Upde Designs

Happy Friday.  What a treat yesterday evening.  My intention was to mow the yard  when I got home but Angie’s SUV parked in the driveway meant that those plans were on hold.  Ben was working and she had stopped over to drop the kids off with Grandma so she could run some errands.  We talked her into staying for dinner and enjoyed Josh and Gabby in the process.

Josh was showing off his new hair cut.  They both change so fast it is amazing.  

Plan to finish up all the images from the family reunion this weekend and get those ready for the folks to download.   Just about done with the processing and now I just have to prepare them downloading.   It was a great experience and they are wonderful people.

That’s it for today.  Hope you enjoy your Friday.  Thanks for stopping by and be careful.

I’m so late today, I have to develop a new word that means extremely late with emphasis.  🙂

The bird I love to hate.  They are such an aggressive, brave bird.  It is said that a brave person dies only once but a coward dies a thousand deaths.

Gotta run.  Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your day and be careful.

Happy Hump Day.  Sorry for the absence.  I’ve mainly been processing images from Saturday’s shoot and with other things going on there just hasn’t been time to post.  I haven’t touched my camera since Saturday.  I can already tell that the 365 project was somewhat successful because it made me shoot and learn everyday.  Now the things “I have to do” seem to get in the way of shooting.  I’m going to have to do something about that.

Just a couple of reflections and then it’s off to work.  I had never been to Rustic Park in Lost Nation.  It is a park like so many in small towns.  A great place to gather and share fellowship with family and friends.  Someone is an amazing artist / carver because there are many dead trees in the park and they have all been reincarnated into wonderful sculptures of wildlife.  Everything from bears to eagles.  I shot most of them and will share them from time to time on this blog.

I went back to Rustic Park on Monday after work to rethink my shooting location.  As I’ve been processing the images I haven’t been happy with the background I chose.  So I walked the park again (second guessing myself) and there are not a lot of places to shoot with a pleasing background.  Some of the places that would have been a little better were in the harsh sunlight, which would have made everyone squint and it would have been difficult to keep from over exposing parts of the image.

Other areas where I thought about using on Saturday were confirmed on Monday that they would not have been a good choice.  So while I was technically unhappy with the background, it in fact was the best the park had to offer at that time of day under those lighting conditions.

Each time I shoot I learn new things or I remember why I’m not supposed to do what I just did.  For something that, on the surface seems so simplistic,  point a camera at something and snap a picture it is devilishly complicated.  There are times when I sit here looking at an image and think, what a piece of crap this is. Then the next morning with fresh eyes and a clear mind I can see a totally different image and process it accordingly.  These are just some of the things I love about photography.  The more I do the more I want to do.  The more I fail the more I want to achieve.

So as I’m processing these images from the shoot I am really berating myself on the technical mistakes I made and the choice of background, and a hundred other things.  Then I look at the image again and think, wow that’s pretty damn good and what memories it captures.  <sigh>, such is the nature of life, isn’t it.

Thank you for stopping by.  Sorry for the lack of posts and images of late.  I’ll get back on track.  Oh and by the way I delivered the images of the family I showed on the blog last week and he was thrilled with them. That certainly made my day.  🙂

Enjoy your midweek hump day and be careful.  It’s HOT!  A friend of mine says that Summer and hot weather is God’s revenge on fat people.  🙂

Good Day.  Hope you are enjoying your weekend.  Yesterday was my big shoot for the large family reunion held at Rustic Park in Lost Nation, Iowa.  I had never been there before and I have to tell you it is a beautiful park complete with a nice pavilion, ball field and lots of area to play and picnic.   Friday was mostly preparing for the photo shoot.  Making sure cards were formatted, batteries charged, light stands and modifiers all accounted for.   I also spent a fair amount of time preparing the website that will contain the photos so the families (spread out across the USA) can download their images.

The lighting conditions couldn’t have been much worse.  Not a cloud in the sky and there was haze as well.  The photo shoot was scheduled for 11:00 a.m. so the light would be at it most intense and harsh period of the day.  Jeanne and I arrived at the park about an hour and half before the shoot.  We walked the entire park taking test shots and scouting the best location.  Having said that the best location is of course subjective but what I wanted to avoid was having trees coming out of people’s head.  They had to be in the shade otherwise they would have squinted and their features washed out.  I was concerned with dappled light as well so it was a huge challenge to say the least.

