Happy Thursday!
Below you will find a short drone video of Maquoketa, Iowa. I’m working on a project and this was some spare footage that I had and I liked it so I made a video for this blog.
Hope you enjoy it.
Enjoy your day and be careful.
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Happy Monday!
Yesterday Jeanne and I went for a drive in the country side. We ended up at Mud Lake Park. I was up there a few weeks ago and the park was closed because of flooding. It was nice to see the park open again and the camping area all cleaned up.
I had a drone with me so decided it was a good day to fly and show some of the debris that has piled up along the shore from all the flooding.
This video is a little over 13 minutes so it’s a little long bur pretty scenery!
Enjoy your day and be careful.
Happy Thursday!
Just a short post today. I am trying to hone my skills in video, drone flight, and film editing. Lots of work and so far not much to show for it. Any way the video below is about 7 minutes of flying around the Asbury water tower and the Pizza Ranch restaurant. It was around dusk so the color is not all that good.
After all that if you still want to see the video, just click on it.
Enjoy your day and be careful.
Happy Tuesday
This past Saturday was the annual Grandview Gallop. As usual Angie and Ben ran in the 4K event and it draws a lot of people from around the city and surrounding area.
The place I normally camp out to photograph the runners is very close to the Start/Stop line. Unfortunately in order to get there I would have to park over a mile away and the walk is all up hill. I just can’t do that in my current physical condition.
So I had to find a new position. I lucked out in parking about the halfway mark and no walking. While I was setting up my equipment this wonderful little boy and his Mom were there and they were very friendly. He doesn’t have his hat on in this image but he was dressed as Mario and had a party to go to later on.
So I spent about 20 minutes setting up my camera drone to get the best shot possible. Once I had the settings correct I had to change batteries because all that set up time had drained the battery. I could see the runners approaching, so I launched the drone about 20 feet in the air so I could get a good view of all the runners and then I was going to edit the video to highlight Angie, Joshua, Ben, and Gabby.
Sadly in my haste to get everything set up I forgot to push the record button on the camera and so it hovered for 35 minutes without capturing one inch of video. 😦
Fortunately, I still had my still camera with me and could capture Angie and Joshua.
Also Ben and Gabby. So I got to see the family run I wasn’t able to get any drone footage. I guess I still need some practice.
Angie ran with Austin in the one mile event and Ben ran with Addie in the one mile event. I was too far away to capture those moments.
Enjoy your day and be careful.
Happy Wednesday!
I use to fly drones a lot, a few years ago. They were much more difficult to fly and had very few safety features. I had several crashes during my time, some of which were my fault and some were system errors.
I had enough problems with them that I finally stopped flying drones altogether. I have to admit, that even with all the problems, I did have fun with the drones and did some neat things with them.
Now fast forward to 2023 and the whole drone system is drastically changed (I think for the better.) Now the drones are much smaller (most of them) and they have a lot of built in safety systems, including hazard avoidance (front, back, and sideways.) Additionally your can make inputs to the system which will let the drone fly itself with very little action by you.
Having said all that, there is a lot of new stuff to learn and some things to unlearn. I’m still practicing my flying skills and getting there slowly. Below you will find a short video I filmed of my drone flight over Asbury, Iowa last night. I hope you like it.
Enjoy your day and be careful.
As part of my long term project that I’ve been working on I started flying drones again.
The technology of the drones is much more complicated then when I was flying regularly so there is another skill set to learn. So this was just a short flight around the neighborhood trying to learn to fly again. It’s a short video so I hope you enjoy it.
I shot this footage in 4K so it is taking some time for You Tube to process it. If you’re trying to see this video on Sunday Evening I would suggest you come back about 10:00 pm CDT. Thank you.
Happy Monday!
OMG, two days in a row posting on my blog! 🙂 If I have been consistent on anything it is that I’ve been very inconsistent with this blog since my retirement. Go figure.
Yesterday (Sunday) was Gabriella’s10th birthday. We were blessed to have Art,Paula, David, and Nick Roling as well as Mark & Julia. This is (I think) the first time we’ve been able to get a group photo with everyone present.
Angie made a delicious cake for Gabby and guests. She of course got lots of presents from her Mom and Dad and the two Grand Mothers. It was a wonderful time to get to visit with everyone and to get caught up on everyone’s life.
It took her three tries to get all the candles out but she made it. One of her biggest joys is that at 10 years old she can ride in the front seat without any type of booster seat. This was a very big deal to Gabby.
Prior to dinner and presents it was snowing heavily with big flakes. This image doesn’t really capture the beauty of the large flakes but you get the idea. Want to see a larger more detailed image? Just click on the image and it will happen.
Enjoy your day and be careful.
Happy Sunday:
I have photographed this old barn several years ago when there was a house next to it and it was in much better shape. I drive past this old barn at least once a week and I’ve watched what looks like an upcoming development of this land for future use. Click on the images to reveal a larger and more detailed version of the images.
Every time I go past the barn I say to myself that I need to photograph it again before it is torn down and gone forever.
As luck would have it this past week I was driving past the barn and just happened to have my camera with me. I saw some areas around the property that had those flags in the ground and in fact there was a truck that pulled in after I did that was there to make some other markings of the land.
So I fully expect this old guy to be gone by the end of Summer. I hope I’m wrong but it has all the signs of be coming obsolete in the very near future.
It was a gorgeous day to photograph this old structure. I love the sky and clouds. I know it might have looked better at the golden hour but sometimes you just can’t wait around for the perfect light. Besides I love to photograph things with the sky has a bit of deep blue surrounded by puffy clouds.
Time will tell what becomes of this old barn.
Enjoy your day and be careful.
Happy Friday!
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.
Enjoy your day and be careful.
Happy Sunday.
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.
Enjoy your day and be careful.
