Caddo Lake...for real.

Well, I'm back home from east Texas.

I went for my job - but it didn't really feel like work. It was kind of an impromptu trip; the boss and I left on the train Thursday night and I just got home about three hours ago. You may recall that I went to Texas last March, and visited Caddo Lake State Park at Big Cypress Bayou. I was only able to stand at the water's edge that time; a steamboat tour is available in the spring, summer and fall, but I just couldn't get myself up early enough to go. I wasn't going to let that happen this time!

Of course the steamboat tour wasn't available now, as it's winter, so I found another tour run by a Caddo Lake native named John Winn. He gives several different kinds of tours, including a photography tour, so I booked one for myself for Saturday morning. There are lots of photos to show, but you'll have to endure my narrative too (as always). =)

I scheduled the tour for 7 a.m., since that was the earliest I could trust myself waking up for, and because there's that time of the morning right when the sun rises over the trees that the light is the most magical. John uses a Go Devil boat, which is shaped kind of like a canoe and powered by a motor, allowing us to wend through the thickets of cypress trees in a way regular boats (including that steamboat) can't.

Before the sun appeared, and because it's winter, everything was pretty monochromatic at first. No green leaves or blooms. John, being a photographer himself, mentioned that it's a good opportunity to use black-and-white photography, and I agreed. So this first set you'll see are my b&w conversions (and one experiment with a film filter), which definitely bettered the early photos.









If you're unfamiliar with bayous, they're filled with cypress trees that grow out of the water; John said there was one cypress that they'd calculated to be five hundred years old, with a thirty-foot wide base.



The stringy, curly stuff hanging from the branches is called Spanish moss. These trees lend very, very well to the often spooky atmosphere of the bayou (typically attributed to Louisiana; Caddo Lake actually crosses the border into Louisiana), and John offers a night tour for spotting gators and other wildlife, the air filled with the bellowing of frogs. I soooo want to do that.

Because of the way cameras expose for direct sunlight, I was able to get some shots that darkened the trees and water and gave a more evening time, 'spooky' feel.











As the sun continued to rise, rays shone on the trees and water, and the experience really began. You'll notice a variety of color tones; a lot of that has to do with how I composed the position of the sun in the photos. I also experimented a bit with color balance in post-processing, because in wintertime the bayou is almost like a blank slate; you can project many different qualities onto the grayish-brown trees and moss.

















I tinkered with white balance a bit too; in the following photo I used 'warm,' and while it was generally too much, I did like how this came out:



And I tried b&w on a brighter shot of a long stand of trees, and actually really like the result:



All in all, a great way to spend two hours (and eighty bucks...thanks Dad!). I absolutely plan on going back in late spring or summer to take advantage of the greenery and blooms at sunset, and I hope I can drag Sara with me... ;-)

Boo!

The Lemp Mansion in St. Louis is frequently cited as one of the most haunted places in America. If you know me you know I love ghosts and ghost TV shows and scary movies, and have even had my own experiences, so it made sense that I should go to the Lemp Mansion on Halloween night for a tour. My friend Josh agreed to accompany me. We could bring cameras, but, according to the rules, no video cameras or digital recorders. (Totally whack)

To give you the history of why the Lemp Mansion is haunted in brief - Adam Lemp moved here from Germany in 1838 and started a grocery, and soon began a brewery which was the first in the country to sell German lager. His son William Lemp took over the brewery after his death, and achieved much success, including nationwide and eventually worldwide distribution. William had five kids.

The tragedies began when William's favorite son, Frederick, died of heart failure at 28 in 1901. William was so distraught with grief, and unable to recover from the loss, that he committed suicide by gunshot in 1904. William, Jr. took over the brewery shortly after. He had a tumultuous marriage with Lillian Handlan, eventually ending in divorce. Prohibition caused the decline of the Lemp Brewery, which was sold at auction in 1922 for far, far less than it was worth. In December of that year, William, Jr. committed suicide by gunshot.

