Sunflowers Near Sunset

 Sunflowers Near Sunset

Columbia Bottom Conservation Area plants fields of sunflowers, which are very popular.. This photo was taken about 1 hr before sunset, the crowds were really rolling in, I had a little challenge getting an angle without people posing amongst the flowers!

I did a square crop of the same image for Instagram, which do you prefer?

There's actually a fair bit of digital darkroom here, the lighting was pretty challenging.  In a perfect world I'd've had a tripod, and done separate exposures for the flowers and the sky.  Another option would've been a graduated neutral density filter.  But I selected an exposure that split the difference, then adjusted both in photoshop,  Along with some other "typical" tweaks.

Here's the original, straight from camera shot:

Butterweed in the Woods - BetterPhoto 2nd Place Winner, May 2022

 

BetterPhoto announced the winners of their May 2022 contest yesterday (5/1) and I managed a 2nd place.  I only uploaded 15 images to BP in May, and 13 of them received some recognition:  8x Editors Pick, 2x Staff Favorite, 2x Finalists, 1x Second Place.  Hard to complain about that!  

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Columbia Bottom Conservation Area is one of the local spots I frequent for photos. Located at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, but across the Missouri from the actual point of the confluence (which is in Edward "Ted" and Pat Jones-Confluence Point State Park). The park is a bit up these days, several of the roads and trails were damaged in floods a few years ago, and haven't been restored. Including the road to the actual confluence, which is about 1 mile from the turn-off.. On this day, I decided to walk down the closed road, just to explore. I didn't get far before finding a scoured out area that was too wet / muddy to walk though, and too overgrown to edge around. So I headed aff the road along an open swath and came to this area where the trees were a bit thinner and the undergrowth was exploding with bright yellow butterweed. A nice bit of happenstance.

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Camera: Fujifilm X-T3 Exposure: 1/500th sec Aperture: f/5.0 ISO Speed: 400 Focal Length: 48.4 mm (72.6mm equivalent) When I took this, I was planning the full ETSOOI treatment (edit the stuffing out of it). But when I pulled it up in digital darkroom, I decided NOT to to go the heavily affected route. This is just "normal" tweaks.

Butterflies, Flutterbies, Gutterflies?

 

From a midday vist to Columbia Bottom Conservation Area:

This is NOT a Monarch Butterfly.  My "Seek" phone ap identified it as a Viceroy, and some internet sleuthing confirmed it.  A subtle difference to somebody like me (aka ignorant), but pretty clear when drawn out.  See HERE.

Also seen at the same time, this Common Buckeye

Pretty cool!

Sunflowers!

The sunflowers are back at Columbia Bottom Conservation Area, after missing last year due to flooding.

It is cool that they're back; they have several fields, with staggered planting, so they should be around for a while.  These images were taken 7-10 days ago, just now getting around to posting:

Click on image for larger version

The Birds

Columbia Bottom Conservation Area

After wandering around CBCA last weekend, I was headed towards the exist, doing the counterclockwise loop...   As I turned onto this particular gravel stretch, I saw a car stopped in the road, maybe 300-400 yards away.  Naturally, I also stopped, to try and figure out what they would be looking at.  [pardon my grammar there]   There was a rather large flock of black birds (presumably starlings) in the filed to their left (my right), which was lifting and settling.  

After 30 seconds or so, the other car continued on its way (and past me).  I thought I could "sneak up" (in my car), and maybe catch them in murmation.  Had I been really thinking, I'd've pulled to the side, and walked the distance.  That would've given me the best flexibility in terms of camera angles and all.  Yeah, but...  thinking?   Instead I rolled all the windows down, and crunched s-l-o-w-l-y down the gravel road.  

Naturally, the birds spooked before I could get alongside, and decided to make a dash for the trees across the road.  I stopped the car, grabbed my camera off the passenger seat and managed 2 photos before they were mostly passed.  Two shots through the windshield, with a rather excessive "dutch tilt" and whatever settings were on the camera from my previous shot (I was in manual mode).

Fortunately, the light hadn't changed much, so the exposure was close.  And I'm not one of those (misguided) purists who shun post processing (I agree with Ansel Adams), so I was able to clean it up.   I decided to go with a panorama presentation, but ity's a "free" crop, not any standard aspect ratio.

Overall, I don't hate this  one, and it does capture a fun moment.  I wich I had thought to prop my pnone in the windshield, and shot video while rolling up...

Foggy Morning

So, I was of work yesterday, slept in a little (just after 8)....  When I got up, I checked the weather ap on my phone and saw a fog advisory.  YAY!!!  Photo ops await!  But when I looked out the window it wasn't at all foggy.

grumble.

So I grabbed a quick shower, got dressed and headed downstairs.  And lo and behold, a fog hard arisen!   Back on track.  I decided to try Columbia Bottom Conservation Area, since it had been a little while since I;d been there.  As I was driving towards the river, the fog seemed to be breaking up, but it hung in there.  It was a really nice outing; calm, quiet  and I even saw a bald eagle flying around (but was not able to catch a photo of it). 

 I'm rather pleased with the resulting photos, a few presented here for your viewing pleasure:

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Sunflowers!

So, last week sometime, my wife mentioned that a (mutual) friend had been out the previous weekend looking at Sunflower fields.  At Columbia Bottom Conservation Area.  Well, I was mildly interested in Sunflowers, but Columbia Bottom got my attention. Regular readers should recognize the location, it is a regular spot for me.    And when last weekend rolled around, we made the short trek over.  

Funny, somehow my wife didn't realize where Columbia Bottom was!!  She's never been over with me, and apparently never paid a lot of attention when I 've talked about it (no comment!).

Well, now she knows, and we have a fun outing.  Here's some images:

 

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And while we were at Columbia Bottom CA, I had to take some non-sunflower photos  I'm starting a TAG for the blog for this location, call it CBCA.  I'll try and update tags on older images,

Truckin'

My first couple of thoughts on titles were bad puns on...  like "Trucked Up".  But I decided that was tacky and didn't go there...  Except, I suppose that I just went "there" here.  Oh well.

This is the old truck I found about a month ago, at Columbia Bottom Conservation Area.  Seems like I didn't post them here (shame on me!).  But you can check them out here, and here.  I revisted last weekend, a little earlier so there was a bit more light (and I knew where I was better).

Here's my favorite of the second series, others here, here and here.

So, I thought it would be interesting to do a "before and after" on this.  The's actually a fair amount of tweakage, though I hope it isn't too obvious. I wanted to make it "pop" more though.

Here's the SOOC (straight out of camera" version for comparison:

Columbia Bottom Conservation Area (again)

I've been pretty busy lately, not doing much photography.  Much sad, I am.

But I managed an outing to Columbia Bottom Conservation Area on Sunday.  Here's a few images.

That's the Missouri River, just a mile or 2 from the confluence with the Mississippi.

Columbia Bottom Conservation Area

Columbia Bottom  is one of my more favored nature spots in the St. Louis area.  Just about 20 minutes from my home and not much further (in a different direction) from the Arch, but could be 1,000 miles or 100 years away.  I'm sure I've posted quite a few images from here over the years...  Like THIS ONE.

This is the Missouri River, maybe 1.5 miles upstream of the confluence with the Mississippi.  Photo is from last Saturday, when I made a late afternoon excursion.   this was taken with my iPhone, which seems to do a really good job with wide angle images.  I was trying to channel my inner Ansel Adams, and posted a B&W version to my Facebook.  I know, I'm nowhere near Ansel Adams' skills, but humor me.

Here's another from almost the same spot.  Not thrilled with this one, kind of weak composition: