Bluff Country of the Mississippi River Trip Report

Each month of this year, I’ve been falling a bit more behind in providing trip reports. Back in July, I was in northeast Iowa and southwest Wisconsin leading a photography workshop. With the early sunrise that time of year, late sunsets and extremely high water on the Mississippi River we ended up feeling pretty tired by day three. But, we got lots of good shots.

As seems to be the theme for this year, I’ve run my workshops in areas where my plans don’t go as planned for reasons outside my control. Several of my locations on this workshop that I had pre-planned were underwater! That made it difficult for me because this workshop was going to be scripted from sunrise to sunset. I had exact drive times down, minute-by-minute schedules and it was going to be an intense schedule. If you’ve done my Fall in the Smoky Mountains Photo Workshop, this was going to be similar in that the script had to get us to locations timed with the light.

With the high water level, I improvised. Luckily, I knew the area well and one of the improvisations turned out to be a great turn of events. We went to THE most scenic sunrise location in Iowa instead of shooting sunrise over the Mississippi River and lilies. It was a much longer drive in the dark through deer-infested roadways but so worth it.

Without further ado, here are my favorite shots from the trip. The first set shows some of the more natural landscapes of that part of Iowa and Wisconsin. It’s really a lovely area, especially along the river. Some of the landscape is world class and surprising that more photographers don’t visit.

Where it gets world class is at the amazing overlooks. You can see a few in the pictures above, but the farm overlooks are stunning. IMHO, they rival the farm landscapes of Palouse, Washington. Palouse is the area that photographers think of when they want to shoot rolling hills and farm country. While the two landscapes aren’t directly comparable, they offer some similar styles of shooting. Here are some shots from a few farm overlooks.

A few of the above images are from before the workshop at locations near the town of Dubuque. I grew up in Dubuque, so I hung out with one of my best friends and shot sunset one night.

I do love river towns on the Mississippi River. They are usually a combo of unique art, homegrown eclectic styling and old limestone or brick buildings. And the bridges are always amazing. The bridge above is in Lancing and has a metal deck.

Lastly, if you have been on some of my destination photo workshops, you know that I know where the best ice cream shops are. The Skinny Dip is one of the best. Unfortunately, the rearranged schedule meant that we were there when it was closed.

But that didn’t stop me from trying to get an ice cream cone.

I love northeastern Iowa. For a photographer, it is a dream destination. If the overlooks were on the coasts there would have 50 photographers waiting for a sunrise. They really are that good. But, because this area is in “flyover” country, nobody knows, and as a photographer, you usually have the views to yourself. I was really glad to be able to share that area with 10 other photographers and I hope to run a workshop there again in a couple of years. It’s a destination you don’t want to miss.