Weekend Photo Walk and Introduction to Lydia Elko Photography

I was sent a Facebook link by a friend about the photo contest Bubolz Nature Center is holding. So I took Lydia and Nando out to the center on Saturday for a hike and to let Lydia have the camera for a while. For today's lesson I showed her how to change the picture style and change between B&W and color images, and how to change the shutter speed with a fixed aperture. I think she did quite well. Here are a few images from her day of shooting....

Queen Anne's Lace

White Cedar

Shelf Fungus on fallen log

She entered the Shelf fungus on fallen log to the photo contest, and I will be bugging you to go vote for it when it is uploaded into the contest page.


I also brought my camera and here are a few shots of mine on the day...

Twisted Trunk

Another view...

Tall Grass. This grass caught our eye as these "poms" on the top of the stalks were about 12 feet off of the ground.

Tree Roots. I love the contrast here between the snow, moss, and roots...


So, that was our day!!

Great Skies

Wow, I had some time this evening to drive around and take a few shots with my phone. That will be the camera of choice until I find my charger for the T2i battery. I went to a few of my favorite haunts to see how the phone would do on some of my favorite views. I think that they turned out well. The filter effects in Instagram are helpful, but not as powerfull as my PS Elements which I use for most pf my PP work. I have found a collage maker to play with as well. I have been getting more interactions with the "grid" posts than the single shots.

It's Getting Colder

We had a bit of frost this morning. Winter is fast approaching. As I went out to start the car so it would defrost, I saw this leaf covered with frost. Some pople say that they like a certain season, but I think I like the time between seasons best. There is always a conflict to observe.

Food

It seems that a lot of my posts lately have been food related. And quite a few more related to liquid nutrition containing hops. Here is a little taste.  Oooh it's so good! (Mr. Food)

Dabbling....

So, a few weeks ago I bought a slick Samsung Galaxy Aviator. I had been wanting a phone with the power to use Instagram. So I will be posting some of them out here........

Neenah at night.

I wanted to get the bridge and the moon into one shot tonight. Unfortunately, I do not have a wide enough angle lens for the shot. I will try again if it is clear later in the week, but a little earlier when the moon is on the rise. I have taken pictures of this bridge many times, and one other time at night, but I spent more time here tonight as it was relatively mild at a balmy 38° F. This is a re-purposed railroad bridge that crosses Little Lake Butte des Morts. It is now a pedestrian and cycling thoroughfare.

There is a nice power boat launch here and also a still water launch for kayaks as well. I have misplaced my tripod so of course I had to rely on the railing posts for keeping the camera steady during the 30 second exposures.

I think this one turned out a little crisper. When I saw this in the veiwfinder, I noticed the steam from the factory across the lake was getting a nice blur on it. So of course I turned to the south to the Neenah bio-mass electric plant. 

I thought the plume looked pretty cool and spent quite some time shooting it. Tonight, I tried again to use RAW format imaging.  I had tried it in the past with little success. I am glad that I did. I probably could have used the "remove a color cast" tool to take away the yellow in the shot, or paid attention and changed my white balance in camera, but shooting in RAW allowed me to do that out of camera. It ended up looking like this.....

These are two different images. I have this one cropped so it is a "panoramic" ratio. I think I like the blues better, But I think I may tweak out some the highlights to give a more even light. Some of the areas are still a little too bright. I hope I find my tripod soon, and am looking forward to getting my remote trigger in the mail. 

A study in skies.....

There must be something in the atmosphere as of late as the sunrise and sunsets have been amazing. I will start out with the Wednesday evening sunset.

I was not in a great position for these two shots, just shooting west down my street. I didn't have time after work to drive to one of my preferred shooting locations. The skies the following morning made me late for work.

This is another example of my "urban sunset/rise" series. These pictures were taken from the parking lot of the shuttered Hoffmaster plant. There is a large holding tank in the first picture, and the lightpole near an apartment complex in the second. If I had tweaked the contrast to lighten shadows instead of darken highlights in the third you would be able to see this railcar.

I actually shot "The AM FM Crew" on 12-22-2011. It was still there today when I went by. I may start a new gallery of graffiti on my website as I seem to be drawn to it (See here).

After a very long day of work, I again came home too late to get out so I shot down the street again.

I took a number of shots that I wasn't all that thrilled with as they had either 1: geese, or 2: airplanes flying through them. Of course I was focusing on the treeline and all flying objects were out of focus. I did however  turn to the east to catch our nearly full moon ascending. I dropped the ISO to 100 went to f/5.6 and took a 1/1000 sec exposure. Even though these two shots are about two minutes apart, the difference is day and night.

I but you would think that this was shot about 9-10 o'clock, but no, it was 4:30. I love to manipulate the sky, using my settings to turn day to night!