09-09-12 I Have Photographed Royalty

I have been to Buckingham Palace but I've never taken a photo of the Queen. But I have photographed KiYi Royalty many times. In this case, I am showing you a picture of all of the 2006 Watertown High School KiYi royalty. The Princess and Chieftain (following a Native American theme) were Ben Dylla and Carissa Hauck.I am publishing this photo because Watertown High School's homecoming week starts today and, like small town homecomings all over the US, it is marked with pageantry, celebration and a general disregard for the primary purpose of high schools everywhere - educating the young. I wonder if they let school out early for such things in China?

02-01-12 Kristin

Here's another photo from my photographic past, this time of Kristin, one of the many fine gymnasts who represented Watertown Senior High School's gymnastic program. Not only was she a great gymnast but she was a wonderful portrait subject.This photo was taken at her parents' dance and gymnastics center, Dakota Gold. As I recall, I hadn't graduated to strobe lights and so I was using my "hot" lights. The advantage of continuous lighting is that the light you see is the light you get. The disadvantage is that it doesn't produce a lot of light. Thus, I was forced to use a fairly wide aperture. Truth be told, this photo suffers from camera shake, but ten years ago I wasn't smart of enough to see that. Today, this is a photo that probably wouldn't have seen the light of day.But I like the photo and so to try to make it look good, I used selective sharpening on Kristin's eyes. And then I blurred everything in Aperture, which is a great tool to help make art out of something that is less than perfect. Kristin, of course, is the most perfect part of this photo. :-)

Where I Work

Just in case some of you are lounging in tropical climes and were missing the experience of a South Dakota winter, this may help. This is one of the west doors at Watertown High School a month ago on a day that wasn't exactly a "Chamber of Commerce" day.The good news is that most of that snow is gone now, though we did experience a mini-blizzard earlier this week. Years ago our state tourism department used "Be glad you live in South Dakota" as their slogan. But they dropped it for some reason.But, still, I do like South Dakota. I just don't like winter. Anywhere.