The Story Behind the Image: Sandhill Cranes at Sundown

 For a good number of years now I have enjoyed photographing Sandhill Cranes. A few thousand of them migrate through Kentucky and will winter over around Barren River Lake. Photographing them has been hit and miss the last several years as their patterns have changed somewhat. However, there is a location about a three hour drive from where I live where somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 Sandhills winter over. That location has provided numerous photographic opportunities to capture these amazing birds.

 Not far from Seymour Indiana are thousands of acres of farmland where soy and corn and wheat are grown. These fields provide an abundant source of food for the migrating Sandhills and late December and well into January it is possible to find huge flights of Sandhills using these and other surrounding fields. On one remarkable outing a few years ago, I encountered an estimated 30,000 (probably more) of them and spent an entire day from before sunrise to after sunset photographing them. Although I managed to capture hundreds of photographs that day, a single image captures the essence of the experience. I call the image Sandhill Cranes at Sundown. Here is the story of how the photograph was captured.

A week or so into January 2020, word came down that a huge flight of Sandhill Cranes had been using the fields west of Seymour for the past couple of months and I made plans to journey up there and hoped to capture a few good images. My plan was to leave very early, about 2:30ish AM so I could be on location before sunrise and maybe capture images and video of the morning flight off their roosting area. I did not know for sure what to expect, but with a sleep deprived fog hovering around my eyes I headed out that morning and arrived a little while before official sunrise. The sky was overcast at that time, but forecast indicated partly cloudy skies as the day progressed. 

Only a few minutes passed after I had pulled into an area I could park off the road, an area about midway across a large expanse of cornstubble, when I stepped out of my Jeep to survey the situation. Within a minute or so, I heard the high pitched, chattering roar of thousands of Cranes lifting off their roost probably less than a mile from where I was.

I grabbed my Nikon camera that I often use for shooting video, and made a quick exposure adjustment. The light was very low, but I simply pointed the camera hand held toward the rising cloud of Cranes and followed them as they flew overhead. I was simply awestruck at the sight. In the past I had witnessed several thousand snow geese rise like that and even had seen a couple thousand Sandhills rise over near Barren River Lake, but nothing prepared me for what was playing out in front of me at that moment. I simply cannot put what happened into words, so I'll let the video speak for itself.

 It seemed to take half the morning for all the birds to pass over, but eventually they did, but it was not long after the sun came up they began to return in huge numbers and set down in the corn fields. I spent pretty much all day driving around the area looking for photo ops and managed to shoot hundreds of photos and shot a great deal of video footage as well that was eventually placed into a BTC video production called, Ancient Migration.

By mid-afternoon many of the cranes had exited the area with just a few stragglers hanging around. The cloud cover was broken and as the sun lowered toward sunset, I realized there would be a magnificent sunset to end this already incredible day. I hoped the Cranes would return before then and head back to the same roost from which they lifted off that morning. As the day began to wain, there were but a few Cranes drifting by, but maybe 20 minutes of so before sundown, the Cranes began to return. Wave after wave of them drifted over my location and I began to shoot photos and video wishing I  could clone myself into a group of three people to capture everything that seemed to happening all at once.

One large group flew across the fields and headed directly into the setting sun, and I fired off several photos. Most of the images were shot at f/22, 1/3200 of a second shutter, ISO 200, and 500mm, using a 10 frame/sec burst, from a tripod. I thought my camera was going to wearout from all the shooting. I had no idea if I was capturing anything of value, I simply fired off photo after photo and captured video footage as I could.

Eventually, although Cranes were still flying, it grew too dark to capture anything and I called it a day and began the 3 hour journey home. It wasn't until the next day I was able to truly see what my camera held and I was simply overwhelmed by the footage. It was truly a remarkable day afield and this single image, as pleased as I am with the results, does not come close to capturing just how awe inspiring that single day afield truly was.

Canoe Season is Almost Here

It was a productive fall and winter with several canoeing trips and backpacking trips. The last couple of months I've been in a holding pattern as I wait for the seasonable weather to settle down.

Looking forward to the new canoeing season for 2024. I've got several local adventures planned including an end to end multi-day trip on Barren River Lake, Exploring Nolin Lake among others, some underwater photography on Trammel Creek and Long Creek...plus other overnighter and single day trips.

Hope you join me as Beyond the Campfire sets off on another season...Here's a quick preview and look back...

Spring: The Hardest Season to Photograph

 Here in Kentucky we experience four distinct seasons. I'd venture to guess that Spring is likely the season most look forward to. As a photographer I tend to photograph all year round, however, over the years I've come to the conclusion that the Spring season is the most difficult to capture. 

For some reason I've never been able to capture the impact of the Spring season very well. I've tried, but seems like I am always disappointed with the results. Spring is the kind of season your eyes see all kinds and splashes of color scattered across the landscape, but somehow, all of that color simply does not translate well into photographs.

 I've come to the conclusion that in order to photograph Spring you have to get in close to the subject and use depth of field and a blue sky to frame your subject. Sometimes getting in close means to get down low. There are a myriad of small spring flowers that cover the lawn and they bloom pretty much all through the season and well into the summer. But you gotta get right down on the ground to capture them in a way they do not become a cliched image.

This is where depth of field comes into play. By using a long lense and a large aperture, then focusing on the main subject, the foreground and background blur, and the small blooms suddenly become isolated to stand out against all of the clutter surrounding them.

If I were to collect all of my photographs by season, Spring would contain the fewest images. Most of my Spring images pretty much look the same with very few appearing as a unique image moment. Even so, as mentioned above, the most effective Spring images I've made tend to be close in shots. One good thing about the Spring season is how volatile the sky can become. Thunder storms roll across the landscape, cloud formations vary from high wispy clouds, to strong fluffy rolls, to dark and foreboding, to brilliantly lit filled with color. I believe the trick to photographing the Spring season is to focus on the weather using the blooming landscape as the accent.

Many times dark clouds infiltrate across the sky after the sun has warmed the earth and created a caldron mix of humidity and heat that feeds the stormy conditions. This will often lead to an end of the day breaking up of those clouds where the sun suddenly breaks through and lights up the sky. 

Some of the best combinations of conditions and light will occur during this time and provide for some interesting if not downright unusual lighting. 

There is one location not far from home where the Spring bloom offers a wonderful backdrop. It's a campground, near the lake, that is covered in dozens of mature dogwood trees accented with redbuds. The dogwoods create a canopy of white blooms that are simply spectacular and I will often visit the location in mid-April for that reason alone.

Dogwoods I believe make the best subjects. They come in white and various shades of pink and when planted together make a lovely sight. Closeup, dogwood blooms offer a powerful yet delicate blend of aesthetic nature at her best. You can as a photographer do so much with them and they convert well into black and white. 

If I were to choose a single Spring photograph I've made, one I actually like, it is the one I made some years ago of dogwood blooms growing next to a split rail fence. I added a bit of blur to the image yet focused on the central blooms and converted it into a black and white image. Compositionally it is strong and aesthetically is offers a blend of softness and an enduring Spring-like moodiness.

Spring can be an amazing time of year for the photographer and at the same time a challenging time. Capturing it as a single context of photographs is not easy, but when taking the time to actually see what is there and focusing on the details, well, the hardest season to photograph can become one of the most productive.