A little update about a big weekend to come

This blog has been pretty quiet for a while. Family, work and life have kept me pretty busy. My camera hasn't exactly been idle, but lately, there's just not been the time to really shoot the photos I like to post here.

 But I have some news...

 After years of nudging, prodding and more nudging, my wife finally convinced me it was time to do and arts & crafts show and share my pictures with the public, for a small fee :)

 If you happen to be in the Rochester Minnesota area, I'll have a booth with my pictures in various states to purchased. Stop on down and check in with to make sure I haven't died of a stroke. The thought of this has me nervous like nothing else.

 Here's a link to the Civic Center's information.

If you have any requests, suggestions or advice, please share! I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Week 9 - Playing the Blues

Someday, I'll figure out how to photograph the snow blowing experience. You know, let people that have never done it before experience of piece of it through the eye of my camera. I spent a fair bit of time this week doing that deed. Man, I'm sick of winter.

This weeks photo comes from a gathering we went to in Red Wing Minnesota. Here's four members of a band I didn't catch the name. I actually knew two members of the band as being apart of a different group known as the Back Channel Blues Band. I had thought this was them. Oops.

Back in the day, when I was still using film provided for me by the my college's newspaper budget, I used to fancy myself as a future staff photographer for Rolling Stone. A boy can dream right? Maybe someday I'll take shooting musicians more seriously again. I kinda miss it.

Anyone in this area, wanna go shoot a live band one of these weekends again like we did that one time at Whiskey Bones? Could be fun? Let me know. I need to get out and exercise my photo muscles again.

Week 7 - Family

Week 7 - Didn't want to miss another week. I realize this one is a bit more, abstract(?), simple(?). It's something.

9 PM on Sunday night. The day before Valentine's Day. We spent this day as a family. It's the day of love, and we love nothing more then our family.

We got this little decoration for my wife on Mother's Day, last year I think. The kids picked it out. It shows two parents loving their kids. Sounded quite familiar. This hangs in our kitchen and reminds us every time we leave that we are not alone.

If you've been her before, you know how much I love lines. Ah, lines. Lines make some cool and interesting composition if you ask me...which you didn't, but I'm telling you anyways. This is my blog so you are gonna like it.


Happy Valentine's Day everyone! Share it with the people you love!

Be sure to check out the Flickr collection from this challenge I have going. Take a look around. I'd love to hear what you think!

Week 6 - Hot and cold

I took a photo last week, exhaustion lead to snoring, snoring lead to REM stage, one thing led to another and presto magico! 1 week has passed.

I don't think this will hit anyone's list for the most important, best or truly great photos of all time. Probably doesn't even crack my top 10 pictures I've ever taken. It does, however, constitute week 6 in my 52 week challenge.

This photo was taken for my 7 year old's science fair project. We were demonstrating that microwave ovens don't heat food by heating the air like conventional ovens do. You can clearly see that the water is 100 ° while the temperature inside the microwave is 72 °.

Gentlemen. Don't forget. Next Monday is Valentine's Day. And what ever you do...don't let me forget either!

Week 4 - Cold and dark

The thermometer on my computer says is 7°F outside. I don't know why but it seemed much colder then that. I'm gonna post every week, even if it kills me and I need to do it posthumously, it seems. Again, I find myself staring at the clock with nothing for my deadline. Not sure why, other then all of my other last minute shots have been inside, where it's a comfortable 68°F and I have yet to acquire frostbite living up to this challenge.

My shot for the week, while I don't think I'm really all that fond of it, is a long, very cold 13 second shot off my deck in the backyard. I was really hoping to capture the icy playground equipment but this wasn't long enough to get it, plus the light on that house was really starting to drowned out everything. This was the last of about 10 frames I snapped. Getting it focused was pretty hard. I think I'll return to this idea when the moon comes back out and shines with a little more light. The ambient city light was all I had and it just didn't seem like enough. Could have been my numb fingers and ears too, but who knows.

Stay warm!

