Feb 4

Feb 4 Ohio – The Land of Extremes

There’s a saying that Ohioans like to quote that goes something like “If you don’t like today’s weather, just wait as its bound to change tommorrow.”

Never has that been more true than this past week. Early in the week we had a large snowfall and below zero temps. Like -8F in the morning with a high of 0 for the day. BRR! Nearly all of the Midwest was in the grip of Old Man Winter. We received an additional 4-5 inches of fresh snow fall on Friday 2/1 which lead to hazardous roads and many crashes. But Saturday 2/2 was due for a warm-up, and knowing how cold the ground was and the amount of ice and snow build-up was around I knew that we’d be in for some great fog that morning, possibly even freezing fog.

I made plans to get up and get out there to shoot at daylight, with my Hassleblad 500C and Nikon F packed in my bag along with some HP5+. I’ve been amassing a list of shots that I’ve wanted to get in these conditions – subjects that normally don’t have great backgrounds can look stunning when all of the clutter is hidden or nearly hidden by the fog.

Below are a few shots from the morning. All were shot on HP5+ pushed to 800ASA and also over-exposed by about 1 stop to compensate for the snow. Developed in Ilfosol 3 at 68F for 13.5 minutes and scanned on an Epson V600.

Hassleblad 500C on HP5+ film - Bellbrook, Ohio

The next day, Sunday 2/3, saw record high temps of over 60 degrees and a massive melting of all the snow and ice. I knew that the birds would be out in force that day because waterways were finally thawing and after being frozen over for the past week the animals would be making up for lost time/meals.

There’s been a juvenile Bald Eagle hunting near the Deeds Point spillway area the past few weeks and I had some far away shots of him – but on Sunday I was prepared to put the time in to get something better.

I was in the area nearly 5 hours with some spottings and some fly-aways, but finally after observing his pattern I waited near a tree near the water that I had seen him in a few times I was rewarded – he landed there and spent about 10 minutes posing for me before he flew off. Here’s a few shots of him and some other wildlife from the day. All were shot with a Nikon D500 with a Tamron 150-600mm lens at varying settings.

Juvenile Bald Eagle - Nikon D500 w/Tamron 150-600mm lens

Male Belted Kingfisher - Nikon D500 w/Tamron 150-600mm lens

Song Sparrow- Nikon D500 w/Tamron 150-600mm lens

Persistence pays off!

Most of these images will be up for sale on the website in the next few days. As always if you have any questions or thoughts please feel free to reach out.

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Jeremy