Upde Designs

Nikon D300s | Tamron 18 - 270 mm | ISO 200 1/200 at F9

What a storm.  Maquoketa (where I work) got almost 20 inches.  I’m not sure how much Dubuque got but I’m guessing at least 14 inches.  I’m sure you all have images of the storm.  This shot is out our back patio.  The snow drift is above the grill.  The puppies had no where to go.  They were in a quandary.

Nikon D300S | Tamron 18-270 mm | ISO 200 1/200 sec @ F9

This shot is from the garage looking down the drive way.  There were 4 / 5 foot drifts on the driveway and the snow from the snow plow had put enough extra snow on the sidewalk so that it was above the top of the snow-blower.

Nikon D300S | Tamron 18-270 mm | ISO 200 1/200 sec @ F9

I worked for two and a half hours on the driveway, sidewalk, and back patio.  (The dogs were happy.)  Now I know that I’m woefully out of shape but by the time I had finished wrestling  with the snow-blower I felt like I had been in a hard fight and had lost.

Nikon D300S | Tamron 18-270 mm | ISO 200 1/200 sec @ F9

Just getting the snow blower to the back yard proved to be a huge challenge.  I knew I wasn’t up to shoveling that 5 foot drift so it was the snow blower or Mother Nature and I didn’t think the dogs could hold out for her.

So that was my Wednesday.  I was fortunate enough to work from home.  I believe they had a very small staff working and for the most part the town was shut down.  I suspect the commute tomorrow will be a little slower than usual.

Thanks for stopping by.  Be careful out there.

Nikon D300s | Tamron 90mm Macro F2.8 | SB900/Ring Flash | ISO 200 1/60 sec

Particularly nice weather we’re having wouldn’t you say?  This image is a continuation of the flower shoot I did last week.  I just love the vibrant colors of the flowers and besides I think they help my mood in this stormy winter weather we are having.

I received a nice comment from Andreas Exner yesterday about my blog and some of my images.  Andreas is an amateur photographer who is quite good.  I met him last Summer on the Worldwide Photo Walk and I was very impressed with the images he took on the walk.

He gave me his blog address and I check it about once a week to keep up with his work.  Andreas was born in East Germany and came to the USA in 2004.  While he is impressively creative he also has a very detailed oriented approach to photography.  Much more so than I do.  Those who know me very well know that details aren’t always my first priority.  I would recommend you check out his blog at this link  Andreas Exner

Nikon D700 | Nikon 24-70 mm F2.8 | Nikon SB800 | ISO 200 @1/60 sec.

I left work early yesterday because of the weather and because I have access to our network I can do just about anything at home that I can do at work.  The weather was terrible and although the roads were not all that bad the blowing snow made driving very challenging.  I got home about 3:00 PM.  Angie and Josh were here as Angie comes over to use our treadmill (I mean our close rack.)  So I grabbed a couple of pictures of Josh at Day 78.

Nikon D700 | Nikon 24-70 mm F2.8 | Nikon SB800 | ISO 200 @1/60 sec.

Funny thing is that normally when there is a snow I hear the snow plow from my office going up and down the street on a regular basis.  This is one of those days when the plow has not made a single trip yet.  Probably because with the high wind it would be pointless.

Nikon D300s | Tamron 90mm Macro F2.8 | SB900/Ring Flash | ISO 200 1/60 sec

Well that’s it for today.  I’m going to post the camera specs for each shot I take for those of you who want to know.  I may forget from time to time but it is what most photographers do so….

Thanks for stopping by.  Be careful out there.

I was listening to the weather report this morning as they detailed this huge storm that is headed our way and I thought this would be a good time to process the river shots I did Saturday.

I don’t know if these are the same fishermen that were on the river a couple of weeks ago when I was looking for Eagles but I like this image with the small boat framed up against the structure in the background.

Jeanne and I were going to  the river Saturday and we went by the Dubuque Art Gallery where they still have “The American Farmer.” (I’m not sure if that is the proper name) and Jeanne remarked that she had not seen it in person.

So I took another set of images while we were there.  The first time I shot it, there were icicles hanging all over the statutes and I had to “clone” them out.  No icicles this time and I tried a new more “edgy” look with this one.  I like the way it turned out.

Be safe out there and mind the conditions.  As always thank you for stopping by.  I know you have other things to do so I am grateful.

Welcome to Monday. Pretty decent weekend actually.  Jeanne and I went down to the river again to look for some Eagles and all we saw were a bunch of fishing boats.  So we did what any self-respecting Grandparent would do.  We called Angie to see if we could come by for a visit. (We did a lot of other things but more on that in later posts.)

By my calculations Josh was 75 days old Saturday.  He has much better control over his head although he is still a little like a bobble head.  He was a little fussy this morning.  He has a slight cold, which makes it difficult for him to nurse. So he didn’t get much of a morning meal and he was really hungry when we were there.

I have been experimenting with a new technique in my processing work flow.  It doesn’t work for all type of images but I really liked how they turned out with this image of Jeanne and Josh.  It’s a little different look.  A little edgy and subdued but I kind of like it with these images.

Camera specs – Nikon D300s, RAW format,  using a Tamron 18-270 mm zoom lens.  Exposure was  1/60 at F16,  65mm focal length,  ISO 200,  using a Nikon SB-800 speed light.

Thank you for stopping by.  Have a great week.

I don’t know where you do your best thinking or get your inspirations.  For me it has always been in the shower.  For some reason that is where I have some of my greatest thoughts and revelations.