The stress was pretty intense as well.  This event happens every two years and there is no way to go back and re-shoot if i made a mistake.  I can be very happy shooting for myself but then again I’m the only one I have to please.  Here I was promising to deliver quality shots and in the back of my mind competing with the other photographers who were also taking family shots that day, not to mention the photographers who had shot the event before.  Finally it was hot and you add all that together, I was one hot dude.  🙂

So after walking the park and shooting a bunch of test shots we settled on the “best” location.  Just to give myself an insurance card I decided to set up two soft-boxes with 2 Nikon SB800 speed lights controlled by two Pocket Wizards to give me just a little fill light so I could expose for the background.  I shot predominately with the Nikon D4 | Nikon 28 – 300 mm  lens (for the sheer versatility of that lens.)  I shot in manual mode with settings of ISO 100 1/125 sec @ f5.6.  That combination seemed to produce the best results for the various family shots.

For the entire family group photo I used the Nikon D800 | Nikon 24 – 120 F4 lens and the same settings as above.  The extra 4 mm of wide-angle was just what I needed to get the large group all together.

People started showing up before I was ready.  I had spent too much time checking out locations.  Now I have to say that the family was wonderful.  They were warm and gracious and made me feel very comfortable.  They all and I mean all couldn’t have been nicer to work with.  They were responsive to my direction even when I was incoherent in my instructions.  “Hey you with the blue top (30 people wearing blue tops) move to your left two paces, no I mean my left.”  There was a fair amount of that.  The incoherent part that is.  Imagine around 140 people of all different ages standing around visiting with folks they may not have seen for a couple of years and trying to get them to pose for a picture.  But they were very responsive and the whole session went quite well.

Someone said to me that this shoot was the fastest they had seen at this event.  Oh darn, did I forget something, did I not take enough images?  Then I got to thinking maybe it was just that we got lucky and everyone was ready for the shoot when they were supposed to be.

Jeanne was an enormous help to me.  I doubt that I could have pulled it off without her.  She helped me with the equipment, posed for countless test shots, looked for things that needed to be adjusted before the shoot, helped organize people and continuously encouraged me and assured me I was doing a good job.  She was simply invaluable.  See what I mean about a tree coming out of the person’s head.  🙂

After the session I shot a few candid shots but most people were eating and there is nothing flattering about shooting people when they eat food.  🙂  We were invited to stay for lunch with the families but had to decline as we had made other commitments.

How about the images?  Well I have not yet started processing the images but I looked though them all and gave a big sigh of relief.  Only one person from one family had half of his head hidden by another person despite my best efforts of making sure I could see everyone.  The pictures were all good but I’ll know more after I process them.  I won’t be showing them on the blog because I do not have permission to do so and I want to respect the privacy of the families.

That’s it for today.  In reflection it was a fun event.  Stressful to be sure but like anything practice makes it easier and better.  I’ve made thousands of images of people in harsh sunlight but this is the first time I have done it for another person.  I want it to be perfect!  I’m looking forward to my next photo opportunity.  Thanks for stopping by the blog.  Enjoy your Sunday and be careful.

Happy Saturday.  Today is my big shoot for the family reunion.  I was configuring photography equipment and the website most of the day yesterday and I think I’m ready.  Little bit of stress but this is what I want to do so I will not forget to enjoy the experience.

Ben had to work yesterday evening so Angie, Joshua, and Gabriella came over for dinner.  She was in a great mood and was smiling for Angie so I grabbed some shots of her.  Josh was busy playing all over the house so I could only get him to stand still long enough for a couple of shots and the ones I got of him were not good.  So this is an all Gabby post today.

Yesterday we had an appointment with the audiologist about my hearing aids.  I had some issues with them and this was my one week check up.  When asked how I liked them I told her that on a scale of 1 – 10 they were at about a 7.  Then I detailed the three issues I had with them and she was able to make the necessary adjustments to alleviate the problems of all three.  What blew me away was when she connected with them on the computer she asked me if I had made any adjustments to the volume.  I admitted that I had and she told me on average how many times a day I had adjusted the volume and that it was always turning them up.

I had gone in the second day and asked her to turn the ambient sounds down.  So she raised them up and I can hear better.  Duh!  🙂  It’s not as hard to get acclimated  to them as I thought it would be.

So we had a nice dinner last night and played with the kids for awhile and then Miss Gabby announced it was time for her evening meal and that meant they were on their way home.  I wish I would have had my camera with me to photograph this but Josh can climb up into his car seat by himself.  Pretty neat feat considering how high Angie’s SUV is off the ground.  I was impressed.

Tanks for stopping by  today.  Wish me luck on the photo shoot.  Enjoy your Saturday and be careful.

Good Day.  I hope you had a safe and enjoyable 4th of July.  I never say one sparkler, rocket’s red glare, or loud boom of any kind.  I spent most of the day inside with air conditioning and a stomach bug.  😦  I won’t go into details.

