My Life (42)

• March 24, 2016
• Blog

Woke up this morning to snow and almost went back to bed! It's not that I hate snow - it's just I have had enough for this Winter! Sometimes I feel like I just go around and around and don't seem to be able to make any progress.  Objectively, everything is going great (and I don't feel depressed or even sad) just sometimes I feel time is getting short and I have a lot to do before I go. This picture is some machinery I encountered in my world travels this year.  Processed with Silver Effex Pro to desaturate and…

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Joy

• March 21, 2016
• Blog

A beautiful young lady in Madison.  Trader Joes run this weekend for coffee, ginger snaps and various urban supplies. Just a simple portrait in a toy store.  So much joy and happiness in this picture.  You can see an awesome future ahead of her! A quick pose - no flash.  Set the camera to aperture mode f/5.6 and let it meter the shot.  The Canon 24-105 f/4 L is one of my favorite lenses for trips.  It has a nice focal range, not too heavy and very nice color rendition.  Only an f/4 so not the best at low light…

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Innocent

• March 16, 2016
• Blog

A quick portrait on Sunday morning.  No time to adjust so you point and shoot.  Didn't turn out too bad I think.  Something about a young person - so innocent, so open!    Canon 5d MkIII | Canon EF 85mm | 1/60 sec at f/2.5

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March Thunder

• March 9, 2016
• Blog

Thunder and Lightning last night as we get a warm beginning to March.  The main part of the storm was over Oshkosh and we actually had clear skies overhead.  You can see Saturn on the right and a bunch of stars. This photo was taken with a 10 second exposure and at 200 ISO.  I just kept taking pictures and a few worked out well.   Canon 5d MkIII | Canon 16-35 f/4 L | 35mm | 10 sec at f/4

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Creation

• March 7, 2016
• Blog

Creation is an act of patience, faith and love. A block of wood has its own kind of beauty.  The grain and the color and all the details that the tree put into it as a function of the weather and sunlight and soil. But within that block is another kind of beauty.  The creator sees a new form hidden within the block of wood. With time and work the wood slowly reveals the form within. The creator shapes the wood but I think the wood also has its say in the creation.  The grain here fights the shape and…

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Window Light

• March 4, 2016
• Blog

Another shot from the last portraits.  Such a pretty smile and the light coming in from the windows is so flattering. I love doing this kind of portrait - catching the joy in a young person is so amazing. I took this portrait using a bit of bounce flash to fill in her face.  The flash was flagged to block direct light and bounced off the wall and ceiling.  The walls and ceiling are a nice light brown wood and I think gave off a nice golden light.  Focus was on her eyes and I used a very shallow f/2.2…

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Last Day of February

• March 1, 2016
• Blog

The last day of February as the sun rises over Lake Winnebago.  So Long February - let's hope March is warm and sunny! Lots of open water on the lake - the warm weather the past 2 weeks has had an impact.  The top is slushy but there were fishing shacks still on the lake yesterday. Taken with my Panasonic Lumix LX-7. Panasonic Lumix LX-7 | 4.7mm | 1/125 sec f/5.6

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A Winter Sail

• February 29, 2016
• Blog

End of February and I am dreaming of Summer!  Kind of early this year but there it is... I love early Winter - the snow and the the cold are beautiful!  But this time of year I am ready for warm and sun and boating. This portrait was taken last year and I used some magic to move from Neenah to the Florida keys.  Looks like so much fun... Canon 7d | Sigma 18-250 | 31mm | 1/30s f/8.0 | Canon 430 Flashes

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Potstickers

• February 23, 2016
• Blog

Potstickers - what more is there to say but Yum Yum!  

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Lantern Festival – Full Moon

• February 22, 2016
• Blog

We celebrated the Lantern Festival last night with dear friends.  Unfortunately there were too many clouds to seen the full moon so this shot from the last full moon will have to do.  The Lantern Festival occurs on the first full moon after Chinese New Year and is a time for celebration, family and friends Lantern Festival. The moon is especially hard to shoot as it is so bright!  Your camera wants to overexpose so you usually have to set the camera to manual.  This shot was taken at 200mm on a tripod with a 10 second delay to minimize…

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Winter Road

• February 19, 2016
• Blog

The snow is going away with the warm weather - might rain tonight!  We're now getting into the only part of the year  I do not enjoy - late Winter.  Still dark, snow, rain, warm , cold, wet, a nice day and then a bunch of sloppy ones!  Oh, well, Spring is on its way; global warming don't fail me now! This shot was taken with my newish 100mm macro.  You don't normally think of a macro (or a 100mm) as landscape lenses but I think this really works for this photo.  The 100mm compresses the scene and gives a…

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Saturday Portrait

• February 17, 2016
• Blog

Just a quick portrait at church on Saturday (for the Crossways camp meeting).  Taken at f/2.2. to get a shallow depth of field - the focus was on her eyes.  I used a bit of fill flash that I bounced off the walls.  The rest of the light was from the stained glass windows on both sides. Canon 5d MkIII | Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 | 1/200s f/2.2

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Saturday Night Pizza Night

• February 15, 2016
• Blog

Saturday night was pizza and sushi night! The fire rolled out the top of the oven as we got up to 900 degrees.  First time running the oven at night and I though it was so beautiful! Amazingly the 5d creanked up to 10,000 ISO for this shot and the noise is so minimal!  What a wonderful machine - I am so blessed to be able to use it! You can see my video of the construction of the oven on Vimeo.com Canon 5d MkIII | Canon 16-35 f/4 L | 35mm | 1/30 sec at f/5

