River City Days - Sunrise from the Dock

I spent the day looking at this view. My post was very near the water. Saturday morning, the sunrise looked like this.

I really enjoy my Canon 17-85mm IS lens. I think I take almost 95% of my photos with it. The thing I like about it is, I can go from wide angle to the low end of a telephoto with the turn of my wrist.

I wasn't really sure how to shoot this shot and not have a snapshot but something more. I opted for a wide angle that include much of the dock I was standing on. The beautiful Eisenhower bridge in the background.

Would the picture have been better with the bridge in focus and the dock not? What do you think?

River City Days - The Foggy Buoy

At a different spot on the Mississippi from the previous two pictures, the sun wasn't quite as prominent, in fact, it was still kinda dark.

I thought it was really interesting how the fog hung so close to the water and just a few feet up, no fog.

I was thrilled to see that I could get a shot like this and not worry about the background. Just enough wilderness to smooth out the edges.

You like them dark?

River City Days - Foggy Sun

Not to far from the train in yesterdays post was this little spot on the Mississippi River.

I've never really tried to photograph something while leaving the sun in the frame, but this shot needed it.

It took me several tries to get the exposure right, seems it's tricky to get the sensor, the light meter and my eye to all work correctly while looking RIGHT AT THE SUN.

In this shot, I think I hit the rule of thirds correctly and the added elements of the reflection of the sun and the fog on the water made this scene really interesting to me.

What do you think?

River City Days - Train at dawn

The first weekend in August in our family means one thing, River City Days in Red Wing, MN. My mother has been organizing and running the Arts and Crafts show for...let's just say I don't remember her not doing it.

When I met my wife, she joined the family tradition of helping Mom run the show. She loves doing it now.

Saturday morning I get the rare treat of waking up before dawn and heading down to Levee park to welcome the crafters to the show.

I've always been fascinated with light and in particular, the neat stuff it will do in a lens. I'm not always a big fan of lens flare, but on this morning, I was try to get it. The sun just seemed particularly bright today and it was reflecting off of everything. The flare helped me tell the story about the morning light.

This is the first in the series of photos I took that morning.

Do you like lens flare? Is washing this out too much? What do you think?

Mississippi at Dawn

The first weekend in August every year since I don't know when, I've helped my Mother and Father run the River City Days Arts & Crafts Show. This is a part of the annual city celebration of my hometown, Red Wing, Minnesota.

FXMixer over at f/11 has given me a challenge, and trust me Marshall, I should have something for you in the next two days.

On my first full day on the job at the craft show, I get the pleasure of watching sunrise on the Mississippi River. This is the first a few pictures I captured on the shores of this beautiful river.

Again, this pictures is as shot and has only been converted to JPG from RAW.

Return of the riverboat

The American Queen docked in Red Wing, Minnesota on Saturday night. Wow...two posts for two different subjects from the same day!

Shooting this boat at this time proved to be really challenging. If you look around the top of the boat, you'll see some spotlights. These things were in the absolute worst possible spots.

From each location I tried to shoot the boat, there was usually one spot shining directly at me. In this particular picture, I seemed to miss the spots, but just to the right of the paddle...a big lit sign from a bar accross the river.

My only other option - get wet and jump in the Mississippi River.
I just went through the history of this blog and realized that I have never posted when of my all-time favorite pictures.

It's a picture of the paddlewheel on the Delta Queen. A much small and older riverboat that was anchor in Red Wing a few years ago.

These next to pictures are new attempts at capturing something I find really fascinating.

This first one will look familiar to the first paddlewheel I just mentioned. One big difference this time is the fact I'm shooting at night. That posses some real challenges.

This next picture I found I really liked when I was going through all my pictures.

The lighting is a bit harsh at the bottom, but the contrast really makes me look deep into this frame.

I found it really hard to shoot for another reason, my family was exhausted in the car. We've had a long couple of days and now Dad is off taking pictures of a boat.

It was still fun and I think the results were worth the effort.

There are some days I definitely miss living on the river. Rochester doesn't really have any rivers. Guys...the Zumbro is much closer to a creek than the Mississippi River. Now that's a river!