Foto Friday

Hyde's Mill

I purchased my first DSLR late in July this year knowing that I had a handful of photoworthy trips and events happening in the coming months. For the first few weeks I brought that camera EVERYWHERE I went and took pictures of EVERYTHING. I was starting to get the hang of the basics. And then work ramped up, and my free time became virtually non-existent, and my camera sat for weeks on end safely tucked in it's bag.

I had a little time while in Kona for work to play with the camera again. Much time was spent working hard to capture sunsets, ocean views, and athletes in motion. I stumbled upon some great photos, but genrally came back feeling frustrated at my inability to use my expensive new toy to the fullest of it's capabilities. I also came back wanting like 3 new lens, a flash, and a new camera bag, but that's a while other story...

On Saturday 10/22/11 I headed out to Hyde's Mill with a local photog group. This was definitely stepping out of my comfort zone as this was a group of all new people, I was going alone, and I was feeling RUSTY with my relatively new Nikon 3100. The group was, for the most part, super friendly, and many of them were in my shoes not so long ago. There were a few pro's in the group, but mainly there were just there to answer questions and give pointers. I've never been shy at asking questions, so I took full advantage of picking their brains.

A pro I'm not, but here a few of my favorites from my afternoon at Hyde's Mill in Ridgeway, WI.

A shot of the original water-powered mill in Iowa County. This was a test in difficult lighting (direct sunlight, none the less), framing a photo, and capturing moving water. No easy task as I learned that when I adjusted for one condition, say moving water, I had to then compensate for the other condition, direct sunlight. Definitely a learning experience!!

Close up shot of the original mill wheels, once powered by the water wheel. This was me playing with macro, sans a proper macro lens. It was also a test of my limited DSLR knowledge and how to focus on the near, and soften the far.

If you were paying attention of your surroundings while on your way to Hyde's Mill, you would have noticed a quaint church on your right as your turned onto Mill Road. I, however, did not. This was taken from 1/2m away, up the hill, on Mill Rd. I toyed with bringing the distance into focus while letting the foreground soften and merely frame. I also had the epiphany of, duh, using manual focus to force the camera to take the shot.

Behind Hyde Church was a quaint cemetery, mainly filled with headstones and monuments dating from the early to mid 1800's. This is another attempt at macro work, sans proper macro lens. The sharpness of the photo is lacking, but I still love the color of the interesting moss, and the softness of the background.

All of my photos can be found on my flickr site....just click on the widget on the left to take a peek.