A photo essay………… (and yes, it is 30 degrees here in Illinois and will be all week)
This is what 30 degrees looks like in the Midwest
Category: photography
Photo inspiration for your next hiking adventure
a flower for your friday — clover and ivy
Tuesday Tip – The Exposure Triangle
The Exposure Triangle
Learn how to use Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO and the relationships between them to get your photos looking their best.
When you adjust one of them, you would usually have to consider at least one of the others, to get the desired results.
Using Auto Mode takes care of these controls, but you pay the price of not getting your photos to look the way you wanted them, and often disappointing.
More to come…stay tuned!
A Red-shouldered Hawk At The Celery Bog — Dave Wegiel Photography
Trapped Under Ice This red-shouldered hawk really did not mind my presence very much. It flew in with me being very close, and then didn’t mind that I was watching it. When it dove down to try and catch a meal though it picked something under the ice. It was very interesting watching the hawk […]
via A Red-shouldered Hawk At The Celery Bog — Dave Wegiel Photography
Lightscape! Chicago Botanical Gardens
m
a flower for your friday — clover and ivy
Tuesday’s Photo Tip
Blurring the Background
By using a wider aperture you can make your subject standout and look more professional.
Using a DLSR camera, I usually try for an aperture size around f/2.8 to f/5.6. The aperture regulates the amount of light going into the camera and onto the film and affects the field of depth. This will help blur unwanted backgrounds and make your subject stand pop. You can even try experimenting with smaller apertures.
You can also blur the back using photoshop or some other photo editing programs, but doing it while taking the picture is obviously much easier.
This is why I live in the Midwest
A Photo Essay
66 Hikes Along Route 66 – # 10
Petrified Forest National Park
Although a bit west of what is considered the tradition Midwest,Petrified Forest National Park is an American national park in Navajo and Apache counties in northeastern Arizona. Named for its large deposits of petrified wood, park covers about 230 square miles, encompassing semi-desert shrub steppe as well as highly eroded and colorful badlands.
The Petrified Forest is known for its fossils, especially fallen trees that lived in the Late Triassic Epoch. The sediments containing the fossil logs are part of the widespread and colorful Chinle Formation, from which the Painted Desert gets its name.
The park’s seven maintained hiking trails, some paved, vary in length from less than 0.5 miles (0.8 km) to nearly 3 miles. These named trails are Painted Desert Rim, Puerco Pueblo, Blue Mesa, Crystal Forest, Giant Logs, Long Logs, and Agate House. Hikers and backpackers may also visit the park’s wilderness areas.
Panorama of shortgrass prairie near Dry Wash in the southern section of the park.
Some of the larger animals roaming the grasslands include pronghorns, black-tailed jackrabbits (hares), Gunnison’s prairie dogs, coyotes, bobcats and foxes. Bobcats and bullsnakes hunt smaller animals, such as deer mice and white-tailed antelope squirrels in the park’s riparian zones. More than 16 kinds of lizards and snakes live in various habitats in the park.
The once Historic Route 66, of the most famous roads in the United States that ran from Chicago, Illinois, through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona and ended in Santa Monica in Los Angeles County, California, covered a total of 2,448 miles. It has always been iconic for roadside stops….dinners…antiquing…and many historical sites. Although it longer exists, you can still “get your kicks” on the path it took through the United States on other highways and roads. In this series, I will highlight the many places you can stop to explore nature along this route….focusing on spots in the Midwest. Looking for more stops….check out this guide.
And here are a few other great resources.
Best of the Midwest! Hiking - nature - photography 