The Horse Knows The Way
Here’s another image from the beautiful frosty morning that I spent at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum a couple of weeks ago. I love bringing this barn into my images – it’s as if they positioned it on the hill above the meadow to make a perfect background to lead your eye into the image. Yes, it’s not a mountain range – but it’s what we have to live with here in Minnesnowta.
This is actually a pretty severe crop into what was originally a horizontal picture. I had too sweeping of a vista in the original shot, and the subject got lost. I like this one much better – it’s a much simpler composition.
Vital Stats: Canon 5D Mark II w/Canon 70-200 f/4L @ 140mm ISO 200, f/13, 1/250 sec.
Prior Lake Palace
I love doing architectural photography – it has so much in common with landscape photography but doesn’t involve getting up before dawn or hiking in the dark. My good friend Vince from Memory Lane (www.memorylanemn.com) asked me do some images of a house he recently built. It was an amazing home – it even included an indoor snowmobile garage that allowed the owner to drive right out onto the lake from the house.
It was a challenging shoot because the house is being lived in by a family of 4. We only had about an hour to get the pictures – and we had to dodge cleaning people the entire time. This meant Vince scrambled to hide extra knick-knacks and vacuum cleaners while I lined the shot up. I’d fire three bracketed shots to compose the HDR picture, and he’d run around putting everything back while I moved to the next room.
Vital Stats: Canon 5D Mark II w/Canon 17-40 f/4L @ 17mm ISO 200, f/16, 1.3 sec.
Winter Wonderland
I love winter. That’s probably good because I live in a state where we get lots of it. Sometimes I get in a rut like everyone else and think I can’t get out to shoot in the winter because it’s too snowy or cold or drab or whatever. Frankly, it often is. On Saturday I was reminded again about why I love winter – everything looked Heavenly with fresh snow and fresh hoarfrost. There was a saintly white wonderland in every direction – so bright and white I wore sunglasses even though it was fully overcast.
Shooting on days like this is a challenge too – there is no detail in the sky or the ground. Do you emphasize the negative space or minimize it? The last post maximized it – this one minimizes it to focus detail on the frosty trees. Another gotcha is the light meter in the camera. It is important to set the meter to +1EV since everything is white. If you don’t, the camera will try to make everything 18% grey – and this will mean an image that is way too dark. One final winter shooting tip? Bring spare batteries and keep ‘em warm! Battery life is shortened by a huge amount when it’s below freezing.
Vital Stats: Canon 5D Mark II w/Canon 17-40 f/4L @ 40mm ISO 200, f/13, 1/250 sec.
Hoarfrost in Minnesota
Today marked a milestone of sorts – it’s the first time in two years that we had a heavy hoarfrost and I didn’t have a prior commitment that kept me from going out to shoot it. I anticipated we’d get some last night since a pea-soup fog rolled in last evening. When I woke up this morning and saw the crystalline world outdoors, I bundled up and headed out to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum.
The tough part about shooting there in the winter is that they close off the 3-mile drive to motor vehicles. That means a hike in the snow to get anywhere. Framing up a shot without the snowbank along the road meant trudging through 2 feet of snow with a full load of camera gear. The conditions were perfect – the sun didn’t burn off the frost and the fog rolled out leaving it nice and clear.
Strangely, this picture is not black and white. With a white sky, lots of snow, and dark tree bark there’s almost no color in the picture. A slight blue cast to the snow is about the only giveaway that it’s not black and white.
Vital Stats: Canon 5D Mark II w/Canon 17-40 f/4L @26mm ISO 200, f/13, 1/250 sec.
Here Lies St. Pete
Today’s image of the day was another shot capturing the grandeur that is St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. This structure is the baldacchino – a one hundred foot pavilion marking the spot where it is believed that St. Peter is buried. At one time it was thought to be the largest bronze structure in the world – and probably still is. This isn’t one of Michelangelo’s works – Bernini gets the nod for this one.
Vital Stats: Canon 350D w/Canon EF-S 10-22mm @ 10mm ISO 1600, f/5, 1/30 sec.
