Category Archives: Experimental

Minnesota Photo Project: Week 14

I took this at one of our local parks while the kiddos were running around. You never know what interesting things you will find around you.

Exposure: 1/400 sec, Aperture: f/2.0, Focal Length: 50mm, ISO 100

Zimmerman Wood Chips

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Minnesota Photo Project: Week 8

While taking some pictures of our kids outside on one of the few warmer days we’ve had, I noticed my daughter’s pine cone birdfeeder she had made in preschool. It was a breezy so I had to shoot quick to avoid too much motion blur. Once in Lightroom, I noticed several had some decent blue for the sky but overall, the shot was a bit boring so I mixed things up a bit to give it a much different look.

Exposure: 1/1000 sec, Aperture: f/2.0, Focal Length: 50mm, ISO 100

Blue Pine Cone

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Minnesota Photo Project: Week 1

It’s been a cold January thus far (is it spring yet) and on one of our cold nights, I noticed this bit of frost on one of our windows. I waited until the next morning and used the macro function of my 28-135mm (memo to self: add macro lens to wish list) to capture this photograph. I used the Direct Positive present in LR2 to make the background blue and the frost to stand out a bit more.

Exposure: 1/50 sec, Aperture: f/5.6, Focal Length: 135mm, ISO 400

Frosty Window

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52 Week Project: Week 50

I had a night out in Lincoln, NE back in October and found a parking garage I could use as a tripod to practice some traffic light trails. I haven’t done a lot of night time photography but will pursue more when it gets a bit warmer out.

Exposure: 2.5 sec, Aperture: f/7.1, Focal Length: 28mm, ISO 100

Lincoln Light Trails

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52 Week Project: Week 48

This barn constantly catches my attention (or torments me) every time I drive by it. It’s a amazing setting but I’ve yet to grab what my eye sees. This is a HDR composite of five images that I’m still not thrilled about due to not having a dynamic enough sky and it’s a bit “busy” with too much going on. It’s a good reminder not to have too much in a photograph to distract the viewer. Perhaps next time.

Zimmerman Barn

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52 Week Project: Week 46

I spent a couple of days in North Dakota last week and on my drive back, stopped to enjoy the sunset. I found this railroad crossing and was taking a few pictures that didn’t turn out. I was too lazy to grab my 430EX and opted to use the on-camera flash of the 50D to experiment a little on the crossing sign.

I think at this point in my photographic journey, this sign represents a crossroads of sorts in figuring out what I want to do not only with this blog but with photography in general. More to come…

Exposure: 1/125 sec, Aperture: f/7.1, Focal Length: 56mm, ISO 100, Flash Exposure Compensation: -2.0

Sunset Railroad Crossing

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52 Week Project: Week 35

This entrance light to the ore docks at Two Harbors has made an appearance on my blog way back in what seems like the dark ages when I wasn’t paying attention to composition (rule of thirds, anyone?). I was back in Two Harbors in July and had some nasty, harsh noontime sun, which made shooting a bit difficult for a second chance at this light.

After doing a little post production work, I decided to try some extreme changes and actually kinda liked how this version came out. I feel it gives a grainy texture to it and it looks like it was shot on some old film. I wouldn’t make a print of this but was a good exercise in getting me out of my comfort zone.

Exposure: 1/600 sec, Aperture: f/11.0, Focal Length: 135mm, ISO 200

Two Harbor Light

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52 Week Project: Week 32

While up in Duluth, MN, I spent one evening down at the Leif Erickson Park shooting. Across the street from the park is the Duluth Armory. For this photograph, I took the the exposure the camera came up with and then bracketed it by -2 and +2 and then infused the three images together using LR/Enfuse. I used the adjustment brush in LR2 to drop the exposure of the sky down a little more and boosted the clarity. It was a good experiment and one I’ll probably try a bit more of in the future (as you can tell, I need a little more practice w/the Adjustment Brush.)

Exposure: 1/160 sec, Aperture: f/7.1, Focal Length: 28mm, ISO 200

Duluth Armory

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52 Week Project: Week 16

I took in my first game at Target Field last Thursday and it is a rather impressive baseball stadium. My allegiance will always be for the Brewers but I do cheer for the Twins since they are in the American League and it doesn’t interfere with the Brew Crew (except when they play each other then it’s Go Brewers!).

I didn’t have as much time as I would have liked to just walk around and take pictures (I did manage 75 but mostly of the field) but I was able to practice some attempts at motion blur. Not spectacular but it was something I hadn’t spent much time doing up to this point so I took advantage of the unsuspecting crowd.

Exposure: 1.0 sec, Aperture: f/22, Focal Length: 35mm, ISO 200

Target Field Concourse

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New Glarus Organic Revolution

Spent a little time in Madison last month and was able to enjoy some New Glarus Organic Revolution as well as play with my new wireless flash system, courtesy of the fine folks at AlienBees. The flash is sitting on the table behind and slightly right of the bottle and the flash output was adjusted to 1/64 power. I should have cleaned the desk prior to shooting.

Exposure: 1/250 sec, Aperture: f/3.5, Focal Length: 28 mm, ISO 200

New Glarus Organic Revolution

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