Reflective Flood © 2004 Kevin W. Hammond All Rights Reserved

The Des Plaines river here in Chicago is in the process of flooding.  We've had some substantial rain over the past few days and many who live within the flood plain are simply waiting for the inevitable at this point.  The last time the river flooded was back in '87.  Given this, I headed out to take a look first hand and spend a little time documenting the event.

My first stop was along River Road, just north of Higgins, at a little forest preserve pull-in.  The water level was within 20' of the parking lot.  Bathed in shadow and green foliage, it was pretty cool to see.  Fortunately, the water was pretty still allowing me to get this reflective picture.  Reflective Flood was taken with my

Astute Statement of the Obvious © 2004 Kevin W. Hammond All Rights Reserved

28-135mm lens at 135mm.  I used an aperture of f/8 as the trees were on the same focal plane and adjusted my shutter speed until 1/15s indicated a correct exposure.  f/16 or f/22 would have afforded a greater depth of field and possibly a sharper image, but I would have had to trade ISO (resulting in more noise) or shutter speed (resulting in more shake, even with image stabilization.)  Unfortunately my tripod wasn't with me and 1/15s was the best I could do handholding and with image stabilization.

I carried on up River Road to the railroad tracks where the clearance is known to be 9' to see how high the water level truly had risen.  In this picture, Astute Statement of the Obvious, it is clear once again that the government is trying to protect us from ourselves.  For this picture, I zoomed my 28-135mm lens out to 70mm.  I was using an aperture of f/22 to maximum depth of field as I shot under the bridge.  I adjusted my shutter speed until 1/60s at ISO 400 indicated a correct exposure and fired away.

We were lying on the couch watching Sleeping Beauty around 7:45 or so this evening, when Chloe looked out the window and said, “Daddy, it’s getting dark.” I looked up and there was an amazing orange cast outside. I ran to grab my camera and stepped outside into a Martian-like landscape: the sunset reflecting off of the storm clouds had bathed the entire neighborhood in an eerie orange glow.

Stormy © 2004 Kevin W. Hammond All Rights Reserved

This picture, Stormy, posted here was taken with my 28-135mm lens at 115mm.  I used f/22 for maximum depth of field and manually focused the lens at infinity.  I adjusted my camera's meter until a shutter speed of 1/80s indicated a correct exposure.

What really struck me as odd is this picture I grabbed of a cloud that was a beautiful white above, and an ominous orange below.  Amazingly, the storm missed us on both the north and the south side, but did yield some fantastic views of the thunder storm that captivated our attentions for well over half-an-hour.  Unfortunately, I don't yet have the knack for capturing lightning, but I did prove to myself once again that if you hold the shutter open long enough, you can make low-light surroundings look just like broad daylight!

Last week in my Understanding Exposure course, our challenge was close up photography.  The goal was to understand specular highlights that are revealed at smaller apertures and to introduce the world of macro photography.  For the task, I purchased a Canon 50mm macro lens and a 25mm extension tube.  The nice thing about the extension tube is it also provides an EF-S mount, allowing me to use the 18-55mm lens that comes with the Canon EOS Digital Rebel.

Sensual Rose © 2004 Kevin W. Hammond All Rights Reserved

I bought some orange (salmon?) and yellow roses at Jewel and brought them home to fly through my assignment.  I figured I'd spend 15 minutes in the back yard “just getting it done.“  Turns out it was too windy to get crisp shots and I moved inside, using my southern exposed window to provide natural light.  I found myself engulfed in this exercise!  Two hours and 109 pictures later, I have some stellar shots of this rose in a number of different compositions.

The picture, Sensual Rose, posted here was taken with my 28-135mm lens at 135mm and a 25mm extension tube.  I used f/22 for maximum depth of field and adjusted my camera's meter until a shutter speed of 1/6s indicated a correct exposure.  With the extension tube on my everyday lens, I was able to get in close - less than an inch - for this shot.