Ault Park

Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny day here. We decided to make a visit to Ault Park -- one of the larger parks in the Cincinnati area that we had never explored. It was good for my back to get out and walk around a bit. Here is a satellite view of the park.

There is a large pavilion that was closed due to a private event -- a wedding reception. Walking around we saw four wedding parties there taking pictures at various spots in the park and in the late afternoon there were quite a few prom couples there for photos.

I had Dianne sit on a park bench with her back to the sun to experiment with some fill flash techniques that I've been reading about on the Strobist blog. She was playing with her Nintendo DS lite so she was a patient subject. If you look at the photo below, you see her back is in direct sunlight and there is a distinct shadow on the concrete. Her face was in a distinct shadow and so she wouldn't show up well in a regular photo. I used a flash on the ground, pointed toward her, to get rid of the shadow. The flash is just outside the right of the frame. I had to experiment a bit to get the right exposure. This shot was with the flash set at 1/4 power. By the way, thanks to her for helping carry stuff too!



My next project I thought I'd try is to get a 360 degree panorama shot from the center of the Observatory Circle area in the park. That's something easy to do while standing up straight. The photo below is a planet view of the panorama with the tripod at the center of the photo along the iron fence. If you want to see a traditional view, click here to see a large version on white. If you look closely at the bottom of the globe or on the right side of the panorama, at the base of the fountain in front of the pavilion you'll see one of the wedding parties getting their picture taken. You can't miss the satin, bright blue dresses the bridesmaids were wearing -- ones that will never be worn again. It was a beautiful day at the park.

Afterwards we stopped on Hyde Park Square to have dinner at Indigos and walk around the square a bit. Indigos is one of our favorite stops in Hyde Park. The square was hopping with everyone sitting outside enjoying the Spring evening.