Fargo, North Dakota.

This week, Tina Schell challenges us to share in this time of a major pandemic how we have “found ways to cope with those restrictions through our efforts to maintain our creativity. This week it’s time to focus on those efforts.” She provides hope in the statement, “Knowing that generations past have managed to emerge from pandemics, with far less knowledge of science and pharmacology,” this one shall also pass and Corona will be in the collective memory of the world. You can read her entire challenge post here.

For me, the creative outlet has been the sharing of travel experiences and photography here at Flare Legend Adventures. With travel schedules curtailed and then abandoned for a time, it’s been photography that has taken a more prominent role in my writing. The time at home has given me the time to add some new skills (and new toys) to my photo accessories. As my wife and I got more familiar with ways to protect ourselves, we have begun short excursions to nearby locations that we haven’t visited. The opening photo features a new toy my wife got me for Father’s Day this year. The image was captured in early August just a few miles outside of Fargo where we located a sunflower field was in prime display mode during that golden hour before sunset.

The small diameter “crystal” plastic ball came in a form-fitting case with a black polishing cloth, a transparent tripod mount, and a “table” tripod. Those components are now part of the “kit” that is readily available in my camera bag, and I’ve found I’d rather use a full-size tripod to hold the ball as there never seems to be any tables around the locations I’ve found as subjects. One of my very first subjects is this fountain and garden near the entrance to Lindenwood Park several blocks down a street near our house. In a future post, I’ll gather up some more of these images to share.

In 2019, my involvement with the Civil Air Patrol got me introduced to drone photography. I want to be useful in that portion of our mission, but I had no experience with flying these airborne cameras. I purchased a small unit that I felt would be suitable for travel and set about learning to manage the airborne platform and add a new dimension to my photography. As it turns out, drone flying became something my wife could participate in instead of just hanging around watching me take photos. Lynn is my visual observer, a necessary member of a two-person team. As a photographer, I spend much of my time looking through the camera’s view of the world. If I move the drone laterally to get a different view of my subject, it’s my wife’s job to ensure that I don’t fly into something that I cannot see in the camera’s view. She can also warn me when birds approach, an occasional occurrence. She also logs items like the date, time, location, and condition of the batteries, for each flight. The image above was captured from above our launch site in the White Tank Mountains near our place in Arizona.

Drone photography has been able to give me images that I could not have gotten any other way. About 60 miles (96 km) from our home in North Dakota is the Highline Bridge. In a few weeks, I will feature more images captured of this interesting bridge. At 3,860 feet (1176 m) in length, and 162 feet (50 m) above the Sheyenne River in Valley City, it is one of the longest and highest railroad bridges in the nation. This view of the bridge is captured from a nearby public park and features an image that could not be captured any other way.

Finally, I’ve had the opportunity to learn some newly released software tools like Luminar 4, and get creative by learning how to “twirl” a photograph using Photoshop Elements, a tool that I use only occasionally when I feel especially “artsy-craftsy”. The photos themselves are typical images, in this case, a scene with lots of blue sky and fluffy clouds above a landscape.

Photos don’t have to be modified to the unrecognizable to add a creative touch. For a photo challenge awhile back, I created several “impressionistic” photos that were given a more artistic look with the use of tools built into Photoshop Elements. In most browsers, you can select an image for a closer view. This photo, for example, features some subtle tweaks to add that “impressionist” feel.

All of these tools have added to my skills in photo processing. There has been a lot more time spent in front of the computer, and a lot less time on the road, but at least I have added something to the photos I will be able to feature when our travel schedule returns to some semblance of “normal”, if what we used to know as normal will ever be the same again.

John Steiner