It’s called, I got nothing today.
Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy your day and be careful.
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Hey, at least it’s not a bird again. I shot this image at the end of the day last Saturday. There is a nice family park in the industrial division on the West end and it provides picnic tables and a walking path around the pond. Usually it is full of people walking, fishing, canoeing, or picnicking. This day with the temperature hovering just about 25 and the sun about to set there was no one around. One of the few times I’ve seen that. I like the mood of the image.
I got pretty used to taking a nap over the last 4 day holiday and yesterday was tough not getting to enjoy a mid-day snooze. I’ll have to pick up a couple of bottles of “5-hour energy.” 🙂
Yesterday a friend gave me an older image that had gotten pretty mangled up. It is 17 X 24 inches and cannot be replaced. It was too big for my scanner (I even tried doing it in sections with no success.) So I got the idea to tape it to a neutral wall and set my camera up on a tripod and capture the image with my sharpest lens. Then work on rebuilding the image in Photoshop. I worked on it for a couple of hours last night and the jury is still out. I just took care of the easy stuff last night. There is some pretty bad damage around the facial area and some lettering on a tee-shirt. I’m not sure my Photoshop skills are up to this challenge but it will be an interesting and fun challenge.
That’s it for today. Hope you enjoy your day. Thanks as always for checking out the blog and be careful.
I know I said no more birds on my next post. I did go out Saturday with the intention of finding something besides wildlife to shoot. I just didn’t see anything that caught my interest. I was on my way back to the ranch when I came across these guys and as you can see by the light there wasn’t much time left to shoot.
I had to bump the ISO up to 800 to capture these guys at a decent shutter speed and they are still a little soft for my taste.
I went up around Sherrill and Ball Town but there just wasn’t anything that caught my eye. There were a couple of combines out but they were in the shade and they just didn’t look good.
I did find a very strange-looking bird sitting on a power line and I shot about 20 shots of it. None of them came out worth a darn he was just a black fuzzy blob against a blue sky. Too bad I didn’t have a flash with me. I also saw some deer but they too were in the shadows and didn’t lend themselves to making an image. I tried to get a different angle on them but by the time I (stealthily) got to where I thought I could shoot they took off. I guess at my height and weight I’m not very stealthy. 🙂
So that’s it for today. Not a very good post nor good images but it’s all I have for today. Thanks for stopping by and be careful.
I don’t know what’s going on with me and birds, but this is the third day in a row that I have posted some type of non domestic bird. Tomorrow I’ll doing something different.
Yesterday Jeanne left for her Mother’s home in Ames and Mark (who’s home for a visit) had plans so I took my camera and my 500 mm lens and drove to the place, where for the last three years, I have photographed Eagles feeding on discarded animal carcasses. I know, just the sound of that is disgusting but hey, they are Eagles and they are a beautiful creature to look at and photograph. I said I wasn’t going to shoot those images anymore but it is that time of year (for me anyway) where I have trouble finding interesting things to shoot.
So I drove the 35 miles to the feeding spot and there were no eagles in sight. I waited around for a little while just to be sure but they were not there this day. What to do? I had the big lens, which is great for wildlife but not so good for landscapes. I took a drive through the country and ended up putting on about 130 miles.
I was about to give up when I came up over a small hill and saw this guy sitting in this tree. I slowed down, figuring he would fly as soon as I stopped. He didn’t, so I put on my emergency flashers (there was no shoulder to park on) set up the camera and fired away. He never moved other than he would occasionally look around. Other than that, he would keep this pose with his eyes fixed solidly on me. I got about 20 shots and then moved on before someone ran into me. 🙂
So I’ll take a shot like this any day of the week. You can click on the image to make it larger.
Hope you enjoy your weekend. Thanks for stopping by and be careful.
I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I spent the day snacking, eating, and then I ate some more. Watched a little football, played with the Grand Kids and then took a short (interrupted) nap. Typical Thanksgiving day. The one thing I didn’t do was shoot any images of Josh or Gabby. I know, I find that hard to believe myself, but it’s true.
We had a wonderful dinner of, if not the best ham I have ever eaten, certainly the best one I can remember. And as if to mock us and say I lived through another holiday this guy comes walking through their back yard with about 12 of his friends. These are the only images I shot the entire day. 😦
Enjoy your day. Thanks for stopping by and be careful.
Happy Thanksgiving!
I hope you have a wonderful day with your family and friends. It is normally my favorite holiday of the year.
Here are the Swans from Hurstville Pond. I took this image on Tuesday. They’re just being difficult in this image. When I pulled over to park they were facing the roadway. By the time I got out of the car and set up the camera they had turned their backs on me. They would look my way every once in a while to see if I was still there. 🙂
My friend Ann Burns who is a Naturalist for the DNR and works at the Hurstville Interpretive Center sent me an email yesterday saying that one day last week there were five adults and four juveniles on the pond. Wish I had been able to capture that image. One of these days they will leave the pond and hopefully we’ll see them next year.
Enjoy your day and thanks for checking out the blog. Be careful.
Some good news. I finally saw the swans yesterday. I had not seen them for several days so I was a little concerned. There were four adults and the two cygnets on the ice yesterday morning when I came by the pond. I did stop and shoot a couple of images of them (most of which were butt shots.) I’ll show those tomorrow.
I had a lunch meeting at one of our banks yesterday and so as is my custom I took my camera along for the ride. No time for images on the way over as I was running a little late (imagine that) however I arrived at the bank precisely at the designated time so no one had to wait on me. 🙂
When I’m driving and simply do not have time to stop I always see things that attract my interest and desire to capture an image. Such was the case on the way over yesterday. I finished my meeting a little early so I decided I would take the time on the drive back if a photo opportunity presented itself.
