Happy Friday!
Another one image and done day for me.
Nothing on my mind for the second day in a row. Scary!
Enjoy your day and be careful.
Daily Posts
Happy Thursday!
Just one image for today. I saw this freshly mowed hay-field ready for baling, set against some building storm clouds and I had to turn around to take the shot.
Nothing else roaming around in my head so that’s it for today.
Thanks for stopping by the blog.
Enjoy your day and be careful.
Happy Wednesday!
I have several images for you today from our trip to the Dubuque Farmers’ Market on Saturday.
This guy is a therapy dog. I watched him for several minutes as adults and children approached him. He was gentle and accepting of them all. We often see dogs at the Farmers’ Market and we are often struck by how well they accept strangers. We’ve never had a dog like that! 🙂
A sea of tomatoes. As you would expect you can purchase all type of fruit, vegetables, and assorted variety of foods at the Market.
Popcorn of every color and configuration is a big hit with the kids. I really enjoy the atmosphere of the market. There is usually live music playing at different ends of the area and the conversations you over hear are of friendship and comradely (usually.)
Green Peppers finishes up our little tour of the Market. I made around 200 images while visiting the Market. I won’t show them all but may share a few more at a later time.
That’s it for today. Thanks for stopping by the blog. Enjoy your day and be careful.
Happy Tuesday!
I was having a typical day yesterday. I was sitting in the kitchen having just finished my mid afternoon snack when I decided to step outside to see if the temperature was still as hot as it was when I mowed the yard earlier in the day. Before I could open the door my eyes caught a glimpse of a familiar sight. It was our neighborhood Red-tailed Hawk. He was sitting on top of a shed about 250 feet away. I watched him for a little while and then decided I would grab my camera and take a chance at getting a shot.
Click on the images to make them larger and to show more detail. 🙂
I keep the Nikon D4 set up with the Sigma 120 – 600 mm lens configured for wildlife so I didn’t have to waste any time adjusting the camera. I slowly opened the patio door and stuck the lens out enough so I could see the hawk. Unfortunately I couldn’t get a focus lock because of the trellis so I thought what the heck if he flies he flies.
To my surprise and delight he didn’t take off and I ripped off 50 – 60 images of him just sitting on the roof. Then he flew down to the ground. At first I thought he had found a rodent but he was just sitting there. He gave me a couple of once overs but didn’t seem to mind that I was shooting lots of frames of him.
Then he took of and flew straight towards me. When he went by me I could have stuck my lens out and hit him. He flew over my head and up into the neighbor’s tree. I slowly walked over to the tree and he let me get close to him again.
I’m sure he found me to be an annoyance and finally he flew away, which was okay with me. We have some young squirrels and rabbits in our back yard and I’m not anxious for him to feast on them. 🙂
So that was my excitement for the day.
Thanks for stopping by the blog. Enjoy your day and be careful.
Happy Monday!
Another Black and White day of images for your today. This is St. Luke’s Methodist Church located at 12th and Main in Dubuque, Iowa.
The church can trace its origins back to the founding of the city of Dubuque, when Methodist Ministers arrived in the city and began work with the miners in the city.
The present church was built-in 1896, and the congregation began worshiping in the building in 1897. The church is noted for the collection of Tiffany Stained glass windows. It has been called “one of the five finest Religious Tiffany collections in the world.” The Angel in the window of the Angel among the Lilies is rumored to bear the likeness of the young deceased daughter of the people who had sponsored that particular window.
The pipe organ in the church is also of historic interest. When the Farand and Votey organ was purchased, two train cars were required to bring the parts to Dubuque. Because the train could not get across the river, barges than were used to float the parts over so that they could be installed in the church. The organ has about 1,000 pipes. At the time of installation, it was one of the largest organs in the area, however over the years it has been eclipsed by others. The pipe organ contains 36 ranks or pipes, about 2,200 total and was restored in 1992 by the Fowler Organ Company, Lansing, Mi.
Several years ago I shot several hundred images of the sanctuary and of the Tiffany windows. I shot 9 bracketed HDR images which turned out really well. However since that time the sanctuary underwent a major renovation and has been restored to its original beauty. Sometime this Fall I am going to ask for permission to once again do a photo session in the sanctuary to update the looks of this masterpiece.
I photographed a couple of interesting doorways (to me anyway) while we were out exploring on Saturday. Greg Nauman a photographer from Dubuque photographed “Doorways of Dubuque” and had a lot of success with that image. There are a lot of interesting doorways in our community.
Not so much of an interesting doorway on its own right but this building is down by the river close to where I photographed the JD Bridge. I enjoy photographing doorways, what can I say?
That’s it for today. Thanks for stopping by the blog. Enjoy your day and be careful.
Happy Sunday!
A couple of weeks ago my friend Andreas posted an image on his blog that he took of the iconic Julian Dubuque Bridge that goes between Iowa and Illinois. He shot it from an angle that I was unfamiliar with. I’ve taken hundreds of images of the bridge from both sides of the river but I really liked what he had captured.
So last week Jeanne was gone to Chicago and so I set out to see if I could find the location where he made his image. I tried both sides of the river but ran out of energy and patience before finding it. 🙂
Yesterday we did our annual journey to the Farmers’ Market and after an hour or so I told her I wanted to look for the location again. Jeanne is always game for a photo exploration so we set out to find it. I’ve lived here 37 years and have never been where we were yesterday. 🙂
This is an image of the JD Bridge from the Illinois side of the river, which I took a week ago and it gave me a clue as to how to get to the location I was looking for. It’s not an easy trek and not without some peril as the rocks are large and very difficult to walk on.
