“Expanding” and Magnificence of Technology

North Shore, Geneva Lake in Williams Bay, Wisconsin

December 6, 2023

To me, one of the best times to walk the shore path around Geneva Lake is at night. And if the moon is prominently luminous, so much the better. As the photograph “Expanding” shows, the area was bathed in light on September 26, 2007.

The photograph was made from the boathouse of Norman B. Barr Camp on the north shore in Williams Bay, and the view is to the southeast. With the passing of summer, no one was around, and I set up my camera on a tripod, a necessity for the long exposures (up to 45 seconds) required for photographing scenes under moonlight.

Since it was too high in the sky, I could not incorporate the moon into the composition. Anyway, the moon would have appeared small in the photo showing such a broad expanse of the lake.

Therefore, I worked with the light of the moon as shown by the light playing on the water and illuminating the top of the raft, which obviously is a key element in the composition. I will say I was lucky the top of the raft was a reflective surface. I have seen rafts covered with indoor-outdoor carpeting, and that would not have been effective in this instance.

The cluster of white spots also reflects the moon, although diversified and diffused due to the wind moving the water. The wind makes for interesting and contrasting textures on the water. They constantly change, and I often have been mesmerized by observing them. Sometimes I am so captivated I ignore the photographic opportunities!

What amazes me is how brightly the moonlight illuminates the landscape. The cliché about being able to read under such light certainly holds true. In fact, the light can be so bright that sometimes I am unsure how to accurately render a scene. I tell myself that it could not have been that bright, could it?

Another aspect is attempting to determine where the lights are on the far (south) shore. How well do you know the shoreline landmarks? Of course, some or many may have changed in the 17 years since I made this photo.

 The Magnificence of Technology

Although I never read the book How to Talk Back to Your Television Set, which first was published in 1970, I do wonder if anyone has written a modern variation called How to Talk Back to Your Computer. Being a so-called digital native who has spent the better part of 30-plus years at a keyboard, I know I should have fostered a friendly, respectful relationship with almost any device with a screen.

But that really has not happened, and much of it has to do with my attitude. Admittedly, I have unrealistic expectations of the devices, which essentially means I should not have to exert much time and effort and whatever I need to accomplish should happen magically during the dance between hardware and software. My frustration is in direct proportion to my lack of patience, so when I talk back to my computer, my words are hardly ones of adoration.

An exception occurred Monday morning when I was editing the photos I did the previous Saturday evening at the Holly Ball at Big Foot Country Club in Fontana, Wisconsin. The event is presented annually by Geneva Lake Conservancy, also based in Fontana, as a fund-raiser. I do the photography (in color, no less!) as an in-kind donation to support the mission of the organization. (For more about it, go to www.genevalakeconservancy.org.)

The photography was challenging because most of the lighting in the club was low to establish a mood appropriate for the event. I was using a flash, of course, but trying to replicate what I was seeing was difficult. (The human eye is so fantastic for its range of colors and tones that make all of what we see look so natural.)

To compound the challenge, many of the approximately 200 people were wearing black clothing, so it absorbed much of the light from the flash. I could not boost the flash too much because it would have overexposed people’s faces. Perhaps more sophisticated and costly equipment would have automatically brought all the elements together easily and nicely, but I have not made such an investment because I do not do this type of photography too often.

I am new to Photoshop Elements, a popular software for editing photos, so I worked at improving many of the photos by using the manual settings for brightness, contrast, shadows, highlights, hue, and saturation. I did pretty well, I thought, at lightening people’s clothes as well as the dark backgrounds so each composition looked normal. I put in a few hours of time and effort and ended up submitting 158 photos to the conservancy.

Toward the end of my editing, I was curious about one item in the Photoshop menu in the Enhance category. The item, which I never had used, is Auto Smart Fix. I applied it to one photo, and I was stunned! Everything was done automatically in an instant what I was trying to do manually over the course of several minutes on each image.

In awe, I lavished many nicey-nice words on my computer. I wonder if it was listening.

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If you wish to comment or ask a question about this post, contact me at frednoer@att.net.