The image above is to answer a couple of questions I’ve had about my 365 project and specifically the last picture of me with my camera.   If you go back to that post of July, 01, 2013 you will see in my left hand a small controller and a black strap around my writ.  That controller sends a signal to a receiver mounted on the Nikon D800 (you can see the antenna sticking up) to tell it to operate the camera (including focusing with auto focus) and then activate the shutter.  so I did in fact shoot the last picture, I just wasn’t holding the camera in my hand.  🙂

I had one more image of Gabriella left over from the other day and she is just so cute I had to post it today.  She is such a good little girl and doesn’t cry much unless she needs her diaper changed or she’s hungry.  Hell who wouldn’t cry about those two things.  🙂

I’m off today (took some PTO so I could enjoy a 4 day weekend.)  This morning I have to go back to the audiologist for a check up of the hearing aids.  I’ve adjusted pretty well (much better than I thought) but there is one issue that needs to be resolved or it is a deal break from my perspective.  When I am listening to talk radio in my car or I’m talking with someone who has a lower voice there is a noticeable popping in my ears.   So they have to get that fixed or I will try another brand.

Mark is home over the holiday weekend.  He starts his new job on the 15th of July,  I was concerned that he might be a NIKE Kid but he has shown that he has the right stuff.  NIKE kid?  No income kid with an education.  🙂

He was going to play golf with Taylor and her family yesterday at Thunder Hills and wanted some golfing tips.  He was practicing his swing in the back yard when I took this image.  I have several new holes in the yard now.  🙂

That’s it for today.  Mostly incoherent unrelated babble but thanks for stopping by and checking it out.   If you have to work today enjoy and then you’ve got the weekend to look forward to.  If you’re off then YEA and have fun.  Tomorrow is the big family reunion shoot  in Lost Nation.  I’m a little nervous but also confident that I can do a good job.

Be careful today.

Happy Hump Day.  It’s been quite an adjustment these last couple of days since the 365 project ended.  I’ve taken images both days but there wasn’t anything in particular that I had to do to them (i.e. post them for the picture of the day) and there wasn’t the nagging voice in my head saying “You’ve got to get this done.”   I shot a portrait of a new employee for our company’s Intranet on Monday and yesterday I shot the crew at the Mexican Restaurant, La Casa De Pancho.  I helped them with their website and they wanted to put their staff on the website.  They are very nice people and I enjoy working with them.  We still struggle with the language thing but it is getting better.

The image above is of Ms. Gabby.  Jeanne was holding her and Angie was coaxing a smile from her.  She is the happiest baby and just loves to sit in her carrier seat and watch her big brother entertain the Grandparents.

I’ve had several very gratifying moments this week that made me feel like the things I do have value to others.  Sometimes it’s pretty easy to shrink into your own world and think that what you do doesn’t really matter.  It’s been very rewarding to see that isn’t the case.

Additionally yesterday I met a woman who has a five-year old child.  She is a single parent and works many hours to make ends meet.  She has never had a “formal” image made of her Son or of her and her Son.  I told her there was something I could do about that and offered to do a photo shoot for her and her Son.  She was over joyed.  How neat is it to be able to use something you love doing to bring joy to another human being.  It doesn’t get much better than that. 🙂

That’s it for today.  Thanks for stopping by and reading my babble.  Enjoy your Wednesday and be careful.

Happy Monday.  My 365 project is over!  It is with mixed emotions that I proclaim the completion of the project.   Like most things in life there were good things about the project and not so good things.  For those who do not know about the 365 project (and from visiting with people about it there are many) it required me to take a different photo each and every day for a full year.  I started the project exactly one year ago today and finished it yesterday with this self-portrait.

What seemed to confuse people about the project is they thought I just posted a different image each day. If that were the case the project would be relatively easy.  The fact is I had to take and post a new image on that day.  So if I shot 700 images on one day I could only use one of those for my project and the next day I had to find something else to take an image of.

There were times that I would drive for 50 extra miles looking for something to inspire me or I would get home late and after dinner remember that I still hadn’t taken a picture for the project.  It sometimes took the joy out of photography.  However there were times when the project did exactly what it is supposed to do.  Made me shoot, learn my camera, practice, practice, practice and learn to look for shots.  I took images that I normally would have never taken before the project.

What a neat record or snapshot (pun intended) of my life for one whole year.  I can look back at all 365 images and remember things about each day.  It will be fun to look at this project in the coming years.

