Happy Monday! I’ll admit it. I’m a wimp anymore when it comes to travel. I looked at my calendar this morning and the road conditions and decided I would take an unscheduled PTO day. I knew it would take an hour or more to clean out my driveway (I did that yesterday as well) and then the slow drive to Maquoketa would add additional time on to my lateness. I reasoned that a PTO day would be good for my mental health as well so here I sit in front of my screen working on photos. 🙂
I thought I would share some Winter photos that I took yesterday. The image above is a tree that I have photographed in the four seasons. I like the way it looks and yesterday morning after I finished clearing the snow the sky was a pretty blue with white wispy clouds so I was able to make this image.
Yesterday afternoon Jeanne and I drove down to the river. It had not yet begun to snow until we arrived at the lock and dam. There were three eagles sitting in the middle of the river by an open pool of water and two perched high up on the bluff. I couldn’t get a decent shot of any of them so I didn’t take any. We then drove over to the little park South of the Lock and Dam and I captured this image of a bench with the Iowa / Wisconsin bridge in the background. It had just started to snow. The wind was blowing pretty good as well but not as hard as it was going to a little later.
Finally we went to the 16th Street Basin. This is a low quality image and the only reason I am showing it to you is because of what it captured.
There was a small pool of open water at the West end of the Basin and when we arrived there was a lone Mallard Duck swimming in it. He was playing in the water and then he got out waddled over to this small opening that you see to his right, he jumped in stuck his head in the water and came out with this long thing that we first thought was a weed. In fact I gave it no more thought until I was processing my images and I noticed that he had pulled a live fish out of the water and was trying to eat it.
I did not know that ducks ate fish. He struggled with it for awhile but we assumed because it was the size it was he was trying to break off smaller pieces. We didn’t stay long because it was snowing harder and watching a lone duck while interesting isn’t frankly all that interesting. 🙂
So that’s it for today. Enjoy your day. If you have to travel be careful and as always thanks for stopping by the blog.
Wonderful weather pattern we’re in right now. I’m looking forward to the -20 plus degrees tomorrow night. It could be worse and if you live in the Midwest during the Winter months what more can we expect. Jeanne and I had a wonderful time at the Chamber Gala this past Friday night. It was a very nice event and it afforded me the opportunity to take portraits of all attendees (those who wanted them) as part of their evening package.
Portrait photography, as is the case with all types of photography comes with its own challenges. I can’t remember the last time I set up my lights and did a formal portrait shoot so like anything you forget things and have to get in a rhythm. That being said I was overall very happy with my images.
The image above is of a wonderful couple. She is on the board with me at the Chamber and I just met her husband the night of the Gala. They were great subjects and one day I might talk them into a more lengthy session. I basically did a two and through session with everyone. I had people stand on a predetermined mark and shot two images of them. A quick look at the LCD screen to make sure eyes were open and then on to the next. So they are not perfect but again I’m pretty happy with them.
I shot everyone against a green screen background. That presents its own challenges but I like to use it sometimes because I can use any type of back ground to insert behind it that I choose. The image above is of the same couple pretty much like it came out of the camera. Photoshop and some of the plug-ins that you can buy for Photoshop do a pretty good job on a green screen background so that’s why I continue to use it. I could tell you a nightmare story of the fist portrait shoot I did with a green screen. OMG it was terrible I don’t even like looking at those images. 🙂
Another type of background on this image. This lady was presented with the Volunteer of the year award. She is one of those individuals that really gets involved in the community and works hard to improve it. I may post some more of these images as I get them processed. I spend about 20 – 40 minutes on an image getting it ready. It’s a lot of work but I enjoy working in Photoshop almost as much as I do taking the image so I don’t see it as work at all.
Enjoy your day and stay warm. Thanks for stopping by the blog. Be careful.
It’s called I got nothing Friday. This is the best I could do. Another image lifted from a video I took this past Monday. Sorry subject I know but it’s all I could come up with today.
On a happier note, this evening is my last official act as President of the Maquoketa Chamber. We are holding our 2nd Winter Gala. There are 160 people signed up for an evening of great wine, food, music and some other fun things. This year I am doing a formal portrait of each couple as a complimentary gift to them.
So that means I’ll be taking my portable studio complete with green screen backdrop, Elinchrom BXRI 500 strobes and soft boxes, the whole operation and making (hopefully) some fun memories for the attendees. I would like to show you some images from the Gala tomorrow but it depends on how late I get home. They may have to wait until Sunday. 🙂
That’s it for today. Enjoy this small break in the cold today. Back to the freezer Sunday and through most of next week.
