I was driving home from Madison this afternoon in rain and fog. Not my favorite driving weather, so when I saw the "Blue Mound State Park" exit, it seemed like a good opportunity to spend some time seeing how my camera and favorite lens would behave in such funky light conditions.

The park is at a higher elevation, and it was VERY FOGGY in there:



It also appeared to be deserted. No surprise there. After all, what kind of fool spends three hours tramping around a Wisconsin state park in late October in the pouring rain? Uh... no need to answer that (seriously, if you saw what I was wearing, you'd have me committed). Anyway...

I thought you all might enjoy seeing Mother Nature's take on the traditional "ball and claw" detail:










Finally, this one's for John. Check out the spider webs!



I shot a couple hundred photos, and would probably still be out there... but for the fact that it started to get dark and I was very cold AND soaking wet (I did manage to keep the camera reasonably dry).

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Laurie
TS 55, RO 150, DTS 400, CT Mini, Pile o' Card Scrapers, Sextant, Abacus, Chocolate Temperer, 4 Candy Thermometers, Bench Cookies (Double Batch), 15 X-acto Knives, Leatherman Tool (Blue), Various Wire, 3 Fids, A Few Ideas Too Many, 287 Pencils, String

Great pictures! The first one seems very apropos for this week - the coming All Saints Day.

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What a perfect setting. Hope you had some hot chocolate afterwards. It looks so serene and peaceful. That damp, cold, misty fog that gets right into your bones is what England is like all winter long. Much colder than a decent snow...

Lovely pictures. You can almost taste the raindrops.

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I don't have as many Festools as Fred. Or Marcou's, or Brese's, or Lie-Nielsen's, or Lee Valley's, or Blue Spruce's, or Harold and Saxon's, or...

You really do have a good eye Laurie!
And an obvious passion for photography and nature.
And a great lens. That Canon macro has very nice bokeh.

I'll say. Those shots are fantastic.

I think I've just decided to throw my camera away.

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John

1 Toolie, 2 XL Festool Polos

If you can throw it far enough I'll catch it

Hot chocolate would have been great. Alas, there was none to be had.

It WAS definitely peaceful, and not having any campers around to wreck the view was lovely. On the other hand, it was a bit unnerving to be poking around alone in a remote area that was "almost" deserted. It freaked me out a little when I saw one other person - some guy with a backpack who appeared out of nowhere about 15 yards from me and then scurried off down a trail.

Until it dawned on me what HE had seen... yeah... lady with wet hair, trudging around in sweat pants soaked to the knees, felted bedroom slippers (didn't want to get my REAL shoes muddy, you see), a "poncho" improvised from a blue plastic department store garment bag that reached nearly to my ankles, a couple mismatched wool scarves for warmth, and a disturbingly bright yellow umbrella. Looking back on it, there's no doubt he was FAR more troubled by the sight of me than I was by him.

Sorry, no pics of that.

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Laurie
TS 55, RO 150, DTS 400, CT Mini, Pile o' Card Scrapers, Sextant, Abacus, Chocolate Temperer, 4 Candy Thermometers, Bench Cookies (Double Batch), 15 X-acto Knives, Leatherman Tool (Blue), Various Wire, 3 Fids, A Few Ideas Too Many, 287 Pencils, String

Or just throw it down this way!

Nice discourse on "bokeh" Michael. Cool term - I've never heard it. We had to worry about bokeh (though I didn't know it was called that) with our laser imaging fluorometer system. We wanted a lens that made out-of-focus points a blur rather than a circle, as a perfect lens would do.

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I don't have as many Festools as Fred. Or Marcou's, or Brese's, or Lie-Nielsen's, or Lee Valley's, or Blue Spruce's, or Harold and Saxon's, or...

Wow, Laurie - you must have been a sight! If only you'd had a shotgun slung over your shoulder, it would have completed the ensemble.

Or an axe. Does Lie-Nielsen make an axe?

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I don't have as many Festools as Fred. Or Marcou's, or Brese's, or Lie-Nielsen's, or Lee Valley's, or Blue Spruce's, or Harold and Saxon's, or...

I've heard it before, usually from photographic showoffs.

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John

1 Toolie, 2 XL Festool Polos