So I thought I’d pick my favorite of all the year.  It was not that difficult.  While I’m very proud of many of the images this one by far is my favorite.  Not just because she is my daughter but because in my mind this is a technically good image.  I love to shoot portraits, pretty women, and my daughter.  So this image has it all.  🙂

Some factoids about the project.  Joshua appeared in the project 27 times  and Angie was second with 12 times.  Jeanne, Mark, Ben, and Gabby made all together 24 appearances.  So all together family made up 17% of the project, which means that 83% of the images were made of things other than my immediate family

If I show my favorite I also have to show the worst of the bad.  The lamest of the lame, the cream of the crap.  Generally taken when at the late hour of the day I remembered that I hadn’t yet taken an image for that day.  Actually that is one of the down things about the project as well.  I never had to remember to take an image.  It was always on my mind.  I was determined to finish the project therefore I was always worried about taking an image for the day.  But there were times when the day was so busy and I was tired that I just hadn’t come up with anything.  Yesterday when I posted the 365th image it was like a weight had been taken off my shoulders.  🙂

That is the image above.  Some friends had given me this gift card for Olive Garden.  It was 9:30 p.m. and I was tired.  I had shut my computer off and was looking around my office for something, anything to shoot.  Then I saw the gift card and put it on top of my laptop.  Image of the day.  LAME!  😦  There were 33 lame shots or just get it done shots, which is about 9% of the total project.  I would guess you are always going to have some that just are, I have to get it done type shots.

I won’t do it again and I would have to think hard about recommending such a project to anyone.  I would certainly want to point out all the negatives as well as the positives.  I thinking of making a book of the images just for something to give to Joshua when he is older.

That’s it for today.  I could write for another hour about the experiences of the project but you’d be bored and I would be later than I am so I’ll stop here.  Thanks for stopping by, enjoy your day and be careful.

Happy Saturday.  I don’t normally blog on Saturday as it is a day I like to sleep in.  But I woke up this morning at 4:00 a.m. and couldn’t sleep so I decided to go for an early morning walk.  Good time of the day for me anyway as it is the time my mind is the clearest and most focused.  From there on it is a down hill slide.  🙂

So I got back to the house and since I had some endorphins working for me I felt I had two options.  I could clean my office or write a blog post.  You can readily see which job got done.

This image is of a wonderful young family I had the good fortune to be able to shoot yesterday after work.  They were fun to work with and it’s obvious these kids love their Dad.  The conditions couldn’t have been much worse.  Too early for the soft light and very windy.  I did use a small light stand but was always worried that it would blow over.  I could have used an assistant to hold a diffuser.  That would have saved a dozen shots that were not keepers.  But having lamented about all that I still was lucky enough to come away with a half-dozen keepers.

Scott Kelby says that if you can end up with a hand full or even one good shot you can feel good about the shoot.  I think they will be pleased with what I have.  Anyway I wanted to share this image with you.  It was a fun experience working with them.  I’d like do to a lot more of that now.

Thanks for spending a bit of your Saturday looking at the blog.  Hope you have a wonderful weekend and be careful.

Happy Friday.  Another chapter in life has arrived for me.  Yesterday I received my hearing aids from the Clinic.  For some like me it is another crack in the persona of who you think you are.  I have resisted for several years and know that I have missed a lot of conversations, agreed to some things I didn’t even know that I had agreed to and frustrated a number of friends and acquaintances.  I’ve also been on the receiving end of jokes,  pranks, and teasing by others.  In the final decision process I did it mainly for the people I serve and care about.

Jeanne, in all the thousands of times she has had to repeat herself never once showed one slight hint of frustration with me.  She would simply repeat what she said with a smile on her face.  But then that is the special gift that Jeanne is.  I remember the frustration I had with my Father who also had a hearing loss and would ask for a repeat of almost everything.  Lesson learned = age is the stalker of us all and with it comes the loss of certain functions.  Most of us will experience hearing degradation as we get older and then will be faced with the decision I was.

In my work people share very confidential information with me and I’m honored that they do.  But when they do that it is normal to lower their voice.  In those instances I could see their lips moving but could only hear the 10,000 chirping crickets in my ears from the tinnitus and then would have to say “I can’t hear you.”  For the last several years I have gone to an ear specialist who has been matter of fact and not very empathic about my tinnitus and hearing loss.  I hadn’t been to him in over 5 years and this time he put his hand on my shoulder and informed me that he too now had tinnitus.  He said that it is a part of aging as well as from a series of loud noises.

So yesterday I head things I have not heard in years.  I actually had to tell a couple of people they didn’t have to talk so loud.  🙂  I have to go back for an adjustment this morning because there are some things I don’t want to hear but for the most part I am committed to making them a part of my life.

Hope you enjoy your Friday and have something good happen to you.  Thanks for stopping by and be careful.