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Frost

• February 10, 2016
• Blog

Frost and cold today! Again! While waiting for the construction folks to show up I caught this macro shot of frost on a twisty branch. The hardest thing about macro is getting as much in focus as possible.  This was shot at f/13.  About as much depth as possible while avoiding a loss of sharpness.  I took this handheld and this was the best of 4 shots.  The image stabilization is a lot of help but it doesn't help with focus in the Z plane (the distance between the lens and the branch). Canon 5d MkIII | Canon 100mm macro…

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Second Birth

• February 8, 2016
• Blog

St. Mark's annual meeting was this past Sunday and I once again produced a video of the past year's memories.  Here is one of my favorite captures of the year.  Baptism is a wonderful birth - a second birth into the world of God's love!  So much beauty in this picture, so much symbolism! The photographer in me loves the golden ratio composition and curves that lead your eyes to the baby. The Christian in me loves the awareness of the baby.  The water is applied and the baby looks to the camera; what is he thinking?  Was this random…

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Where to?

• February 5, 2016
• Blog

One step in front of the other, again and again... Where am I going?  One of those mornings where I feel a dozen different things pulling at me.  I have 20 things to do at my day gig.  I have 20 things to do at home.  I have 20 things I want to do in my media business.  Pictures to take, pictures to edit, videos to put together. I want to finish setting up my photography class! And so it goes on and on. Sometimes I envy people who seem to have one consuming passion and that is all they…

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Frosty Morning on the Wiouwash Trail

• February 3, 2016
• Blog

A cold and frosty morning on the Wiouwash State trial - Neenah.  Last night it was really damp and the frost was everywhere this morning.  And then around luch time the snow came in and dropped 4-6 inches.  I took this before work and you can see the mist hanging in the air.  As always I over exposed by about 1/2 a stop to get the snow to white.  I also did a bit of burning in photoshop to smooth out the trial. Canon 5d MkIII | Canon 100mm macro f/2.8 |  1/100 sec at f/16 See all of my…

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Portrait Retouch – 1917

• February 1, 2016
• Blog

I found an old portrait on some stock photo sites.  All I can find is this was taken around 1917.  I used it to practice my photoshop skills.  The general procedure I followed was: Import into photoshop and resize to 4500 pixels wide Do a very hard noise reduction in Topaz Denoise to remove the banding and artifacts I then added back some skin texture with an add noise layer I colorized the picture using multiple color layers - one layer for each component I combined all the visible layers into a new layer I used Topaz Clarity to sharpen…

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Cold and Dark

• January 29, 2016
• Blog

End of January and not much sunlight this year.  I like the first snow and the early Winter but February starts to get to me!  Seems like it is happening early this year.  January is normally sunny... This was the view from Kimberly Point yesterday and kind of sums up the whole month. Another snowy picture so I set the exposure for 2/3 stop over to compensate for the whiteness. Canon 5d MkIII | Canon 16-35 f/4 | 1/320 sec at f/11

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Two Bridges in Winter

• January 27, 2016
• Blog

Four inches of fresh snow last night and everything is clean and beautiful.  I went out to get some macro (close up) photos with my new 100mm lens.  Ended up doing some landscapes instead.  Too much snow to climb through so I stuck to the parking lots and roads.  Of course, that didn't prevent me from stepping into a deep water filled rut!  Nothing like a shoe full of water to wake one up! Snow pictures are often difficult as your camera will fight you for the exposure.  The camera thinks the world is grey and so makes the snow…

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Little Winter Tree

• January 25, 2016
• Blog

We were given a little tree this year.  A young friend had raised the tree from just a tiny little shoot and it was growing too big for a pot.  She gave it to us and we planted it in our back yard.  We put some Christmas lights on it this year and have left the lights burning since.  I took this picture on an -8 F night and the little tree brought some light and love into our back yard. Canon 5d mkIII | Canon 70-200 f/2.8 L II | 200mm | 1/25 sec at f/2.8

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High Key in Sunlight

• January 18, 2016
• Blog

It may be cold outside but the sun still is warm as it streams through our kitchen.  A quick portrait in "high key".  High key is when the histogram is skewed to brighter so that there is essentailly no black in the picture and the luminance is very high across all colors.  I took this photo in aperture mode and set my camera to overexpose by 1 2/3 stops.  This blew out the sunlit kitchen to the right but also allowed for a proper exposure of her face.  If I had let the camera meter the scene the background would…

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Foggy January

• January 15, 2016
• Blog

January has been an adventure! Rain, warm, snow and bitter cold. Woke up this morning to 27 degrees after below zero all week.  Fog everywhere. Took this on my way to work this morning.  Some ice shoves on Lake Winnebago along with some thin patches from the rain.  Fog obscures the opposite shore. Canon 5d mkIII | Canon 16-35 f/4 L |   16mm @ f/13 | 1/320 sec | ISO 1000 You can check this photo out on my 500px.com Page https://500px.com/photo/136273295/foggy-january-by-jalan-lee  

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15th Anniversary

• January 15, 2016
• Blog / Wedding Photography

A special day at St. Mark's because we had a wedding vow renewal.  Fifteen years and still so in love! We did this portrait right after church.  The light coming into the windows was so nice.  I added a flash bounced off the side wall of the church to fill in the shadows. To get the balance between flash and ambient correct I shot in manual mode and set my shutter speed to 1/100 sec and aperture to f/5.6 to get the dept of field.  I then metered the scene and set the ISO to 640.  Flash was set on…

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Santa on my Tree

• January 13, 2016
• Blog

Another macro with the new Canon 100mm lens. The first photo is the original and the bottom photo is a zoomed in picture.  The detail is just stunning!  In fact, it might be too sharp as you can see every little flaw in the paint and every speck of dust.  Note to self:  blow off all macro subjects from now on to remove dust my eyes cannot see!  

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