While the sun was out most of the day there were a fair amount of clouds in the sky and so it produced a softer light than there would normally have been in the early afternoon. So I was able to capture some farm scenes and even this harvest scene. There is still some corn unharvested, although most of the fields I passed yesterday were barren.
The one shot that did get away yesterday was really disappointing. I saw a machine shed that I wanted to capture an image of. Yes I know I’ve shot this old shed many times but I still enjoy shooting it again.
So I pulled off to the side of the road and was getting the camera set up. When I looked back at the building I noticed a hawk riding the wind and hunting. He was floating on the wind and remained almost motionless for several moments. So I reconfigured the camera to burst mode and set a higher ISO then rolled down the window. In the time it took for me to bring the camera to my eye he decided he didn’t want any part of posing and off he went. I was able to get 15 shots of his tail feathers. 😦
That’s it for today. I’m off tomorrow and Friday so can enjoy a 4 day weekend. 🙂 Hope you enjoy your hump day. Thanks for stopping by and be careful.
I guess I wasn’t prepared for the amount and intensity of snow we had yesterday morning. I suppose, had I read the forecast, I might have been better prepared. I was pleased with the all wheel drive of my car. That was one of the things I insisted on getting. I have been a little unhappy with the car as it doesn’t have xenon headlights or sensor bumpers. My own fault for not doing enough research before buying the car. However the AWD is awesome and it helps make up for some of the features I didn’t get. It was an easy drive this morning despite the slick roads. It took me 20 minutes to get from my house to the highway (normally a 5 minute drive) because traffic was moving so slow, but aside from that the trip was uneventful.
I really missed the shot of the day however. I have shown an image of two horses that I go by about every morning, on this blog before. Yesterday morning when I went by them they were standing back to back heads down and snow accumulating on their uncovered backs. The snow was heavy enough that it would have made the image amazing. There was absolutely no where to park and I was already 30 minutes late so I didn’t even hesitate. I’ve regretted all day not stooping and taking that shot.
So instead of that amazing shot I’ll show you this little Ring Billed Gull. They were plentiful on Saturday. People apparently have been feeding them lately because they exhibited none of the fear like they did in the Spring. So it was very easy to get close and make an image of them.
That’s all I have for today. Hope you enjoy your Tuesday. Thanks for stopping by and be careful.
Happy Monday! I love it when a plan comes together and things work out like I had envisioned. Such was not the case yesterday. Late yesterday afternoon Jeanne and I headed out for our typical Sunday drive / photo shoot. I knew there wasn’t much time to make images because there was only an hour of sunlight left so since I had shot water the day before I was going for a landscape shot Sunday.
Using my massive brain I reasoned that if I were going to shoot some great light landscapes I should go West. So the very first thing I see as we’re driving were two grain wagons parked on a hill of a harvested field. I reasoned they would make a wonderful image in silhouette. Problem was there was no place to park. It was too cold to park a half mile away and walk back so what to do.
After shooting the above bridge and not finding anything else worthy of making an image I decided to drive back to the wagons and see if I could reason out how to get closer to them. On our second pass I notice a small entrance to the field. Aha, I thought, this is where I will go. Jeanne reminded me that we had a car not a truck or tractor. Not to worry my dear we can do this and down into the field we went. After turning around and heading back up the steep incline we parked and I got out to make an award-winning, much acclaimed photo that would surely seal my fate as a world-class photographer.
Problem was the sun wasn’t down yet and I couldn’t get the angle I wanted so the sun was directly behind the wagons, because of a large row of very tall trees. Finally, as the sun disappeared below the horizon, I capture the shot and it looked pretty good on the little LCD screen on my camera. Problem is, it wasn’t anything like I imagined in my mind. Sunsets look great if they are over water or some other amazing scenery or if there are some clouds in the sky to cast some interesting shades of light on. Unfortunately I had none of those yesterday so the image was a (yawn) nice snapshot.
Problem is I spent so much time on and effort to make it I’m bound to show it to you. 😦
Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy your day and be careful.
37 years ago I was a rudderless ship adrift in a sea of confusion, turmoil, and futility. Then I met and married Jeanne who has given my life purpose, structure, and joy. She is, other than my parents, the only person who loved me for what I am. Not what she thought I can be, what she wanted me to be, or what she hoped I would be. It has been a wonderful journey with my best friend and soul mate. It has not been without its hills and valleys but it has always been a place of love and acceptance. Thank you Sweetheart for sharing your life with me.
Yesterday Jeanne and I went on a photo shoot as we enjoy doing. It was around 2:00 p.m. and the light was beautiful. Since the harvest is pretty much done and the landscape is browning and barren, we decided we would try to find some wildlife to shoot. So we headed for our favorite spots around Dubuque.
Nothing going on at the 16th Basin. I’m hoping that will change when the river starts freezing over. Last year I had lots of opportunities to shoot eagles at the Basin. We also tried the lock and dam. There was one eagle perched high on a tree limb but he was so well protected by other branches that I couldn’t get a clear shot of him.
We finally ended up on the Wisconsin side of the river and found a couple of great barns to shoot in the setting sun.
The first image was captured on the Illinois side of the river. I was hoping to get some more images of the Julian Dubuque Bridge as sunset but there were no clouds in the sky and so I wasn’t all that happy with what was presented to me. I did find a great place to shoot however so more on that later.
All together I captured 145 images of a variety of things that I will show during the coming days. I hope to get out again today as it is a clear and sunny day albeit a little on the chilly side of only 10 degrees.
Thanks for stopping by the blog. I hope you enjoy your Sunday and be careful.
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