landscape photography

All posts tagged landscape photography

Sunday ~ May 07, 2023

Posted by Dave Updegraff on May 7, 2023
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As part of my long term project that I’ve been working on I started flying drones again.

The technology of the drones is much more complicated then when I was flying regularly so there is another skill set to learn.  So this was just a short flight around the neighborhood trying to learn to fly again.  It’s a short video so I hope you enjoy it.

I shot this footage in 4K so it is taking some time for You Tube to process it. If you’re trying to see this video on Sunday Evening I would suggest you come back about 10:00 pm CDT. Thank you.

Sunday ~ March 26, 2023

Posted by Dave Updegraff on March 26, 2023
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Happy Sunday:

I have photographed this old barn several years ago when there was a house next to it and it was in much better shape.  I drive past this old barn at least once a week and I’ve watched what looks like an upcoming development of this land for future use.  Click on the images to reveal a larger and more detailed version of the images.

Every time I go past the barn I say to myself that I need to photograph it again before it is torn down and gone forever.

As luck would have it this past week I was driving past the barn and just happened to have my camera with me.  I saw some areas around the property that had those flags in the ground and in fact there was a truck that pulled in after I did that was there to make some other markings of the land.

So I fully expect this old guy to be gone by the end of Summer.  I hope I’m wrong but it has all the signs of be coming  obsolete in the very near future.

It was a gorgeous day to photograph this old structure. I love the sky and clouds.  I know it might have looked better at the golden hour but sometimes you just can’t wait around for the perfect light.  Besides I love to photograph things with the sky has a bit of deep blue surrounded by puffy clouds.

Time will tell what becomes of this old barn.

Enjoy your day and be careful.

Friday ~ March 24, 2023

Posted by Dave Updegraff on March 24, 2023
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Happy Friday!

I was in Maquoketa earlier this week and had some time to kill before my lunch with Friends, so I drove our to the damn and found these guys fishing.  I tried this image in color but liked the B&W version better.

You can click on any image to reveal a larger more detailed image.

While I was there I looked around for other image opportunities.  I like the way the river interacted with these dead logs.

It felt good to have the camera in had again.  I’ve been practicing with video for the last few weeks.  Lots to learn and need more practice.  I have also started flying drones again.  I have to relearn the dos and don’ts of flying drones.

I will endeavor show some of the practice video I’ve been working on.

Enjoy your day and be careful.

Sunday ~ February 26, 2023

Posted by Dave Updegraff on February 26, 2023
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Happy Sunday.

Yesterday our 12 year old grandson, Joshua spent the weekend with us.  It was fun having him over and we did some fun things.

I invited him to go on a photo run with me Saturday afternoon.  I know a place where we can normally find some deer and several other places where various wildlife tend to frequent.  Unfortunately none of that happened for us so we made do with the beautiful ice that covered most of the trees and open fields.

We had some wonderful conversations as we traveled around the country.  He took several great photos while staying the truck.  Of course I had the Nikon D5 and he had a point and shoot camera.  I’m not going to tell you who had some of the best shots but I will say I was mildly envious of a couple of his images.  🙂

Remember you can click on the image to reveal a much larger and detailed version of the image.  As of today with temperatures in the mid 40s most of the ice is gone.  It was beautiful but took a lot of work to get the driveways and sidewalks cleared.

Enjoy your day and be careful.

Monday ~ February 06, 2023

Posted by Dave Updegraff on February 5, 2023
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I had some time to kill this weekend and so I decided to visit the river.  On the way I noticed the Fourth Street Elevator so I took a detour and shot some images of the elevator.  This is such a popular place in the Summer time but as you can see it is shut down for the Winter.

Later at the river it was cold and foreboding with the vast expanse of the water and nothing was moving for as far as the eye could see.

Enjoy your day and be careful.

Saturday ~ Christmas Eve. December 24, 2022

Posted by Dave Updegraff on December 24, 2022
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Happy Christmas Eve

I was making breakfast this morning and looked out over the back yard and saw these interesting drift patterns created by the strong winds, we’ve had the last few days.  So I decided to photograph them.    Remember you can click on the image to reveal a larger more detailed image.

I realize that these are not colorful and in keeping with the festive time of the year.  I hope you find the patterns as interesting as I did.

I hope you and your family have a wonderful & joyous Christmas. 

Enjoy your day and be careful.

Thursday ~ November 04, 2021

Posted by Dave Updegraff on November 4, 2021
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Happy Thursday!

Met some friends for lunch yesterday in Maquoketa.  I got to town early so I decided to go down by the river and see if anything was happening there. 

It was a beautiful day and I liked some of the trees along the river bank so I grabbed a few images. 

I know the peak color season is about over but I still enjoyed the brisk air and beautiful colors of the trees. 

I was going to shoot some images at my favorite place (The Duck Pond) but the drought this past Summer has left the marsh in a sorry state.  There was no wildlife around the pond and very little water remains. 

