Wishing all of you a Very Merry Christmas!
How should I shoot a parade?
- Nikon D200, Nikkor 24-120 mm f/4G ED VR
I still don't really know. I have asked myself this question last weekend. Joan and I were in Marcus, a small town in Northwest Iowa, for a school reunion. Another reason to be there was the 75th annual Marcus Community Fair. The city had a lot going on last weekend and one of the events was of course a parade. Fire engines, old-timer cars, people on horses, tractors, and many more colorful things were moving through the streets of Marcus. I have been at heir parade before four years ago, took a lot of pictures and didn't really like any of them. Why? Busy backgrounds, harsh light with high contrast, and making too many mistakes were the main reasons. I wanted to do much better this time.
- Nikon D200, Nikkor 24-120 mm f/4G ED VR
The parade started at 4 PM and there was still plenty of light available. First we chose a street with some big trees that covered the sky in the background and would minimize so the high contrast in the frame. I believe that worked well for most of the pictures.
- Nikon D200, Nikkor 24-120 mm f/4G ED VR
How about the background? There were cars parked along the streets, people in lawn chairs had lined up along the route of the parade, with other words it was hard to find a spot without a busy background. I tried to solve the problem by zooming in and leave as much as possible of the distracting parts out of the frame. It didn't always work, but like in this image of happy girls on horses I was able to keep the "dudes with their beer coolers" out of the frame. A little crop was necessary in some instances.
- Nikon D200, Nikkor 24-120 mm f/4G ED VR
I still don't feel comfortable about shooting an event like the Marcus parade, but this time I had some keepers that, I believe, reflect the spirit of the event and tell the story about the fun everybody had.
Flood in Dubuque County - part 2
- Durango, IA 11:11AM, A layer of mud covers the highway
- Heritage trail and surrounding fields were still flooded
A few more pictures from yesterday's flood. The images from yesterday were made between 8:30 and 8:50AM. At 11:11AM the water level was already lower and left the Highway covered with a layer of slick mud. The Heritage trail and the surrounding fields were still under water. It was raining again and there were concerns about more water.
- Durango, IA at 4:42PM
At 4:42PM the water had retreated for the most part to the river bed but was still flowing with high speed. The rain had stopped and the people in Durango were already cleaning up the mess.
Flood in Dubuque County
- Little Maquoketa River in Durango, Iowa
My blog has never been as actual as at this moment. What you see here is still going on while I'm writing this. We had heavy thunderstorms with a lot of rain all night long rolling over Dubuque County. As a result the Little Maquoketa River and probably all other creeks and rivers around are flooded. That puts us on an island since all roads to Dubuque are blocked. I feel bad for the farmers down in the valley. Their crops are just washed away or drowned. The Heritage trail, a very nice recreation trail in the valley, will probably be damaged again as we have already seen it two years ago. Stay tuned...
- At the bridge on Clay Hill road
- Highway 52 between Sageville and Durango, Iowa
- Little Maquoketa River near Durango, Iowa
Many ways to enjoy a holiday weekend
There are many ways to enjoy a holiday weekend like this around Independence Day. For me the Sunday was a day full of photo opportunities. Let me start with the one at the end of the day. While driving home in my car I saw these people with heir horse buggy entering the Heritage Trail, a recreation trail that follows the Little Maquoketa River and that has been built on an old railroad track. I'm quite often on the trail and had immediately a picture in mind that could materialize two miles down the trail. The road runs parallel to the trail and I had a few minutes to prepare for the shot.
It was a little hazy and I was hoping that the late afternoon sun would create a nice soft light at one of the bridges.
I think there is not much that can beat a ride in a horse buggy on a beautiful Sunday like today! Well, shooting pictures of people in a horse buggy isn't bad either… ;-) More to come...
Old little project and lessons learned from
Visitors of my photo galleries at phase.com may know that I have a little gallery with images of sign boards. I started it in 2007 when I became serious with digital photography and after I bought my first DSLR. I like sign boards. They add charm to a business or a street and many are artfully crafted.
