Honker in the lily pads

CANADA GOOSE, CHICAGO BOTANIC GARDEN, GLENCOE, ILLINOIS, SEPTEMBER 24, 2008

Pentax *ist DS
SMC Pentax-DA 50-200 at 200mm
1/500 sec. f9.5
ISO 800

The Chicago Botanic Garden is one of my favorite places for wildlife photography. That can be difficult in the wild even with a long lens -- you've got to sneak up on your quarry and hope it'll sit still long enough for you to snap the shutter. The geese and ducks at the Garden are used to people and paddle by at close quarters, hoping for a tidbit.

Boxcar in the woods

ESCANABA & LAKE SUPERIOR RAILROAD, ONTONAGON, MICHIGAN, AUGUST 11, 2008

Pentax *ist DS
SMC Pentax-DA 50-200 at 125mm
1/350 sec. f11
ISO 400

This may look like a freight car rusting on a forgotten siding, and there are plenty of those in Upper Michigan -- but this one was moving, part of the E&LS "Ontonagon Job" that delivers empty cars to a paper mill and picks up loaded ones. I increased the saturation of both green and orange in Photoshop Elements to give the picture more pop.

Autumn glory

LAKE OF THE CLOUDS, PORCUPINE MOUNTAINS WILDERNESS STATE PARK, MICHIGAN, OCTOBER 4, 2008

Pentax K10D
Sigma 17-70 at 17mm
1/750 sec. f9.5
ISO 400
(Click photo for larger version)

This spot is probably the most photographed in all the western reaches of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I took the picture a week before the autumn colors reached their peak, and boosted their saturation a bit with Photoshop Elements while reducing the luminance of the blue to make the sky darker.

Washington memorial

GEORGE WASHINGTON MASONIC MEMORIAL, ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA, OCTOBER 23, 2008

Pentax *ist DS
SMC Pentax-DA 18-55 at 40mm
1/350 sec. f16
ISO 400

I took this view from the platform at the Alexandria Amtrak station while waiting for a train to Richmond. The sun was just right, but saturating the blue sky in Photoshop Elements helped pop out the subject. A distracting light post was also Photoshopped out.

Grackle No. 3

COMMON GRACKLE, EVANSTON, ILLINOIS, MAY 25, 2008

Pentax K10D
Sigma APO 135-400 at 340mm
1/45 sec. f9.5
ISO 400

In truth, grackles don't quite look like this -- in the sun the colors of their heads are iridescent, purple and blue shimmering in a living mix. Photography stops the shimmer and makes the head look bicolored.

Yellow delight

UNIDENTIFIED FLOWER, CHICAGO BOTANIC GARDEN, GLENCOE, ILLINOIS, MAY 29, 2008

Pentax K10D
Sigma 17-70 at 70mm
1/250 sec. f11
ISO 100

On the day I visited the Botanic Garden I forgot to take along a notebook and pencil to record each variety of flower I snapped, trusting to my leaky memory instead. Mistake.

Blaze of glory

UNIDENTIFIED BLOSSOM, CHICAGO BOTANIC GARDEN, GLENCOE, ILLINOIS, JUNE 12, 2008

Pentax K10D
SMC Pentax-FA J 75-300 at 220mm
1/125 f11
ISO 400

Same mistake -- no notebook and pencil. Lovely flower all the same, and I was pleased with its rendering by a plastic zoom lens so light in weight and inexpensive that serious photographers laugh at it.

Morning in the garden

CHICAGO BOTANIC GARDEN, GLENCOE, ILLINOIS, SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

Pentax *ist DS
SMC Pentax-DA 18-55 at 18mm
1/500 sec. f11
ISO 400

In the original photograph, two people stood behind the woman striding from left to right, about 20 feet in the distance. It took me a couple of hours and a few failed tries, but I was able to remove those distracting figures by using the clone tool of Photoshop Elements 6.0.