2020 photo walk - Sterling State Park

2020 is coming to an end. Wheew. Can you believe that wide ride of 2020? Life has certain been full of the unexpected this past year. I have definitely not devoted much time to photography this past year. I can only count 1 hand the amount of times I went out for a photo walk to capture some images.

In February I located a eagle nest that I was able to capture many photos of the eagles flying in, out and around the nest and could get relatively close to. Well close enough that a 600 mm lens could capture everything easily.

When I located this nest I anticipated visiting the nest a few times throughout the year to capture the eagle couples progress through the year and possibly get a few photos of the young eagles that mom was laying on there eggs back in late winter in early 2020.

Then covid happened. March went by. April went by. Both of my parents caught Covid in the spring. My mom had already been experiencing some veritgo-like issues that ended up with a cancer diagnoses in late spring. During this time I managed to get out once and walk around Point Moulee state game area with my camera to clear my head and talk to my Mom on the phone while she was in the hospital.

For the most part of June and the beginning of July I was working odd hours doing a lot of late night hours after the kids were asleep on weekends and weekdays from home to meet short term deadlines that were handed to me. Id check in with my mom everyday or two while she was going through her chemo treatments. I managed to get out once to see the comet Neowise (which I never really saw with my eye) and capture some photos before the clouds rolled in that night.

On July 29th I felt on top of the world and completed the last step of creating TJ Fordo Photography LLC. My side gig. I anticipated starting off doing real estate photography at the begining and working into do portrait photography. I spent many nights before bed coming up with pricing, billing and learning how to handle the accounting portion of running a business.

Then on July 30 I was laid off from my 8-5 job and everything else kind of got pushed to the side. I scrambled to put together and have someone proofread a resume ASAP. Luckily within a month I was able receive an offer and was only out of work for a month and a half and started in Mid-September working back in an office. The nice thing about working in an office again is I have been able to call my mom everyday weather she is in the hospital doing chemo or at home, on my way home from work.

You would think I was able to get out once when I was off work for a month and half but I never touched my camera. I spent the time fixing up alot of things around the house and talking almost daily with recruiters, hiring managers, and searching for other potential jobs.

Also with the new job, I was initially sent to do some field walk downs just outside of Port Huron. I always managed to bring my camera along. Most times I went out there there were bright sunny days which ended up in me just driving by and not even pulling out my camera. Not being able to take advantage of golden hour made it difficult to find anything I felt inspired to photograph.

My last trip out there I did manage to go out and spend 20 mins before our meeting time capturing some photos near a creek at a State Game area I scouted on google earth and found a location to shoot. Then after our day onsite it was overcast and I went and captured some photos around Port huron for about 30 mins before I headed home.

So that was pretty much all the photo walks I did through 2020 before Christmas break. I still managed to get Dec 24-Jan 4th off this year and between doing a bunch of projects around the house.

SOOOOO THAT LEADS TO TODAY. I FINALLY GOT OUT ON A MISSION TO TAKE PHOTOS. SORRY FOR THE LONG INTRO BUT 2020 HAS BEEN A WILD RIDE THAT NEEDS TO WRITTEN DOWN OR AT LEAST WRITTEN IN A BLOG. COME ON, MY LAST ENTRY WAS JAN 1, 2020 GIVE ME A BREAK!!!!!

I planned a little. Sunrise was at 8am, I anticipated waking up at 6:10 and pretty much heading straight out there. Arriving around a hour before sunrise. Fortunately for me my son decided we were waking up at 5am today and I was already well awake by the time my alarm went off. I arrived to the park a little before 7am. At that time there was like a fresh dusting of snow on the ground.

The first place I wanted to look at before the sun rose was an area where there is an old pier out to Lake Erie. The only think left of the old pier is the vertical supports for the pier and they stick out just above water level. I had figured I could capture the sunrise over it (Proper planing prevents piss poor performance) BUT I really did not want to walk in the dark through the sand to get to it. If I was able to park in the area where the camp ground is during the

summer I could have an easy walk to the pier. Well the campground area was blocked off.

