I was in Maquoketa earlier this week and had some time to kill before my lunch with Friends, so I drove our to the damn and found these guys fishing. I tried this image in color but liked the B&W version better.
You can click on any image to reveal a larger more detailed image.
While I was there I looked around for other image opportunities. I like the way the river interacted with these dead logs.
It felt good to have the camera in had again. I’ve been practicing with video for the last few weeks. Lots to learn and need more practice. I have also started flying drones again. I have to relearn the dos and don’ts of flying drones.
I will endeavor show some of the practice video I’ve been working on.
Yesterday our 12 year old grandson, Joshua spent the weekend with us. It was fun having him over and we did some fun things.
I invited him to go on a photo run with me Saturday afternoon. I know a place where we can normally find some deer and several other places where various wildlife tend to frequent. Unfortunately none of that happened for us so we made do with the beautiful ice that covered most of the trees and open fields.
We had some wonderful conversations as we traveled around the country. He took several great photos while staying the truck. Of course I had the Nikon D5 and he had a point and shoot camera. I’m not going to tell you who had some of the best shots but I will say I was mildly envious of a couple of his images. 🙂
Remember you can click on the image to reveal a much larger and detailed version of the image. As of today with temperatures in the mid 40s most of the ice is gone. It was beautiful but took a lot of work to get the driveways and sidewalks cleared.
We had a bad ice storm yesterday that left our driveway and sidewalks full of ice. Fortunately our wonderful daughter came to our aid and salted our driveway and sidewalks.
I had some time to kill this weekend and so I decided to visit the river. On the way I noticed the Fourth Street Elevator so I took a detour and shot some images of the elevator. This is such a popular place in the Summer time but as you can see it is shut down for the Winter.
Later at the river it was cold and foreboding with the vast expanse of the water and nothing was moving for as far as the eye could see.
I hope you had a wonderful Christmas with family and friends. I feel very blessed that we were able to get together with our family & friends yesterday and enjoy wonderful food and fellowship. The Grand Children had lots of new toys and the adults enjoyed watching them open presents.
I was making breakfast this morning and looked out over the back yard and saw these interesting drift patterns created by the strong winds, we’ve had the last few days. So I decided to photograph them. Remember you can click on the image to reveal a larger more detailed image.
I realize that these are not colorful and in keeping with the festive time of the year. I hope you find the patterns as interesting as I did.
I hope you and your family have a wonderful & joyous Christmas.
I apologize for my lack of activity on the blog. I’ve been having some issues with my editor and now I feel like I’ve got them under control.
Actually I spent 45 minutes writing a blog for today only to lose the entire blog with one click of the mouse. So I’m going to try again.
I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday. It was for me one of the best Thanksgivings in memory. It all started when these two great friends from Kansas City, Missouri joined us Wednesday afternoon.
They were on their way to Peoria, Illinois to celebrate Thanksgiving with their Son. They drove seven hours out of their way to come visit with us. Jeanne and Debbie were friends in college and have maintained that friendship over all the years. Terry (her husband) is a great guy
and we get along great.
We took them to dinner at Mario’s Italian Restaurant to give them a taste of one of the local eateries in Dubuque. Terry and I were tired so we retired to our respective beds and the ladies
visited until the wee hours of the night. It was so great to see them.
We celebrated Thanksgiving at Mark and Julia’s new home. Everyone pitched and brought some food and it was a wonderful time. In the image above (from left to right back row) Jeff and Tina Bower (Julia’s parents & her sister) Kelly Bower. Mark and Julia, Ben and Angie.
(seated from left to right) Jeanne, Addie, Joshua, Gabby, Austin, and the old man Upde. We watched a little football, played some cards and just thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company.
I’ve been trying to get into videography It’s like trying to learn how to walk again. There was a time a few years ago where I did a lot of videography mainly for training purposes but made a lot of fun videos as well. Some very complex. But as the old adage goes, you either “use it or lose it.” I have severely lost it. The short video below (less than two minutes in length) is jumpy but it took me 90 minutes to put it together from the raw video. Enjoy.
Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy your day and be careful.
Well I’d have to say there are a lot of people celebrating today. Why? Because I said most of my life that “Hell would freeze over before I ever got a Tattoo.”
I won’t go into the whole story on this blog but my Nephew “Chad Koeplinger” is my only living relative from my side of the family. My Sister, Becky passed when Chad was only 15 and he was more or less faced with finding his way on his own.
Today he is probably one of the top five tattoo artist in the world. He has traveled all 50 states, written 3 books and has traveled to over 60 countries including North Korea. He is truly an amazing individual and owns a tattoo parlor in Nashville, Tennessee and has 7 other artist working for him.
After going through cancer treatment and some other serious health conditions I decided that I wanted Chad to give me a tattoo to help me remember what is most important in my life. Family & Faith.
So today Chad gave me my very first Tattoo. My daughter Angie videotaped the entire experience. It is about 14 minutes long and I know that in today’s society that is almost an eternity. However if you are interested and what to hear some amazing thoughts from this remarkable individual I would hope you spend the time and watch and listen to the video.
The wonderful feeling and emotional uplift I received from this experience was nothing less than remarkable.
Monday I had some physical set backs and it was really difficult to see anything positive in my future. I think a lot of people feel that way sometimes and they cannot find the reason to keep going. Chad gave me that reason.
So I hope you will watch the video and more importantly listen to the conversation and gain some benefit from it.
Jeanne and I took our grand daughters to the splash pad in Asbury, Iowa last night. They had a blast. I didn’t take any still images but did shoot some video. Enjoy.
I didn’t make it to the Dubuque Arboretum yet but on my way home from lunch I came across some pretty flowers and so I decided to photograph them.
It was a real challenge to find a place to park that wasn’t too far away and didn’t interfere with traffic. I did find a place fairly close by so I spent about 30 minutes with the flowers. The temperature was really nice.
Remember you can click on any image to reveal a much larger and more detailed version of the small image. There were several bees working the flowers but fortunately they had no interest in me.
I really enjoy photographing pretty flowers. I still intend going to the Arboretum, as my Wife told me that the flowers there were really special this year and that it is the peak time for them.
There were some other flowers I wanted to photograph but they were up a level and I couldn’t really get close to them. Photographing with the macro lens does not allow for long distance shooting.
While I was there I looked around for other image opportunities. I like the way the river interacted with these dead logs.
It felt good to have the camera in had again. I’ve been practicing with video for the last few weeks. Lots to learn and need more practice. I have also started flying drones again. I have to relearn the dos and don’ts of flying drones.
Upde Designs 