12-15-12 Tokyo Street Scene (Reprise)

I am taking a bit of a break from my blog and so I thought I'd post a few of my favorites.

12-14-12 Belgian Delicacies (Reprise)

I am taking a bit of a break from my blog and so I thought I'd post a few of my favorites.

12-13-12 Fairy Tale (Reprise)

I am taking a bit of a break from my blog and so I thought I'd post a few of my favorites.

12-12-12 From Another Era (Reprise)

I am taking a bit of a break from my blog and so I thought I'd post a few of my favorites.

12-11-12 School's Out

I taught at Watertown Senior high school for several decades and I can tell you that it's amazing how quickly the halls fill with students at 3:31, when the final class is done. It's also amazing how quickly the school gets quiet as students end their day and head for home.Incidentally, I would call this an editorial photo and it was part of a series for the WHS yearbook a few years ago.

12-09-12 Experiment With Bokeh and Water Glass

As far as photographic experiments go, I would say that this photo represents a successful failure. I spent time yesterday learning about the quality of bokeh produced by various lenses at various degrees of focus. In the midst of this, I had the idea of putting a full glass of water in front of our Christmas tree. I imagined that the round bokeh would show up in the water glass, given the lens effect that water can have. But I imagined wrong. Oh, well. . .What I like about this photo is that everything is soft and round - except the way the light shows up in the water glass. Here, it is sharp and linear. Too abstract? Boring? Maybe. I suspect I will revisit this idea to see if I can end up with something better.

12-08-12 A Taste of Winter

"So what does winter taste like?" you ask. It's cold and bland, I suppose, though South Dakotans are a bit perverse when it comes to winter weather: as much as we might complain about snow and cold, we appreciate, and perhaps even savor, a snow storm such as the one that moved into our state today.What I have a hard time savoring is the fact that the snow that falls this weekend will probably be here for weeks to come. I like this shade of white a lot more. . .

12-06-12 Kinkankuji

I'll have to admit that I like this photo, which isn't something I'm inclined to say about my work. A photo should speak for itself, I guess.But I like this one because it's green, and South Dakota is anything but green right now. I also like it because I rescued it from the virtual dumpster. Finally, I like it because it helps me see the value of software processes in a photographer's work flow. I don't want to get technical in today's post but I will say that I started with this image (click), and ended up with the "adjusted" version in the blog. They say you can't fool Mother Nature. But she can be enhanced. :-)Kinkankuji is otherwise known as the Golden Pavilion, which is near/in Kyoto, Japan. Here's a satellite view (click) of the location. I wish I could tell you exactly where I was standing when I took this, but I wasn't in to GPS fixes in 2004, when we visited Japan

12-05-12 HDR in B&W (Variations on a Theme)

Yes, I repeat myself. But it isn't because I'm being lazy today. It's because I couldn't decided if I liked the color version of this photo (yesterday's post) or the black and white version. So I offer both.

12-04-12 Magical (HDR)

This is another HDR photo taken on the same outing as "Back To Lonesome Lake." This one was taken 15 minutes before the Lonesome lake photo. At sunset, a minute or can be significant in the look you get. And, as I think you can see, 15 minutes can be worlds apart as far and the light and cloud cover are concerned.

12-03-12 Still Life With Shepherd, Lamb and Bokeh

I like the fact that lowly shepherds play a role in the Christmas story. So when Deb was shopping for Christmas decorations, I couldn't resist buying two figures from a Nativity collection. I would have bought more sheep but they were $1.98 apiece and I didn't want to invest too much into what I knew would result in one photo.Incidentally, I have assigned a bokeh photo to my students and so I offer one here. And since I've done a holiday bokeh thing two years in a row (2010) (2011), I guess I've established an annual tradition by offering one now. . . .

12-02-12 Back To Lonesome Lake (HDR)

It has been more than a year since I have photographed near Lonesome Lake. That session resulted in the photo I donated to the "fireplace room" at Lake Area Technical Institute in Watertown, South Dakota.On this occasion, I told Deb around 4:15 yesterday afternoon that I was going to go looking for a photo opportunity. I wanted to see if I could get something in HDR at sunset that would look good. Then, I invited her along for the ride and she said "yes." What a treat!I started heading north of our town, all the while watching the sun and clouds off to the southwest. My vision for the photo involved bare trees and a beautiful sky just before or just after sunset. I also didn't want any clear signs of civilization. If you go 20 miles north and a few miles west of Watertown, that isn't hard to do.After one other stop, I ended up at Lonesome Lake. By that time, the sun had set, and the clouds weren't all that interesting. But I thought that I could at least show Deb the location. It was getting dark but I decided to try to take a series of photos, knowing that the camera sees light in ways that I don't. I also knew that if I put my camera on a tripod and bracketed the exposures properly, I had several software tools that might produce something worth sharing.And here's the result. There is a surprising amount of texture in this photo, especially given that this (click here) is much closer to what I was seeing when I took the series. Pretty interesting, isn't it?