior lake shore landscapes I had envisioned, despite the

ankle I was able to get to many sites within hobbling distance and there I concentrated on the

intimate, the intimate landscape and close-ups. Many of the images I made that trip could have

been made at thousands of similar environments around Lake Superior. Still they are good

images, and images that I could make versus sitting at home complaining about a bum ankle.

"Reflections in Warren Creek" © Hank Erdmann, Warren Dunes State Park, Berrien County, Michigan Warren Dunes and Warren Woods is just an hour and a half from Chicago, Both are great in all seasons.

Different approaches for different folks: We are a product of our environment, our upbringing,

our education and our experience. I have noticed over the years that photographers that came

of age in the traditions of landscape photography and especially in the traditions of large format

photography in the 80's through the early 2000's tend to have a more studied, concentrated

working process that uses fewer variations of a scene and a less scattered or experimental

approach to making images. This approach to making images is as much a process of the fact

that even back then 4x5 and 8x10 film and processing was considerably more expensive that

digital capture or even 35mm film. It's a much slower process as well, the view camera just takes

more time to set up, and use, even in the hands of an experienced photographer. A different

approach is to use the advantage of the lower shooting cost factor to one's advantage, shooting

more variations and in effect bracketing your composition to ask it is sometimes called "working

a scene". I often used such an approach when I shot 35mm film, but even 35mm film had extra

costs in shooting lots of film. When I switched to my 4x5 gear, I switched operating modes as

well.

Now in digital days I do bracket compositions quite often, there is little cost but time, but I do so

with some thought in mind of the conditions. With changing light and changing conditions I am

concerned more with getting the best initial shot first and making variations second if at all. The

ease of set up and making images with 35mm style gear, can give one bad habits, especially in

the digital age and we all I'm sure have been guilty in this area, I know I have been. I saw so

many photographers in film days bracketing exposures willy-nilly across the board because they

didn't know or really understand exposure. They did not understand the concept of judging

exposure by understanding mid-tone tonality and how meters work. With current and having a

histogram to accurately show us where our exposures are and what our media will record,

exposure has become far, far easier to get right.

This is in no way implying that one way is right or wrong, but they are very different and

whichever way works for a photographer to make great images is just fine. The cost of willy-nilly

composition bracketing of compositional variation and bracketing of exposure has little or no

financial cost (unless your consider storage which is so cheap today as to be somewhat

inconsequential) but I'll make a point that it can have great images cost. That cost can and often

is while you are fidgeting with your camera, changing this or that, creating confusion in your

own mind, and worrying about the gear, you miss the shot as the light changes, moves, get's

covered by a cloud, etc, etc. Add to the equation a moving subject, like an animal, waving grass

or flowers, and you lose the best image, the decisive moment as the great street photographer

Henri Cartier-Bresson called it.

Last; Consider the environment type itself;

Prairies and grasslands - Grasslands are everywhere across the globe, but the true tall grass

prairies of the Midwest are uniquely ours. While tall grass prairies have been converted by the

plow to less than one percent of their former range we're lucky to have a number of prairie

preserves within an hour or two of Chicago. Most prairies aren't (or weren't) mostly flat, which

is good as by August most tall grasses are taller than most people and pretty hard to photograph

from within the grasses. Most of the prairie remnants and many of the restorations are on

unlevel ground less suited to plowing and agriculture. Look for elevation; small outcroppings of

rock or hillsides, some way to get above the grass for good photo opportunities.

Hardwood forests - The northern

hardwood forests of the Midwest were

cut over almost 100% in just forty or so

years. Small remnants do remain and

are impressive, both photographically

and visually. What remains are mostly

second and third growth forests, but

many of these feature succession

species like maple and birch which turn

spectacular in the fall. I'll match

northern Michigan's color to anything

in New England. One isn't necessarily

better than the other, they're both

stupendous! I used to say that while

the color is even, we don't have the

leaf-peeper crowds of the east. No

more though, not only do hordes of

tourists populate the forest edges, so

do hordes of photographers. Solution;

it's simple, just be willing to walk. I'll

admit I've done my share of car trunk

photography, there's nothing wrong

with grabbing what's known in the

"Trillium Forest IV" © Hank Erdmann, Aman Park, City of Grand Rapids, Ottawa County, Michigan

One of the finest spring wildflowers sites in the Midwest!

business as "a roadkill shot". If you walk a hundred yards however the crowds will thin

somewhat. If you walk a half mile the crowds will no longer be crowds, but a just a few folks

who like to walk and most of them not carrying a heavy photo pack. If you walk more than a

mile you'll likely have a place to yourself! So seek out those places a bit farther down the trail

and you can avoid the crowds and have some peace and connection with nature. Most

photographers won't walk more than a half mile, many physically can't, so if you can and are

willing to put some time and footsteps onto a trail, your work will benefit.

Boreal Forest - The northern edge of the United States is for the most part the southern edge of

the boreal forest range. There are some exceptions that are farther south, most notably a few

sites in Door County, Wisconsin. These wetland forests, tree swamps to the uninitiated, are

tough places to make images but very unique in their make-up and species mix. Many rare wild

orchids love such wet mosquito infected places. They are fragile environments so travel lightly

on the land with great care and pay the fee of a few mosquito bites to get some great images of

rare plants and environments. Shoot small and tight for the most part in such places,

backgrounds can be hard to control.

Great Lakes shores - The shoreline of a huge body of water is like no other shoreline, the water

has more effect on the shore and really large bodies of water make their own weather.

