Upde Designs

Welcome to my second favorite month of the year.  I love October.  I received a text from a good friend of mine Saturday morning saying that, “I can’t wait to see your pictures from this weekend! The leaves are maybe the prettiest I have ever seen.”  So that sets the expectation bar pretty high.  I didn’t even get out Saturday with my camera.

After being gone for basically the entire week I needed to catch up on some things around the house and then we had a wedding reception to go to in Maquoketa that started at 5:00 pm.

So on the way home Saturday night I still hadn’t taken my image of the day.  Jeanne and I were talking about where I could find a shot and then I decided to go to the recreation area in the industrial park.  It was Jeanne’s idea to take the parking lot image with the bright lights.  It turned out very nice.

Okay so I’m really getting sidetracked here.  The most amazing thing happened to me on Sunday.  Jeanne was gone on a mission so I headed out to shoot some of the Fall colors.  Remember the bar had been set.  So I figured I’d head up to Balltown and shoot some of the great vistas on that road.

I found this scene above and thought it would make a nice image.  So I took about three shots and just as I was walking back to the car a lady pulled up behind my car and said “What are you taking pictures of?”  Thinking she was interested in photography I say, “Oh that farm scene over there.”  She said, “What farm scene.”  So I said “The barn, two silos, the fall colors.” She said,  “Are you a professional photographer?”  “No I replied, I just enjoy taking pictures.”  She said “Are you going to sell those pictures?”  Now I’m getting a little apprehensive, like there is more to this than an interest in my photography.  So I said “No, look I’m just taking pictures, is there a problem?”   She said well there have been some break-ins around here I was just wondering.”  (Okay I’m wearing my Upde.Net tee shirt driving a car with personalized plates, ‘UPDE’, on it using a professional camera and lens, standing out in broad day light ~ duh!)

She took off, so I got in my car and was looking at my images.  I noticed that they were all blown out and then I realized the last time I used the D800 was on a portrait shoot and it was still set up in Manual Mode.  I reconfigured the camera and got out to re-shoot the scene.  This time she pulled up behind me again with a man in the passenger seat.  I ignored them and got back into my car satisfied with my shots and ready to move on.   I started to pull out and they blocked me on the shoulder.

The man rolled down his window and so I rolled mine down as well.   I said, “Can I help you?”  He said, “What’s your name?”  I said, “That sir is none of your business.” and he said, “Are your pictures for sale, I’d like to buy some?”  I said, “No they are not (and now I’m getting a little frustrated) I said “Look friend, I have the right to take pictures from this public roadway of anything I want.  Do you want me to call law enforcement to verify that?”  He left.  I’ve never been confronted like that for taking pictures of a landscape.

This is a neat image from the stand point that it is actually 7 images stitched together.  I had the 70 – 200 mm lens with me and I couldn’t back up far enough to get the entire church in the image.  So I did a “Panorama” from the bottom to the top and then stitched it together in Photoshop.  Click on the image to make it bigger.  Before I reduced it down it was a 147 megabyte image. 🙂

I saw a lot of people stopped alongside the road on my way to and from Balltown taking pictures of the Fall foliage.  I wonder if any of them encountered the photo patrol like I did?

Final image of the day.  I have several more from the shoot on Sunday I’ll show some more tomorrow.  Thanks for listening to my rambling story, see what happens when I go out shooting without Jeanne.   🙂
Thanks for checking out the Blog today.  I hope you enjoy your Monday and be careful.

What an amazing day yesterday was.  Filled with learning experiences, emotional ups and downs and some reasonable photography opportunities.  What I will share with you is a sequence of images I took on my drive home from the conference.

I knew that the conference was going to be over at 11:45 am (for me anyway. )  There was a lunch and then an hour of congratulatory talks and prize drawings (none of which would have any effect on me.)   My plan was to turn the 4 hour drive into leisurely photographic experience.

I always see things that I want to photograph while driving anywhere but never have time to stop and shoot them.   So on the way over Wednesday I made a mental note of several things I wanted to photograph on the way back.

The problem with a plan is that it cannot possibly take into account the randomization of life events. (“The best laid plans of mice and men…”) So my trip home took an unexpected detour (unfortunately this is not the venue to discuss said detour) and all my plans got changed.  I firmly believe in the 90 / 10 Principle.  10% of what happens to us is beyond our control. How we react to it determines the outcome.

