“Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it.” – Andy Rooney.
Marquette Mountain September 12 2004 Before Edits
You can find this spot if you come in and drive through Marquette on US-41 from the west turn right at the bottom of the hill on Carp River Hill Road nestled in between Marquette and Harvey on Lake Superior, if you reach the Dept of Natural Resources you’ve gone too far.
Then you will take a quick left on Cliff Power Road which is a dirt road along the Carp River and follow it about a quarter-mile to Mt Marquette Loop yup that easy to get up there. If you’re coming from the East or South you’ll either be coming off M-28 or North up US41.
As you can see above you’re greeted with a beautiful view overlooking Marquette and the lower harbor along with Lake Superior.
In this particular article of a two-part series, I’m not going to go into depth on how to transform the image in detail. I want to mention that first, there are so many options available today through apps and software to attempt to help you alleviate the pixelation in a photo. Many of these options are bandaids at best robbing Peter to pay Paul type of scenario.
The first thing I would say is, if your happy with the results hey, go for it, it’s your photo you have to look at it and you want to keep it so that’s what’s truly important. If you want to do the photo justice though or maybe get more creative with it maybe I can help you a little bit. After all, if I can learn this, you can too. Maybe not doing it the way I do use the same apps and or techniques but one that is similar out there or easier for you that satisfies your expectations and allows you to do it yourself with satisfaction.
Marquette Michigan After Shot
If I can help point you there, then I’ve accomplished something. So here at the top of the article I’ve shown the before shot and at the bottom is the after. Two separate images combined in one app on my Mac. I also added pixels to the image improving image density in another app. Then performed an HDR format in another and some color adjustments and presto. Not quite that easy but not extremely hard either.
In the next article, “How to Fix Your Pixilated Digital Photos Part 2 of 2” I’ll get into more detail on just how I perform these types of edits. Also coming up, I still have some writing to do about last summer’s trip out West I’d like to finish up as well before this summer arrives.
Thanks so much for joining me and reading.
You can also find me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram sharing what I’ve been working on most recently and of course my website. Stay tuned for more about my trip out west.
My website showcases, stores, and offers my fine art photography for sale it is also a central hub for all my activity online including this new blog I’m starting.
So much has changed over the years in my photography when I started in my Dad’s basement darkroom helping him develop black and whites he would shoot, to when I was old enough he allowed me to take my first couple shots on my own.
Years later buying my first Canon film camera was a very exciting time for me learning about composition and lighting from the cameras perspective. I couldn’t afford great lenses back then spending more of my money on the color film development and then getting into filters and time exposure photography.
Ancient Castle Ruins – Turkey
A 1980’s photo taken while I was station in Turkey then scanned into digital. Lost much of its original flare.
I use my social media such us Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to quickly show what I’m up to day-to-day, what I’m making available to publicly, as well as quick information you may like to be aware of.
So why start a blog after all these years?
First, my blog will go more in depth a possible paragraph can do on social media.
I will offer you some of my latest photography tips.
Various tricks I’ve learned over the years.
Also, just why I do what I do. I’ve had some of you wonder to me out loud at times about my thoughts which are quite hard to put into perspective on social media where the attention span lasts seconds.
Compared to the likes of how far I’ve progressed and the types of photography I shoot today. Technology and my skills have improved dramatically.
Most of my friends over the years have thought of me as a bit of a goofball never taking myself too seriously and though I’m quite serious about my photography you’ll come to find out I have a lot of fun with it as well. Sometimes I’ve been told I can be too dangerous with photoshop!!
Welcome to a new chapter in both my life and my photography as this adventure in blogging begins today. So sit back or lean in or do whatever it is… that you do… when you read these kinds of articles online… or saved to your device for later. Hope you stick around!! Because if I find out you read this article and you don’t… well… I may have to come to find you. Ok, well, not really. I promise to not stalk you. 😉 I like emojis also, some say to never use them in writing but I think those people are just stuffy.
As a parting though. Maybe, just maybe my spelling, writing including my english skills will improve now that I’m on the top of half of my life. Better late than never.
This last summer I took a trip I dreamed of for years, out west. Not an easy task for a guy with health issues that severely handicap my energy and stamina levels and then some. I’ve had this dream for quite a while so desire weighed out over fear and instead of typical camping and roughing it and since I don’t own an RV I opted for the next best thing which for this photographer was to use my Subaru Outback as my tent. That in and of itself is a whole nother story, this story is of my determination to get good photos!
