That's a field of Horseradish, isn't it? It looks like the Horseradish fields we have around here, anyway. Madison and Monroe Counties in Illinois account for 60% of Horseradish production Worldwide! (Collinsville wiki claims 85%) Considering that Madison IL's only other claim to "fame" is it's medical malpractice popularity, I'm glad to have SOMETHING more positive to say about where I live!

I don't know, David, to be quite honest. It may well be Horseradish as you suggest. I was riding on the Old HWY 29 between Shawano and Oconto County when I came upon the above scene. I have Google GPS to thank for finding that route. It was quite special - very little traffic other than the occasional farm vehicle, and some beautiful scenery.

The other night on the way home from soccer practice.

Did a 90 miler up from Castaic to the Ridge Route and back. In 7 hours of saddle time, I think we saw maybe 20 cars at the outside.



Oh, and check out this tree. I love trees.

On my crappy commute home last night:



Best of all ... we got lucky and got the green flash!

Out in the fall weather

^ Those reflections are flippin beautiful!

Just thought I'd brag a little here. I spent YEARS trying to catch the infamous green flash. Flippin YEARS, with no luck. I first saw it a few years ago ... watching the sunset with some friends, and commenting about how I had never seen it. And fzzzt - POP. There it was!

Well, it happened Monday, and I got a photo of it. Then yesterday, it happened again ... as there was nothing in the foreground, I just took a long telephoto. Yea baby.

Hampton bike shop along the Withlacoochee State trail in Floral City.

^ Nice!

The pup in the foreground is a nice touch

Thanks. He was doggone cooperative while posing for the picture. Smiled, didn't bark or attempt to chase me.

Lab on the bent needs to have the thing fitted better. Some longer crank arms maybe?

Bill

Fall colors are finally peaking around here. The River Road up to Grafton, IL is particularly colorful right now, so that it looked good even with the cloudy weather today.

CRW_0709

Edit: Another shot from Grafton, IL, and a random backlit trees photo...
CRW_0703
CRW_0692 by goofus_maximus, on Flickr

My commute is really not pretty, but if I stand in just the right spot, and it's dark, soometimes I can make a good photo anyway.

Bike commute in the dark - color version by ccorlew, on Flickr

Did you use an HDR effect or processing on these photos? In either case - love the color and light contrasts.

Five minutes into my first ride on a new bike and it's decision time.....

What to do?

Visited "The Gardens" at SUI-E this weekend. Here are the shots of which I'm most proud. I seem to have a fetish for backlit fall scenery...

CRW_0724 by goofus_maximus, on Flickr

CRW_0727

CRW_0734

CRW_0735

Thanks!

People use HDR (High Dynamic Range) to refer to a lot of stuff. The notion is that the image ranges from very dark to very bright, and it's difficult to expose the negative without washing out the bright spots or getting total blackness in the dark spots. Ansel Adams used to take care of that problem using his "zone system" by controlling the contrast (by under exposing and over developing the negative or vice versa) so that even the darkest or brightest areas retained some detail. Check it out sometime ... it is one of the things that makes his photos so special.

There are cameras with HDR settings that take several images, then merge them to try to retain detail everywhere. The result can be really interesting, but not the same as the AA system. Here is an example of the same scene taken with HDR and without:




There are cellphone cameras that have what they call an HDR setting. But what it really is? Just computer generated burning and dodging in the post processing. The software tries to bring out the dark areas and tone down the bright ones. But since that is done after the fact, a truly high dynamic range scene still won't be captured properly (taking an uncompressed pix instead of a JPEG helps).

Anyway, both of those pix were processed using "local tone mapping" ... which is similar to the HDR processing. It was done to bring out the bark in the tree and some of the background behind the rider in the other pix.

Plug: All this stuff can be done with Corel Paint Shop ... software that can do 95% of what Photoshop can do, and for much less cost.

Photos from my phone from my ride on the Armstrong Trail, near Kittanning, PA. In over 20 miles of riding, I only saw three other people.


Leaves were a little past peak, but still nice. Temperature was about 52 degrees.


I was trying for the silhouette look on this power station across the Allegheny River from the trail.

Crappy sunrise this morning on my commute into work ... oh, the agony.

Tuesday's ride from the top of Headlans.

I rode the Justus Trail along the Allegheny River from Emlenton to the other side of the Kennerdale tunnel with the MTB on Monday. It must have been curmudgeon day on the trail as I cheerily said hello to at least 15 riders my age and got nothing but deadpan stares in return.

In 2012, I rode from Emlenton up the Allegheny 20 miles to Indian God Rock and back. I remember that arch! Is Kennerdale the southern most tunnel or the next one up?

The first tunnel going North from Emlenton is at Rockland Station (about 6 miles to the entrance). Kennerdale is the 2nd tunnel going North. In the summer I will do some interval training on the 6 mile stretch between the two tunnels as there is very little bike traffic there.

A week ago Sunday, the first day of three on the White Rim Trail in Caynonlands NP near Moab

A beautiful Fall day in central NJ. Here are some fall colors on Lindbergh Road in the Sourlands.