Welcome to Monday. Pretty decent weekend actually.  Jeanne and I went down to the river again to look for some Eagles and all we saw were a bunch of fishing boats.  So we did what any self-respecting Grandparent would do.  We called Angie to see if we could come by for a visit. (We did a lot of other things but more on that in later posts.)

By my calculations Josh was 75 days old Saturday.  He has much better control over his head although he is still a little like a bobble head.  He was a little fussy this morning.  He has a slight cold, which makes it difficult for him to nurse. So he didn’t get much of a morning meal and he was really hungry when we were there.

I have been experimenting with a new technique in my processing work flow.  It doesn’t work for all type of images but I really liked how they turned out with this image of Jeanne and Josh.  It’s a little different look.  A little edgy and subdued but I kind of like it with these images.

Camera specs – Nikon D300s, RAW format,  using a Tamron 18-270 mm zoom lens.  Exposure was  1/60 at F16,  65mm focal length,  ISO 200,  using a Nikon SB-800 speed light.

Thank you for stopping by.  Have a great week.

I don’t know where you do your best thinking or get your inspirations.  For me it has always been in the shower.  For some reason that is where I have some of my greatest thoughts and revelations.

Well last week I was deep in thought about something that happened to me many years ago (you know when you think about the incident you just shutter) and I thought God has sure watched over me when I have done some really stupid things and then that memory connected to another equally disastrous thing I had done and I began to see a pattern.

Then it occurred to me that it was when Jeanne came into my life that my life took an exponential turn for the better.  She is truly a remarkable person.  Never once in 34 years has she ever tried to change me, told me my ideas were crazy or that I ought to be better at what I did.  She’s never asked me to be anything other then who I am.

She has simply loved me and supported me in all that I do.  My friends often say, “That woman must be a Saint.”  So in some small way (remarkably small) I wanted to tell her how much she has and does mean to me.  So I sent her some flowers in the middle of the week.  She brought them home this weekend and I thought they made some beautiful images.

Thanks for stopping by.

Several got it correct.  There were only 3 males out of a class of over 50.  Some of them didn’t attend the final dinner as they had flights leaving.  Anyway it is one of the curious things about this profession.  Women are the predominate gender in the HR world.  I’m not sure why and a lot of my peers that I communicate with on a regular basis are men.  But anytime I go to a seminar or other training I’m always the minority male.

One of the blogs I read every day is Scott Kelby.  Today he suggested that you go back into your archives a few years and look at your photography back then.  The idea is to remind yourself of how much you have improved.  Both in your photography and your post processing skills.

Improvement is sometimes very subtle and on an incremental basis so you may not think you have evolved much but (Scott says) you will be encouraged to see that you in fact have improved.

As I look back on a lot of those photos I shutter to think I actually took those and thought they were good.  I’ve learned so much in the last seven years both from a technical standpoint and artistically.  Make no mistake, I realize I am light years away from where I want to be with my images, but the whole process is so much fun and rewarding.

The images above are of Angie when she returned from Mountain Top Project in July of 2003.  You can see that Maggie was brand new at the time.  The top image is as I shot it with a Sony Cybershot camera.  It was a decent camera but not a DSLR.  At that time I shot everything in JPEG and didn’t even know what RAW was.  I was just learning Photoshop (actually I didn’t know anything.)

As much as I love Human Resources and the work I do if I could push a reset button and take another path (photography) who knows where it would have taken me.  I am so very, very lucky to have the wonderful life partner that I do who, without hesitation supports my passion.  Thank you Sweetheart!

Thank you for stopping by.  Have a great weekend.  I’m working on a web site for a client this weekend so I don’t know if I will get out to take any images but I still have a goal of getting some good Eagle images this year.

Had a late night yesterday so I didn’t have time to process anything for the blog.  I did however receive the above image from the Graduate School Of Banking via e-mail.  I attended the GSB HR school last August.  A week of intense study of Human Resource topics from the perspective of banking.

There is probably no other industry that is more heavily regulated than the banking business and the same is true for Human Resources.  Not only do we have to be aware of all the employment laws but there are a plethora of employment laws specifically related to banking.

It was an excellent school and I enjoyed it a lot.  Made a lot of new friends and set up a great peer network for sharing ideas and best practices. As you look at the image above you should be struck by one salient thought.  I’ll tell you tomorrow what it is.  Leave a comment if you like.  I always enjoying the feedback.  It helps a lot.

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a great day.

This is an image I captured April 8, 2010.  Nothing special about the image.  This is a collection area across the highway from the Maquoketa Interpretive Center.  I like to stop there on my lunch hour sometimes and sometimes I’ll stop on my way home.  There are usually some water fowl around the area and on this particular day I was more about trying to capture the sky than anything else.

This image was taken in about the same spot today.  Now there are a couple of cool things about this image.  First and foremost it was captured at 5:15 pm with an ISO 200 1/60 shutter and F3.5.  Which means that at 5:15 there was still enough light available to make the image.  Wahoo!

There was almost no contrast between the snow and the sky.  It was grayer than gray with the only hint of color was the weeds in the foreground.  So I gave the image my retro look.

