Experiments, competitions, and musings about photography.
A photo class along Minnesota’s North Shore in June
Minnesota’s North Shore is gorgeous in the spring, with plenty of spring flowers and rushing water. Unfortunately, I never seem to get up there in spring to enjoy those things! This year I decided to make it happen, so I signed up for a North Shore photography workshop with Don Tredinnick and Peter Berman of Read More …
September Camera Club Salon
Fall is here and that brings the start-up of camera club again. The season really started in late August, with a photography scavenger hunt. Unlike most scavenger hunts (where participants are out looking for specific objects), we were hunting for elements of good composition. To enter the photo competition, we needed to “find” images that Read More …
A slightly faded view of Back to the 50s
Every spring the Back to the 50s car show brings old vehicles of every type (and every level of restoration) to the State Fair grounds for a weekend that looks back at the golden age of the automobile and beyond. In fitting with that theme, I took a few of my (too) many images and Read More …
Filtered fish shack
Earlier this spring I shot a series of photos of a fish shack along Stoney Point north of Duluth, Minnesota. It was a cloudy, damp day with occasional rain, but I think I got a few acceptable shots. They’re fine, but most aren’t particularly interesting, so I decided to play with them a bit and Read More …
Shutter speed experiments along the Baptism River
For whatever reason I forgot that I had my neutral density filter in my bag when I was shooting along the Baptism River in northern Minnesota last weekend. It would have been nice to use, as it was a bright morning. Still, I was able to use a pretty broad range of shutter speeds. 1/320th Read More …
Under the Stars Lightroom preset and Nerstrand Big Woods
As is probably obvious, I tend to be very literal and way too serious, traits that carry over into my photography. Generally my goal as a photographer is to recreate exactly what I saw. That’s a necessity for a photojournalist, but not exactly the recipe for inspired art. This doesn’t mean I don’t edit my Read More …
St. Paul Camera Club: May 2015 Salon
I’m still participating in the Saint Paul Camera Club. As in April, I was traveling when prints were due for May, so I didn’t have any printed submissions. However, I did submit three images for the month’s Night Photography digital competition. Initially I was really excited about Night Photography as a theme, but as I Read More …
St. Paul Camera Club: April 2015 Salon
I was out of town when the deadline came around for submitting images for the April Salon, so I only competed in the digital competition. (Unlike prints, you can submit digital images without actually being present.) I was pretty excited about this competition because the theme for the month was Minnesota and Wisconsin Architecture. I Read More …
St. Paul Camera Club: March 2015 Salon
In February I joined the St. Paul Camera Club. It’s something I’ve thought about on and off over the years, but had never taken the time to look into. A photography event earlier in the winter made me realize that this was something I really needed to do . . . so I went to Read More …
A black and white afternoon at the Seven Mile Bridges
Intense backlighting from the late afternoon sun made shooting a challenge at the Seven Mile Bridges (there are two bridges, a modern highway bridge and the remains of a historic bridge) in the Florida Keys, but I also loved the way the light both illuminated and obscured the bridges. I think black and white enhances Read More …
Warped tiles
The other week I stayed at a really lovely B&B in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. The Green Heron was one of those places where pretty much everything is perfect. . . but I was mostly obsessed with the bathroom tiles. See, the simple, elegant bathroom had blue tiles in the shower which, when viewed through the Read More …
Photographing wildlife at the zoo
Earlier this winter I took a photo class at the Minnesota Zoo. Zoos are both easy and difficult places to practice “wildlife” photography. On one hand, the animals are always nearby and have limited options for completely escaping your view indefinitely (if you are willing to wait long enough, you WILL see them, unlike on Read More …
Arizona Dreaming
Modified a bit in Lightroom and Paintshop Pro.
This Year’s Frozen Bubble Experiment #2: Urban Backyard Bubbles
It was a very still sub-zero morning today — but with sunshine, making it a perfect day for more frozen bubble photos. I was a lot happier with today’s shots. The sun helped, but yesterday’s practice session also helped a lot. I learned a couple more things today: You really can just drop the bubbles Read More …
This year’s bubble experiment #1
A local photographer gave a class on photographing frozen bubbles today, so (of course) I went. I learned what I did wrong last year (making really big bubbles instead of little ones), tips I can incorporate into this year’s attempts (place the bubbles on the snow to photograph them and shoot them from below if Read More …
Last Year’s Bubble Experiment
Last winter people starting posting all sorts of fascinating images of frozen bubbles, so (of course) I had to try it myself. I looked online and found a bunch of recipes for bubble solution which we used as a basis for our own solution of dish soap, Karo syrup, and water. Then we went out Read More …
Cropping Help Needed
One of my on-going conundrums is cropping. Often cropping comes down to a matter of taste. Cropping can dramatically change the balance, feel, and even the meaning of an image. Sure, sometimes it’s obvious, but sometimes it’s not. And sometimes it probably doesn’t matter, but I just can’t make up my mind. For example, here Read More …
Processing Zoom Burst Images: How much Clarity?
In my last couple posts on my zoom burst experiments , I was focused on what I could do in the field to create interesting effects. But once I started editing my shots in Lightroom, I realized how much of a difference post-processing could make. Even simple, relatively minor changes, have an impact. For example, Read More …
Motion Sickness or How Much Zoom Burst is Too Much?
When processing my zoom burst shots from Banning State Park, I found one set of images that made me feel a bit nauseous from motion sickness. And, no, I wasn’t editing in the car! Most of the images I shot were taken at a good distance not only from the subject, but from everything in Read More …
Fall Leaves with Zoom Burst
Last winter my friend Jim Ericson, of Superior Imagery, posted an awesome Christmas shot using a technique most often referred to as a “zoom burst.” Shortly thereafter I found some amazing fireworks photos done using this technique (which I can’t find again now) and just a few weeks ago the local photography Facebook page included Read More …
Auction Set-up in Aurora
This weekend we auctioned off many of the things my father collected over the years. (A task that was exhausting, heartbreaking, and a relief.) My brother asked that I document the event since he had to deal with many of the details related to tractors, tools, and telophone equipment. These pictures were taken as we Read More …