The Wright Influence

Appropriately located in America’s prairie land are several examples of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie style buildings, both houses and a hotel. In Mason City, IA the influence of this architect is proudly displayed among the several constructions restored to their original look. The hotel is the only one of six Wright built that is still standing, and as a bonus, it is run as a hotel so people can experience the look and feel of a Wright building. Although completed in the early 1900’s the spaces inside have the usual modern feel of Wright’s design. The hotel went through several remodels and purposes, with the usual threat of demolishing staved off by a group of dedicated civic leaders who raised the funds to renovate the building to it’s original look and intent. As a result of their work anyone can now admire and be a part of this little part of American architectural history.

Mason City proudly claims to have the greatest concentration of Prairie style houses in the country, scattered across town. Only one was built by Wright but his influence is easily seen in the Historical District and other parts of town.

Click on any picture below to see the full image.

The original bank is now a banquet room for the hotel.

Reproduction of light pole originally over the bank teller windows.

A sitting area off the hotel lobby.

Original art glass skylight over the hotel sitting area.

Original art glass windows in the hotel lobby overlooking the park.

A typical hallway in the hotel leading to 27 rooms on three floors

A balcony off the second floor.

Originally a “ladies sitting area” above the lobby.

Another sitting area on the second floor outside what was originally a law office.

The colored terra cotta tiles on the front-facing columns.

The original law office.

Sitting area behind the hotel lobby.

A second “ladies sitting area” directly above the lobby.

The James Blythe house, one of two bankers who commissioned Wright to build the hotel and bank. This house built by Griffin, one of Wright’s students.

A Prairie-style house in the historic district.

Another Prairie style house in the historic district.

The Stockman House, built by Wright.

Color busting out

A local park has a formal garden section that yearly puts on a show of shapes and colors. With all the rain and warm weather we’ve been having I thought it would be a good time to drop by and see what’s blooming. It’s still early for the full effect the garden provides but there are colors there to enjoy.

Birds of spring

I took my 500mm lens down to the local park today just to sit around and see who might come through. It was nice to just sit there and listen to the birds talking all around. Some were defending territory, some attracting mates and some just seemed to be singing for the fun of it. There was the usual bunch hanging around the small stream and marsh, and they sat around at times giving me the chance to get them in focus and exposed as good as possible on a cloudy day. Here are some images of today’s crowd.

The more I use this lens the more I like it, especially the sharpness being delivered. More practice will just increase my understanding of how to get the most performance out of it. Hopefully the gang of birds will sit around enough to give me a chance to create their portraits.

Sometimes you just see interesting stuff

The spring colors are starting

Weather here has been up and down as far as temperature and rainfall are concerned. I thought this would confuse the plants we expect to see coming up right now but it seems the length of daylight is more of a factor than things like cold and water. I wandered over to a local state park to see what’s coming up in the marshy areas near the spring-fed lake and wasn’t disappointed with my finds. Lots of color all over the place, plants down low soaking up the sun that’s usually blocked by the leaves that aren’t out yet. Good to see another season coming along right on schedule.

Bloodroot

Marsh Marigold

Moss sprouting on a rock near a spring

Good photography weather

A front moved through Wisconsin yesterday, pushing the spring warm weather out of the state and replacing it with our basic overcast cold days. It’s times like these a photographer should pay attention to the sky because shifts in temperature and barometric pressure usually create awesome clouds. And if the sun is in the right place some cool images can be made.

What was great about yesterday’s clouds is the big puffy ones were south of a more solid bank, all of which was north of where the sun was shining in a clear sky. The whole condition didn’t last more than an hour but I had enough time to grab a camera and rush up to the local park where a hill gave me a good view to the north. The clouds were moving along but not so fast that I couldn’t freeze them with a somewhat fast shutter speed around 1/250th-1/500th sec.

Alfred Steiglitz was a famous photographer of the early 20th century who made a series of cloud images he called Equivalents. His intent was to free the viewer from an imposed perspective such as that of a landscape or architectural composition. His aim was for the viewer to avoid literal interpretation of the image and impose on it whatever they felt. It was one of the first efforts at abstract photography.

I’m not much for abstraction in my images – I like to portray the world as it was when I saw it. Nonetheless, clouds are great subjects because you get what you see. Arranging them into a desired composition is not that easy since they change shape and location all the time. Add in the changing sunlight and you find yourself making a lot of images, each one different.

Here are a few of my favorites from yesterday. Black and white seems the appropriate presentation – the blue sky just gets in the way!