Elsa Lemp was the youngest child of William, Sr. and herself had a rocky marriage. In March of 1920, shortly after remarrying the same man, she committed suicide by gunshot.

Charles Lemp, the third son of William, Sr., never married and lived in the mansion with his dog and servants. In May of 1949, he shot his dog in the basement, then went upstairs and committed suicide by gunshot.

To take a breather from all the shooting one's self in the face, if you read the Wikipedia article on the mansion there's no mention of the child of, I believe, William, Jr. The child was special needs, perhaps had Downs syndrome, and this being the callous first half of the twentieth century, he was kept in the attic his entire life. He died there in, I think, his teens.

So, lots of tragedy makes for great hauntings. The mansion has even been on TV's Ghost Hunters (but, sadly, not yet Ghost Adventures. Single tear) I figured, what better way to encounter a ghost than to go to a haunted house on Halloween???

Well. Let's just get it out of the way. My group of about thirty who went to the late tour didn't encounter any shadow figures, any full-bodied apparitions, any disembodied voices, any poltergeist activity (moving objects), nothing of the sort. The most that happened was hearing knocks in the attic (and I only heard one of those). The tour guide was a lady who I guess is supposed to be clairvoyant, so she was all about claiming to see a waif in the doorway, or having to step around Charles's ghost dog; none of which I believe. I mean, come on. Because she has some 'gift,' she can see things that we can't. And we're just supposed to believe it. How scientific.

We got a chance to try out dousing rods, which the tour guide had demonstrated during her talk before the tour started (and her talk was, no lie, AN HOUR LONG). I could totally see her moving her body to manipulate the rods. When I tried them, I could only see that what they're made of (copper?) and how they're mad (maybe kind of weighted?) allows for some movement in your grip but nothing more. I've always hated the whole dousing rod thing, LOL. (Find me a well!)

I did encounter a cold spot in the dining room we were sitting in during her interminable talk (in which she did things like give us the definition of a ghost), but since we were supposed to be listening to her I couldn't say anything. A curtain tassle hanging from a window behind her seemed to be moving rather vigorously on its own, which Josh thought was awesome, but I could feel some cold air seeping in so I wasn't totally convinced that it wasn't just the movement of air causing it. Then again, I'm not totally convinced it was.

Anyway, Josh and I took about a million photos trying to catch a floating torso or glowing demon eyes or, more likely, orbs. Skeptics like to dismiss orbs as bugs or dust, in their typical way of necessarily dismissing everything in order to preserve their worldview. Orbs in the paranormal world are spheres of light that show up in photographs and on video, and are sometimes even visible to the naked eye, and they are meant to represent the presence of a spirit (since spirits are generally just energy).

Josh started catching orbs right away, and multiple orbs, and nice bright glowing orbs. I think the ghosts liked him. I was convinced they did not like me. I could not see any orbs whatsoever in any of the photos I took. I was totally bummed. Totally.

Anyway, our Lemp Mansion experience did not convince us of the existence of ghosts, that's for sure (even though I have to believe now after working at a haunted daycare). But I decided to go over my photos on my laptop and maybe something would be more visible on a larger screen.

So without further ado....

ORBS.

They are translucent, and difficult to see so please, put your nose up to the computer screen if you have to. I have helpfully drawn a red box around them to aid you.



This one is situated over the couch just so as to indicate perhaps a ghost sitting on it?? (yeah, I watch too much Ghost Adventures)



Ghost are supposed to LIVE down dark hallways, so I was super-bummed until I noticed the orb in this photo.



Is this ghost coming down the stairs?? (Probably to say hello to Josh?)



And with this orb's position low against the stair railing.....could it be Charles's dog?!?!



Good times, right.

My dream job would, obviously, be 'ghost hunter,' because I just think ghosts are awesome and I have the patience to do an all-night investigation. And I clearly have the patience to go through 150 photos checking every nook and cranny for tiny, faint orbs. There's an old penitentiary in the state capital that hosts all-night ghost hunts for a hundred bucks. One day!!

Gray days.