I decided to check out the boat launch area and was captivated by a small little island that was slightly illuminated by the lights of the parking lot for the boat launch area. I took a composed shot initially utilizing the rule of thirds ( I really need to learn how to break the rule of thirds). The way I did it looking down a shorline that curved to your right. I manged to compose it so shoreline goes from the lower left hand third to the upper right hand third (its closer to half and the horizon is on the third). The point of the island stops on the upper left third. This is kind of rule of thirds on a diagonal type photo. It is kinda interesting because the shore line and the horizon also kind of create a leading lines the lead you too a light in the distance that happened to be the only light source that really had a star effect created from stoping down to f8.

Most of the time I decide to capture a panorama because I can create a super large megapixel image (like over 100 megapixel) and I can appreciate the whole scene or I can crop down in post and find a better composition.

After exploring the boat launch I decided to walk the trail to the eagles nest I came upon this past spring. On the way there I kept my eye out for any other interesting landscape compositions. On my way I saw 2 eagles before sunrise and 1 monster 8 pt buck that decided he wanted to just walk ahead of me 50 yards and keep our social distance around that far. (Where was he during hunting season). It was still to dark to try to even take a photo of the deer or eagles at this time before the sunrise during first light. And I only had my 24-75mm lens on and they would have just been a small dot in the distance.

I tried to follow the eagle(s) but they did not cooperate. One thing I have learned that if I want to practice tracking birds in the sky than what better bird to practice on than the seagull. There's plenty of them, don't seem to mind you, they are very erratic in the sky. If you pay attention to them they are kinda fun to watch. If you pay attention to there behavior you can tell how they are going to behave. Whether its a straight flight from left to right or right to left or if they are going to decide to dive. After seagulls, ducks and geese are another bird that are easy to find and track as they fly and land.

I watched the seagulls and kept occasionally seeing an eagle in the distance circling the same area of the park. During this time I spent about 10 minutes photographing this squirrel who kept posing for me. The last photo I took of him it looks as if he was smiling at me taking pictures of him.

After watching seagulls and ducks fly by for about an hour I decided to head back to the truck and drive over to the area I kept seeing the eagle circle near the beach along Lake Erie.

When I got to the parking lot for the beach I immediately noticed and eagle perched up in one of the trees overlooking the beach area. Its game time. If you don't know me, I love taking pictures of eagles. For the longest time I could not get close enough to an eagle to take a picture unless it was in a cage. Now I have paid attention for a few years around SE Michigan and know of 2 active nests that I could get close enough to photo. One within 60 yards. I have also paid attention to the eagles in the areas of the nests that I have spotted and can usually figure out an area where I can get an opportunity for a photo. But with all types of hunting and scouting knowledge can get me so far and sometimes just plain ole dumb luck works great too.

So I park the truck and grab my camera and tripod ( I use it to hold the weight of my camera to steady myself when shooting at such extreme focal lengths). As I walk down the trail/walkway toward the area the eagle is in the tree I spot the eagle fly out of the tree. Son of a .....I steady my camera and take a couple photos of him flying away along the Lake Erie shoreline. (Good thing the conditions are similiar to when I was shooting the seagulls because I didn't even look at my settings) Nothing spectacular but its always cool watching such a majestic bird fly especially while the choppy waters of the lake are only feet below.

I take another step down the trail and a second eagle flies out of the same tree. AHHHH SON OF A..... I quickly take aim and try to capture these second majestic creature fly south down the Lake Erie shoreline. I capture a couple more photos but nothing that is really sharp or clear. Not as bad as a bigfoot image but not as good as I would like.

So now what do I. You know what these birds have been circling here all morning they wont go far. Ill get into a postion that works for when they come back and capture them again. So I have an option to stay up high on this trail and wait for them to come back near the same group of trees or go down low close to the shore line and angle up higher if they come back. Down load was more sheltered from the wind so I went down low.

When I get down on the beach, I immediately regret only bringing my long lens and nothing for any type of landscape or up close photography. Oh well my luck if I swapped to something wide an eagle would land 40 feet from me. Once I walk around a down tree on the shore I notived what looked like to me 3 eagles and 1 seagull diving and intimidating each other over the lake erie water. I hurry and set down my tripod and snap a couple photos. Well it turned out to be 1 eagle and 3 seagulls kinda playing with and picking on each other which is still pretty cool.

I manged a couple other photos of the eagles down at the beach before I finally decided all my photo gear were wet enough and my coat was soaked though. FYI those gaters the CDC said doesnt work or Covid but then months later said they do work great for wrapping you camera in light rain.