Well last week I was deep in thought about something that happened to me many years ago (you know when you think about the incident you just shutter) and I thought God has sure watched over me when I have done some really stupid things and then that memory connected to another equally disastrous thing I had done and I began to see a pattern.

Then it occurred to me that it was when Jeanne came into my life that my life took an exponential turn for the better.  She is truly a remarkable person.  Never once in 34 years has she ever tried to change me, told me my ideas were crazy or that I ought to be better at what I did.  She’s never asked me to be anything other then who I am.

She has simply loved me and supported me in all that I do.  My friends often say, “That woman must be a Saint.”  So in some small way (remarkably small) I wanted to tell her how much she has and does mean to me.  So I sent her some flowers in the middle of the week.  She brought them home this weekend and I thought they made some beautiful images.

Thanks for stopping by.

Several got it correct.  There were only 3 males out of a class of over 50.  Some of them didn’t attend the final dinner as they had flights leaving.  Anyway it is one of the curious things about this profession.  Women are the predominate gender in the HR world.  I’m not sure why and a lot of my peers that I communicate with on a regular basis are men.  But anytime I go to a seminar or other training I’m always the minority male.

One of the blogs I read every day is Scott Kelby.  Today he suggested that you go back into your archives a few years and look at your photography back then.  The idea is to remind yourself of how much you have improved.  Both in your photography and your post processing skills.

Improvement is sometimes very subtle and on an incremental basis so you may not think you have evolved much but (Scott says) you will be encouraged to see that you in fact have improved.

As I look back on a lot of those photos I shutter to think I actually took those and thought they were good.  I’ve learned so much in the last seven years both from a technical standpoint and artistically.  Make no mistake, I realize I am light years away from where I want to be with my images, but the whole process is so much fun and rewarding.

The images above are of Angie when she returned from Mountain Top Project in July of 2003.  You can see that Maggie was brand new at the time.  The top image is as I shot it with a Sony Cybershot camera.  It was a decent camera but not a DSLR.  At that time I shot everything in JPEG and didn’t even know what RAW was.  I was just learning Photoshop (actually I didn’t know anything.)

As much as I love Human Resources and the work I do if I could push a reset button and take another path (photography) who knows where it would have taken me.  I am so very, very lucky to have the wonderful life partner that I do who, without hesitation supports my passion.  Thank you Sweetheart!

Thank you for stopping by.  Have a great weekend.  I’m working on a web site for a client this weekend so I don’t know if I will get out to take any images but I still have a goal of getting some good Eagle images this year.

Had a late night yesterday so I didn’t have time to process anything for the blog.  I did however receive the above image from the Graduate School Of Banking via e-mail.  I attended the GSB HR school last August.  A week of intense study of Human Resource topics from the perspective of banking.

There is probably no other industry that is more heavily regulated than the banking business and the same is true for Human Resources.  Not only do we have to be aware of all the employment laws but there are a plethora of employment laws specifically related to banking.

It was an excellent school and I enjoyed it a lot.  Made a lot of new friends and set up a great peer network for sharing ideas and best practices. As you look at the image above you should be struck by one salient thought.  I’ll tell you tomorrow what it is.  Leave a comment if you like.  I always enjoying the feedback.  It helps a lot.

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a great day.

This is an image I captured April 8, 2010.  Nothing special about the image.  This is a collection area across the highway from the Maquoketa Interpretive Center.  I like to stop there on my lunch hour sometimes and sometimes I’ll stop on my way home.  There are usually some water fowl around the area and on this particular day I was more about trying to capture the sky than anything else.

This image was taken in about the same spot today.  Now there are a couple of cool things about this image.  First and foremost it was captured at 5:15 pm with an ISO 200 1/60 shutter and F3.5.  Which means that at 5:15 there was still enough light available to make the image.  Wahoo!

There was almost no contrast between the snow and the sky.  It was grayer than gray with the only hint of color was the weeds in the foreground.  So I gave the image my retro look.

Anyway I thought it was fun to see the two images together 9 months apart.  The light is getting longer and it won’t be long and Spring will be here.  🙂  Thanks for stopping by.

This church is the same church I shot back in September 2010.  It’s a very small country church and I like the structure of it.  Last Friday as I was driving around I went by the church and with the sky so blue that day I liked how it framed up against the white snow and building.

And if you can stand one more image of a barn.  This is from my Saturday shoot.  It really was this red.  Well okay I enhanced it a tad but it was the brilliant red that caught my eye.  It’s not a particularly interesting structure but the brilliant color against the snow really stood out.

Hope you have a great week.  As always thank you for stopping by.  Please feel free to leave a comment if you desire.  What you would like to see, what you like and what you don’t like.  It helps me improve.

Over the last couple of years I’ve taken several shots of the Maquoketa Dam (Maquoketa actually gets some of their electricity from the dam.)  But I went there Friday during my lunch hour and I thought the combination of a deep blue sky and the mix of open water and snow just made it a great Winter landscape image.

While I was taking shots of the Dam I heard some sounds coming from over the bank and when I went over to investigate I found this family of ducks.   This group of four swam together and apart from another group of ducks.

Not being an outdoors-man or hunter I don’t know anything about ducks nor their  habits but the two big ducks acted like they were the parents of the two younger ducks.

Anyway it was fun just to get out with my camera and take some shots.  Thanks for stopping by.

It is -7 this morning with a 12 mph wind so wimp that I am I’m not going hunting for Eagles today.