05-13-09 People Watching

I'm back inside the Art Institute of Chicago with this photo. I think I've admitted to a penchant for watching people look at art when I'm in art galleries. I was photographing this bronze sculpture (name? artist?) when I saw the gentleman in the background walk into the frame. I'm not the only voyeur in the room - the naked boy is watching, too.

Canon 1D 1/60s f/3.2 ISO800 35mm

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05-12-16 Bowling

By Scott Shephard

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I posted a photo a couple weeks ago that elicited several responses amongst my facebook friends. It was called "Memories for Sale." Today I am posting two photos taken back in the late 1960s by an anonymous photographer that captures my mom and dad in great form.

In looking for photos to decorate my mom's new room in the nursing home she has moved to, my sister found these and stuck them up on the bulletin board. When I visited my mom this past weekend, they were one of the first things I noticed. I didn't have access to a scanner so I simple took photos of the photos. Thus, the quality isn't all that great. But to me, the great subjects make up for that.

05-11-09 A Blurry Band

By Scott Shephard

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I did a series of photos with this effect for the WHS yearbook a few years ago. There are two special techniques being used. One is called "dragging the shutter." What happens is that if you turn your flash on but manually adjust the shutter speed to a fairly slow speed, you can sometimes get some interest ghosting in the image. You can see that in the green t-shirt in the center of the photo. The other technique is to zoom in on some central subject while you push the exposure button. This creates a natural radial blur in the photo. I took 8 or 10 pictures before I got the effect I wanted.

Canon 5D 1/15s f/3.2 ISO100 75mm

05-10-09 Lunar Eclipse

By Scott Shephard

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The moon looks like a crescent moon but it is actually a lunar eclipse. My wife and I had driven east of Watertown to find a clear view of the night sky. By the time the moon was partially eclipsed, it had grown fairly dark. Thus, in this shot I am using an ISO setting that I tend to avoid. I had taken a few shots of the moon but then drove to a place where I could get something interesting in the foreground. The snow capped trees were perfect.

Canon 5D 1/80s f/6.3 ISO1000 195mm

05-09-09 Green Abstraction

This is close-up of one of the many plants growing in the back yard of the house we stayed at on the Big Island in 2006.

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05-08-09 House At Sunrise

Those who live in Watertown, SD, know this house well. It sits on a large lot on the edge of town. It's current location isn't where it was originally built. Perhaps someone else knows the history?

Check it out on a map here.

05-07-09 A Perfect Sunday Afternoon

To say that the Missouri River dams in South Dakota have changed the face of the river is an understatement. In the attempt to tame the river and tap its potential for irrigation and power, towns and burial burial sites were submerged and the original landscape of the "real" river was lost forever.

But just below the dams, I imagine that the River looks as close to what it might have looked like before the US Army Corps of Engineers brought in their heavy equipment. I also think that what you are seeing in this photo isn't significantly different from what the Lewis and Clark Expedition might have seen in 1803, when they made their way up-river.

They would have been blessed, as I was, to experience the quite calm of a Sunday afternoon on the Missouri River. View on Panoramio to see its geographical setting.

Canon 5DII 1/400s f/13.0 ISO250 45mm

05-06-09 Missouri River Bluffs

Though you can't see the Missouri River in this shot, you would if you walked up the hill you see in the background. This particular area is near the famous "Al's Oasis" restaurant in Central South Dakota. The evening before this picture was taken stormy weather moved through. But the morning dawned clear and bright.

View on Panoramio Compare to "A Different Season"

Canon 5DII 1/80s f/13.0 ISO320 82mm

05-05-09 Polly & I

Forgive the self-portrait, but since I posted my cat Mac yesterday, I thought I owed it to my dog Polly's memory to post one of her.

This is the last photo taken of Polly. She had been struggling with bladder cancer and had already had 1/3 of her bladder removed when symptoms of her problem recurred. On the day we took her to the vet to have her put to sleep, she and I went out to my studio for one last official portrait. I set the camera up on a tripod and hooked up a self-timer and took four shots. This is my favorite.

People who see this picture comment on the adoring way she seems to be staring at me and the way her paw seems to be posed on my bare foot. The adoring look really comes from Polly's eagerness for another treat, which I am holding in my hand. And the paw just happened to rest on my foot - it wasn't posed there.

They say that we should try to be the kind of person our dogs think we are. Even though Polly has been gone for over five years, I still try to keep that saying in mind. Are we too crazy about our pets?

05-04-09 Mac

By Scott Shephard

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This one showed up in a folder of film scans I hadn't looked at in a long time. Mac is fairly young in the picture and looks a little suspicious - he's probably afraid of my camera.

05-03-09 Memories For Sale

By Scott Shephard

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After my father died and my mother decided to move to an assisted living center a few years later, she sold the house in which I had grown up and held an auction for its contents. I was present at the auction and although I wasn't sad that day, I am saddened now when I look at the photos I took. If you could imagine all of the things that decorated the walls and stood on the shelves being boxed and then, with any luck, sold for a dollar or two, maybe you can understand my sadness.

This box of bowling trophies won by my mom and dad was one of three that was up for auction. No one even bid on them and I suppose they were thrown away. I guess there is no market for old bowling trophies. But when I look at these, there are so many things that I recall about the bowling leagues my parents participated in, the times I hung out at the bowling alley and the friends my parents knew through bowling.

For me, this picture is the most personal and powerful photo I have posted in this blog. I'm guessing most of you will look at it and wonder what the big deal is. . . .

05-02-09 Starfish Cactus - Hawaii

This photo was taken with a macro lens, which allows the camera to get within inches of the subject. The actual cactus is hard to see in this photo and the flower itself is less than 1" across. When my son, Jon, who lives in Hawaii, saw the photo, he said I was lucky to get this photo since they don't bloom very often. I wish I hadn't cut the tips off the ends of the star - I need to go back to Hawaii to get it right!

Canon 5D 1/30s f/10.0 ISO250 100mm

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License