Upde Designs

I take on-line photography courses.  I have for a couple of years now and I watch at least one lesson a day sometimes many more.  One of my favorite instructors is Ben Long.  I’m taking his “Foundations in Composition” class now and one of the things he suggest is that if you find yourself in a creative funk consider three on-going projects.  Shoot your city, your neighborhood, and your street.

So yesterday after wasting the better part of the day doing pretty much nothing I decided to go for a walk around our neighborhood with camera in hand.  Part of my neighborhood also includes an elementary and middle school.  So I decided to walk over to the school grounds (which also has a pond) and see what was doing there.

As I started down the path I noticed the moon rising from the Northwest.  I liked how there was a wisp of a cloud on top of the large moon and even though I didn’t have a long lens I decided to take the shot.

The aforementioned pond was frozen over and was pretty much non descript.  There was so little contrast between the dark frozen water and the colorless ground that I had trouble focusing the camera.  I shot 20 images of the pond from a variety of angles but alas nothing worth showing.

Then there was this fire hydrant.  Common enough on about any street corner but the thing that caught my eye with this one was the rust that encompassed the hydrant.  The fact that it wasn’t on a street corner but in the middle of a field and it just looked “well” interesting.

I came around one of the buildings looking for architectural designs, converging lines, rule of thirds, all the technical terms from Ben Long’s course and this is what I saw.   More than likely the work of a young elementary student, but someone had taken some pieces of mud and wrote simply “Hey.”  When I looked at it through the viewfinder I like what I saw so I made the image.

So I got a little exercise, looked at some new things from a different perspective, and was able to capture some images.  I’d say my walk around the neighborhood was a success.

Enjoy your Monday and the workweek.  Thank you for stopping by and be careful.

Nikon D3 | Nikon 28 - 300 mm lens | SB900 Flash | ISO 200 1/60 sec @ f8.0

Funny how things can turn around in the blink of an eye.  I was in a funk yesterday and was content to set at home and critique my images from 2011.  Then a wonderful e-mail from my friend Dana (I met him at this year’s Photo-Walk) turned my whole day and my attitude completely around and it turned out to be a pretty special day.  So first of all, thank you again Dana.

The image above is an old crank phone.  I actually remember a phone like this in our home when I was a child.  I had to get a chair to use it.  Our phone number was 122 and my Dad’s garage was 121.  There was a telephone office in the small town and an operator who knew everyone and everything.  I think she actually listened in on most of the calls.  I remember my Dad saying if you wanted to know anything about what was going on in town just ask Wanda.  🙂

Nikon D3 | Nikon 28 - 300 mm lens | SB900 Flash | ISO 200 1/60 sec @ f8.0

Then I received an e-mail from my friend Burt.  He said that Ty Smedes, a photographer and author of a new book was going to be speaking at Wide River Winery in Clinton, Iowa and having a book signing.  Ty Smedes is a noted wildlife photographer over the last 30 years and 16 years ago he dedicated his career to photographing eagles.  His book, “The Return Of Iowa’s Bald Eagles.” is wonderfully illustrated with beautiful eagle pictures.

The image above has nothing to do with Ty or his book.  After we left the Winery we drove to Davenport, Iowa for the Holiday Party of another one of our banks.  The celebration was held at the Putnam Museum and IMax Theater where we enjoyed the movie “The Polar Express” in 3D,  after a great dinner and the awards presentation.  As we were leaving the dinner I photographed the left over dinner rolls.  Hey, art is in the eye of the beholder.  🙂

Nikon D3 | Nikon 28 - 300 mm lens | SB900 Flash | ISO 200 1/60 sec @ f8.0

Finally after the movie and on the way out of the theater I noticed these large snow flakes hanging from the ceiling.  I like the way this particular snow flake was cast against the distant Christmas tree lights.

It was a fun afternoon and an enjoyable evening, which could have been so different if not for the thoughtfulness of one person.  Attitude is something I work with as a profession in my job every day but it is as they say sometimes difficult to heal thyself.  Thank you for stopping by.  Enjoy your Sunday and be careful.

