Upde Designs

Good Day!  From a purely photographic view-point the images for today’s post are nothing special and are little more than just snapshots.  But since I hadn’t posted anything for sometime (because I haven’t shot anything for sometime) I thought I would share some images from this past Wednesday.

Our company held its annual golf outing this past Wednesday at the Clinton Country Club.   The golf course wanders through a dense stand of tall trees (in fact the club was once the “Valley Oaks” Golf Course.)  Because of the trees there isn’t much wind on most parts of the course and if you remember Wednesday it was quite hot and very humid. Some of our folks suffered from heat exhaustion and it was difficult to play the last few holes.

The two images above are from one of the golf holes (I don’t remember which one now) and the fairway was taken over by Canadian Geese.  They were everywhere.  The second image is not cropped at all.  I was able to get that close to the goose and he seemed oblivious to my presence.

This image is the real purpose of this post.  I was coming home traveling East on highway 30, it must have been around 7:30 pm when I Saw this big, beautiful, red ball in the sky.  I pulled off the highway on to a gravel road and got my tripod (thinking of an HDR image) and shot about 40 images of the sunset.  The sun was actually as red as it shows in the image.  I did not color enhance it (honestly!)

I see these big red sunsets every once in a while but it seems, up until now anyway,  that I’ve never been in a position to capture one with my camera.

I mentioned HDR a little earlier.  I attempted to create an HDR image thinking that this type of shot would lend itself to HDR very well.  Either I had my camera set up wrong or I wasn’t processing the image correctly because when I would finish with the tone mapping process the image just looked fake.  So this is one of the single images I took.

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a great Labor Day Weekend.  Be careful.

Some very good friends invited us to join them at the Irish Hooley, which was held Saturday afternoon and evening at the amphitheater in front of Star Brewery.

I do not typically enjoy going to things like this.  I don’t like being in large crowds because typically I don’t have the patience to try to get from point A to point B with all those people in front of me.  But like Jeanne said, “We’ve never been and it might be fun.”

I’m thinking that is her way of saying “We’re going.”  🙂  So I thought, what the heck.  I don’t know much about Irish music and the event is going to be held near the River Walk, which is the same place as our up coming Photo Walk.  Might as well take my camera and get some shots while I’m there.

There was a large crowd on hand for the event.  We parked down by the welcome center and the first thing out of the car I could hear was some great sounding music coming from the Brewery.  It was a nice evening weather wise so I’m thinking this might be okay.  The closer we got the more the smell of barbeque filled the air.  Ah food, so this can’t all be bad. 🙂

We found our friends,  set up our chairs, and then headed for food and beverage stands.  This is where the crowd comes in.  It is like a herd of cattle.  There doesn’t seem to be any system to the movement again much like cattle.  Some people are always standing and visiting with people (impeding the flow of traffic I might add), others are just standing in place looking bewildered (also impeding traffic), still others seem to be on a mission from God and woe is he who gets in their way.  Plus there are always a fair amount of individuals who apparently have not showered recently.  I’m not even going to talk about the porta potty experience.  These are just some of the reasons I don’t like crowds.  🙂

For all my complaining I did actually have good time.  I shot the above image at ISO 25,600 which is insane.  Yes it had a lot of noise but with a little help from Photoshop I was able to salvage an image that would have been impossible.  Yes it is a little blurry, well maybe it is a lot blurry.  Actually it had so much noise I wasn’t sure I could save it at all.  But you get the idea that there is a band in the image. 🙂

This band known as Gaelic Storm was the headliner for the event and it is easy to see why.  They were fantastic and I have to say that I’m now a fan of Irish music and in particular of Gaelic Storm.  I’m headed over to ITunes right now.

Thanks for stopping by.  If you want to join us on our Worldwide Photo Walk please click here and sign up.  It’s going to be a blast.  Be careful.

Good Day.  A pretty short post today as I had a very late evening.  This past Monday when I got home Jeanne said there is a strange message for you on the answering machine.

I did not recognize the voice but the name was vaguely familiar to me.  I called the number he left and it turned out to be Al Turner a friend of mine from the past.  Al and I served on the Maryville Police Department over 40 years ago.

We worked the midnight shift for several years together and developed a pretty good friendship.  I saw him about 15 years ago when he and his wife of 42 years Pat were traveling through town.  He called me then.  Angie and I went to meet them at the casino restaurant at the harbor and had dinner with them.  I’m not sure where Jeanne and Mark were that evening but Jeanne didn’t get a chance to meet Al.

