Photo Bike Ride

Nothing has been the same since Covid hit. Its another generational turning point in this world. We will talk about this in the future about how things were different before Covid. Similar to how we talked about how things we different pre 9-11.

My photo walks have not been the same either. Not because of covid. But life in general has just been busier. Just going out with my camera on photo walks has been more difficult. So when I get an opportunity to go out I try to have ideas in my head to hurry and capture something special and not fumble around with finding a location.

This past year we purchased a travel trailer to have on opportunity to get our family out of the house and enjoy the great outdoors. Selfishly I also had hoped it would give me more opportunity's to get out and shoot with the camera. I bring the camera along every trip and keep the batteries charged. It took until our third trip before I actually was able to pull my camera on a trip out of the closet in the camper. Which is not a problem, I totally enjoy getting out an introducing my family to nature. I love getting down on a knee and showing my kids something truly special about the world or nature that we walked or biked by. They really enjoy the learning opportunity. With that my first reaction is not to pull out the camera.

So I aim to get out and shoot when the kids are asleep for the night. And what generally happens is by the time we get both kids asleep its way past sunset and the moon is the only subject available to shoot. And honestly the moon is one of my favorite things to shoot but generally I get my shot on the first or second shot and there is no other composition to align the moon with.

So what have I learned. To scope out possible quick to get to locations and ideas on the off chance both kids are asleep before sunset. The good thing is I have a tendency to notice locations during my day to day travels that could be "photogenic" with the right light. Every morning on my way to work I wish I could set a tripod on the center of I-75 on the Rouge River Bridge and capture the Detroit Skyline during sunrise. There is always the most interesting light over the landscape. The southwestern suburbs of Detroit in the foreground with the Detroit Skyline in the background and what ever interesting clouds are over the city frames a perfect rule of thirds composition. In fact I have also noticed there are some power lines I could use as a foreground element and have a somewhat golden spiral composition. What I am getting at is I just naturally identify possibly subjects that have the opportunity to create a good composition.

A few weeks ago we went to Maumee Bay State Park to take the kids camping. As always I will pull up google the week before we go and search google images of where we are going. This generally provides me a little incite on interesting features the park may have. At this particular park I do happen to know someone who has shot with there camera here. I did contact him about where would he go if he had an hour during sunrise to shoot where would he go. He provided me an overlook that I had full intentions of going to when the time came.

When we were at the park we took the kids for a 5 mile bike ride down some the bike trails at the park. This proved to be the best piece of information I could have got. Its like the boots on the ground intel I needed. While riding I noticed a open grassy area that we seen a bunch of deer in midday. Nothing compositionally exceptional but anytime I can capture a creature in its environment there is an opportunity for a great photo. Compositonally I did notice a pond with a canoe launch that faced toward the west for sunset maybe a half mile out, and place along the bike trail with mature trees that provided an excellent leading lines type photo around 2 miles out on the bike. I also noticed along the beach on lake erie there were plenty of places to find a good composition. That was about 2.5 miles out from camp and I tend to struggle finding a solid foreground element in those type of photos to really bring the photo together. I just want to go super wide angle and hope to find a composition in post.

So what happened on out Saturday night camping. The sun was set to set at 8:34 that evening. I was able to get out on my bike at 8:05 to go photograph something. So I set out with my camera and tripod in the bike trailer and hurried to get to where I saw the deer. The sky did not look like it was going to provide any type of spectacular sunset colors. So there was no sense in trying to get to a landscape type photo unless something provided some type of indication of beautiful colors. Generally when the sky is extremely clear blue skies with maybe a lone cloud in it, that cloud really does not light up with color until the sun is below the horizon.

I went out and managed to capture a lone doe approximately 40 yards from me who had absolutely no cares in the world while taking photos I noticed an interesting object behind her that I realized was antlers sticking above the grass. Now mind you this was just over a mile out and I rode my bike as fast as I could with a trailer to get there. I struggled a little initially to keep the doe in frame with my heart rate so high from hurrying out there. I spent about 20 mins photographing I managed to identify about a dozen deer ranging anywhere from 40 yards away to a few hundred

Yards away from where I was shooting from. There was a bunch of does way out at the 100 to 200 yards away. I spotted a set of twin fawns about 75 yards away playing together under a tree. The buck and doe I was mainly paying attention to were about 40 to 50 yards away. I spent my time taking photos of the closer deer to me and would make different calls I have used while hunting to make the deer look at me or to stop them from moving while I took a picture.

It truly is a very down to earth experience when ever you have the opportunity to interact with nature and just be part of the day to day story for that location.

After a little while I decided noticed a interesting cloud formation in the sky that was going to be illuminated by the setting sun. I knew I needed to get to the pond closer to camp to find the composition I envisioned.

ide enough to fully capture what I wanted. I did a few quick panorama type photos to try to capture something. I swapped out to my 11-16 mm lens and was able to put together a composition close to what I had envisioned. I spent a few mins trying to work the scene before the light disappeared and then decided it was a good time to capture the moon at 600mm since it was in clear sky.

All and all it was a good photo bike ride. I got decent photos. I really need to work on identifying foreground subjects to really bring my compositions together and turn my photos fro

m quick little short stories to full blown novels.

Practice, practice, practice an