It is reasonable to believe that life is a never-ending learning and growing opportunity.  If we look for the learning and the chance to make our lives or the lives of others better than it is the 90% positive outcome of the 10% we had no control over.

The weather was just beautiful and the temperature was a pleasant 71 degrees.  Even I cannot complain about that temperature. 🙂  One of the things I had not taken into consideration was the amount of traffic on highway 20 on a Friday afternoon.

Even though I pulled really far off the road to shoot some images people going by would occasionally sound a disapproving horn, I guess I caused them the inconvenience of having to move over one lane.  The constant rush of sound from car after car passing by at 70 plus miles per hour is unsettling as well.

I stayed in the car to shoot this Red-Tailed Hawk but one of the blaring horns spooked him just as I was getting started.  The short time I had him he didn’t seem to mind that I was photographing him.

I’ll finish my trip with this image just West of Dyersville.  I saw this in my rear view mirror and I couldn’t resist it.  I did try as I was tired and wanted to get home but you cannot pass up a sunset like this.

So to answer your questions:  No I did not have an accident, no I did not get arrested, no I did not have car trouble.  It was a learning, growing, understanding, strengthening, emotional, and untimely beneficial detour (although some would argue that statement.)  None the less it is what it is.

Sorry for all the mystery.  I should have just stuck to the photography and left the rest unspoken (that’s what Jeanne will say) but I share more than my photography on this blog I also share my philosophy and that was the point of mentioning the detour.  🙂

Enjoy your Saturday.  Thanks for stopping by and be careful.

Good Day from Des Moines, Iowa.   I have been attending the annual Iowa SHRM Conference, held this year in Des Moines, Iowa.  Most of the classes I have attended have to do with employment law but there has been a significant amount of “Affordable Health Care” classes as well.

I don’t know your political persuasion but I’m telling you this is a monster of a law that will wreak significant chaos to our economy in 2014.  I think it is noteworthy that the party that passed this monstrosity “front loaded it”  with the feel good stuff (with little or not additional cost) that people like but in 2014 (well after the election) the costs of the plan kick in.  Grab your butt because the unpublicized costs are huge.

The image above is a 5 shot HDR of the iconic landmark of Des Moines the Principle Building.  I went out after my last class and took this HDR image of the building.  I didn’t have my tripod so I bumped the ISO up to 800 and leaned up against a parking meter to steady myself and shot away.

I actually got out to shoot later than I wanted to so I was losing daylight in a big hurry.  I shot a bunch of images of the Principle building and was walking to get a different angle when this cyclist came past me.    My ISO was still at 200 when I grabbed this shot so it isn’t tack sharp but I like the way it looks anyway.

It will be good to get home this afternoon.  I’ve done a fair amount of traveling over the last few weeks and even though I really enjoy learning new things I hate the travel part.  Staying in hotels and eating in restaurant all three meals and of course most of all I hate being away from Jeanne.

Another shot of city life.  I was walking back to the hotel and notice this maintenance man walking down the street with is cart going to the next office building.

I met a very nice guy at dinner this evening.  I believe his name was Les, I didn’t catch his last name.  He asked me about my camera (I stopped at lounge for dinner after my shoot.)  I probably told him way more than he wanted to know but he kept asking me questions so I kept talking.

He just purchased his first DSLR a Cannon.  I told him I didn’t hold that against him.  🙂  He is new to DSLR shooting so I answered some of his questions and told him that he is going to have a lot of fun in the coming months and years.

I invited him to visit this blog and my web site as I do have a lot of information for a new shooter if they want to check it out.  Plus on my link page I have a ton of resource websites that have all kinds of information about photography.

That’s it for today. remember you can click on the images to get a larger more detailed version of the shot.  Enjoy your Friday and thanks as always for checking out the blog.  Be careful.

Good Day.  A relatively short post today because as usual I am running very late.  Of course when I start out by saying this will be a short post it almost guarantees that I will bloviate for sometime.

