Upde Designs

Thank you for stopping by.  After the Grandview Gallop last Saturday I was walking back to my car when I came across this church.  I don’t remember seeing it before but I liked the lines of the structure and so I grabbed a few shots.

There are so many things wrong with this image that I really thought about now showing it.  The light was harsh, the tree shadows on the front of the church are distracting, the lighting perspective is wrong, etc.  Having said all that I still like the structure so I decided to show it despite its flaws.

This is the relatively new restaurant called Crust.  It is where Bricktown use to be.  I think the restaurant is doing well.  Jeanne and I ate there the night Joshua was born so it is special for that reason.  I like the style of the building as well.

When we first moved to Dubuque this area was kind of a seedy area with vacant buildings and a “Gentleman’s” Book store across the street.  To the right of this building there was a vacant bus terminal.  At one time an enterprising real estate sales rep made me a tempting offer to move my business there.  Fortunately my board of directors were not in favor of it.  🙂

Today, this area like so many areas in Dubuque is robust and full of upscale, interesting businesses and restaurants.  It is fun to go downtown and experience all the things that are going on.  It seems there is always something of interest to do every weekend.  Some type of “fest” or celebration.  That is one of the ingredients that keeps a city or community vibrant and growing.

Remember you can click on the image to make it larger.  Sometime this week as time permits I want to show you the Millwork District.  I am just amazed with what is going on there.

I don’t know yet if I’m going to do another Worldwide Photo Walk with the Kelby Group this year.  We had a lot of problems last year and it took some of the fun out of the walk.  But if I do it, I might consider the downtown area again.  Perhaps an evening walk to capture the “golden hour” of light, then a dinner and some Photoshop lessons.  Just thinking out loud.  🙂

Enjoy your Tuesday.  Be careful.

Today I would like to show you some images from my wandering through Dubuque’s Farmers’ Market area on Saturday.  It is a marvelous combination of sights, sounds, smells, and tastes.  Not to mention there are some very colorful characters that roam about as well.

It was pretty warm on Saturday and there was no shade so I got pretty hot walking around.  The market was crowded as well so I didn’t want to stand in one place very long as there was always someone in a hurry to get to the next vendor.

My friend Jim purchased several things at the market.  Most of which I do not like to eat and some of which I’d never heard of.  the majority of the food I saw called “eat me now” but I resisted.

I saw several people I had not seen in years and it was enjoyable to visit with them.  I also saw people I didn’t want to see and with it being so crowded it was relatively easy to avoid them even at my size 😦

I’ve got to return to the farmers’ market soon and find a location where I can shoot images but in an out of the traffic flow location.  I think then I can adequately capture the full flavor of this vibrant market.

Throughout the market there are “street minstrels” wandering through the market.  Some find a shady location and play while others walk among the crowds serenading the shoppers.

One of my favorites on this Saturday was a rather large gentleman wearing a hat, shirt, kilt, socks and shoes all black and playing (no not a bag pipe) an accordion walking through the shoppers.  I’ll show that later this week.

Enjoy your Monday. It’s here whether you like it or not so might as well make it a great day.  Thanks for stopping by and be careful.

Yesterday was the annual running of the Grandview Gallop.  This is the 3rd year that Angie and Ben have run together in the event.  For those who are not familiar with Dubuque, Grandview is the dividing line between East and West.  It runs North and South through the city.  South Grandview is a parkway type street and it is a favorite place for walkers, runners, and bikers.  There are some lovely homes as well on South Grandview.

I think this is the first year that it has not rained during the run.  I enjoy watching the run but my main purpose of course is to support, cheer, and photograph Angie and Ben.  I was good on the support, didn’t cheer and took a ton of photos. 🙂

The little guys were on the edge of the curb and they clapped for every runner that went by.  I have no way to estimate how many people participated in the event.  There were young and old, runners and walkers, a lot of baby strollers, and some dogs with their owners.

The guy who finished first (by my unofficial time clock) did it in just 20 minutes.  I’m (obviously) not versed in the sport of running but that seems pretty fast to me.