Nikon D700 | Nikon 70 - 200 mm f2.8 | Strobes | ISO 200 1/125 sec @ f5.6

I am really sorry for the lack of posts of late.  Unfortunately with the non-existent light after work hours and zero creativity on my part has left me without images to show.

Yesterday I took a sick day because of a migraine and later in the evening when it was finally gone I looked through all of my images that I took in 2011.  All I can say is there is great opportunity for improvement.   Thanks for sticking with the blog I will have more images for you in the coming weeks.

This image of Jeanne is one I took while I was adjusting the strobe lights for our family portrait for the church directory (we missed the professional shoot.)  My friend Dana Andrews recently posted that his wife was still his favorite model.  I couldn’t agree more, Jeanne is my favorite model as well.

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

On my travels Saturday I ended up at one of my favorite places.  The Interpretive Center at Hurstville.  I pulled up by the “pond” and just as I was parking these 5 swans landed and started paddling around the area.

It looked like there were 4 adults and one juvenile.  I thought about the swans over by LaMotte that Andreas follows and I know they had  a cygnet this year so I’m wondering if this young one could be that one.  No way to tell for sure I guess.

They never came very close to me and were always heading to the North end of the pond.  I’ve seen them at the pond the last few days as I go by this area most days on my way into Maquoketa.

So after spending 30 minutes and 78 images (thank God for digital) I decided to head back to Dubuque.  All and all not a very interesting day of shooting but still it was a day with a camera in my had and I was very thankful for that opportunity.

Enjoy your day.  Hopefully you will only have a 4 day work week this week.  Thanks for stopping by.  Be careful.

Nikon D700 | Nikon 28 - 300 mm lens | ISO 200 1/100 @f8.0

Hope you had a great New Year’s celebration.  On Saturday after not having much luck with the Eagles I decided to take some side roads and see if I could find something worthy of your attention.  It was a gray day and windy to boot so the conditions were not conductive to good shots.

the day lent itself to black and white imagery and that is the type of subject matter I looked for.  I liked this old shed sitting alone out in the field. It was still being used to store items but was in pretty sad shape.

Nikon D700 | Nikon 28 - 300 mm lens | ISO 200 1/320 sec @f8.0

I drove about 125 miles and went through some small towns in my search for images.  It was like hunting for game and the game wasn’t cooperating.   I drove over this little stream and liked the way it meandered around and under the small bridge so I turned around and captured this image.

My experience with the Eagles was once again less than satisfying.  When I drove past the place where they were feeding there were around 15 Eagles competing for the food.  Once I turned around and came back to park most of them took off and flew away.

Nikon D700 | Nikon 28 - 300 mm lens | ISO 200 1/100 @f8.0

There were two mature and one immature eagles that stayed by the food until I opened the door to get out of the car.  Then one of the older eagles flew off.  I got the camera set up on the tripod but the wind was blowing so hard the tripod did very little as far as steadying the lens.   I shot several burst trying to get one sharp image but alas they all were blurry from the shaking of the camera. 😦

Nikon D3 | Tamron 200 - 500 mm lens | ISO 200 1/90 sec @ f9.5

I wasn’t going to show the only shot I kept but Jeanne wanted to see it.  I forgot to bump up the ISO as well so this was only shot at 1/90 of a sec, which is way to slow for the camera shake. I also had the aperture set at 9.5, which is a little over the prime f-stop for this lens.

Well that’s it for today.  Too cold, windy and miserable yesterday to go out shooting.  Hopefully today I’ll find something to capture.  Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your Monday and be careful.

Nikon D3 | Nikon 28 - 300 mm lens | Nikon SB800 | ISO 200 1/60 sec @ f6.5

Angie and Ben had an opportunity to see the Packers play football in Green Bay on New Year’s Day.  So Jeanne agreed to sit with Joshua for them.  It was the first time in 35 years that we have not been together at midnight.

We spent the evening at their house and had dinner together but then I came home.  As you can tell from the above image, Joshua was in a very good mood.  I hope you had a fun, safe, and sane New Years Eve.