One of the things that always puzzled me about golf was how something that offers such beautiful scenery and  the joy of being outdoors in nature be so damn frustrating. 🙂

These images are from Fillmore Fairways.  We had a company event there and as has been the case with me for several years now I was much more interested in capturing images than birdies or pars.

There was a time that golf was a very important part of my life.  I thought about it constantly, practiced a lot and played a lot.  I got to a certain level of play and then hit a plateau.   I just couldn’t seem to get any better.

And the pain, let’s talk about the pain golf brings.  I heard a pro golfer say once, “Golf!  She is a harsh mistress.”  I use to say that if my job required me to work in some of the conditions that I played golf in and treated me as badly as golf did I would quit.  🙂

I guess that is why I’ve always come back to photography.  Actually I never got very far away from it ever.  Photography brings me pleasure and the creativity I could never attain through other medium.

Sure I get frustrated sometimes when an image doesn’t come out right or I can’t get the lighting right or a wildlife isn’t tack sharp.  But instead of demoralizing me and having a negative impact on my day it inspires me to try a different approach or technique.

See I told you this would be a short post today.  🙂  Now I’m really very late.  Thanks for stopping by, enjoy your day and be careful.

I know that some of you enjoy farm scenes and if that is the case then these next few weeks will be a treat for you.  I also love this time of the year.  The harvest season.  It always brings back wonderful memories of my childhood and the harvest time in the small community where I lived.

I grew up in a small town in Missouri of only 450 people.  We were very poor (but I guess I really didn’t know it.)  I delivered the St. Joseph, Mo., newspaper starting at the age of 10, so I knew everyone in the town and they of course knew me (which could be a bad thing at times.)  Anyway since the town was like a big farm itself we all pulled together at harvest time to make sure the farmers all got their crops in.

My Dad was a mechanic and had a small engine repair garage.   He would repair farm machinery, weld broken parts, and fix cobbled up engines so the farmers could get their crops out.  Most of the time the farmers couldn’t pay him, which meant we were very poor most of the time.  I can remember so many times when I would be at the garage my Dad would say, “Just pay me when you can.”  Many times the farmers would share their harvest bounty with my parents because my Dad had helped them by keeping their equipment working.  One farmer always gave us a big supply of beef  when he would butcher, because he owed Dad so much.

After the harvest our church would hold a big Lord’s Acre Sale.  The local farmers would give some of their harvest to the church (in lieu of money) and many of the farm wives would cook a huge lunch for the folks and charge a modest price, which was then donated to the church.  Boy do I remember those meals.  🙂

Anyway sorry to get so far off the path just to tell you that I love this time of year.  Although I will say that yesterday was way too hot for late September.  One of the side things I do for my company is take images for marketing and other materials.  Yesterday I did a photo shoot for a new employee that just started with the company and they  needed a quality image of him for our marketing efforts.

It takes a fair amount of effort to get the lights and background set up for a good shot and the bank had their air conditioning set a little warmer than I like it. So with all the activity of setting up the lights and concern for doing a good job it was way to HOT for me.  I perspired. ~ verb [ no obj. ]
give out sweat through the pores of the skin as the result of heat, physical exertion, or stress: Will was perspiring heavily. 🙂

I shot these harvest images on the way back to Maquoketa yesterday evening.  There were lots of combines in the field and lots of crop yet to be harvested.  More to come.  Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your middle of the week and be careful.

I was at a golf event yesterday.  The weather was perfect and the golf was actually enjoyable.  I took a few images and really the only one worth posting I put on my 365 project.  So as I was looking through my recent images and I remembered that I had taken a bunch of shots the last time Jeanne and I visited the Dubuque Farmer’s Market.

I believe this man’s name is Peter Faterdeus.  He is quite a talented person as he plays for the fiddle and the banjo.  I’m not sure what other instruments he plays but he is also an avid photographer.  We had a very nice conversation while I was waiting on Jeanne to make a buying decision on a toy for Josh.  🙂

Very nice group of folks.  They make pretty good music as well.  I enjoy the Farmer’s Market immensely and I’m not sure why I don’t go there more often.  There are so many sights, sounds and smells to engage the senses.

Lots of good photo opportunities as well.  I could have shot three times as many images but I’m always cautious about taking someone’s photograph.  Even though in a public place (if it is not used for commercial purposes) I have the right to shoot images.  However as a famous photographer once said I’m not out to bother anyone, just make good images.