Thanks for stopping by the blog. Please be careful.
A short post today as I am true to form running late. I’m still experimenting with the images from the Phantom from my Monday experience. I didn’t take any still images but lifted the two images used for this post from the video. Therefore the quality of the images is pretty soft and was very noisy. After I removed the noise the images were really soft. Like I said I’m still testing and evaluating and trying new things.
I gave a program on the Phantom today and about my losing contact with it out over the Mississippi. I think the Rotarians enjoyed the presentation and I had fun telling the story and showing the 10 minute video.
I would have liked to give them a demonstration of what the Phantom looks like in flight but the temperature was a balmy 4 above with 15 – 25 mph winds so I opted to just do a PowerPoint presentation with some images and the video.
As you look at the image above if you focus on the middle of the image you will see me standing between the two benches flying the Phantom. I cannot actually see the Phantom because of the bright sky and my dark glasses but I could still see the POV application on my iPhone.
So if you think about how small I look to the Phantom (and trust me I’m not small) you can understand why I couldn’t see the Phantom once I got close to the bridge. I won’t make that mistake again.
That’s it for today. I hope you have a great Thursday. Thanks for stopping by the blog. Be careful.
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is probably a duck. Before making my trip to the river on Monday I stopped by the 16th Street Basin. There hasn’t been any activity there the last few times I’ve stopped but I thought I’d take a chance.
At the very Southwest side of the basin there was a small open space of water and a dozen or more ducks were busy playing. They move very fast and are constantly changing course and bobbing for food on the bottom so they are a little tricky to capture. I enjoy shooting images of Mallards. I think the male is really colorful. I enjoy taking images of wildlife just about anytime.
I did go down to the lock and dam and there were two eagles sitting high in the trees close to the Eagle Point park. No I didn’t even consider getting the Phantom out and trying to get a close up of them. The last thing I want to do is scare or disturb an eagle. I love to watch them and take their pictures but I am not about messing with their environment.
I also photographed some folks walking and fishing on the ice. At my current density I do not believe it would be wise for me to walk on the ice. There were a couple of people with high-powered binoculars who walked very close to the dam to watch a lone eagle fishing. Again that is something I wouldn’t do.
Well that’s it for today. Not much of a story for you with this post. I have a busy last half of the week ahead, with dinner meetings Thursday and Friday and then dinner with a group of friends on Saturday. I also have a program to present at Rotary today on the Phantom. So I was up late last night working on images and video for that presentation.
Enjoy your Hump Day. Thanks for stopping by the blog and be careful.
Happy Tuesday! I have an amazing story to share with you today. I’m somewhat embarrassed yet over joyed to share what happened yesterday to me and the Phantom. I had yesterday off because of MLK day and I really wanted to go flying somewhere other than our neighborhood. I piddled around in the morning and then around 11:00 a.m. the sun came out and even though there were a lot of white clouds in the sky there was also a good amount of sunshine. It was 34 degrees so that wasn’t too bad. The wind was a little high about 22 m.p.h. but acceptable.
So where to go? I wanted to take an image of the Julian Dubuque Bridge I said to myself, so I loaded up the Phantom and a camera and off to East Dubuque I went. I went to the boat launch on the Illinois side of the river because it is close to the bridge and I reasoned I wouldn’t have to venture too far from my ground location. When I arrived it was apparent they had not cleared the snow in some time and so there was no good place to launch the Phantom from. As I sat there contemplating my next move I reasoned also that flying close to the bridge might be distracting to some motorist and that might cause an accident and I’d spend the rest of my life in jail. 🙂
Ah ha, to the Great River walk and I can take a video and some images of the old rusty railroad bridge. Yep that is what I’m going to do. Again I won’t have to get too far away from where I’m standing so it will be perfect. Fast forward now I’m standing on the river walk and I have the Phantom sitting on a circular pattern on the walk and thinking about my flight plan. So I fired up the Phantom and it jumped into the air. Now it is here that I have to explain a few things. First of all I wear transition lenses and they get very dark. Very dark indeed. So it is hard to see my iPhone and the flight app with them on. If I take them off I can see my iPhone but it is a big blur so I have issues.
