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Birthday

Birthday
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It's your birthday!  Just a spontaneous portrait of the birthday girl.  Taken with my new Canon 135mm f/2 lens.  Actually this was a mistake that turned out.  I did not do a good job balancing my ambient with my flash and the shutter speed dropped too low.  This was taken at 1/20 sec and I am amazed that it turned out.  Typically I would not even think about a shutter speed below 1/100 sec for this lens and preferably 1/200.  All's well that ends well I guess. Technical - the flash was flagged to avoid any direct light and bounced…

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First Full Moon of Winter

First Full Moon of Winter
Moon rise over Lake Winnebago
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The first full moon of 2017 and Winter.  It was a cold and windy night.  I was thinking I must me either dedicated or crazy (of course, both could be true).  To properly expose both the moon (which is very bright) and the light house I used a 5 step bracket, set for +/- 3 stops.  I then used 2 photos to make the picture - one of the moon and the other for the lighthouse.  Below is another taken at 400mm.  

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Luna

Luna
Staring at the supermoon
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Lighting, composition, compression, exposure - all part of the tool kit for any photographer.  The moon is one of the hardest things to photograph properly.  Never had a camera that could expose the moon properly - the contrast between the bright moon and the dark sky always causes an over exposure.  The moon is really bright and you have to adjust the exposure downward much more than you would expect! Canon 5d MkIII | Canon 70-200 f/2.8 + 2x teleconverter | 400mm | 1/200s at f/5.6

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Keep The Fire Burning

Keep The Fire Burning
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Even on the coldest nights you can still find a fire to keep warm.   The fire is in you and you have to keep it going.  I know, its hard sometimes.  The world seems out to get you and everything seems wrong, or bent, or even sinister.  That is when you need to look deep and find that something that burns inside of you.  God put it there.  All you need to do is open your heart and you will find it!

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Sisters

Sisters
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Three beautiful sisters at a wedding.  It has been a busy busy Summer - and looks like the Fall will be no different.  Seemed like we had a long spell of no weddings and now everyone is getting married.  I just love this photo as I think it captured the joy of being together to celebrate a wonderful day.  This was taken with my Panasonic Lumix LX7.  It is a nice lice little  camera but hardly state of the art.  But you don't need the top camera to have a nice picture!  We are so lucky to have great cameras…

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Snyder Park

Snyder Park
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Traveling traveling traveling!  All I have been doing is traveling.  Well, I am back now and time to catch up with my life. I took this shot in Springfield, Ohio, in Snyder Park.  Its funny how you can find an interesting scene just by looking around.  Not much of a park but it does have some nice spots. Probably a good thing to do more often - slow down and look for good things.  Beauty is all around us if we only look.  Seems like only the ugly draws our attention, there is nothing like a car wreck to make…

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Foggy Morning on Doty Island

Foggy Morning on Doty Island
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October is here and the mornings are starting to feel like Fall.  I have been out and about the past few weeks on a variety of assignments for my day job.  The next few weeks will be about the same.  This shot was taken on Doty Island as the fog started to clear.  I only had my 100mm lens with me so I had to take 5 shots and stitch them together into a panorama. With the 100mm I set my shutter speed at 1/100 sec (about as slow as I dared to avoid camera shake).  At a f/9 aperture,…

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Pewit’s Nest – Baraboo

Pewit’s Nest – Baraboo
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Road Trip(!) Saturday.  Went down to Pewit's Nest natural area.  Very pretty - maybe more people than I would expect for a late Saturday afternoon in September... Late afternoon and it was relatively dark in the woods.  So the problem is too high ISO sensitivity which equals noise.  So I set the ISO to 640 - pretty low noise on my 5d - and the shutter speed and aperture on manual.  From past experience I can handhold this lens at 1/15seconds so set the speed there and then the aperture to get a reasonable exposure. Canon 5d MkIII | Canon…

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Hanging Out

Hanging Out
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Just a casual portrait in the park. Nothing fancy, nothing planned - just look at the camera and and the shutter snaps.  This is both the easiest and the hardest portrait to capture.  Sometimes it just happens and it is effortless, but just try and get this look on purpose.  We are so self conscious today and we all "pose" for the camera.  Fake smiles, fake poses, fake Facebook lives.  Why is it so hard to be natural?   Canon 5d Mk III | Canon 24-105 f/4 L | 105mm | 1/240s at f/4.0

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Storm in September

Storm in September
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A storm comes in from the West.  It is September but really hot and humid the past few days.  I caught this in the early evening as the front came in - perfect timing.  A few minutes later and it was heavy rain with boring grey overhead.  I did not have my widest lens with me so I shot this as a panorama and stitched together 5 shots.   Canon 5d MkIII | Canon 25-105 f/4 | 24mm | 1/40s at f/9.0

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Labor Day Sunday Worship

Labor Day Sunday Worship

St. Mark's joined with Gloria Dei, St. Paul and Our Savior's for a public worship service in Riverside Park, Neenah.  Wonderful time together and such a beautiful morning.        Canon 5d MkIII | Canon 70-200 f/2.8 II | 200mm | 1/250s at f/4.0