I need to get back to the Farmer’s Market before they close it down for the season.  I am always amazed by the number of people who attend every Saturday.  The streets are always full of shoppers, people walking their dogs, street musicians, and assorted weirdness.  🙂

I have a fair amount of travel this week and some training I need to attend (it’s an ever-changing world.)  So I’ll do my best to find some interesting images for you to view.  I do appreciate you visiting my blog.  I hope you enjoy what you find.  Make today a great day and be careful.

I know this is a plain brown squirrel but I haven’t photographed one since 1977.  We were in Ames yesterday to participate in the annual “John Andreae Memorial Golf Outing.”  We stopped in Cedar Falls and picked up Mark and then had lunch at Jay’s home.

I was walking around the outside of the house just enjoying the weather and saw this squirrel busily preparing for the coming Winter.  He only paid attention to me for about 40 seconds then resumed his work.   Throughout the day and especially on the golf course I saw these little creatures.  I cannon remember seeing a squirrel in our neighborhood since living here.

There were about 25 church folks at the golf course to honor John.  This day would have been his 90th birthday as well.  Homewood is a small 9 hole municipal golf course where John loved to play golf with his buddies.  It has 2 par 3s and 7 par 4s.  The longest hole is about 340 yards.  It is relatively flat so it is easy to walk (although we took a cart.)  🙂

They provided a golf cart for Jay and even had her own personal driver.  We teed off at 2:00 pm and Mark and I were paired with a couple of guys from church Steve and Trent.  Both very nice gentlemen.  To demonstrate our skill level we were 4 over par in a 4 person best shot on a golf course that is on a scale of 1 – 5 in easiness ranking is a -1.  But we had a lot of fun and our playing partners couldn’t have been nicer.

We were the first group off and the first hole we played is the easiest hole on the course and we took a bogy, which kind of set the tone for the round.  🙂  Jeanne walked with us and every other hole Jay and her driver would come by and check on us.  By the end of the round Jay was wearing a jacket and bundled up in a blanket.  I was wearing a tee-shirt and perspiring.   I heard on the news this morning, a fitness guru say that sweat is your fat cells crying.  🙂

So we finished up around 5:00 pm and posed for a team photo (someone else took it) and then loaded up Jay and went home.  There was a pot luck dinner after the event but we had to get Mark back to Cedar Falls as he had a big test today.  We got home around 8:30 pm.  So it was 6 hours in the car 5 hours of visiting and golf but worth it to pay tribute to a wonderful man and Father-in-law.

Thanks for stopping by today.  Enjoy your Monday.  Looks like it will be a nice day weather wise.  Be careful.

I hope black cats don’t bother you.  🙂  I wasted the biggest part of yesterday taking naps.  I’m not sure what the problem was but I just felt like sleeping a lot during the day.

I even had a phone message from a friend (which I didn’t get until later in the day) as they were driving across the Wisconsin Bridge.  She said in her voice mail that there were some cool pictures to be had on the river.  She figured I’d be out shooting on a day like yesterday, which of course I wasn’t.

Now about the black cat.  I finally got out of the house around 6:30 pm.  I thought with the sun setting in the West I’d go see if I could find a nice farm scene to shoot against the setting sun.  (Check out the 365.)  Anyway this cat was keeping a close eye on me.  Notice the variation of its eyes.  I’m not sure if that is a lighting thing or if it had a bad eye or just two different eye colors.

Grandma was sitting with Josh so after I got my picture of the day I went over to Angie and Ben’s home.  Joshua was in such a great mood (as he normally is.)  He was just finishing up supper when I got there and I was greeted with a big smile and “Pampa.”

We had a lot of fun playing with toys and then once I got the camera out for some pictures the playing turned to playing with my flash.  I wonder if Josh will end up being an engineer.  I say that because he is fascinated by the association of switches, buttons, and their actions.  I mean by that he (at a very early age) learned the relationship of the wall light switch and the ceiling light coming on as he would flip the switch and then point to the light and say “light.”

