Exploring the wonders of creation through a 50mm lens...and other lenses too.

This is another look at a very cold lake in Oklahoma. In other words, this is something you just don’t see very often down here. As with last week’s photo, this is Lake Carl Blackwell completely frozen, a few days after one of the longest stretches of cold weather in recent memory. When my wife and I took our kids out to the lake just to walk around and look at the strange sights, we didn’t really know what to expect other than that the surface of the water would be smooth. Which it was. And covered in snow. Which it also was. But this thing? No, I can safely say I had no idea I would see this.

So what is it? Good question. I think, though I’m not entirely certain, that this is some kind of plant or shrub that was covered in a layer, or many layers, of ice. And I mean that ice was thick. We tried whacking it with a pretty large stick, and it didn’t budge. I don’t know what weather conditions would cause a bush (albeit having lost its foliage to the winter season) to freeze such that it looks like this, but it wasn’t at all what I expected. I also have a hunch that winds from the lake battered this plant, and the rocks against which it is nestled, with a freezing mist for several days as well which led to such a thick covering of ice.

The trick was to find a way to photograph it, and I think I did OK except for one thing: I should have used a smaller aperture. I shot this at f/4 but f/8 would have been a little better, mostly because the background would be a lot sharper. Normally I’m a big fan of blurry backgrounds, but not in this case. I think the shallower depth of field belies just how smooth the surface of the lake really was. I have to give myself a bit of grace though, since I had never taken a picture like this and wasn’t really sure what exposure settings would be ideal. In fact we so rarely get any significant snowfall down here that any photo of snow is somewhat of a challenge I think I did OK though, and hopefully next time (if there is a next time, which, Lord willing, won’t be for many years!) I’ll have a better sense of just what to do to get a good shot of a scene like this.

During the extreme cold snap of mid February I didn’t actually take many photos. It was just too cold! Even though I often thought about going out with my camera while we were stuck inside huddled under blankets trying to conserve power, I mostly just erred on the side of comfort at the expense of photographic creativity. That changed a bit as the weather warmed, and when temperatures rose into the 40’s my wife and I took our boys out to Lake Carl Blackwell west of town just to let them see what a frozen lake looked like. Living in Oklahoma you just don’t see things like this too often, so we wanted to take the opportunity while it was available.

And nature did not disappoint!

Ok so first things first: we did not go on the ice. Even though it seemed plenty thick for walking around, and it certainly withstood being pounded with pretty large rocks, there’s no telling when you could come across a weak spot or a crack or other such unforeseen issue, the results of which would be cold at best and tragic at worst.

What we did do, however, was spend a while just walking around and admiring the scenery while letting the boys whack the ice with long pieces of wood we brought with. I also kept my eyes open for photographic opportunities, the first of which you see here. I really liked the contrasting elements, particularly the deep shadows along the left side. The lake itself is smooth as glass, and the undulating ice-covered mounds are so starkly different they almost seem photoshopped in. I was using my D7100 which does not have a flip-out screen, which was a big miss on my part. I really should have brought my D500 or D750! I had to get down low to get this shot, which was nearly impossible on the outcropping I was standing on, which meant I had to use Live View. And since the glare was so bad I literally could not see what I was photographing. I also didn’t know what aperture to use. I stopped down to f/8, focused on the closest ice mound, lowered the camera, and took a few shots. This one actually worked! How, I’m not exactly sure. But it was neat to see this scene and capture it to show people someday who might not believe that back in 2021 Lake Carl Blackwell really did freeze over.

I shot this in mid February when Oklahoma was in the middle of one of the longest and harshest cold snaps in recent memory. We had a near-record number of days below freezing, some with a high hovering around Zero. (If you live in the midwest United States you know what I’m talking about–we had it easy compared to states farther north!) My wife and I didn’t leave the house for a few days, and neither did our kids, but I really wanted to find a way to document the cold and snow and generally really bad weather conditions. I wasn’t about to spend more than two minutes outside in order to do it though! Then one evening I noticed this thing in the backyard and realized it might have the answer.

What you’re looking at here is a simple weather vane my youngest son did as a school project back in October. The idea was that with a pencil, a pin, a straw, and some cardstock he could create a basic weather vane to show wind direction. It was one of those simple school projects that I would never have thought of on my own, but ended up being a pretty cool demonstration of some basic science principles. He stuck this thing in the ground, recorded a few measurements, and then just sort of left it sit.

And sit it most certainly has. This weird little school project has survived rain, wind, ice storms, snow, and record freezing temperatures and (as my dad would say) by golly it still works. And I’ll be darned (another dad-ism) if that straw doesn’t keep on rotating to show wind direction even after all this time. For whatever reason this thing is like a Timex watch (have I shown my age yet?) and I’m curious just how long it will hang in there. So it made sense to me to use it as a way of showing a bit about the strange winter we have been having.

