Archive for the ‘Local’ Category:
Mishra’s Helix
I love this. I love the concept of it, I love that it exists. I loved that somebody created it. I love that somebody paid for it. And, I love that I got to take a nice picture of it.
What is it? It’s a giant clock sculpture. It works – it ticks, it chimes, it moves, it spins.. everything a proper artistic contraption should do.
Vital Stats: Canon 5D Mark II w/Canon 24-105 f/4L @ 24mm, 1/80 sec at f/11, ISO 400
Chaska Cumulo Mammatus
What are those crazy looking clouds? These clouds are called Cumulo Mammatus clouds – and they generally accompany the strongest thunderstorms that produce tornadoes. They are relatively rare – the last ones I saw were three years ago at my brother’s wedding. Most of my friends in Minneapolis saw these clouds go overhead after a powerful evening thunderstorm last week that spawned tornados and multiple inches of rain around Minnesota. None of that hit my neighborhood.. but my parents got some water in their basement when it rained 4-6″ in an hour.
Now, a note to self:
Self, when nasty thunderstorms roll through at dinnertime – grab a camera and get in position ‘cuz it’s gonna be epic.
I KNEW this was going to happen – but couldn’t get out since my mother was visiting. I had to live with a snapshot of my house from the street… but it still turned out cool due to the intense reds of the sunset reflected off the clouds.
Vital Stats: Canon 5D Mark II w/Canon 17-40 f/4L @ 17mm 1/20 sec @ f/8, ISO 1600
Number Eighty One
This my friends is Number Eighty One. She’s a Wissota B-Modified dirt track stock car – and she’s the pride of Jared Boumeester of Waseca, MN. Jared just finished building this Skyrocket-framed beast and yesterday was her maiden voyage at the Deer Creek Speedway in southeastern Minnesota. I was in Waseca yesterday to have my taxes prepared and I stopped by to take a few glamour shots of #81.
I decided to have some fun with these pictures and went for something really grungy and radical looking. It’s a dirt-track racer, after all! The processing is over-the-top, and some people are going to instinctively hate it. Others are going to love it. This image was made by taking 9 different exposures and merging them as an HDR with Photomatix Pro. Once I merged them, I tonemapped them into the wild scene you see above. This technique is like cilantro – little bits of it are good, but you’d never want to eat a whole bowl of it. I’d never use it on a nature shot – but unfortunately others do. Because of that, this technique gets an ill-deserved bad rap.
Because I stepped out of the box and went for it – I’ve got a vibrant image that I love. It fits the subject matter perfectly, and the car just looks fast sitting there. There’s your lesson for today – don’t be afraid to ditch the comfortable and do something that isn’t your style.. you may get some wild fun results!
Wanna hear her roar? Check out Jared revving her up yesterday on this iPhone video: http://yfrog.us/6bpj9z
Vital Stats: Canon 5D Mark II w/Canon 17mm TS-E f/4L. ISO 200, f/6.3, exposures bracketed from 1/6400 to 1/25 sec.
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.
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.
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.
Last Rays of November
Now, why on earth don’t I get sunsets like this when I’m on a nature shoot? The late November sunsets right off of my deck have been spectacular lately – and yesterday’s was no exception. I was actually running out the door to go over to my wife’s cousin’s place when I saw this out the window. I grabbed my camera (which still had the Lensbaby mounted) and I caught this beauty.
Again, like yesterday – I’m using my new Lensbaby on this picture. It progressively blurs out from the ‘sweet spot’ calling attention to the focal point – in this case.. the farm.
Vital Stats: Canon 5D Mark II w/Lensbaby Composer ISO 100, f/5.6 plate, 1/30 sec.