Photos From Eden Park

A couple weeks ago while Dianne was at a Sunday morning practice, I went down to Eden Park in Cincinnati (technically Mount Adams, I think) to look around. It was hot and humid that morning, but there wasn't too much wind so I was hoping to get some nice macro photos.

The park is where the Krohn Conservatory is located. Although it was very dry here in August I was hoping there would be something in bloom. There was a nice large plant (a Standard Lantana) loaded with yellow flowers just outside the entrance to the conservatory. Click here to see a larger version on black. I love the fisheye lens!

Rather than go inside the conservatory, I decided to try and take some photos of the water tower in Eden park. It is a 174 feet tall brick structure that was completed in 1894. The challenge I came up with was to get some photos of the tower that excluded other towers or buildings from the background. I was limited in angles that were well lit because of the relatively low angle of the sun.

The first photo I took was from a bit of a distance as I hiked up the hill. I adjusted the exposure to lighten the shadow under the tree in the foreground. Unfortunately, that also washed out the color of the bricks (compare it to the other photos below). I used the trees to both frame the tower and mask a building on the right side. You can see how brown the grass is from our lack of rain. Click here to see a larger version on black.

The second shot is taken a little closer to the tower. By moving up the hill and closer, I got the interfering building out of the frame. I also didn't worry about the detail in the dark shadow at the bottom of the photo, and this helps give a richer look to the colors.

To avoid getting some type of transmitting tower in the photo at the left side, I cropped the image so the tower is off center in the frame. In the original photo, the tower is centered in the frame so the vertical lines on the tower are straight when using the fisheye lens. However, this off center crop gives an uneven distortion to the trees on the left and right sides of the frame. This isn't too evident with trees, but still this isn't my favorite photo. Click here to see a larger version on black.

The last water tower photo is my favorite. This is taken near the base, just across the road that circles the base of the tower. Compared to the other photos above, this view is looking more at the left side of the water tower. Instead of having the sun at my back as in the photos above, the sun is now at the right rear, so you can start to see some shadows on the left side of small cylinder and on the bricks.

I like the depth that the shadows create. I also like the framing from the trees. Like the two photos above, I centered the tower in the lens to minimize distortion of the vertical lines on the tower. But with this photo I cropped it evenly left to right. I think having the distortion balanced results in a better effect. Quite an impressive structure. Here is a larger version on black.

After getting my fill of water tower photos, I walked across the bridge that starts near the base of the tower and goes over the top of Eden Park Drive toward the Ohio river. I had never been on that road before. It takes you to a wonderful overlook of the Ohio river, just upstream from Cincinnati. There were just a couple people there enjoying the view of the Sunday morning boaters on the river. All in all a nice visit to Eden Park.

Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial Day weekend was pretty quiet for us. We stayed close to home.

Saturday was a beautiful day here. We ran a couple errands and made a visit to the lake part of the Sharon Woods park in the greater Cincinnati area. I wanted to get out and do a little walking. We didn't walk around the whole lake, but my leg is feeling much better and I'm better able to keep pace with Dianne -- compared to my shuffling of last week. This photo, from the top of the boat rental building, shows some people renting paddle boats. The place was packed and there were quite a few boats coming and going. Several folks were fishing and we saw a few catch some sunfish. The water seemed a bit muddy from the rain we had.

Today we went to downtown Blue Ash to watch the Memorial Day parade. It's kind of sad we've been here well over a decade and this is the first time we went to the parade. There were the typical (for me) color guards, bands, National Guard vehicles, etc. A couple F-16s flew over (the speaker for the service at the veteran's memorial was from Wright Patterson AFB) and three of the Cincinnati Warbirds did a fly-by as well. Being an election year, there were LOTS of political candidate groups in the parade. All of them were tossing out candy for attention and the little kids were like vacuum cleaners sucking up the morsels. I don't remember the candy thing going on in Memorial Day parades when I was growing up.

The photo at the right shows the American Legion color guard that led the parade. The first shot below are members of the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office Pipe & Drum corps. The second shot is a Shriner clown car. The car was carefully balanced over the rear axle. It could drive down the street normally, but a slight shift in weight would make the front wheels come up. The car could spin around on the back wheels and the casters below the rumble seat. This is when they were spinning around and waving to the crowd. One of the clowns was riding a bike where the hubs of the wheels were off center. He was bobbing and rocking as he was riding along. That brought back memories of a similar bike my dad made. Too funny.