To get this shot I grabbed my D750 and 50mm lens, ran outside with the sun at my back, angled myself so my own shadow wouldn’t be in the picture, flipped down the rear screen, turned on Live View, and started shooting before my fingers froze into little pink popsicles. I didn’t really think too much about creating a compelling composition–mostly I just wanted to get back inside. I did wait just a few seconds for the wind to aim the arrow sideways because the other shots where it was facing towards or away from the camera just didn’t seem all that interesting. I shot at f/2.8 to balance sharpness and depth of field, and used continuous high-speed shooting in the hope that something would turn out. And I’ll be a monkey’s uncle (I’m now officially my dad) if this photo wasn’t almost exactly what I hoped it would be.

Something kind of interesting happened as I was out shooting with my 10-stop ND filter on a chilly February morning. I didn’t have anything specific in mind other than to shoot a picture of this particular fountain on campus, but once I got there and set up my tripod I wondered if there might be a way to incorporate geese into the shot. I took a few shots and liked how the swimming geese added some interesting streaks across the image, but something about the end result just seemed cheap and boring. I thought I could do better. Trouble is, geese aren’t really known for cooperating or doing what you want them to do at all. They mostly just kind of ignore you, hiss at you, or run away. Still, I did think I could get something if I worked at it for a bit.

As I reviewed my images briefly on the back of my camera I thought it would be kind of neat if I could get a shot where one goose was frozen (not literally, but you know what I mean) but everything else was smooth and showed motion. I didn’t know what I could really do to make that kind of a shot happen though, but after some experimenting I realized I would need to strike a balance with my shutter speed: too long and there’s no way a goose would be still in the image. Too short and the picture wouldn’t show movement the way I was hoping. And then there’s the matter of the animals, and trying to work around their obtuse agenda in order to get a shot.

Finally one goose did swim by and, as luck would have it, actually held still for a bit. I quickly dialed in a shutter speed of four seconds and an aperture of f/4.8, and hoped for the best. I pretty much just sat there and held my breath while the shutter was open, hoping against all odds that the goose would remain still. And I’m telling you, not one second after the shutter clicked and the exposure ended that goose in the foreground turned and swam away. It was almost like it was staring at me as I stared back, or maybe it was even posing for the shot. Whatever the case may have been, it resulted in a shot that that, while not perfect, does fill me with a sense of pride and gives me some new techniques to try as I explore the concept of long exposures.

Also on an unrelated note, this post marks the completion of eight years of doing this blog. Eight years, gone in a flash. I’ve learned an awful lot and I appreciate all the comments and questions from you, my readers, and look forward to many many more years of doing Weekly Fifty.

So after last week’s grandiose pontifications about a years-long photography improvement project involving fountains and filters, this image is pretty much the opposite end of the spectrum. I mean, it’s a pumpkin covered with snow. That’s pretty much it folks. Nothing to see here, move along.

Actually that’s not entirely accurate. This picture isn’t anything to write home about, but it does have a bit of a story behind it. Over the past several months many of my Weekly Fifty pictures have been taken along the route that my wife and I walk every day with our kids, who either ride their bikes or putt along on scooters. At some point we noticed this pumpkin sitting in a field all by itself, and it was a little…strange, I guess. It clearly did not grow there, but who put it there? And why? And were they going to come back for it? It was fully intact so it didn’t appear to have been tossed from a car or ejected off a truck. It seemed like someone walked out to the middle of a field, carefully set down a pumpkin, and walked away.

We didn’t really pay much attention other than to remark every day or so as we walked past. “Hmm. Looks like that pumpkin’s still there.” Every now and then I thought about bringing my camera on our walk so I could take a picture, but didn’t really have much in mind for what that picture would look like or why I would even want to take it. Then in late December we had a couple inches of snow, and because we don’t stop our daily walk even in bad weather I thought I would bring my D7100 and 50mm lens to finally get a picture of our little pumpkin friend. I ran out, shot this at f/2.8 with my camera basically sitting on the snow, and ran back to my wife and kids to continue the walk.

There wasn’t much to this photo, really, but I still kind of get a kick out of it. We don’t normally see pumpkins sitting in a field all by their lonesome, and we don’t get a lot of snow here in Oklahoma, so I guess you could say this was a confluence of a couple of odd events. It’s not the kind of picture I’ll be printing to hang on a wall or anything, but it does bring back a fun memory of an interesting time in our lives. One of those artifacts, so to speak, that I’ll probably look back on one day and remember this strange time of living through a global pandemic.