So he wanted to play with my speed light (he is the only one I would let do that by the way.) 🙂  He discovered the relationship between the red test button and the flash going off.  So he was doing this with a high rate of frequency and since the Nikon SB800 flash will deliver a flash, (as long as it has enough juice to do so) every time you push the button building heat every time to the point of melting down the circuitry.

So I turned off the flash (he didn’t see me do it) and he promptly pushed the on switch and fired it back up.  🙂  Finally behind my back I took out a battery so it wouldn’t fire anymore.

When he lost interest in the flash he went and got his favorite book, sat on my lap for the next 20 minutes and we made animal sounds 🙂  It was pure delight.   We’re off to Ames this morning to play golf in the first “John Andrea” Memorial Golf event at his favorite golf course “Homewood.”  We’re picking up Mark and going over.  It will be a quick trip as we have to work tomorrow and Mark has a lecture later this evening.

That’s it for today.  Thanks for stopping by and enjoy your Sunday.  Be careful.

Happy Friday to you.  What a week this was.  I usually watch a TV news program in the morning while eating breakfast and they have a segment called “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.”  I had some of each this week.  Fortunately for me almost all was The Good.

Those of you who regularly read this blog know that Joshua loves to play with light switches and watch the light go on.  He will take great delight in flipping the switch, pointing to the light and saying “light.”

Now he has his very own light and light switch and he was extremely proud to show us his very own light that he can turn on and off as often as he likes.  We all like to have control over their environment.  🙂

For some reason I have this compulsion to photograph gulls when ever I see them.  Last weekend we went to the River Walk and of course there was an abundance of small gulls there.

Although not in the frame of this image the two gulls above spent a fair amount of time tussling over a dead fish.  I shot about 50 images of this battle but finally decided on this one image and sent the other to trash can.

I can tell after only three months into my 365 project that disk space is going to become an issue if I don’t start doing a better job of eliminating images that have no real meaning to me.

Finally another image from our River Walk visit.  I watched this lone man kayaking down the river.  He was taking his time and would paddle a few times and then ride the current for awhile.  Constantly observing the shore line and certainly in no particular hurry to get anywhere.

So many things change as you get older.  Life is amazing in the way each decade brings with it new perspectives in so many areas of your life.  For example there was a time (as I mentioned before) in my 20s when I was convinced that I wanted to live in Chicago.  In my late 30s and 40s I had to travel to Chicago many times on business and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. Later it was still somewhat enjoyable more of a curiosity, or an adventure to go to the Windy City.  Now if I would never go back to Chicago it would be a little too soon.  🙂

Enjoy your Friday, you’ve earned it.  Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by.  Be careful.

Last day for airplanes so please be patient with me.  I got home around 8:30 pm last night.  Traffic was heavy coming out of Chicago (imagine that) and then we stopped for dinner and that took longer than expected but was well worth the extra time for the stimulating conversation and wonderful food.

The image above shows a Southwest aircraft on final approach to runway 31 at Midway Airport.  The restaurant in the foreground is where we ate dinner on the second evening while in Chicago.  Great Italian restaurant.  This should also give you an idea of just how low those planes are as they approach the runway and remember it’s every 90 seconds.

The conference was exceptional and one of the best I have ever attended.  There were so many highlights but my very favorite part was the address and subsequent follow-up comments from author and business guru Les McKeown.

He is the author of two books (that I’m aware of) Predictable Success & The Synergist. He was born and raised in Belfast.  Became a CPA and has launched or co-founded over 42 businesses.  Put simply he is an absolute genius when it comes to business.

One of the things I love about Chicago is the traffic.  It took us 47 minutes to travel less than two miles.  Even when traffic is moving at a brisk pace it is bumper-to-bumper with the ever-present road warrior hell-bent on cutting in and out of traffic to get one car ahead.

I can’t even tell you how many folks I saw that were reading something or texting while driving in heavy traffic at 65 mph or faster in a construction zone where the posted speed limit was 45.  To think that at one time in my life I was actually going to apply at the Chicago Police Department for a position.  🙂

Okay, I’ve rambled long enough.  It was a great experience but I’m glad to be back home and in comfortable surroundings.  The work that has piled up in my absence will be a challenge but hopefully that is job security.  🙂

Thank you for reading the blog.  Enjoy your Wednesday and please be careful.