Tall Grass in Crow Island Woods

I checked out a book by Ansel Adams from the library about how he conceived 

40 of his photographs, and for one of his stark landscapes Adams mentioned 

using a red filter to increase contrast. I piled two fluorescent filters and an orange 

graduated filter onto my 18-55mm and twisted a mini tripod onto the bottom of my 

camera and trekked to Crow Island Woods at dusk. I set the camera on the wood-chip

 path and took several low-angle, long exposures of shrubs and foliage. 

Over Thanksgiving break I briefly became obsessed with old photographs and 

spent days venturing across the internet unearthing daguerreotypists (especially 

Roger Fenton and Gustave Le Gray) who artistically documented 19th century events.

 Eventually I organized the best of my findings, from pre-Civil War presidents to 

painted tipis into a blog that I've now abandoned: http://historicalphotographs.tumblr.com

(there are two pages of posts). Either there's something mesmerizing about the quality of 

daguerreotypes themselves or the artistic integrity of daguerreotypists when documenting 

the archaic events and subjects around them. 

Winnetka

Taken in November 2012