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Video Shoot on the Wolf River

Video Shoot on the Wolf River
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We had a video shoot on the Wolf River (near Fremont) yesterday afternoon.  Always great fun to do shoot some video with old friend and to make some new friends.  Did a bit of still photo action shots along with the video and I will post them later this week.  The keys to this shot is a very high shutter speed to freeze the action and a smooth panning motion to reduce any camera shake.  The consequence of the high shutter speed is you need to shoot at an open aperture to avoid excessive ISO noise.  Focus precision becomes critical…

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Max and Saurab at High Cliff

Max and Saurab at High Cliff
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Site seeing with some friends from Grenoble, France. We watched a beautiful sunset at High Cliff State Park and really enjoyed the colors. This is a technically difficult picture to pull off for several reasons.  The first is the backlight from the sunset will fool your camera into making their faces really dark.  However, if you expose for their faces the sunset will be too bright and all the color will be lost.  The second is the high depth of field requires a small aperture which will drive the shutter speed down and the ISO up.  Low shutter speed -…

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Best Laid Plans

Best Laid Plans
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The best laid plans of mice and men Go often askew, And leave us nothing but grief and pain, For promised joy! Robert Burns August full moon and I was ready!  It was a beautiful night in Oshkosh - just perfect!  Temp was around 80, modest humidity and there was music playing at Waterfest.  I arrived on time and set up the perfect shot.  I would capture the full moon rising between the girders of the rail road bridge across the Fox River.  This would be an awesome shot with the diagonal bridge outlined acaings the darkening sky.  I used…

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Another Sunset

Another Sunset
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Another sunset picture.  The light was so beautiful and made everything so special. When you look around the world it is so easy to worry about the future - the news is all bad news!  But, if you step away you see that there is so much beauty in the world.  Yes, the news is bad, but it has always been bad!  Always some crisis or flood or war or law and order issue.  We live in this world and and we care so we want thing to be better.  That is a good thing and we should never stop…

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Photography Class – Update

Photography Class – Update
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Final preparations for my photography class are underway.  The class will be "cookbook" hands on photography - minimal jargon and technical stuff and more how to set your camera to get the best results.  Just finished up pictures with the beautiful DeAnna to help demonstrate what lens settings will do.  Watch for updates on the days and times and enrollment.  Class size will be limited!

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Another Sunset

Another Sunset
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Another beautiful sunset in Neenah.  This is from the Friendship trial on the Fox River.  A cold front was moving in and created beautiful clouds, colors and light.  This is a composite of 10 photos stitched together in Photoshop CS6.  The challenge here was to keep the ISO down to prevent noise while getting a low blue shutter speed and sufficient depth of field. Canon 5d MkIII | Canon 24-105 f/4 L | 24mm | 1/25s at f/6.3  

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Wet Rocks at Loon Lake

Wet Rocks at Loon Lake
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Just some rocks on the lake shore...not even a particularly good picture.  Taken at 200mm with a non macro lens.  Shallow depth of field so not much in focus.  So why do I like this picture?  I guess it is just the colors and the patterns.  Or maybe it pulls some memories out - some beach when I was a kid.  I do love going to the beach because it makes me feel young and Summer would go on forever.   Canon 5d MkIII | Canon 70-200 f/2.8 L II | 1/800s at f/3.2

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Wild

Wild
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Stay back! That is what he seems to be saying to me!  Sometimes life is like that - you rush in and don't always see the warning signs that you are too close.  We're too busy, too much in a hurry, too focused on the next goal to look around and see the landscape around us.  We need to slow down and enjoy things!   Canon 5d MkIII | Canon 84mm f/1.8 | 1/1250 f/5.6

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A Busy Beautiful Day

A Busy Beautiful Day
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Busy day - busy week.  It seems like Summer has just been, so far, just a whirlwind of activity! I feel blessed that so much is in my life! I also feel a bit overwhelmed that so much is in my life! Yesterday was a wonderful day.  Between storms I had a shoot with an old friend and a new friend (getting ready for my photo class this Fall).  It was hot and muggy but it was also so much fun working together.  While I was winding down my wife noticed the sunset.  Like a shot I was out the…

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Sunday Morning

Sunday Morning
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It's Sunday morning and the children's sermon is waiting.  I think this is just a cool portrait!  I know it's just a stuffed animal, but all the components of a great portrait are there.  Good color, a nice setting, great "eye" focus.  Most of all, it is an interesting story (at least I think so).  That is what a good photo really is - a good story.  A good portrait makes you wonder "what is she thinking?" or "what is going to happen next".  Personality comes through but mixed with mystery.  You enter the picture and your imagination is an…

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Life is Tough

Life is Tough

Poor tree!  You grow for years on the side of the mountain and just mind your own business.  Then one day along comes the insects.  The tunnel under your skin and eat away.  Nothing you can do.  Then one day along comes an elk.  Beautiful animal!  Majestic animal!  Itchy animal!  Just walks up and scrapes off you bark!  At least it got rid of the insects... Canon 5d Mk III | Canon 35mm f/2 II | 1/320s at f/5.6

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