- Seen in East Sound on Orcas Island, Washington
Beside having always fun to look out for them, taking pictures of sign boards has taught me a lot for my photography. I learned about white balance, exposure compensation, depth of field, perspective, and many other technical aspects of taking pictures. I learned about the importance of background for an image. With sign boards it can be quite a challenge, because you can't always choose your background and perspective. They usually hang high up above the store front and I'm like most people, I don't carry a ladder with me ;-) . If you visit a city during a period of very flat or very harsh light and with no opportunity to come back at a different time, this will add another challenge if you want to get the image anyway. And that leads directly to what comes after the picture was taken. Working on my sign board images in Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop taught me a lot about dealing with the flaws, like over or under exposure, white balance issues, unwanted reflections, you name it. Sign boards are an ideal subject to experiment with different ways of sharpening and noise reductions. They helped me to create a processing work flow that works for me. When I looked at my older pictures (yep, four years are a long time in digital photography ;-) ) I thought sometimes about redoing them again in post. Would be no problem since I always shoot in RAW. But it is what it is. I will only exchange them in my gallery if I come home with a new and better image.
- Seen in my home town Bautzen, Germany
No, it doesn't have to be sign boards. I can think of many other little photography projects that would be fun to focus on over a longer period of time. The sign boards helped me to learn and to deal with the technical aspects of my photography. If you like to see the complete collection, please feel free to click HERE, and let me know what your little or big project is.
Worldwide Photo Walk 2010
That was fun! July 24th I was able to participate at the Worldwide Photo Walk in Dubuque, Iowa. According to the official website 33497 photographers in 1111 locations worldwide participated in this event. We walked for about two hours through downtown Dubuque, stopped at the Farmer's market, and everybody was shooting pictures like crazy. I can tell you, a late morning on a hazy Iowa summer day is not the best time to go out and shoot, but I have really enjoyed watching other people's approach to master the challenge. Not everybody posted their pictures but some of the results can be seen by following the link below.
Because of the hazy weather, with bright sun and without any remarkable clouds in the sky, I decided to keep the sky out of the frame. I tried to focus on details that I saw during the walk. Some of the pictures were taken with B&W in mind already. For some others I applied a split tone to give them an antique touch.
Beside looking for the best light and shooting angle it was really interesting to walk and talk with other photographers. The exchange of ideas, opinions, and thoughts continued afterwards during a common lunch. Thanks to Dave Updegraff, who did a great job leading and organizing the Photo Walk 2010 in Dubuque.
Click HERE for the Dubuque Photo Walk website.
All images: Nikon D200, Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 35/f2 ZF
Fireworks (every year again)
Nikon D200, Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 35/f2 ZF, ISO100, 13s, f16, tripod
In the US Independence day or the night before can always be marked in the calendar if you want to take pictures of fireworks.
Going out early to find an unobstructed vantage point is essential. You don't want to be within a big crowd and because of longer exposure times the camera needs to be on a stabile tripod. I always dial in the long-exposure noise reduction mode. My Nikon D200 does not handle higher ISO values very well, so I leave it at ISO 100 and extend the exposure time as needed. With a newer camera you might be able to crank up the ISO value a little more without producing grainy and noisy pictures. I tried different combinations of exposure times and f-stops. For the most part the pictures turned out good with the camera set to 5-6 seconds and f8-f11. However, the image shown here is a little out of this range. We were just near a small town in Iowa and the fireworks is probably not as gigantic as in some of the bigger cities. In order to catch multiple fireworks explosions in one frame I had set the f-stop to 16 and extended the exposure time to 13 seconds.
Did I mention we had a lot of fun? In any case, please let me know what your experience with this kind of photography is. The next opportunity will certainly arrive soon.
Practice with great music
Nikon D200, Sigma 150mm/F2.8
Dubuque has always some music events going on during the summer. Good ones and not so good ones. This was definitely one of the best I have seen lately. Iowa born artist Pieta Brown and Bo Ramsey, a well known guitar player from Iowa, had a wonderful performance.
I have to admit, my skills for snapping pictures of people are not very well developed but public concerts like this one are a good chance to work on improvement. The concert took place downtown Dubuque in bright afternoon sun, with a cloud here and there, and I knew already on site that I wanted the image in B&W.
I shot relative wide open (1/500s, f4.5) because I wanted the artists being separated from the background as much as possible. There was even more clutter in the background of the original picture but I used the clone stamp in Photoshop to get rid of it. I focussed on Pieta's face but of course, with the low DOF the arm and guitar of Bo Ramsey are partly out of focus. I still like the picture. I believe it reflects somehow how good these two artists played together. Let me know what you think.