Weekly Photo Challenge

I live in an environmental sponge. My county, and the adjoining 3 counties each have more than 25 percent of their lands under water year round. Only part of that is lakes and rivers; the balance are bogs, marshes, backwaters, peat lands, and flood plains. By mid-summer, the grasses, shrubs, and trees have overgrown the soggy areas. During normal years, when late fall hunting season rolls around the lands revert to vegetation trampled by hunting boots, blaze orange or camo, and gun fire. The top moisture has either dried up, or frozen.

With December snows a hush falls, temperatures drop, road crews barely manage to keep anything open. The wetlands will remain this way, sleeping, flooding with temperature increases. Gravel or potted, badly kept roads, little traveled become off limits. Only the hardy, very poor, or long settled families live down these quiet roads. GPS misdirects, a road atlas and a compass is still needed. For me a road atlas, magnifying glass and bifocals are necessities.The biggest problem is no paved shoulders on these roads. Each side is deeply ditched to allow for water to run off. A slide off means a long way for a tow truck, assuming the cell service gets through at all. Parking in the middle of the road and praying no other vehicle comes along is my best mode. I’ve learned photography in sniper mode – shoot and run.

In open flat landscapes there are rare opportunities to catch lovely shadows, long horizons, or OMG contrasts. My fibromyalgia, and my advancing age, make me a poor candidate for sneaking out and driving long distances for the off chance on a good sunrise or sunset lighting shot. I’m up past 1 am every night and rarely sleep past 7:30. It would seem to leave a lot of time, but most of that is spent in what is known among fibro patients as brain fog. I also have ADD and anxiety. When I do remember what I’m doing, I’m either anxious I’ll screw it up or trying to get three or four things corrected before it all goes blank again. My goal of being the Grandma Moses of photography probably isn’t going to happen. Meanwhile, I’m still here at the end of my road … a few miles from John Muir’s Fountain Lake, and forty five minutes of really crappy road from Aldo Leopold’s Sand County Shack.

My muses’ Eph and Muriel were with me this week during the fog. I love shooting in the fog. We don’t get much of it here, even with the wet environment. It takes a special combo of snow, followed by warm, then a layer of cold damp with no wind. On those days even if all I could do was crawl, I’d be up to my waist in chilly water shooting behind my home in the wetland down below. I didn’t have to do that. Here’s what I managed to get driving down roads less traveled in a three county area. Enjoy, and thanks for stopping by the Road Less Paved.

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Not much to say. I’ve been in a big funk lately. It’s been much too hot and humid to play nature photographer. Even cutting blooms and twigs and setting up still lifes, no interest. I really think the muses, Old Eph and Muriel, have left again. Probably down under, enjoying the winter.

I celebrated another birthday this past weekend. I’m always grateful to be topside. We drove to the Shakedown, a vintage car show at the EAA air museum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. A lot of pretty old restored jalopies and rods to match my age group. The husband managed to recognize and name most of them. He still held fond memories of youthful escapades, and teen pranks of converting the trunk to a beer cooler.

We’d attended better car shows, so the fun actually started over at the hangers where some of the vintage airplane collection is stored. That was far more interesting. Now it was getting fun. I found a few photo ops I thought I’d play with using Photoshop plugins. I converted to black and white, retro, textures and even some grunge. I used DXO B & W for the airplane and statute, and the rest used combos from Topaz. I threw out constraints, should haves, and must dos. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did playing with them.