Both Ben and Angie had a cold but they like to take part in this event so the ran.  Jeanne stayed with Joshua and the idea was that she was going to bring him up in his stroller so he could see Mom and Dad run.  Well she got him in the car and brought him close to Grandview but then he refused to get in his stroller.  Apparently he doesn’t like to be restrained.  So then she asked him if he wanted to walk up to Grandview and he wasn’t real keen on that idea either.  They then decided to go back home and just play.

After the event I had an appointment with John Doland (my barber) and then I explored a little of Dubuque by visiting the Farmer’s Market.  What a wonderful place to go and just people watch.  I took a lot of images there (even though the light was bright and harsh) and I saw a lot of interesting things.

I ran into an old friend of mine and we toured the market together and then I decided to go down to the Millwork District Project.  Wow!  There has been a ton of money spent in revitalizing the old industrial section of town with new streets and renovating the interiors of the buildings.   I talked to a painter who was finishing up for the day.  One of the buildings he is working on will have 74 apartments (nice ones) on the 2nd and 3rd floors, some offices and then the lower level will be retail shops.

I shot a lot of pictures of the area and felt like I had connected with the city again.  Spending so much of my time in Maquoketa I don’t really get a feel for all that is going on in this vibrant city.  Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your Sunday and be careful.

A short post today as I am off to get some images from the Grandview Gallop.  Why is it that on any given work day I would give just about anything for another hour of sleep but on Saturday morning when I can sleep as late as I want, I’m up and charging at 4:00 am?

Anyway when I went out to the get the paper this morning I noticed the moon as I do on most mornings.  Today, however, I had the time to set up the tripod and get the Sigma 500 mm lens out for the shot.

I tried a variety of settings and even added a 1.4 teleconvertor but this was the best of the lot.  I shot this image in manual mode with an ISO of 200.  F8 on the aperture and 1/400 of a second on the shutter speed.  I set the metering on center weighted.  I also used a shutter release and took the UV filter off.  I also set the camera up to shoot in the 1.5 x cropped mode so I would have had a focal length of 750 mm.

It is probably one of the sharpest moon images I have taken but it still isn’t what I want.  So I’ll get to keep on trying.  Enjoy your Saturday.  Be careful and thanks for stopping by.

I’ll depart from my vintage camera shoot to show you the “Duck Pond” as it is now  It saddens me to drive by it every day and if there was a better way to get to town that wasn’t out of my way I would take that route as opposed to driving by the marsh now.  Even though it looks like a fair amount of water above, the water is only a few inches deep and you can see there is no wildlife on it.

If you click on the image you can get a better idea of how much water is gone.  The dead trees on the left side of the image were a couple of feet under water normally.   Vast areas of the pond are now green with vegetation.

This snap shot of a Blue Heron in flight is not very sharp.  I had just parked the car and was getting my camera when I caught a glimpse of the Heron out of the corner of my eye.  I didn’t have time to set the camera up so it was not properly set up for the shot.  The good news is that there was a Blue Heron at the pond so there are still some wild life that remains.

There are a few geese left.  Mainly those who have young and cannot yet fly.  The rest of the geese has relocated elsewhere.  Those that remain are on the far West side where there is still a little water.

The young swan has moved to the West side as well.  He cannot yet fly so he is stuck at the pond.  I have not see the other swans that use to be there for a couple of weeks now.

Finally this frog doesn’t seem to mind the lack of water.  There were many frogs still lined up around the edge of the water.  Most were out on land but there were a couple I could see that were in the water with just their head sticking out.

So this will probably be my last update on the pond for some time now.  Unless things change there really isn’t much to photograph.  I remember last year at this time the pond was a busy hub of activity with all the new families and a constant stream of new wildlife coming and going.  I hope that one day soon the pond will once aging be teaming with wildlife and full of water.

Tomorrow morning I’m going to watch the “Grandview Gallop.”  It is a 4 mile run on Dubuque’s Grandview Street.  It is held every year in conjunction with River Fest, which also in Dubuque this weekend.

On another note the Woodcarvers Convention is in Maquoketa starting Sunday and running until Friday.  If you want to see unbelievable works of art made from carving wood you should make a point to travel to Maquoketa.  The event is held at the Jackson County Fair Grounds and involves wood-carvers from all over the country.

Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your Friday and the weekend.  Be careful.

I went by the “Duck Pond” yesterday morning early enough to capture some images.  Very sad to see most of the water gone.  Lots of Geese sitting in their normal areas but no water.  More on that this weekend.

For now I’d like to continue with my camera collection.  This camera is the most dear to my heart.  It belonged to my Father.  I can remember as a child my Dad taking pictures at family gatherings with this camera.  He never let me hold it or take any pictures with it (not that I blame him for that.)  But I remember when he finally gave it to me.  It was like he was saying that it just doesn’t matter any more.

A little camera history –  The Kodak Junior  Six-20 Folding Camera was manufactured by the Eastman Kodak Company from 1935 to 1937. Designed as a low-cost camera for the popular film sizes. The camera included black morocco-grain material covering, hinged back with ruby window, self erecting front and bellows, one tripod socket. The Kodak Junior Six-20 was fitted with the Kodak astigmatism f6.3 lens or the Kodak Doublet lens, both with the Kodon shutter. Capable of taking eight exposures 2 1/4 x 3 1/4 inches on number 620 roll film. Priced at $13.50.

While I was researching this camera’s history I noticed that the Six-16 was basically the same camera with a little shorter focal length but it sold for $12.  Spending the extra $1.50 for my Dad would have been a struggle because those were very hard times.   His frugal genes did not take with his Son. 🙂

I have to tell you that as I was photographing this camera last night it brought back a flood of memories about my Dad.  I could write volumes about this man and his courage.  Perhaps some day on this blog I will do just that.  He deserves so much more.  My biggest regret in life is that when I had the opportunity to really get to know my Dad as person (and not a Dad) I was too busy doing other things.  That will always haunt me.

Just a little about the lighting.  I recently did some web design work (a little side line of mine) and the fruit of that design work allowed me to buy two Elinchrom BX 500RI strobes with soft boxes.  I only used one on this shot but I was so impressed with the quality of the light.  The 500RI has a good power range and can be set to very high intensity light or in this case the light was only a foot away from the subject and at the lowest power setting.

Technical Stuff:

I shot these images with the following ~  Nikon D3 | Nikon 105 mm 1:1 macro f2.8 lens | ISO 200 1/200 sec @ f16 |  1 Elinchrom BX 500RI strobe with a 3′ X 3′ soft-box settings at 2.3 power.

A short post this morning as I have a dental appointment in a little while and my mouth does not feel very good.  I had a late meeting and after the meeting I either chipped a tooth and exposed a nerve or I lost the only filling I have.

Jeanne found some of my camera collection.  I think there is more than what she found but this will get me started on my project.  This is just the first effort to see what I needed to do.  I shot this with a Nikon D3 | Nikon 105 mm  1:1 Macro f2.8 lens | one Nikon SB800 strobe flash.

I used two white foam boards with a black one for the base.  Processed the RAW file in Lightroom 4 and finished it off using Nik’s Silver Effects Pro 2.0.  Next I will play with the lighting and perhaps use a studio strobe.   I think there is a lot of things I can do to get the look I have already in my mind.

The camera is a Brownie Flash Six – 20 camera.  It was introduced in 1946 and had a production run until 1955.  It used 620 roll film and retailed for a whopping $6.00.

Considering how little time I spent on this image  I’m not unhappy with this first result.  Thanks for stopping by and enjoy your Tuesday.  Be careful.

Happy Monday.  I thought I would start the week off with some more of the flowers I shot on Friday.  One of the many traits I have that I’m not particularly happy with is if I do not set specific “must do” goals I will do nothing.   That is what happened this weekend.  I had some things I wanted to shoot but I didn’t have a specific plan on getting it done so it didn’t get done. 😦

The other thing that I’m frustrated with me about is that I was going to start my 365 day photo project June 1st and although I did take pictures Friday and Saturday, I actually forgot about it and didn’t take any images on Sunday.  Not that it’s any big deal to push that project back to July 1, but it is another example of not having a specific plan of action.

I have a wonderful old camera collection that I have accumulated over the years.  I have a couple of cameras from my Dad and a small camera that my Father-in-law acquired during the war while he was in Germany.  Most of that collection came from a friend I use to work with many years ago.

