by benjaminjk | Jul 23, 2017 | DIY, photography |
I stumbled across a family of bears sleeping the heat of the day away while photographing the Cade’s Cove area of the Great Smoky Mountian National Park. There were at least 3 young cubs in this tree, only 2 of them are clearly visible in the image because the tree is in the way. It can be so ridiculously difficult to find a bear or group of bears that you can get some nice sharp images of with out getting too close. The Park Service has strict rules and regulations about viewing and interacting with the wildlife in the Park. It is very important for the safety of the animals AND the visitors of the park. ...
by benjaminjk | Jul 10, 2017 | photography, tips and tricks |
The Great Smoky Mountains is a very special place. I took the opportunity to spend a week camping in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. My main goal during this trip was to see some bears and hopefully get close enough to photograph them (without getting too close, of course). The early summer is a very active time for the black bear population in the Smokies. The female bears (called sows) are busy grazing and protecting their cubs, while the male bears (called boars) are running around the park looking for cubs to kill. If the male bear can kill a litter of cubs the female will go back into heat this early in the season. The berries are also starting to ripen and be ready to eat. There is a ton of bear activity in the park in June! ...
by benjaminjk | Jul 14, 2015 | photography |
I started my journey in photography in High School. I took a darkroom class my junior year, and instantly clicked. I spent my junior and senior year in the darkroom, managed to build my own darkroom that I set up in the bathroom – much to my wife’s dismay. I still shoot and process film, but have sold the darkroom equipment. I instead have a good scanner and use that to make prints. I still regularly shoot film and have a significant backlog to develop – somewhere around 100-125 rolls of film in the freezer. I shoot more than I have time to process. To keep things interesting, when I am done shooting a roll of film, I throw it in the freezer with all of the other exposed films. There is no organization. When I go to develop, I have absolutely no idea what will be on the roll. It is a complete surprise to me. In the late 90’s, I was shooting film. There really was no such thing as “digital” photography (as we know it today, anyway). I was shooting a Pentax k1000 and a Minolta Maxxum 7. At the time, I was still developing a sense of style and still learning how to shoot. I was working as a photographer here and there, doing portrait work for my day job and moonlighting any chance I could get. At this point, I desperately wanted a Hasselblad 501c. I thought that all of the difficulties that I was having, the reason that many of the images were not working out was that my camera was not good...
by benjaminjk | May 22, 2015 | photography |
I took a trip to Blanchard Springs this week. I have heard about the waterfalls below Mirror Lake, and have been looking for an opportunity to go see them for sometime. I was surprised to discover the ruins of an old mill near the waterfall. Mirror Lake is actually a man made lake. with a small dam that creates the waterfall. The Civilian Conservation Corps built the stone and concrete dam that created the lake during the 1930s. The water was pretty high on my first trip out, and I am looking forward to going back. ...
by benjaminjk | Apr 6, 2015 | photography |
I have lived here for close to 3 years now, and have never had the opportunity to see the floodgates open on any of the local dams. We have had quite a bit of rain, and today the floodgates were opened. Around 4pm they opened the floodgates, and i heard about it through facebook. It was 9pm, and after a tense 30 min drive ( i am not sure how long the floodgates will remain open) we arrived. The roar of the water was loud enough that we could hear it as soon as we drove into Quarry Park. It was so dark by 9pm, that we could barely see it. ...
by benjaminjk | Mar 25, 2015 | photography |
Warmer weather brings all the things that photographers typically love. The flowers are starting to come up and trees are quickly turning green. In this area of the country, it also brings the threat of severe weather. Photographing weather can be a challenging and fun pursuit, but I can also be very dangerous. Before discussing how to photograph storms, we need to spend a little time discussing safety. It is not really possible to take night shots of storms and lightning with out a tripod, and it should go without saying that standing next to a metal lightning rod (in this case: your tripod) and photographing a storm moving through the area is not a very good idea. Then, you still have to deal with strong winds, hail, tornados, and possibly flash flooding. This is one of those activities that you really should not try at home. Here are some stats about the dangers of being out in severe weather: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/os/hazstats/sum13.pdf Lighting safety here: http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/ Basically, if you can hear thunder you are in danger of being struck by lightning. But, I suppose, if you are like me… you cannot resist the temptation to try to get a few shots of a landscape with some lightning in it. Finding a location. Every storm is a little different, but the formula is fairly similar. I usually have best results after dark. I will watch the weather reports to see where the storm is and which way it is moving in from. Almost always the storms move from west to east here. So I am usually looking for some point...
by benjaminjk | Mar 15, 2015 | photography |
The weather has been really crappy here lately. There has been a little too much snow and ice, and now that is has warmed up a bit, there has been non-stop rain. Today was the first day that the rainy trend ended. Clear blue sky day. What better to do than go and watch the eagles? I met up with Jim, and we waited for the fog to lift. The fog finally lifted around 10 am, and the day was perfect. The water was low in the river, allowing us to wade out in the river a fair distance, so that we could line up the shots in nice low angle sunlight. There was quite a lot of activity, both of the adults were moving around from tree to tree, preening feathers and such…. Great day to be out watching these beautiful birds. ...
by benjaminjk | Jan 4, 2015 | photography |
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by benjaminjk | Oct 28, 2014 | photography |
I went out to Ponca this morning for a day of Elk photography and Fall color shooting. We arrived in Ponca/Boxley Valley area about 15 minutes before 7 am. It was still very dark, We could not see anything really. We managed to find one fair sized herd of elk, but since it was so dark out we could not really tell what we were looking at. One fo the great things about modern digital cameras is their ability to see in very low light. In fact, they can “see” much better in the dark than I can. I had pulled out the camera and tripod and set it to 102,400 iso, just to use the camera as a spotting scope/night vision scope to see how many elk were in the field. As I was panning through the fields I came across a bull fight in progress and managed to grab a few video frames. This video is shot at 1/30 of a second at f5.6 (wide open for this 400mm lens) and at ISO 102,400. The quality is not good, but I actually got to witness 2 large bulls fighting, I have been wanting to see a bullfight since i found out about the elk here, and I just happened to stumble in to one. Awesome. ...
by benjaminjk | Sep 4, 2014 | photography |
Over the last weekend I spent a little time in Boxley Valley, near Ponca, Arkansas. One of the most photographed rocks in Arkansas, Hawksbill Crag (otherwise known as Whitaker Point), is a landmark of the Buffalo River and a favorite hike among many. Our goal was to get some Milky Way shots of the famous Hawksbill Crag. The window for getting the shot was very slim, between our schedules, the moon movement of the moon we only had a few days. The weather forecast was initially favorable, clear skies and cooler. As we arrived to the trail to the crag, the clouds started moving in. The clouds hung around for the vast majority of the night, they cleared for about an hour around 4 am, and then came back for sunrise. With heavy overcast for sunrise, we packed up and headed out while it was still cool. Maybe next time. Spending a few days in Boxley Valley area is always awesome, even if the planned shots don’t pan out. ...