Anyway I thought it was fun to see the two images together 9 months apart.  The light is getting longer and it won’t be long and Spring will be here.  🙂  Thanks for stopping by.

This church is the same church I shot back in September 2010.  It’s a very small country church and I like the structure of it.  Last Friday as I was driving around I went by the church and with the sky so blue that day I liked how it framed up against the white snow and building.

And if you can stand one more image of a barn.  This is from my Saturday shoot.  It really was this red.  Well okay I enhanced it a tad but it was the brilliant red that caught my eye.  It’s not a particularly interesting structure but the brilliant color against the snow really stood out.

Hope you have a great week.  As always thank you for stopping by.  Please feel free to leave a comment if you desire.  What you would like to see, what you like and what you don’t like.  It helps me improve.

Over the last couple of years I’ve taken several shots of the Maquoketa Dam (Maquoketa actually gets some of their electricity from the dam.)  But I went there Friday during my lunch hour and I thought the combination of a deep blue sky and the mix of open water and snow just made it a great Winter landscape image.

While I was taking shots of the Dam I heard some sounds coming from over the bank and when I went over to investigate I found this family of ducks.   This group of four swam together and apart from another group of ducks.

Not being an outdoors-man or hunter I don’t know anything about ducks nor their  habits but the two big ducks acted like they were the parents of the two younger ducks.

Anyway it was fun just to get out with my camera and take some shots.  Thanks for stopping by.

It is -7 this morning with a 12 mph wind so wimp that I am I’m not going hunting for Eagles today.

Well I went looking for Eagles again today.  Back to the place where I imagine they would be trying to find fish (just below the damn.) The image above is what I found instead of Eagles.

There were three or four boats out fishing in the open water just below the damn.  There was one Eagle sitting patiently in a tree, way up on the bluff.  He was so well hidden that I couldn’t find him very easily with my lens and when I did there was no good angle to shoot him from.  So I opted for the fishermen instead.

As I processed the image above I kept thinking this should be in black and white.  It is a Winter scene and it was colder than a Witch’s heart so it just has to be black and white.  Right?

I don’t know to me the black and white image is just much more interesting than the color one above.  Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your weekend.

<Sigh> Still no new images to post.  I was just telling a friend this morning by e-mail how much I dislike this time of year.  I usually do not have time in the morning for any shooting and it is dark by the time I leave the office.

I would like to go shooting on my noon hour but many times I have lunch meetings or I’m meeting with employees over other issues.  At least in the Spring, Summer, and Fall there is enough light after work that I can explore my photography.

I was reading some of my favorite photo blogs this morning and one of them is by noted wildlife photographer Moose Petersen. He has started taking a lot of “Air-to-Air” images and he had a series on the B-17 Bomber “Sentimental Journey.”

The image above was one I shot last year around the 2nd of July and the Bomber (Sentimental Journey) was on static display at the Dubuque Regional Airport. I didn’t get there until the public viewing was just about over and they were putting away all the tables and chairs (storing them underneath the plane.)

Of course when Moose gets to shoot the plane he has it free and clear of all obstructions, parked so the light is perfect and has all the time he wants to make a perfect image.  I on the other hand was trying to get a good shot and the guard was sternly advising me to get out of the area 🙂 <Sigh>  Such is the life of an amateur wanna-be.

So this is the RAW image that came straight out of the camera.  No color balance, no sharpening, nothing.  See all the clutter I had to deal with.  Anyway I was pretty happy with my final product.  I may have gone a little over the top with the sky color but I love blue.  Here is the link to Moose’s Blog if you’d like to see a professional’s image of the B-17.

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a great weekend.

Good Morning.  Okay I’m over my rant at Mediacom.  Uhmmm No I’m not (read the post below this one.)  But one must move on to more productive things.  I was looking through some images last night and came across the one below.  Since I couldn’t go on-line without a lot of frustration I picked the image below to experiment with in Photoshop.

But first the image above is of a Casio Exilim ‘point-n-shoot’ 6 mp camera.  I bought Jeanne one just like this about 5 years ago for Christmas and they had a special on (pay an additional $100 and get another one.)  Well that was too good of an offer to pass up so I bought this little camera .

It takes pretty good images but only shoots in JPEG, which I do not like.  But it is rugged and will go anywhere.  I throw it in my pack on my bike and it has ridden lots of miles with me.  I also keep it in my brief case for those candid moments that you just “wish I had a camera with me” and this way I almost always do.

The image below is of a former employee and friend of mine.  We were at a meeting in of all places Onslow, Iowa. It was a company meeting and I was taking images of the group to post on our Corporate Intranet.

This lady kept putting her hand up or turning her head every time I tried to take her picture because she didn’t want her image on the Intranet. 🙂  Of course that just made me more determined to take the picture of her.

This is the only one I got that didn’t have the back of her head or the palm of her hand in front of her face.  So last night I was playing around in Photoshop (which by the way is one of the most remarkable pieces of software on the planet) and decided to try a “cartoon” technique with this image.  I kind of like how it turned out.

Well gotta run.  It is a busy day for me.  I have my first Maquoketa Chamber of Commerce Board meeting today and then I’m teaching a leadership class all afternoon.  The group that I have this year is really keeping me challenged and it is a very enjoyable class.

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a good Thursday.