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Great Rivers Imaging

Midwest travel and interesting places
December 10, 2018

The Discussion

Herbst Farm Dec. 2018

Watching these hounds hunt is fascinating. Bassets are pack animals and work together to track their prey. When one finds a scent and heads into the brush, the others spread out knowing the target will run. The secondary hounds try to judge the direction of the prey and attempt to cut it off. During all of this all you can see the white tips of each tail and the the sound of each hounds “voice” as they communicate with each other.

It is the horseman’s task to keep the hounds from wandering too far away.

December 5, 2018

Christmas time at Kirkwood Station

Kirkwood Station

The Kirkwood station is a busy place with families traveling to meet with friends and family for the holidays.

This photo was something of a surprise. When this was taken, the sun was down and it was dark outside. Three exposures were taken, one under exposed, one over exposed and one at standard exposure. These were combined with this result. For more information on this technique, see my HDR Tutorial.

November 26, 2018

Loop Trolley on the Run

After years of Development, cost overruns and delays, the “Loop Trolley” begins it second day of full runs.The trolley runs from Forest Park’s History Museum to the University City Loop Area (Delamr Loop). On this day, it was packed with people and the Loop was buzzing. One day I will have to take a ride….

November 24, 2018

Basset Hounds

Three Creek Bassets Blessing of the Hounds 2018

Many of our Sunday afternoons are spent in St. Charles County watching these hounds demonstrate their tracking skills. They are part of Three Creek Bassets, a professional pack of Basset Hounds that compete nationally.

Their short powerful legs allow them to forage through dense brush where rabbits hide. Their goal is to track the rabbits as long a possible but this is the rabbits home turf. They lead the Bassets on a rowdy chase but eventually lose them. Everyone has good time!

November 20, 2018

Fall Walk

Fall in St. Louis never disappointing. This is an area in Chesterfield Valley just above Spirit of St. Louis Airport. I have walked past this tree several times in the fall and it has always been amazing. So is the walk. This is a Plateau between the lower part of the valley and Wild Horse Creek Rd. and it is a very steep climb!

November 19, 2018

Ha Ha Tonka Ruins

Lightroom just came out with a new HDR, Panorama merge feature so I thought I would test it out. This a photo taken several years ago and thought it would be perfect for a test of this feature. The photo is in two sections, left and right. Each section is 5 shots taken at 5 different exposures for a total of 10 photos. After the merge everything could be adjusted to give the right effect. As you can see, it turned out nicely.

I needed to do the photo in two sections because, directly behind me is a sheer cliff  ending in the Lake of the Ozarks about 100 feet below. In order to use sunlight effects, I had to shoot from this side of the building and was limited on how far away I could get from the building due to the cliff. The sun being on the other side of the building meant I had to use HDR to eliminate harsh shadows.

The subject is an abandoned home overlooking the Lake of the Ozarks. Not too long after it was built, a fire destroyed the home and it was finally abandoned. The State of Missouri inherited the property, preserved the ruins and called it Ha HA Tonka park.

 

 

November 18, 2018

B-29

B-29 Superfortress "DOC"

One of the most technologically advanced airplanes of World War 2, the B-29 had many new features, including guns that could be fired by remote control. Two crew areas, fore and aft, were pressurized and connected by a long tube over the bomb bays, allowing crew members to crawl between them. The tail gunner had a separate pressurized area that could only be entered or left at altitudes that did not require pressurization.

The B-29 was also the world’s heaviest production plane because of increases in range, bomb load and defensive requirements.

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