Saturday I went out looking for Eagles.  I found about 15 feeding on some discarded animal carcases.  When I stopped my car there were two and when I opened the door there was one.  😦  I’ll post those images Monday.

I drove a total of 125 miles and went through four towns looking for photo opportunities.  Apparently I didn’t have my creative eye with me because I found very little.  More on that in another post.

Enjoy your day today.  Sincere best wishes for a great 2012.  Thank you for stopping by and be careful.

I haven’t posted anything for the past couple of days as life has been kind of hectic of late and I haven’t had the opportunity to do any shooting.  So I thought I would show some more of Christmas Day at Angie and Ben’s home.

Above Mark is overjoyed with the gift from Angie and Ben.  It is a photograph of his sky dive, which he did this Summer.  Both of my kids have now jumped out of perfectly good airplanes apparently trying to beat the plane to the ground.  Fortunately they both waited until they were safely on the ground before telling me of their escapades.

We really had a good time at Angie and Ben’s on Christmas.  It was fun watching Joshua deal with this new experience.  He, at this stage is more interested in the paper and the boxes than what comes in them.

Although he did figure out the shaker and cymbals pretty quickly.  One thing a Grandparent can do is buy noisy toys for their Grandchild and then of course leave.  🙂

Jeanne shows of her new coat that Angie and Ben got her for Christmas.    So it was a wonderful Christmas with lots of nice presents and the sharing of family times.

Today I was visiting with a friend I have known for several years from Rotary.  We got to talking about photography and much to my surprise he is an avid photographer as well.  He likes to shoot landscapes and interesting scenery.

We had an enjoyable time discussing the ins and out of shooting photographs. Very interesting conversation.  Well that’s all I have for today.  I’m going to go looking for Eagles again this weekend.  I’ve got three days of hopefully decent weather to try to capture some nice images.

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

Wonderful Christmas day.  We were invited to have brunch with Angie, Ben and Joshua.  It was a fun time and I’ll post some of the highlights of our visit tomorrow.  But for today I just couldn’t resist this series of images I took of Joshua.

If you have young children or have had children then you know the miracle of the “Binky.”

Too bad that we can’t have these as adults.  They could make a bad day seem a little more tolerable if you just had a Binky to take away the unhappiness.

I suppose if you think about it we do sort of have a substitute.   Some us try to make a bad day better by eating.  It is still an oral fixation of sorts.  Adult beverages can also take care of a bad day (up to a point. ) Of course they can also do just the opposite and make an okay day a bad day.  Certainly the next day a bad day.

But with the Binky securely ensconced in Josh’s mouth all is right with the world.  Oh if all of life’s trials and tribulations were so easily solved. 🙂

Enjoy your day.  Hopefully you have the day off today so if you do be careful.  If you don’t then make the best of your busy day.

Mark, Jeanne, Tim, Pam, Jay, Jackson, Denny, Mike, Mary, and me

Merry Christmas to you all.  Yesterday we left early and drove to Cedar Falls to pick up Mark.  Then on to Ames to have coffee and sweet rolls with Jeanne’s Mother Jay before all of us loaded up and headed for Des Moines to spend Christmas Eve Day with Jeanne’s sister Mary and her family.

We were joined there by her cousin Pam and her family and we enjoyed a non-traditional Christmas dinner of pasta, meatballs, and salad.  It was wonderful and we may have just started a new tradition.

After a abbreviated game of Hearts we left Des Moines around 5:30 pm and back to Ames where we watched Jay open some of her gifts.  Then back to Dubuque arriving about 9:30 pm.  Jeanne and Mark went to 10:45 service at church.  Heathen that I am I laid down and the next thing I remember is waking up at 1:30 am this morning.  🙂

Today we celebrate Christmas with Angie, Ben and Joshua so we get to double up on our Christmas Joy.  I hope you have a wonderful, safe, and peaceful Merry Christmas.  Be careful.

If you do not have your Christmas shopping completed yet then you are rapidly running out of time. 🙂

May the blessings of this wonderful day be with you and your family.