Week 3 - An experiment with a mirror

It's after 10 PM on Sunday night. I'm looking at the clock, wondering how it is I find myself on week 3 of the 2011 52 week challenge and still, I have yet to shoot anything. Like the first two weeks were better, but don't I learn?

The thought had entered my mind to just let it slip. This year we had agreed to a softer, gentler deadline. I could just shoot something tomorrow. Right? Procrastination.

But I reminded myself of an incredible speech I heard from a famous photographer. He had set out on a quest, to take one and only one photograph every day for 90 days. For most of us, that would be nothing, grab your phone, point and click once a day. Easy peasy. But Jim is no regular photographer, no sir. He was one of the few staff photographers for National Geographic. This guy was already a legend.

This is a story, as I remember hearing it, that he told at a speech he gave in the Twin Cities. If you ever get a chance to hear him speak, take it. He was outstanding and very inspiring. This story was from his adventure making the outstanding collection known as "Chased By The Light: A 90-Day Journey"
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As the story goes, he spent the 90 days at his home near the Boundary Waters of far northern Minnesota. This is some of the most beautiful land you will ever see, but what he found was, some days, you just don't feel it or your busy with life's other challenges, like being married and needing to fix a sink. And after a long time of looking at what is usually described as God's Country, you just don't see anything that catches your eye. And remember, he's only taking a single shot. One click.

One night, it was getting very close to midnight. Scary close. He hadn't taken his shot all day. Since it was already dark, light was scarce. He got an idea, he would make a shot by enlisting his wife to hold a flashlight behind a waterfall. He had never said that none of these pictures would be staged, right? He took the shot and was able to continue on his quest, never missing a day and only taking one shot.

Well, if Jim Brandenburg can make it just one more day, damn, I can do it too!

I recently discovered a guy doing neat things with every day objects, his name is Terry Border. Check out his blog at http://bentobjects.blogspot.com/. Neat stuff.

I needed a shot, to get me through just one more week. Below is the shot I took tonight. I think the term shot has many meanings on this blog. Most of the time, I just mean photograph. Tonight, I think I mean, I took a chance.

My wife does a fantastic job of decorating our home. She finds the coolest things. Since Christmas is over and Martin Luther King Jr. day doesn't really bring about a great deal of home decorating, she goes with theme of snowmen. It's Minnesota and we do what we can. On the mirror in our entryway, she likes to put little nick knacky things. Bringing the two inspirations together, the first being, I just need to shoot SOMETHING and loving the little bent things, I turned the sign of the melting snow man towards a mirror and shot it's reflection. I suspect I could have just taken the picture without bouncing the sign off the mirror, but what fun is there in that? Besides, I may need it next week.

I took a shot.

As always, be sure to check out Flickr set I've started to collect this years challenge. And feel free to look around while you are there.

Week 2 - Teething puppy

Week 2! Weeeee!

I didn't have my camera out all week and I went through my phone...let's just say, I'm not ready to bring myself to post a picture of something I took in the grocery story to text to my wife to make sure I was buying the right canned good.

We got a new puppy. Ain't he cute? OK, silly question, he's a puppy that looks like a cotton ball, of course he's cute.

Shooting low and up at something that stands 7 inches tall is hard. So I shot a lot of frames just holding my camera and pointing it in the right direction. Thank goodness for auto focus. He didn't know what to think of the camera and the clicking and dad being all like "hold still, look at the camera, yadda, yadda, yadda".

I think he did just fine. Welcome to the family!

To see the rest of the photo from this years 52 week challenge, check out my Flickr set!

Week 1 - 'Tis the season of sparkles

Here we go again. I signed up again to be apart of the local 52 week challenge. I know, I know, I sucked at it the last time. My challenge this year, to just post something. I know the biggest thing that held me back was just letting go and posting something, even a failure, but post something.

For my first attempt I tried shooting a photo using only the power of the candle. While I was setting this up, the jar seemed kind lifeless with only the light of the two on the side, so behind the jar is a 3rd candle. I spent forever trying to get everything square and realized I have to go to work in the morning. Bah. This first week is a little short, it started yesterday.

Oh well. Enjoy.