Over the years she has heard many stories about Al and I.  Yesterday he called me and said that they were spending the night in Galena and would we like to get together for dinner.  So we met them in Galena and spent the next 4 hours reliving some old memories.  Great fun.  Sadly many of the guys I served with have since passed away.

Al and Pat started a sporting goods store after he left law enforcement and they have since sold the business, retired, and do a lot of traveling now.  It was wonderful to see and visit with them but I finally had to say, “Look you guys are retired now and can sleep in.  We have to work tomorrow so goodnight.” 🙂

Thanks for stopping by and Al thank you for giving me a call.  All of you be careful.

Good Day and thank you for stopping by.  Saturday Jeanne and I explored possibilities for the upcoming Worldwide Photo Walk.  We looked at Eagle Point Park, The Downtown area, and The River Walk.

We decided on the Great River Walk as the location for this year’s Worldwide Photo Walk for several reasons.  There are two great restaurants connected to the River Walk so the social part of the Photo Walk will be great.  There is abundant free parking available and when you get 35 – 50 cars in one area you need a lot of parking.

The River Walk affords some spectacular photographic opportunities.  The Civil War Shot Tower, great architecture,  a turn of the century turning railroad bridge, the river itself, the changing of the colors, fabulous art work as shown in the image above, wild life (there are always sea gulls and ducks around), the ice harbor with a full complement of river boats including Coast Guard vessels.

Not to mention the very large William M. Black dredge boat, the Dubuque Rail Yards, and an abundance of flowers and did I mention “The River?”  So after a lot of walking and shooting the River Walk turned out to offer the best photographic experience for our walkers / photographers.

The only thing to decide is where we are going to meet and eat.  Also this year I thought we might do a little Photoshop tutorial during lunch as an enticement to get people to stay for the socializing, which is a large part of the whole Photo Walk purpose.

Anyway I’ll be posting all the details on the official Photo Walk web site in the next few days as soon as I nail down a few loose ends.  Have a great Hump Day and be careful.

Nikon D700 | Nikon 28 - 300 mm lens | ISO 200 1/340 sec @f9

A quick post this day because as usual I got involved in something else this morning and by the time I remembered the Blog it was time to get ready for the day. 🙂  Very typical.

Anyway on the way home last evening as is my normal route I was on Skyline Road, which is on the South side of the Dubuque Regional Airport.   There is a point where you can see the entire runway 36/18.  As I went by there was an American Eagle regional jet setting at the North end of the runway getting ready for take off.

So I did a “bat turn” and went back.  I barely had time to get my camera out of the bag and set up when it came roaring down the run way.  I clicked off 47 images of the take off and have two worthy of showing.  I would have preferred to have used the 500 mm lens but had the 28 / 300 on the camera so that is what I had time to use.

Nikon D700 | Nikon 28 - 300 mm lens | ISO 200 1/340 sec @f9

Enjoy your day.  Thanks for stopping by and be careful today.  It’s going to be another warm one.

I’m really getting bad about posting regularly  and I apologize for that.  Last week one of my dear friends actually sent me an e-mail wondering if I was okay.  So that’s pretty bad.  I’m still learning the new MAC.  There is a world of difference in the way the two systems accomplish things.  Some things I like the way MAC does them and some things I prefer the way Windows does it.  All-in-all I think I’m going to like it however.

Sunday was Jeanne’s birthday.  I won’t tell you what year she celebrated but I will say she is aging very well, like a fine wine.  🙂  Angie, Ben, and Joshua stopped over to help her celebrate and have her birthday dinner with us.

It is always such a treat to have the kids over.  Mark stopped by on his way back from Chicago.  He and some friends had gone to the Cubs game.  His classes started yesterday and he had some friends with him so he couldn’t stay.  But he did stop long enough to wish his Mother a happy birthday.

I’m finishing up the details of this year’s Worldwide Photo Walk.  the route is pretty much laid out and I’ll post some images from my pre-walk tomorrow.  I’m just waiting on the restaurant to get back to me and then I’ll post all the information on the official Photo Walk web site.

Thanks for stopping by.  I will make a sincere effort to be a little more regular in my postings.  Take care and be careful.