This week I've decided to take some photos round the place with only my 50mm lens in black and white. It's a cool lens because the depth of field is so easy to manipulate, and there's a softness to the results you can't get with other lenses. Plus, coupling it with the black and white you automatically get that journalistic, documentarian style that, let's be honest, is pretty easy, as long as you get a little creative with the composition.

So, here is the first aggregation of photos from the first half of the week. Enjoy!

Santa Cruz.

Another place that I found courtesy of Flickr was Natural Bridges State Beach in Santa Cruz. It's about an hour and forty minutes south of Berkeley, a really beautiful drive that wound through mountains and gorgeous fir tree forests. At one point there was a dazzling lake vista - but alas, I was the driver, and I was alone. (Next time I'm pulling over)

When I got to West Cliff Drive, I hung a left and drove along the cliffs for a bit before parking. It was absolutely wonderful to be in the warm sun and the light wind and have this ridiculously amazing vista in both directions. Though I came ultimately for the natural bridge, I took some time (as it was still a few hours before sunset) to just soak it all in.









There were surfers! AWESOME.



The birds even like taking in the view.



There were lots of birds, as you'll see. It was the coolest thing to hear the waves - they really do "crash" against the shore, and when they hit the rocks they really do "thunder." I'd be walking along, unable to see the shoreline at certain points, and then the gigantic spray would be flung up almost near the top of the cliffs. Really, an amazing thing to see.

Okay, so funny story. When it was time for me to scope out the scene I'd come for (the natural bridge), I asked a pleasant-looking couple passing me if they knew which direction it was. The woman said they'd found it further west, but that it sadly had already crumbled into the sea.

Horrors!

I mean, this was, after all, the reason I drove all the way to Santa Cruz, right? I kept a brave face. I asked if they were sure, since I'd just seen a picture from about a month ago and it was standing tall and strong. She said yup, there were some people taking photos of it but it's days of glory were behind it now. So I said, 'Well, that sucks!' and thanked them for the info and headed despondently further west to see the death of the bridge. This is what I found:



Pretty pathetic. So I took a few photos, gamely, and then decided to just make sure that they were right after all. I walked maybe fifty more yards - and there it was in all it's splendor, right past the big sign none of us saw pointed toward Natural Bridges State Beach. It was literally the right turn I should have taken.





It. Is. AWESOME.

However, there used to be three bridges; the outer and innermost ones really have crumbled, the first at the turn of the twentieth century, and the second in the early eighties after a bad storm. All the erosion from the constant pounding of the surf means that this remaining bridge is, too, in danger of crumbling and likely within our lifetime. That will be a very sad day. So I'm glad I got to see it now. =)







And here we have arrived at the photo that I had in mind the entire time. Yes, I'm simply imitating the one I found on Flickr, and with inferior equipment it is probably a pale imitation indeed. But for me, it kind of represents a new high for my craft. It involved travel, new accessories, shooting in manual mode, and even learning a new post-processing technique. Everything had to come together the right way, and in the end I came away with this one single shot that worked.



Hope you like it. =)

How I got the water to look that way is I went into manual mode, set the aperture to f/25, and then experimented with long shutter speeds. In the end, this three-second exposure took the cake. (It's possible to do thirty-second exposures and longer, which results in the water looking as smooth as the surface of a mirror) When you leave the shutter open so long a lot of light gets collected, which can blow out the scene, so I bought a 2-stop neutral density filter a couple of weeks ago just for this purpose. The filter darkens the scene somewhat so that more light can be collected during the longer exposure. Then, in order to capture the flow of the water, I waited for it to recede from the shore, which captured the lines you see. (It did take me a while to figure that out; I thought I was supposed to get the water coming toward me - but no!)

I did, however, get a few sand particles inside the camera while changing lenses sooooo they were visible on the photo, about five of them. So I learned how to clone stamp in post-processing. Basically you take a part of the photo very near what you want to erase and clone it, and it is then stamped onto the area you're erasing. So, voila! No sand particles in the picture. Yay!

All in all, a very rewarding day, a great new experience, and lots of nice photos to commemorate it all.