11-09-12 Jeff

This blog is decidedly apolitical. If there is any political content, it is so subliminal that even I am not aware of it.That aside, in the USA we just finished conducting our once-every-four-year presidential contest and the incumbent won. In South Dakota we conducted our state legislative races and Jeff, the subject of this post, was one of the candidates. In his race the incumbent won, too, which means that Jeff, the challenger, lost.I have never known a candidate for office who believed that he or she wasn't good and right for the office they were running for. And I imagine that when you lose, you wonder if what you believe about yourself is true. I also know that good candidates invest not only some of their money but a good part of their heart and soul. The money can be recovered, I suppose, but a loss must cause wounds that are otherwise slow to heal. All of that makes me grateful for people like Jeff who take the risk of being a candidate.I gladly accepted Jeff's request to capture a casual portrait to be used in a political mailing. My motive for saying "yes" wasn't political. My reason was that I believe that Jeff is a good and genuine person whose cause is public service. It's hard to go wrong taking portraits of people like that. . .

11-06-12 The Right Place At the Right Time

Here's another portrait from the archives (2007). This shot is of Gabe H. and the location is a short distance away from the abandoned farms that I have posted several times in this blog. What made this photo special to me was the subject: Gabe was relaxed, happy and, being a country girl, in her element.The timing was right, too. This is a beautiful field of ready-to-harvest wheat and the setting sun was strong enough to create excellent backlighting. To balance the sunlight, I put the camera in Aperture Priority mode and used a shoot-through umbrella and a Canon flash running off of a Canon IR transmitter. This lighting set-up is very user friendly and does a good job lighting Gabe, especially her eyes. Because South Dakota is a windy place, using an umbrella lighting set-up outside is risky. But on this particular evening it was calm and quiet.I could return to this field on the same date at the same time for a decade and not get the conditions I had on this evening in July. I certainly believe that good timing is the essence of good photography and this photo may be evidence of that.Canon 1D Mark II 1/160s f/4.0 ISO200 59mm

11-01-12 Halloween

Several of my studio photography students spent most of the day yesterday getting face paint applied and then documenting their efforts in the studio. The makeup artist was Alli, who is also a talented photographer. The subject of this portrait is Valerie, who is a talented photographer, too. And she is a natural in front of the camera. :-)Canon 5DIII 1/125s f/8.0 ISO200 70mm

10-27-12 Serenade

This photo documents both an impromptu performance by our son Brian and my Mom's last Thanksgiving outing in 2008. I had forgotten about this photo and I'm happy I'm a packrat.

10-19-12 Justin

Just to prove that I do take portraits of guys from time to time, here's a picture of Justin P that I took a few years ago at my favorite old farm.

10-16-12 Emily

After finishing our "normal" outdoor and studio sessions, Emily asked if we could get together for a few photos when winter set in. Being inexperienced with taking outdoor portraits in cold weather I said, "Sure."And it theory it was a good idea. In practice, I found that I got only a few photos before the cold January day turned her face from rosy red to red. So much for winter portraits on a cold day. But even in bad conditions, it's hard to take a bad picture of a good subject like Emily. :-)(Incidentally, my weather source tells me that it averaged 4 degrees celsius and reached a high of 10 degrees. That's cold!)Canon 5DI 1/200s f/3.2 ISO100 100mm

10-13-12 Photo Walkers

I don't generally post informal group photos like this. But this is not your average group of people. These folks are the participants in the Watertown, SD, Worldwide Photo Walk, which happened this morning.I was worried about our weather, since October can bring cold, blustery conditions. But it was a great morning to be wandering around Uptown Watertown. And I had a great time. I hope the participants did, too.

10-06-12 Jessica & James

09-22-12 Gentle

That's little Ethan D grasping his aunt Deb's thumb.Canon 5D 1/80s f/2.0 ISO640 135mm

09-19-12 The Youngest Shep

I don't know what it says about me that I take more pictures of things than I do of people. I don't know the answer to that but I do know that I don't see my youngest son, Jon, enough.This photo was taken near Sitka, Alaska, a few years ago. At the time, Jon was working for an adventure company and we got the royal treatment when we visited. And I liked Sitka, except that it stayed in the 50s the whole time we were there. (July!)

08-23-12 Refuge

This photo could have been captured anywhere in the western world, I suppose, though its not something you'd see in our small town, mainly because they would feel like they would stand out.This photo was taken in a busy section of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and the woman was so enthralled by her book that she wasn't aware of my camera, which once again turned by into a bit of a voyeur.Canon 5DII 1/125s f/4.5 ISO320 102mm

08-21-12 Self-Conscious

I took this informal portrait of a waitress at the VooDoo BBQ restaurant on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans. She wasn't the least bit self-conscious, as I think you can see in this photo. I was.And it occurs to me that when I am self-conscious as a photographer, I am not conscious of other, more important considerations than me. For example, if I had been totally "focused" on the task of getting a decent portrait of this young woman, I would have checked the full frame. I would have removed the styrofoam cup behind her. I would have tried to frame the photo so there wasn't a distracting bright area in the upper left corner of the photo. And I would never had tried to take a portrait with a 1/50 sec shutter speed.Why was I self-conscious? Well, I don't normally take semi-posed photos of people I don't know. And I had 5 of my photo/media students sitting at the table watching me.Like so many other subjects and places I've photographed, I'd like to have another chance at the VooDoo BBQ restaurant.Canon 5DII 1/50s f/3.2 ISO1000 50mmPlease take the "A Photo A Day" survey!