12-07-12 Morning Stroll

This photo was published on Instagram a while ago but I think my audience is a little different here, so here you go. This is Katie and Brian strolling in their beautiful neighborhood in St. Paul, Minnesota.

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?

12-01-12 Frosty

On this first day of December, I offer you a photo of something that Hawaiians would never see. Lest I give Hawaiians an inferiority complex for saying this, there are plenty of things they could photograph that South Dakotans couldn't find at home. Active volcanoes, rain forests, black sand beaches, plumeria trees,f and the Pacific Ocean are a few that come to mind.

11-30-12 here.i.m

If I were an M&M, I'd be brown. I am an introvert who would rather blend in. And, in most observable ways, I am a conformist. And, when I am immersed in my photography, I disappear. . . .Check out the Shutterbug article featuring my blog.

11-29-12 RGB

I would call this an editorial photo. Instead of creating something that is artistic and packed with emotion, I wanted to take a photo that would help reinforce the technical aspect of how cameras and photo editing software see color, which is referred to as RGB, or red, green, blue.This was initially going to be a full color photo with all of the RGB M&Ms clustered in the front. But my colleague Dennis (click to visit his blog) suggested that I use selective coloring in Aperture instead. And voila! Here you have it.Check out the Shutterbug article featuring my blog.And did you know that you can subscribe to my blog by filling in the email form at the bottom of the page? Yes, you can!

11-28-12 In the Beginning Was the Word

I'm no Bible expert but I know of at least two books in the Christian Bible that start with "In the beginning. . . " One is Genesis and the other is John, in the New Testament. This photo (yes, I took the picture!) shows the first line from the Koine Greek New Testament, which I still have from my college days.The inspiration for today's photo is a diesel student of mine named Connor, whom I have in a communications class. In short, he said a few days ago that he thought I would make a good diesel mechanic because, as he said it, "You read. And people who can read can do anything."All of that got me thinking of the empowerment of precise language and fluent literacy. It also made me realize that with the right words, we can explain most everything that humans can sense and experience, including the diagnosis and repair of a diesel engine.John was talking about God when he refers to "the word." But the last word in my photo is "logos," which translated means "word." But it is also the basis of our word "logic." So maybe that was one of the manifestations of God: order, instead of chaos and clear explanations instead of confusion?As the voice of Stephen Hawking says at the beginning of the Pink Floyd song "Keep Talking,"

"For millions of years mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happenend which unleashed the power of our imagination: we learned to talk."

And if you made it this far in today's post, you must be fairly literate. :-)

11-26-12 ALF

When I wandered out into my wife's dormant flower garden, I noticed the cornflowers first, mainly because they are still standing. Bare and brown, they still shout, "Look at me!"ALF is an acronym made popular by a sitcom that Robin Williams starred in a long time ago. It means "alien life form." And that's what I see when I see these cornflower hulks: they look like something from another place. And close up, they remind me of the evil Death Star in the Star Wars movie.Such is the nature of my imagination when I put the camera to my eye. . . .

11-25-12 Happiness

There are many ways to picture happiness but I would choose the look on Evie's face from this Thanksgiving's celebration to illustrate it. It's hard to know what she's thinking, but in the arms of her loving great grandmother, it can only be good things. . . .