Second the river is completely covered with snow. Snow is white (remember that), there are a lot of white clouds in the sky (remember that) and the Phantom is white. So I ran it up to an altitude of 112 feet so I could be sure and get a good clearance over the bridge and then I stopped and rotated the Phantom so I was looking at it from the other side. That is where I must have gotten disoriented. I could not see the Phantom so I wasn’t sure exactly where it was. I could make out the bridge on the iPhone so I flew it like that. I thought I cleared the bridge and was back near the place where I was standing but nothing looked right and of course I couldn’t see the Phantom so I was mildly concerned.
Finally I got it oriented to where I could see the Wisconsin Bridge and the Railroad Bridge and felt like I was re-acclimated once again. The wind was pretty strong and the more I tried to come back to the bridge the farther away I seemed to get. I couldn’t see my monitor good enough to really tell where I was but I also knew I could eventually figure it out. Then the worst thing happened. A “Lost signal with the Phantom” message appeared on my iPhone. Oh CRAP!! Now what. Well I can’t believe I’m that far away but I must have flown further than I originally thought. So I started walking South on the river walk thinking I was over by the Julian Dubuque Bridge.
I couldn’t connect to the Phantom so I figured I must have gotten turned around and it was North. I walked to the end of the river walk and then climbed a fence and walk another 150 yards or so trying to reconnect with the Phantom. It was nowhere to be found. OMG, now what? How am I going to explain this to Jeanne, to my readers of the blog, to my friends at work, hell to the insurance company? To say I felt dazed and dejected would be an understatement. I felt really bad. How could I have been that stupid, with less than an hour of flying experience under my belt, to take it over the Mississippi River. I walked back a lot slower than I had gone out so it was about 25 minutes from first taking off by the time and I knew that the Phantom had a 25 minute flight endurance on one battery. I finally got back to the bench and where I had left the Phantom’s case.
As I approached the bench there on the River Walk not more than 12 inches from where it had taken off set my Phantom. In one piece, fully powered down and just sitting there waiting for me to pick it up. So I reconnected with its WiFi and stopped recording. I had hopped it had recorded the entire event so I could tell where in the hell it had gone to. Sure enough it was still recording so I stopped the recording (see Lesson #5) and then powered down the Phantom again. I wanted to kiss it but I didn’t (in public anyway.) 🙂
The video below is the flight that I made. I cut out the long 10 minute hovering part until it went into fail safe mode. I’m impressed, just like they said it would do if it lost its connection with the controller it would return home. I didn’t turn the controller off until I started my walk back. So even though I had lost contact with the WiFi connection from the Phantom it was still receiving contact with the controller. When I shut the controller off, that is when it went into its fail safe mode and returned to its launch point. WOW!
So if you want to watch the video it is about 10 minutes long. Again I trimmed the sitting and waiting for me to turn off the controller so it could come home. Lesson #6.
Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy your day and be careful.
Happy Monday! I’m enjoying a day off from work in honor of Dr. Martin L King’s Day. The weather yesterday cooperated (sort of) and I got to do some more flying. It is clear to me that I still have lots to learn. I’ve watched a lot of videos on flying, read the instructions, and spent a fair amount of time on the Phantom Forums, however there is no substitute for actually getting out and learning first hand.
So yesterday I decided to fly from my back yard for two reasons. One I only had half a battery and I wanted to make sure I could land safely when the battery was low. The app on my iPhone makes a loud warning sound that repeats when you get to 20% battery left. Anyway I had a misstep on my first attempt at getting airborne and bounced the Phantom into the snow, which meant that the camera was buried in snow. 😦 So I cleaned it up and dried it out before trying again. (Lesson #1)
I got brave enough to fly to 358 feet in altitude. I actually couldn’t see it from the ground and of course that made me very nervous. I had the point of view live image on my iPhone but in the bright sunlight it was hard to see where I was. I still do not have the camera configured properly. I’ve got some more work to do on that and learning what the best setting for the camera is. Anyway I flew it over the house and wanted to take an aerial shot of my neighbor’s home to make a nice framed image to give him for helping with my snow removal. I need a lot more work on composition and positioning of the Phantom. (Lesson #2)
By the way that little green spot in the middle of the patio is me. 🙂
I got a little braver and drove out to the industrial park. There is a nice fishing pond and walking path there and I wanted to practice flying around a given area. As you can see from the video below there is an old bridge that they have set across part of the pond, however it is not yet open to the public.