The total event

The weather turned out much better than expected for the eclipse. Traveled to a small town right on the line of totality and the clouds were all gone by the time the moon started covering the sun. There were lots of towns promoting their location but I found Albion, IL would be a point of maximum coverage and probably away from the crazy crowds. Turned out to be a good choice. The local high school parking lot was out in the open, away from trees and powerlines. Lots of people were there sitting out and waiting for the action. A few had cameras and even fewer telescopes. Drove around a bit to scout out other locations – fairgrounds, restaurant parking lots, etc. – but the high school was the best.

One way of confirming this was on the line of totality was to watch the crescent formed as the moon covered the sun. Like this:

The symmetry of the “horns” was perfect and remained that way until totality. This told me the map was correct and that Albion was on the path of longest coverage.

This image is about halfway through the 4 minutes of totality. The little orange dot on the bottom of the moon is a solar prominence erupting from the surface of the sun high enough to escape the moon’s coverage. Very cool benefit. I’m sure there are clearer pictures of that out there given the millions of people with better equipment.

Images were made with a compact mirrorless camera. The eclipse glasses came with a filter for the camera, which I used on the image of the partially covered sun and removed for the totality image. I did manual focusing using the screen on the camera back so the images aren’t as sharp as I would have liked but I was pleased to get them. The unfiltered image was made at 1/125 sec., f/ 6.3, ISO800 with a focal length of 400mm.

All along the drive down there were people sitting in their yards or driveways, firing up the grills, kids playing in the yards and folks just chatting about what was happening. Really nice to see most of the country brought together to enjoy a planetary event.

Getting closer

I’m still fine-tuning my abilities with a 500mm lens, trying to find the sweet spot for aperture and shutter speed that will exploit the full capabilities of this piece of gear. It’s what I want as a go-to lens for birds, particularly to photograph them flying. Getting clear, sharp images under these conditions means really fast shutter speeds, apertures that give a depth of field for the whole bird to be in focus, and as little noise as possible. What I’m working on now is to put my camera in manual mode, set the shutter speed to a least 1/1000 sec and the aperture at f/8 or f/11. In anything less than blazing sunlight this will mean an underexposed image – unless I set the ISO high enough to compensate. My current testing sets an auto-ISO with a limit at 1600. One reason I have the Nikon D800 is the low noise images at even high ISO’s and so far this hasn’t disappointed me.

The other setting I’m comparing is the autofocus on spot or continuous. The latter enables me to set the number of focusing points that are used, meaning I can narrow down where the camera looks to find subject focus. I’m working on 9 points in the center right now. So far results are mixed. Some of the continuous focused images are sharp and some aren’t, even at comparable distances. So far I’m thinking the vibration reduction system in the lens might be contributing to the difference. Images made on a tripod (VR system off) seem sharper than handheld (VF system on). I assumed at shutter speed of 1/1000 sec would be fast enough to compensate for handheld jitters when combined with the VR system but not so sure yet. More testing required.

I am getting better with the autofocus spot system though. Here’s an image I was surprised turned out as well as it did. The bird was flying in front of lots of trees that have similar coloration as the crane and I was handholding to track with the flight. This is a significant crop from the original picture – subject was well over 100 feet away and moving away from me.

1/1000 sec, f/8, ISO560

The feather detail is good and the depth of field sufficient to keep both wingtips in focus as well as the beak. Granted, cranes are a big target but this image helps build my confidence I know how to use this lens to get what I want.

Waiting for Spring

The bird population around the feeder has gradually been increasing but the weather hasn’t been that friendly lately. There’s a chill wind blowing rain into the area today and the birds don’t seem happy about the inconsistent weather. They have lots to do and would probably appreciate a little warmer temperature during the day. The chickadee in the image was sitting still for quite a bit, much longer than they usually spend on that perch. Most of the time it’s just fly in, grab a seed, and fly out. This one seemed to be using the feeder as a windbreak to take some time away from the damp breeze.

Lines and angles

I’m a big fan of architectural photography. There’s something about portraying the things we construct to enclose space that appeals to my sense of order. I really like the little details one can find on projects, some essential to the structure and some just there for the fun of it or to enhance the story being told about the purpose. I’m definitely just an amateur when it comes to these type of images but when something catches my eye I do like to see what I can capture about it. Have you ever looked at a building or other structure and felt it just belongs where it’s place? Sort of like nothing else would fit there or serve that purpose.

I’ve been fortunate to wander around the country quite a bit and take my camera with me. Here in no particular order or grouping are some architectural images I like. Click on an image to see the full picture.

Barn Structure, Nebraska

Water Garden, Ft. Worth

Roof Detail, Montana

Barn Detail, Wyoming

Art Installation, Ann Arbor

Grain Elevators, Wisconsin

Home Detail, Montana

Sidewalk Lights, Wyoming

Office Building, Battle Creek

Lutheran Church, Wisconsin

Front Detail, Montana

Train Station, Montana