If you want to see more photos from my trip out west or of mine in general just head to my main photography website at www.JonLyle.com and the direct link to my page on South Dakota.
Back to it, as I arrived in South Dakota’s Badlands mid-morning mid-July 2020 during the pandemic determined to keep to myself! It was already blistering hot pushing 3 digits when I arrived at the Prarie Homestead just before entering the front of the national park.
Prairie Homestead
Prairie Homestead in Badlands National Park in South Dakota and is one of the last remaining original sod homes still intact today. The pioneers played a very important part in settling the Great Plains. It’s just 1/2 mile North of the East entrance of the national park. Located 20 miles east of the town of Wall and 20 miles West of Kadoka.
Who could handle take a little lunch break to this scene (photo below shot from my iPhone) as I was sitting overlooking a canyon on day one of my July 2021 camping trip out west and my first week in South Dakota’s famous sweltering hot and very dry Badlands? 🤔 Are you with me?!!
Just Another Day in the Badlands
It was hot out, a dry heat which made the well over 100-degree temperatures much more tolerable than what I was used to having to tolerate in the humidity of Pennsylvania I now call home or the Great Lakes region where I grew up.
If you look closely at the Ram on the right side with brush in his mouth. This is what they were tussling about. They got a little too close together while grazing in the grasslands of the South Dakota Badlands.
Here’s a great shot of a couple of irritated grazing dudes better known as rams of course I took after my first night of camping. Who’s ba ha ha ha ad? I was hoping for a little more scuffle but they decided not to put on as much of a show as I had hoped to see.
Wild grazing Badlands sheep
To me, the most amazing thing about either wild sheep as this one or even the rams that roam around the South Dakota Badlands are their eyes. They look so intense when you are face to face with one of them. They seem to stare directly through you. This was a double shot, I took the foreground with the sheep in the afternoon sun to make sure to get enough exposure on the eyes. I marked the spot where I shot the image and came back for sunset then just recently I combined the two shots in my software and processed them in HDR.
Left all the windows in the car tent open all night and it got surprisingly cold hence a good old-fashioned headache this morning at 4 am when I woke before the fig’n chickens so I could catch the sunrise. So friendly reminder, when you go to the Badlands, it’s almost like a desert there meaning it does get a lot colder at night than during the daytime so be ready for the temperature change! Blood flow (getting moving) and water intake were the tricks to alleviate a throbbing headache.
Sometimes the intensity of the Badlands in South Dakota reaches a fever pitch as you can see here in this early evening thunderstorm I shot. Can you imagine what it was like to get caught out in one of these back in the 1800s? It be like, where may horse? Get me the heck outa here!!! 😂
For as dry and hot as gets here, seeing extreme weather conditions isn’t something you might think as possible or probable and yet it is. The campground I stayed at its not oncoming for some tent areas to get washed out during some storms the rain comes so fast and heavy that I can’t absorb quick enough. If you though the Badlands was beautiful during normal weather patterns you should lay eyes on it during esteem weather patterns.
Yellow Mounds in South Dakota’s Badlands
The Yellow Mounds area of the Badlands has produced the most amazing photos for me and many other photographers alike. The colors in the terrain, weather withstanding, are incredible for such a rough and inhospitable land. The yellows almost get drowned out of this image due to the dark stormy skies as the purples and blues mixed with the red rings of the hills turning them to into what appears to be purple. I feel like I got lucky with the composition and how the lightning strike straddles each side of the drainage river coming from the background empties into the windy foreground drainage river basin.
Who turned on the lightbulbs in the clouds?
In this photo above closer to from the badlands National park not too far from my campground, it looks like either lightning is going off inside or a bunch of fireflies are having a party maybe? For one of the more bland areas of the Badlands National Park in South Dakota, I was able to get quite the colorful photo capture here in reds, purples, grey greens, and then some.
Powerful Storm in South Dakota’s Badlands
At sunset, this powerful storm crosses the view from my campground at Cedar Pass located. Imagine contending with nature’s furry back in the day before our current technology and amenities afforded much easier shelter and avoidances of such problems.
Welp, that’s it from the Badlands! Next stop the Black Hills!!! Till then, I’ll be chill’n and thinking about all you hard-working saps while I’m stretching my calves and massaging my painful legs. It was a fun three days in the Badlands, got some great shots, some I’ve shared here with a lot more on my website. Feel free to stop by for a peek and let me know what you think.
You can also find me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram sharing what I’ve been working on most recently! Stay tuned for more about my trip out west.
Till next time, have an awesome day and keep taking pictures!!
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