One Fall Day at the Park
This is Kristina and Glen’s video from their engagement shoot this fall. I’m really excited to show this to you since it’s something I’m very proud of. It’s the newest thing in content – a fusion mixture of images and what I call ‘long images’ – short video clips+sound. It adds another dimension to a slide show that really brings it to life. Their love and their spunky personalities really shine through on the footage in a way that just isn’t possible with images alone. I still smile every time I watch this even after hours of editing! I’m so happy that Kristina and Glen gave me the opportunity to create this memory of their love.
This video was filmed on a chilly October morning at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. We shot the video clips after we completed the engagement shoot since they were relaxed in front of the camera by that point. Once we started rolling, the were great sports and started to play around without a lot of coaching. Kristina and Glen showed this video on the big screen at their beautiful wedding reception in December, 2009.
All footage was shot with the Canon 5D Mark II. Lenses used: Canon 24-105 f/4L, Canon 17-40 f/4L, Canon 135mm f/2L. The sound was captured with the R0de VideoMic. Editing of the footage was done with Pinnacle Studio 14.
The Big Kahuna
Today’s image was inspired by Jon Cornforth during our recent trip to the Big Island of Hawai’i. We were at Place of Refuge for a sunset shoot, but the vog was so bad that we never even pulled out our cameras. On our way out, I wanted to snap a picture of the Place of Refuge sign for my trip memory. While I was doing this, Jon snapped a similar portrait of this head using his iPhone. I loved how it looked – so I turned my Lensbaby Composer-equipped Canon 5D Mark II up at the totem and took this image. This guy was part of the park entrance sign along with a few other totems.
Vital Stats: Canon 5D Mark II w/Lensbaby Composer – ISO 800, 1/200 sec.
Chad Rocks Buffalo
This is Chad Edwards – an awesome country singer that happens to be a good friend of mine. He’s the real deal – the chaps he’s wearing on his CD cover actually got used to break horses in northern California. Okay, northern California isn’t the most country place on the planet – but Chad spent a pretty good chunk of his 20’s in Nashville living his dream. Chad is focusing on playing in public more frequently – and we were able to catch him in Buffalo last weekend. Be sure to check him out if he’s in your area!
Shooting live music boils down to two simple rules:
- No flash. Ever.
- Catch a moment.
The no flash rule can be a real challenge since clubs tend to be very dark. Fast lenses and high ISO is the only way to fly. For these shots, I used my 135mm f/2L and my 50mm f/1.4 cranked wide open. I had my 5D Mark II set at 3200 and 6400 ISO in order to get a high enough shutter speed to (sort of) freeze action.
Vital Stats: Canon 5D Mark II w/Canon 135mm f/2L ISO 6400, f/2.0, 1/250 sec.
Desolate Shelter
It doesn’t get any more accommodating than this, folks! This, and a 2-story outhouse (yes, really) are all that greet you when you make the brutal 4-mile hike to Ka’aha. It isn’t much – it’s a three sided lean-to with dirt floors that is home to all manner of beasties that want to get out of the direct sun. All the same, it’s a very welcome break from that same sun that tends to make the black volcanic rock pretty warm.
The view from that three-sided lean-to is spectacular! When you look south out of the shelter, there is nothing between you and Antarctica.
That two-story outhouse? It seems it’s pretty tough to make an hole into volcanic rock – so they had to build a tank sitting on the rock. The second story was to ensure that you were on top of that tank. It also made a pretty good midday shelter – complete with throne.
Vital Stats: Canon 5D Mark II w/Canon 17-40 f/4L @ 40mm ISO 100, f/10, 1/40 sec.
Jason and Sue
These are our good friends and neighbors Jason and Sue. I’ve been blessed both with their friendship and with having them grace my studio with their beautiful family on a couple of occasions.
I’m dedicating this one today because Sue is having surgery today for sinus cancer which was diagnosed only a few months after this picture was taken. Early reports are good – though they had to remove more cheekbone than expected, the cancer didn’t spread to the orbit of her eye. Therefore – she gets to keep both of ‘em.
She’s had a heck of a fight in 2009 with chemo and radiation – and now surgery. Throughout all of it, she’s been a model of faith and grace. Her beauty is something cancer will never take away from her.
Our prayers are with you today and in the future, Sue!