How I Shot That - Gulls over Bridges

How I Shot That - Gulls over Bridges

Shot with Sony 50mm f/1.8 - http://amzn.to/2FmZ82E
Camera is Sony a6000 - http://amzn.to/2ELLKIr
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Shot this almost a year ago, I get to take many noon-time walks during my day job. Usually this isn't the time to take a photo, the light is usually so harsh.  

What can you do, but take advantage of a ritual near a location that is always changing.  I've read and learned that many photographers will sit in a location and even camp out for days at a time.  But what I have substituted was ritual.  When I go for a walk at lunch, I'll have about 4 routes I choose from.  Being next to the Mississippi River, 2 of the 4 routes take me along that path.  

Usually, this gives me 2 types of water fouls to shoot... mallards and gulls.  They seem to love this area because... it's easy.  People feed them.  A ton of people feed them.

At this time, the ice had just disappeared from the river and the birds were looking for more food than people were giving them.  And for a moment, it seemed I had cought them lining up as if coming or going over the interstate bridges. 

And a bit of technical luck, I set the camera up for more of a street style aperture of f8.0.  This helped keep the bridges sharper while I focused on the bird.  And because it was broad daylight, I could keep the ISO at 100 with a 1/750 sec shutter.   This is how I kept the noise down and the birds are still in the air.

And in post I really just needed to bring out the contrast and deepen the blacks.  

How I shot that - LAX WI Blue Bridges over the Mississippi

How I shot that - LAX WI Blue Bridges over the Mississippi

Shot with Sony 50mm f/1.8 - http://amzn.to/2FmZ82E
Camera is Sony a6000 - http://amzn.to/2ELLKIr
Similar aluminum Camera Tripod - http://amzn.to/2opfBw3
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La Crosse, WI (#laxwi in my tags) sits on the shores of the Mississippi River running between western Wisconsin and southeast Minnesota.  Between the two states (and in the middle of the river) sits Pettibon Park.  Pettibone Park was an island originally governed by Minnesota but was given to Wisconsin at the start of the 20th century.  

Originally, this island was mostly owned by a sole investor who's idea was to make a magnificent city on the river.  To say the least, that idea didn't pan out.  The river flooded so high and so often, that any structures would have to withstand such high water levels that would never allow for year round living.  But eventually it was realized that open structures open to a surrounding of water from the river would work out nicely as a park.

Given that the island would be part of La Crosse, WI that meant building a bridge over this mighty river wouldn't be a problem as you have one less jurisdiction to worry about (one less state).  

Fast forward almost 100 years, LAXWI is a thriving city with good river traffic sitting between the bluffs of WI and MN.  As it happens, I found that it was almost the time of a 'super moon', but the Upper Midwest has a lot of weather.  So, sometimes weather looks good in the afternoon, but clouds all up at night... and then there is the reverse.  July 19, 2016 was a long day on top of that, as my wife and I were driving all over the area.

But driving home, this park was on the way.  The river had relaxed to an almost normal stage. And not only did I have my a6000, but also my tripod too.  On my camera, I had the 50mm f1.8 lens and I took nearly 28 photos to stitch this together.  I was thinking, everything is farther away, but I didn't want to leave it at 1.8, and so I changed the aperture to 5.6.  I had a 1/45 shutter speed and 1000 iso.  

I came away with the tops of the bridges and the buildings on the other side of the river being a little distorted, but to me that was fine.  The river is larger than life.  Oh, heck, this river IS life to most of the country.  So if you need to make buildings to challenge it, they too need to behave this way.