Changing weather usually means clouds and clouds and great late or early light make for

incredible landscape images. Big water also means big variety and diversity of environments and

micro ecosystems. You can travel less than a

hundred feet and go from a beach of stones

and rocks to pure sand and grasses and back

to rock, but big rock. You can have cliffs a

hundred feet high and waterfalls flowing onto

the shore... and that's just in Pictured Rocks

National lakeshore in Michigan UP on Lake

Superior. One could make a career on just

shooting Great Lakes shorelines.

Small lakes - Small water is different, their

shores are usually quieter, calmer, and more

intimate. Photograph them intimately. Go in

small groups or by yourself and let their

solitude sink in. Water in general is the place

to head when any other subject matter

doesn't work, and quite often just as good or

better even when other environs do work.

Rivers - More water! Use the "linearity" of

rivers, streams, creeks and brooks for great

effect in your compositions. Vary shutter

speeds for varying effects, feel and mood.

Rivers are linear in nature so use that

attribute to draw the viewers eye where you

want it to go. Make a river or similar linear

"Pine Creek Autumn" © Hank Erdmann, Fall Creek Gorge Nature Conservancy, Warren County, Indiana

This site has a lot of photography in a relatively small preserve.

feature "disappear" from the image within the image (versus out of an edge) to create interest

and mystery.

Trees and leaves - Of course you can find trees and leaves in just about any environment but I

am especially aware of these subjects mostly in an abstract sense. Because of our wealth of

forest environments, I look for this kind of subject matter.

Buildings; barns & lighthouses - Structures in the environment, mostly under natural light are

always something I pay great attention too. There are more lighthouses in Michigan than any

other state and while they are one of the most over covered subject photographically, I greatly

enjoy photographing them and learning their individual histories, legends and lore. Barns are a

disappearing species, in as much as they have been constructed in the past, with wood, love and

style. There's about as much of those qualities in an aluminum pole barn as there is in an

aluminum tooth pick. Photograph these structures now as they are not making more of them

and many are being torn down in favor of those ubiquitous pole barns.

Winter and seasons - It is obvious that you can make great images in all seasons if you have

great light and great subject material. My favorite season for image making and just to be

outside in is in the autumn. Autumn color is also obvious as a photographic "pilgrimage" takes

place every October to northern forest and the woods are full of leaf peppers and leaf shooters.

It is those less obvious and more difficult places and times when the light and subject combine

with seasonal variations to make images that are not only unique but uniquely yours. The great

Eliot Porter surprisingly made few images of brilliant fall color preferring to look for the more

understated and less obvious images of autumn subjects and to truly seek out the essence of

the season and not hide behind the brilliance of the color itself. I do make images of brilliant fall

color, quite a few actually, but in doing so I keep Porter's thoughts in mind trying to always keep

the essence of the season in the image. That might mean featuring yellow and tan and crimson

colors and keeping nearby more brilliant color out of a composition when adding would only

confuse the essence of the image.

I'll end this blog with two lists of favorites. My 10 Favorite Lesser known sites. At the risk of over

"photo-populating" or over exposing these sites, I'm giving you the site name, but not the

location. They are all in the Midwest, the photographic interest may be a full place or a piece of

one, but do your own research to find these gems, and why, where and when to visit them.

10. Fall Creek Gorge

9. Apple River Canyon State Park

8. Braidwood Dunes and Savanna Forest

Preserve

7. Pikes Peak State Park (NOT Colorado)

6. Jubilee College State Park

5. Leelanau State Park

4. Pere Marquette National Scenic River

3. Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge

2. Aman Park

1. Wyalusing State Park

For those of you who might wonder "where do I" want to visit that I haven't yet been, I've

compiled my list of Midwestern sites to visit for photography in the coming years. This is a list

that is not locked in stone, and has had additions and subtractions as I've seen images from

places and as I gain information from other photographers and as I finally get to visit such sites.

It will continue to evolve as my knowledge of the sites and interest in the sites evolve as well.

13. Hocking Hills State Park and State

Forest, OH

12. Hoosier Hills National Forest, Indiana

11. Voyageur National Park, Minnesota

10. Pere Marquette State Park, Illinois

9. Clifty Falls State Park, Indiana

8. Touch the Sky Prairie, Minnesota

7. Drummond Island, Michigan

6. Delabar State Park, Illinois

5. Interstate State Park and St Croix

National Scenic River, WI and MN

4. Elephant Rocks & Johnson Shut-Ins State

Parks, Missouri

3. Gooseberry Falls State Park, Minnesota

2. Hocking Hills, Southern Ohio

1. Pewit's Nest and the Baraboo Hills, WI

Again; Photograph and enjoy the Midwest, it is uniquely ours! Grab a gazetteer and pick a page

and explore.

Allbest, Hank

More Food for Thought on Seeing and Photographing the Midwest ...

"Whether a watercolor is inferior to an oil [painting], or whether a drawing, an

etching, or a photograph is not as important as either, is inconsequential. To have to

despise something in order to respect something else is a sign of impotence." - Paul

Strand, Camera Work, 1917

"As our eyes grow accustomed to sight they armor themselves against wonder."

- Leonard Cohen, Canadian Lyricist and Musician

"We tend to be blinded by our own works, and sometimes need to have our sight

adjusted by an honest appraisal from someone else." - Gertjan Zwiggelaar, Canadian

Author

"There are many schools of painting. Why should there not be many schools of

photographic art? There is hardly a right and a wrong in these matters, but there is

truth, and that should form the basis of all works of art." - Alfred Stieglitz, American

Photographer

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