A real treat yesterday.  We were invited to Ben and Ange’s for dinner last evening and to add to the enjoyment Mark was in town and he joined us.  I had not seen Joshua for over three weeks and he has certainly changed in that amount of time.

He has new skills as well.  He is quite adapt at sitting up and when you put him on the floor he is like a little rug rat.  If he sees something he really wants he is off to the races.

He decided that he wanted my watch (I was holding his favorite toy.) His eyes lit up and a big smile came across his face and he was off.  He bypassed the toy and went straight for the watch.  Of course his mouth engulfed the watch but he was happy.

Wonderful evening and as usual I ate too much.  Thanks for stopping by.  Hope you enjoy your week.  Be careful.

The above image is an attempt to shoot an HDR scene in our back yard.  I like how the moon, clouds and sky looked against the landscape.  Not what I originally envisioned but it is what I ended up with.

I’m sorry for the lack of posts this last week.  I was in Madison, Wisconsin attending the Graduate School of Banking Advance HR Program.  I did year one last year and this was the finish up to the two year program.  Great school but my head is exploding with information.

I intended to take some spectacular shots of the Madison area but homework assignments and some afterhours socializing got in the way.  I met up with a good friend from one of our banks that was also there attending the GSB Banking School and we had drinks, dinner, and  a lot of conversation one of the evenings. 🙂

Here is the other reason.  Yes I pulled the plug and did it.  I went over to the dark side and bought a MACBook.  I have to tell you it is like learning to walk again.  Not only is the operating system different but even the programs that are made for MAC and that I am use to do not work the way they do on a Windows machine.

Why do it then?  Good question and I suspect that my wife is asking herself that question as she had had to endure all the adult language coming out of my office as I struggled to do the most elementary things.

I’m still doing most stuff on my PC laptop but I will make the transition.  I also got a smaller computer, which is much easier on my back but I went from and 18.5” screen down to a 15” screen.  That in and of itself is quite a change.

It will be a journey.  My friend Andreas says I’ll love it after I get used to it.  Our network guy Mike said he had often wondered why I didn’t have a MAC for what I mainly do.  So we will see.  I’m stuck with it now for a fairly long time. 🙂

Thanks for stopping by.  I’ll be a little more consistent in the coming weeks.  Be careful.

You may have noticed that I did not post much last week.  That was due to several things.  I just don’t like the hot weather and even though I did look for things to shoot the environment was just not very conducive for shooting.  (It’s the wimp factor.)  Taking a camera out of an air-conditioned car causes the same fogging as it does on your glasses.  Plus wearing a suit gets pretty hot.  (Well you’re not interested in all that.)

The other reason is I continue to have problems with my computer after the hard drive mess.  So I decided to go over to the Dark Side.  Yes I bought a MAC Laptop.  It will be delivered Tuesday and so there will be a pretty big learning curve for me (I think).  My Son-In-Law says that Apple will own the world and I am beginning to believe he is right.  I can’t believe I’m actually going to be using a MAC.

So Sunday Jeanne and I went out to explore some areas for the upcoming Worldwide Photo Walk, which will be held this year on Saturday October 1, 2011.  We looked at Eagle Point Park (Andreas suggested that as a possible route), and we looked at the River Walk and Welcome Center as another possibility.

Both have advantages and disadvantages to consider, so even though I said I would announce the details of the walk this weekend, there are still some logistical considerations that have to be explored before we can announce.

The first image was taken at the lookout at Eagle Point Park of the Lock & Dam #10.  The river is pretty high as you can tell by the position of the dam doors.

The second image is of a train that was rolling along the other side of the river.  I was really too far away for my lens to get a good shot but I like trains so thought I would include it.

The third image is of the Riverboat Twilight.  It comes from Davenport to Dubuque and turns around and goes back to Davenport on a two-day excursion that I ‘ve heard advertised on the radio and television.    The last image is just another view of the Twilight.

Thanks for stopping by.  Check back soon for details on the Photo Walk.  Enjoy your week and be careful.

I’ll be announcing the details of the walk very soon so check back here.  I now have the official web site posted (albeit without details of the walk) but you can sign up for the walk by clicking here.

I will work out the details of the walk and get them posted on the web site by this weekend.  What I do know is that it will be Saturday October 1, 2011 (somewhere in the Dubuque Area), probably around 10 am to 1 pm and it will be fun.  More later….