He knew of my passion for photography and cameras and he had a hobby / business of going to yard sales.  For a few years every time he would come across a unique camera he would buy it (if the price was right) and either give it to me or if he paid a little too much for it, sell it to me for what he paid.

So I have a pretty nice collection of some really neat old cameras that are presently sitting in boxes in the storeroom.  I went looking for them last night but couldn’t find them so asked for Jeanne’s help.  If she can find them my idea is to photograph them all (probably in black and white), then print, mat, and frame them.  Of course I will show them first here on the blog. 🙂

I was outside with our little dog Saturday evening and looked off to the West at the interesting clouds that were gathering.  In particular I noticed the symmetrical shape of this tree (that I’ve seen a thousand times) and I thought it would make a nice image.

Hope you have a great Monday and week.  Thanks for stopping by and reading my ramblings.  Be careful.

Angie and Ben were on a short trip Saturday so Jeanne got the call to stay with Josh.  Later in the day I stopped over to see my favorite grandson and the greeting I got was a little stand offish.  He clung to Jeanne like I was some sort of monster (which is unusual for him.)

Of course the other dynamic that is happening in this image is that he is determined to go play in the street.  Just because it’s there and grandma is just as determined that he is not going to play in the street.

Okay so he has given up on the street idea and now realizes that grandma is not going to let him go that way.  His only other option is to come over to me or detour into the grass but then his little vehicle doesn’t work so well.  What to do?

“How can I show grandpa that he can’t just come over whenever he feels like it and expect me to drop everything I’m doing just to play and pose for him?”  So inch by inch he moved a little closer to me and ever so often he would turn into the grass and then realize that was not going to work.  Then he would come a little closer and just look at me.

After about 15 minutes he got this sheepish grin on his face, got off his little truck, and came over to me.  Then we had a nice little visit until he threw up all over me.

I don’t mean just a little bit either.  Just before that he was taking a close look at the D3S and pressing some of the buttons (it was turned off.)  I had just set the camera behind me and he coughed once and then let me have it.

Now normally I would have been in serious trouble, cause I don’t do well when people do that in front of me let alone on me.  Luckily Jeanne was right there with a wet cloth and paper towels and so it wasn’t all that bad.

I did have to go home and change though. 🙂  Josh couldn’t understand why grandpa had to leave just when we were starting to have fun.  I’ll remind him about that some day.

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

Happy Saturday.   I hope you have an enjoyable weekend.  On my way out-of-town yesterday evening I drove past the local greenhouse and the owner had a lot of flowers on display outside.

There were no customers in the lot an it looked like the business was closed so I did one of my patented “U” turns and went for a look.  He had well over 100 flower plants on display and so I set up the macro lens and started shooting.

I shot most of these with the camera set on continuous focus and the lens set at f16 because it was windy and the flowers were almost always moving.

With a setting of f16 I was able to keep most of the flower in focus.   Depending on which side of the flower-pot I shot, I was getting shutter speeds of 1/160 of a sec. down to 1/30 of a sec., which the latter was not fast enough to make the image sharp (because of the wind.)

So I decided to set up the macro flash and take lighting conditions out of the equation.   I set the camera to manual, shutter speed to 1/125 and the lens at f16.  I was very happy with the results after that.

This is the same business that also operates a consignment auction and sells just about anything that you can think of.    If you have followed this blog for awhile you will remember the image I took of the metal rooster about a year ago.

I had asked the owner of the business if I could take some images of his yard ornaments he had on display, two of which were colorful metal roosters.  I had taken several images of the rooster from different angles and felt someone was very close behind me.  When I turned around he was standing right behind me with a very serious look on his face and said “You got a thing for chickens?”

It just cracked me up.  So I explained to him that my “thing” was for cameras and the rooster just was something I wanted to capture because of the colors.  Okay you would have had to be there and seen the look on his face.  🙂  Priceless.

That’s it for today.  Hope to do a lot of shooting today as I have no big projects that have to be completed this weekend.  Enjoy your weekend and thank you for stopping by.  Be careful.