Author: troutlilystudios

the commute

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For three decades, the rhythmic monotony of a soul-numbing 45-minute commute to the Twin Cities had become an indelible part of my daily existence. The interstate highway system, that grim labyrinth of twisted, varicosed concrete veins, reverberated daily with the mechanical growls and asphalt whispers, the dissonant roars of angry drivers. Casting a looming abyss over my daily stress-laden journey, it sprawled before me like a malevolent specter, its shadows laden with the weight of despair, enveloping me in a perpetual, grim dance with the asphalt abyss…


The transition to a rural office nestled along a winding river, each day taking me through deep valleys and sprawling countryside, has marked the emergence of a particularly mesmerizing daily drive. The gentle rustle of leaves has replaced the hiss of interstate traffic; fresh-cut alfalfa has replaced the smell of diesel. Each turn of the winding road unveils a new panorama, with the river mirroring the changing hues of the sky. As the odometer of time turns, so does the landscape of my daily routine, providing solace to a weary soul and infusing each commute with a sense of tranquility and awe.

Comet Fever!

astro, topography

I’ve been lucky enough to be able to photograph three comets (so far) in my life, starting with Hale-Bopp in 1997. Add to that Neowise in 2020 and C/2022 E3 this year.

I shot Hale-Bopp from above the dam in Spring Valley on a cold night in March. The image here is a stack of the 4 frames I caught that night on color negative film with my trusty old Nikon F2, with a 200mm lens. I scanned the 4 negs with an Epson film scanner, adjusted the images in PS7, stacked them into a single image with StarStaX, and then cleaned up the final image again in PS7.

I captured this single, untracked image of Comet Neowise during the long summer of 2020, with a Nikon D750 DSLR, but with the same 200mm manual lens that I had captured Hale-Bopp two decades prior. The single image was exposed at ISO 4000 set at f/8 for 10 seconds.

Finally, I recently captured Comet C/2022 E3 as a series of 4 stacked images, taken again with a Nikon D750, this time through a 150-600mm C Sigma lens, all mounted on a iOptron Skyguider Pro star tracker. I processed the images in Deep Sky Stacker, Photomatix Pro and PS7.

Midwinter Crex Meadows

fauna, home, Photo of the Day

I’d heard rumors of an Artic Owl hanging around Crex Meadows for the past couple weeks, so I decided today to go see if I could see for myself.

This was my first rip to Crex in the dead of winter.

There’s not much going on.

Lots of snow and ice, but since it was only about 11° F the dirt roads were passable. Driving around the perimeter of the refuge, I saw one female sharpie (feeding in some distant birches) and 3 bald eagles. Hiking along Phantom Lake, I ran across lots of tracks, mostly melted beyond id, except for a couple trails of fresh ruffed grouse.

I didn’t see any owls, but on the way out, I caught what my/may not be a wolf, about 400 meters out. I imaged it on the outer limits of the 600mm, and enlarged it as much as possible without it breaking up into pixels. Part of me says “coyote”, but the other part says otherwise. Either way, it was cool to see it, wild and free in what passes for wilderness in Wisconsin.

Eagle Fight!

fauna

It’s been a couple years, but there is again a roadkill in a perfect enough spot to the passing highway as to attract the local Bald Eagle population, and be far enough distant from the road that the birds put up with being gawked at by passing traffic. Unfortunately for me as the photographer, it’s in a cornfield, but we can’t pick these things sometimes.

I counted seven birds, all mature, except for one junior, who was dominating the kill, until this bigger, more aggressive male showed up and proclaimed

“I am a Great Eagle, and what a Great Eagle am I”

I initially posted a small set of photos to social media, but was not all together happy with the images as I initially processed them. I shot them on a dark winter’s morning, with a high film speed. The colors were muddled, the contrast low. I’ve since processed the individual RAW files as HDR images through Photomatix Pro, and am much happier with the results.

astrophotography

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I’ve been in love with images of outer space since I can remember. As a child, I watched spell-bound as our Astronauts landed on the moon, my own self-made cardboard models hanging from the ceiling mimicking the missions every move from launch, to lunar landing, to their return to Earth. The vivid paintings and eventual photographs in National Geographic over the years kept me captive for hours…

I acquired an iOptron Skyguider Pro camera mount system in 2019. This system aligns my camera to the north star and compensates for the earth’s rotation, allowing me to take extremely long exposures of the heavens, picking up faint sources of light from such bodies as nebula and galaxies that are otherwise hidden from our eyes. Further, I can enhance these images by taking multiple exposures during the night, and then “stacking” them with a multitude of free, open-source software available online.

fauna

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it’s getting busy…

I didn’t have much hope in seeing any open water, much less wildlife, on my first trip up to 3 Lakes WMA today. But on the contrary, the ponds are starting to open up, and it’s positively crowded right now, with Trumpeter swans, Canada geese, Sandhill Cranes and even some Hooded Mergansers loudly staking out their spots.

fauna

fauna

red tailed hawks

I caught these two, as I have with so many of my photographs the past couple of years, on my daily commute, this time on my way home. The afternoon seems to be a good time, as I see a lot of raptors here and there along the road, hunting rodents and scavenging roadkill along the road.

I’ve been wanting to get a good photo of a Redtail on the wing – as common as they are, it’s not been an easy task. The 600mm Sigma helps a bit, but they are cagey beasts, and will not allow one to get very close.

I saw these two at the bottom of a long hill as I came out of a long corner. I passed by them actually very close, less than 50 feet – most animals are very tolerant of moving traffic. But I knew that if I stopped the car they would bolt. Luck would have it that a sideroad a couple of hundred yards ahead offered a measure of distance and security between us, and I was able to pull off the road, turn the engine off and slide out the door without too much bother, Even still, the two allowed only a few seconds before they took off, but by then I was zeroed in on them.