Click on the image to reveal a larger more detailed version.
On the way back to the car I saw this structure protruding from the river. I assume it is some type of tie off for river boats or barges.
It was a fun Saturday morning and I got some interesting images from the Farmers’ Market.
That’s it for today. Thanks for stopping by the blog. Enjoy your day and be careful.
Happy Friday!
I have three images for you today of a 1966 yellow Corvette. One of my all time favorite cars. When I was 19 years old my Uncle owned 50% of the Chevrolet dealership in Bethany, Missouri. I could have bought a 1966 Corvette convertible for $3,600.00. Instead I opted for a solid black 1966, SS 396/375 Chevelle that would burn through back tires faster than the increase in the National Debt. 🙂
I paid $3,100.00 for the SS 396 so only $500 more for the Corvette. 😦
I’ve often regretted not going for the Corvette (which by the way my Uncle thought I was crazy for not doing) but I wanted pure speed. The Corvette only had a 327 engine and that didn’t have the horse power I wanted. Hey, I was 19 and stupid.
This particular Corvette is part of the Willis Johnson collection and kept in heated / air-conditioned garage. He has about 40 Corvettes of all different years and looks. He has the first year model Corvette up to the latest production model. Even though the garage is air-conditioned they had the doors open for us and so the heat and humidity took over very quickly.
I was already dripping wet from heat in the big garage so I didn’t do much shooting at the Corvette garage. When I found this ’66 I had to take some shots. 🙂
It is extremely difficult to take quality images of vehicles or any highly reflective subject with so many overhead fluorescent lights.
I am about at the end of my Nashville images. Perhaps a few more but I’ve pretty much gone through them. I appreciate all the comments about the trip and the images I’ve shown. It was truly a great experience.
That’s it for today. Thanks for stopping by the blog. Enjoy your day and be careful.
Happy Thursday!
I have four images for you today from Cannonsburg Village, Murfreesboro Tennessee. Among their many exhibits and displays they have a large number of vintage tractors and farm machinery. I didn’t have a tripod (mine malfunctioned) and the shed was dark so I raised the ISO on my camera and used a little bounce flash to get some lighting.
One of the techniques that Bill Fortney preaches is getting in close and really drawing your viewer’s attention to that part of the photograph that has significance.
Bill does a lot of macro photography as well as landscapes. He holds many workshops throughout the year and most are centered around the type of target opportunities found at Cannonsburg, Antique Archeology, and Marathon Motor Works. He holds one workshop at Old Car City in White, Georgia which contains the worlds largest known classic car junkyard. I actually thought about going to that one before I learned of the Nashville opportunity.
So while at Cannonsburg I photographed a lot of tractors. My Dad, back in the 50s and 60s, sold some farm machinery produced by a company call Cockshutt. He sold several and I don’t think (well actually I know) he made very much money on them. Plus since they were new he didn’t get any repair work on them. 🙂
Finally I’ll end with this snapshot of Bill Fortney taking a picture of Joe McNally who is teaching a lighting class at Cannonsburg. Ricky Skaggs is giving me an approving look.
That’s it for today. Thanks for stopping by the blog. I’m just about out of Nashville stuff. Lots of rejects that have memories only to me so I can’t delete them but I won’t make you suffer through them.
Oh, my presentation at Rotary went pretty well. There weren’t many folks there because the Chamber of Commence was holding their annual golf outing so a lot of the Rotary members were not there. The crowd was small but appreciative and anytime I can talk about photography I’m happy.
Enjoy your day and be careful.
Happy Wednesday!
I have three images for today. Just some random images from our walk down Broadway Street in Nashville our first night in town.
I realize that I’m not a well-traveled person. But this whole peddle bar thing really fascinates me. I wonder how one of those would work out in Dubuque, especially with the hills we have here. 🙂
We went down by the river and I saw this individual taking a picture with his smart phone. Nothing like taking a picture of a person taking a picture.
I have my Rotary presentation today. Hope it goes well. Worked on it some more last night and didn’t get to bed until much later than normal.
That’s it for today. Enjoy your day and be careful.
Happy Tuesday!
I have several images for you today from the Willis Johnson Garage and Classic Car display. Inside the 47,000 square foot facility he has recreated small town America complete with a service station, Diner, Main Street store fronts and of course all the cars of that era.
I shot about 700 images at the display, of course a lot of those are multiple images necessary for HDR (High Dynamic Range) because of the difficult lighting conditions. I have no idea what kind of a vehicle this is and I don’t have the time available to research it. 🙂
I do know that this is the front end of a 1955 Chevrolet.
I am going to give a presentation of my photography both of Nashville and other images at Rotary tomorrow in Maquoketa. I have about 160 images of eagles, landscapes, portraits, and of course some of the Nashville images. It will be about a 20 minute program and I’m looking forward to it.
That’s it for today. Not too many more classic cars to show. I do have a couple of Corvettes to show that I find interesting but that’s about it for the cars.
I went out shooting on Sunday and was interested in photographing some of the iconic landmarks around Dubuque. I’m not thrilled with the results so I’ll decide if they see any time on the blog. 🙂
Thanks for stopping by the blog. Enjoy your day and be careful.
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