We don’t often get temps above seventy in October but, when we do, it behooves us to get outside and enjoy it. I choose to spend a few hours at Jay Cooke State Park enjoying the sound of the St. Louis River and waiting for the sunset.
Skyline Parkway is a scenic drive through the hills above Duluth Minnesota. It is a 28 mile route that was begun in 1889 and a must drive for visitors to the area. The route has many scenic overlooks and passes by the Enger Tower park where you can climb to the top for an even more spectacular view of the city of Duluth and Lake Superior. In the summer, the gardens are in full bloom.
This gallery contains 2 photos.
One of my remaining lenses for my Canon cameras is a Canon 100mm 2.8 macro. The first image I chose to allow a bit of background bokeh and the other I used focus stacking.
A dry summer has kept most local streams to just a trickle. But, with a background such as this, the trickle is a minor part of the composition.
At the base of small waterfall is a pond which serves as a collection place for the leaves as they fall from the trees. Should we get more rain than we’ve been getting, the leaves will be flushed from this pond and make their way to Lake Superior.
We’ve all been challenged by the events this past year or more and I hope we find the path to better days in the near future. But, the damnpenic has not been the only challenge I have had to deal with recently. I have developed cataracts which have been been getting worse the last couple of months, This image is a bit like what my everyday life is like…always varying degrees of fogginess. It’s often hard to tell if what I see with my eyes is worth photographing and it has become increasingly more difficult to know if I am nailing focus. I look forward to the surgery next month and getting the worst eye sorted out.
Another challenge for me is that I am in the process of changing camera formats. I am moving from full frame Canons to Fujifilm medium format. Although I have yet to find buyers for my 5D Mk4 and 5D S, I have sold four of my six lenses. The two I have left are a Canon 100mm 2.8 Macro and a Tamron 10-24mm which is designed for an APS-C camera.so it vignettes on a full frame at wider than 15mm. Until I sell the two camera bodies these are the only lenses I have to work with. I has forced me to be creative with my shooting. As a backup, I do have a Sony RX100 Mk5, my iPhone 12 Pro and a DJI Mavic Air 2, so I’m not totally lost. If I really want to challenge myself, I can load some B&W film into my Nikon FM.
I look forward to having clearer vision and a new view finder to look through in the near future. It will give me a new focus in my work and life.
I am in the process of selling my current cameras and lenses. At the moment I have two lenses remaining, my 10-24mm and a 100mm macro. Until I purchase my new gear, I am challenged with using these two lenses for my Canon 5D Mk4 and Canon 5D S. This image was taken using the Canon 100mm 2.8 macro. It takes patience to get the right balance of depth of field and stillness of the subject. Also, the bees don’t pose. I choose a single blossom and waited till a bee stopped by. I realize it is not perfectly focused, but I will keep trying.
Sunset At Jay Cooke State Park
One last image before I seek cleaner air. The smoke was getting to be too much for me to handle, checked the air quality index and it was an unhealthy 158. Believe it or not, this is not the worst we’ve had lately, we were over 200 this past week. In many places out west if’s even worse.