So I flew around the pond and just where the video stops I took a couple of images of the ice fishermen. I wanted to get closer but again my motto is that I don’t want to spoil anyone’s day so until I learn how to control the Phantom I’m keeping it very far away from people. When you take a still image you have to shut the video off and take the images. Then you have to remember to turn the video back on. (Lesson #3) So I missed the coming back to the parking lot and a great landing because I forgot to turn the video recording back on. I still see live point of view images while flying but just not recording what I see.
After landing and checking everything out I decided to get a little bolder. So I did a low flyover of the bridge (it was pretty cool if I do say so myself) and then went up and around the pond again only at a lower altitude. This time when I came back to the parking lot I let the Phantom hover and I walked over to it and looked into the camera and waved (I thought that would be cool.) I took the first image on this post and then landed the Phantom.
When I got home none of that video nor some of the other video that I wanted to show was retrievable. I kept getting the files are corrupt. 😦 Damn camera! Then I thought it has to be something I’ve done so I went to the Phantom Forums. Sure enough after about 20 minutes of searching and reading I found the problem. When you land and are ready to shut down you have to shut the video capture off and power the flying app off. Then turn the Phantom off and then your video will not get corrupted. (Lesson #4)
So much to learn and such a little brain to learn it with. Doesn’t look like very good flying weather today. I’ll have to see this afternoon. I was standing in the shade (so I could see the video) at the industrial park and without the sun shining on me I froze like a Popsicle. Found it hard to land the Phantom because my fingers were so numb.
That’s it for today. Hope you enjoy your Monday. Thanks for stopping by the blog and be careful.
Happy Sunday! Nice snow system that went through yesterday. I love snow days, that is when I don’t have to drive anywhere and such was the case yesterday. So I decided it would be a good day to clean my office. A much bigger project then I had anticipated. I spent the major part of the day moving piles around. Other than it is less dusty I cannot tell I did anything.
After lunch it was still snowing so I though a little nap might be in order and then I would tackle the driveway and sidewalks. We have a wonderful neighbor who is enjoying retirement and he got a new snow blower last year, which he calls his toy. I was getting ready to bundle up and Jeanne said, “Don’t bother Jack is almost done with the driveway.” 🙂 Is this a great country or what.
As you can tell from the two images of today’s post, Angie, Ben and the kids came over for dinner last night. It was the perfect end to a great day. We enjoyed our time with the kids and had fun with our grand children, got them pretty well wound up and then it was time for baths and bed time stories. I love being Grandpa. 🙂
Anyway, hope to get to fly the Phantom today. Looks like the weather should be perfect for it, with winds predicted to be around 17 mph that will be just fine. I’m having trouble deciding where I want to take it. I have a grand total of 3 minutes worth of flying experience so nothing to complicated today. We’ll see what happens, hopefully some video for your viewing pleasure on tomorrow’s blog.
That’s it for today. Thanks as always for stopping by. Enjoy your day and be careful.
Happy Saturday. A quick post this morning. The image above was taken with my little point and shoot camera that I always keep in the car. It really doesn’t do justice to what I saw yesterday morning on my way to work. I had an early morning meeting that I was doing the presenting so being a little late was not an option. The sunrise had this amazing shaft of light coming from the top of the rising sun extending far up in the sky. It was very pronounced and an amazing sight to witness.
Unfortunately the poor quality of the lens just does not let me show you what I saw, however as I reasoned in my mind, it was better to stop on the shoulder and grab the image then not having it at all. So this is what I have for you today.
Snowy day in our area today. No flying today (maybe tomorrow), hope I can find some eagles fishing by the river.
Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy your day and be careful it is going to be slick today. 🙂
Happy Friday! I have wanted to capture this image for weeks. Well maybe not this exact image but I’ve seen these horses inside the barn on really cold mornings looking out and I thought it would make a good image. So this isn’t exactly what I had in mind but it’s close enough to make me happy.
Yesterday was a crappy day weather wise. There was lite snow most of the day and moderate temperatures hovering around 24 degrees when this was taken. You can see it was snowing pretty hard at the time because the snow fall is really prevalent in this image. What you don’t see is the very strong wind that was blowing so hard it was difficult to keep the car on a straight path.
I really feel sorry for animals that have to be exposed to these harsh conditions. I suppose they have adapted to it but I can’t imagine it is comfortable for them by any stretch of the imagination.
I drive by this scene every morning. 99% of the time I’m running too late to stop and take an image. The other 1% of the time the horses are nowhere to be found. So yesterday I grabbed a sandwich and headed out to see if they were in the barn. This is what I ended up with. I hope you enjoy it.
Thanks for stopping by the blog. Enjoy your day and be careful.
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