Remember you can click on any of the images to reveal a larger more detailed image. 

Hope to get out a little more this Fall and shoot some harvest images.

Enjoy your day and be careful.

Monday ~ September 06, 2021

Posted by Dave Updegraff on September 6, 2021
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Happy Monday!

Sorry for the delay in posting more images.  I have had some things going on in my life that have taken me away from my photography for awhile.  Today I have several images of Bison.  This was our third day in the park and we wanted to go back to the place where the”Buffalo Roam.”  Sorry I couldn’t help myself.  🙂

Please click on the image to see a larger more detailed version of the image.  Love the look on his face.  It was close to the mating season when we were there and this is one of the things male Bison do to attract a mate.


This was after his dust roll and he came down to where his lady friend was standing.  You can still see a little bit of the dust  around him.  You can see he is announcing his presence with his low bellow.  When they do that I must admit it sounds ominous and foreboding.


I don’t know what she is thinking but she doesn’t look all the interested in him.  He stood beside her for several minutes.  Just swishing flies with his tail and every once in a while he would bellow again.


We never saw that many calves but when we did they were very close to their mother.  If you look closely at his coat you can see that he has had a few scrapes already in his young life.

This is what happens when a Bison decides to cross the road.  Major traffic jam. We saw an entire heard cross the road on our fist day in the park and we were far enough back with our van that I couldn’t get a shot of it.  The park rangers were there to make sure they all got across the road.  An average bull weighs 850 pounds and can run at about 35 mph so they are a presence to be reckoned with.


And now for our biggest adventure.  We had stopped at a picnic area to have some lunch.  There were lots of people there and we thought we were lucky to find an empty table.  There was a group of eight to our left and a group of 4 to our right.  Jeanne happened to mention that all the trees in the area had the bark rubbed off.

Not long after she said that we heard a low bellow and there he was.  He was coming straight to our area.  All of us in unison ran to our cars until he passed.  He came up to our car and I was wondering how I was going to explain this big dent in the car.  But he didn’t bother us and he casually walked on down to the stream for a drink and most of us went back to our lunch.

Enjoy your day and be careful.

Wednesday ~ August 25, 2021

Posted by Dave Updegraff on August 25, 2021
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Happy Wednesday!

I will continue with our last day in the park.  We saw some new things but we also went back to a couple of things we saw on our first day.  Namely the Yellowstone Grand Canyon and the area where we saw so many Bison on our first day.

On our way to the canyon we saw a small heard of elk feeding and resting.  We weren’t lucky enough to see any bulls but we enjoyed watching these just taking it easy.

Back at the Grand Canyon the shear size and beauty of it is breath taking.  As much as I tried no image can show the depth and breath of the magnificent place.

This image of the water fall was taken at a much higher vantage point then on our fist day.  If you click on the image to make it larger you can actually see the people at the very top of the water fall.

When Angie and Ben were at the water fall they were standing where these people are and said the sound of the water was deafening

Every turn is another image waiting to be taken.  This image was taken from the same vantage point as the one of the falls.  I just turned 180 degrees and was greeted with this magnificent view.

Not too far from where the water fall is there is this Osprey nest.  There was a placard detailing how many times the Osprey would frequent the nest.  It was not their mating season so we had no chance of seeing them on the nest.  I never saw one the entire trip.

Heading for the land of the Bison and came across this beautiful site of the hills, trees, and puffy clouds.  These clouds later produced a pretty decent rain storm and gave the park about a half inch of rain.

I’ll be posting some more images soon.  Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your day and be careful.

 

Thursday ~ August 19, 2021

Posted by Dave Updegraff on August 19, 2021
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Happy Thursday!

Today I have lots of landscape images from our third day in Yellowstone.  We revisited some of the places we saw on our guided tour but then explored places that we hadn’t been.  Saw lots of bison and lots of other wildlife (another post) and had an exciting experience.   Remember to click on the images to make them larger with more detail.

There were some low hanging clouds around the hills and mountains this morning and it made for some beautiful scenery images.  We stopped here for about 10 minutes just enjoying the change scene.

As you can see the low clouds were beginning to lift and it turned out to be a beautiful day of sunshine and cooler temperatures.

I have a painting hanging in my home office / man cave of a fly fisherman and I love it.  The steams that run through Yellowstone are wonderful for trout fishing and we saw a lot of them in the streams.  What I was trying to do was capture an image that closely resembled my painting.  This one was close but not quite it.

The geyser in the distance was our destination.  Jeanne wanted to see it up close and so we had to find our way to it.

Fortunately on the way to the geyser we came across this fisherman and it was the shot I was looking for.  There wasn’t a pull off place so I just parked the car, jumped out and grabbed the shot and then got under way again.

While processing the image I couldn’t decide if the image needed to be in color or black and white, so naturally I did it both and you can decide for yourself.

Thank you for stopping by the blog.  Enjoy your day and be careful.