Upde Designs

The above image is a follow up to the image I posted yesterday of Paul Mulholland and his Mother.   Our Bank in Clinton held an event in December for our customers and one of the things we did for them was to offer my portraits to anyone who wanted them taken.

I shoot a lot of green screen shots for a variety of reasons.  It is very portable, I don’t have to carry around  a lot of back grounds.  Working with a green screen (if you do it correctly) lets you create some stunning shots with cool backgrounds.  One thing that should stand out in the above image is how small the green screen actually is.

The problem is that my green screen is okay for a single portrait but put more than one person in the scene and it is just too small.  At this event I had several groups come up and they wanted a group shot of three or four of them  and it was very difficult to do because the group extended beyond my green screen.

So at Christmas time one of the Photography Stores that I buy from ran a special on green screens.  a 9′ x 15′ for $24.95.  WOW that is some price so I jumped on it and now have a green screen that can be used for larger groups or for a smaller need I can just fold it up.

Three years ago Jeanne gave me these studio lights for Christmas.  They are pretty low quality lights but work pretty well for what I do with them.  You can see I have two soft boxes on them (24″ x 24″.)   Lighting is my biggest challenge and I constantly struggle with getting the lighting right.  It’s like anything else, it just takes a lot of practice and I don’t get a chance to do a lot of portrait work, not nearly  as much as I would like too.

I also tried shooting directly into my laptop on  this evening.  I had never done that before so that presented a whole new set of challenges.  It was a great learning experience though and it will work much better the next time I do it.  Assuming of course I do it again before I forget what I learned 🙂

I love shooting portraits.  They are hard to get right but I really do enjoy the set up and getting the shot composed correctly.  That is the purpose of shooting tethered to your laptop because you can see a full screen image on your laptop instead of the small 3″x3″ LCD screen on the back of your camera.

Here is an image I made of John Doland on Christmas Eve.   I have gone to John for 20 years and he is an excellent barber.  Not many of them left in Dubuque.  I asked John if i could take him image and he said “Sure.”  I printed an 8 x 10 of this image for him and will matte and frame it and then drop it off at his shop one of these Saturdays as a surprise.

Thank you for stopping by.  Enjoy your day and the rest of the week.

As I sit here in the Laboratory (as my wife calls it) this morning and listen to the snow plow go up and down our street I’m reminded that it is only January 11th and we still have a lot of this type of weather to go.  Hence the need to post the picture above.  It is from one of our visits to Steve and Becki Kent’s Lazy K Farm .

The photo above is a wonderful Mother Son portrait I did in December at an event sponsored by one of our banks.  This is my friend Paul Mulholland (he is a Loan Officer at our bank) and his Mother who was at the event.  I just love this image so I thought I would share it with you.

Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your day.

Okay not quite the enthusiasm as I had on Friday but still I am thankful I have work that I enjoy and that makes me pretty fortunate.  I had what can best be described as a lame weekend.

I had such grandiose plans for this weekend both from a photography stand point and getting some projects done or at least a good start on a couple of them.  I did pretty much nothing this weekend.

Saturday I just felt run down and I slept a lot.  Took a couple of naps during the day and then slept pretty long Saturday night.  The only positive thing I did accomplish was I completed an on-line course I have been taking on exposure.

I was going to get up  Sunday morning and try to capture some images of Eagles but looked at the temperature and decided  they would be just fine without me.  So I snuggled a little deeper in the covers and went back to sleep.  LAME!!

Finally this evening I did set up this shot just to have the practice of shooting something.  It is an Angel that Jeanne received from one of her teacher friends and the plant from her friend Debbie.  I created the star burst background for the image and all in all it turned out okay.

The above image was one I shot a couple of weeks ago when I captured the sunrise and frost on the trees on my way to work.  I hadn’t processed this one yet and it seem to lend itself to B&W with a little retro look.  Anyway it’s time for bed (Sunday evening) so I had better get some more sleep.  Thanks for stopping by.

This week like this Winter have been too long already.  I can’t  remember being so sick of Winter so quickly.  Usually I tolerate January pretty well and spend the time doing projects of one thing or another.  But this year it just seems to me that Winter has been longer and tougher than normal.

Hence the reason for the Summer images.  I drove down  to the Hurstville Lime Kilns last Summer on my noon hour with camera in hand, walked around the area behind the Kilns.   I posted some of those shots on my photo web site but these images were  not processed because I didn’t like some things about them.

Well now that I’m longing for warm weather with green grass, trees, and the smell of flowers in the air, these images look more acceptable to me.  Interesting how perceptions change after 8 feet of snow 🙂

I hope you have  a good Friday and a Great Weekend! Thanks for stopping by.  I hope to get some shooting in tomorrow.  I might go look for some Eagles.

A rather short post today because as usual I’m running late.  I meant to post this image of Angie and Josh yesterday but simply forgot it.  I love the way he is looking at his Mother while eating.  He was really hungry and would get very upset when she would stop to burp him.  I know what he means, I don’t like to stop once I get started either. 🙂

This is a neat picture of Ben and his Son.  I said yesterday that Ben is such an attentive and caring Father and you only have to watch the inter action between him and Josh to appreciate that.

Above is a beautiful plant that Jeanne received from her long time friend Debbie McCarty from KC.  Debbie is a teacher as well and they met at  NWMSU and became friends all through college.  Debbie has always been there for Jeanne in the good and bad times.

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you have a great Wednesday.

The sun was bright, the air frigid and crisp, the mood somber, and the memories were soft spoken at random.  Such was the scene at the Andreae home preparing for the funeral and the sadness of saying goodbye to a husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather.

The mood lightened a bit when Angie, Ben, and Josh arrived.  Amazing how a little baby can draw your attention from retrospective thought to the here and now.  But when a baby is hungry, everyone knows it. 🙂

You could see the difference in Jay’s look when Angie started feeding Josh.  She was so interested in all things Josh.  Ben is such an attentive Father and is so caring and supporting of his family.

As we waited for the time to come that we were to leave for the church Jay spent some meaningful time with her great-grandchild.  Then it was finally that time to load up and drive to St. Andrews for the service.

There was a large gathering of people.  Jay was surprised at the number of people.  I was not.  John was a caring, nurturing man and many of the members of the church were there because John invited them to visit St. Andrews and they became a member partly because of John.

That became even more apparent after the service as people came up to Jay and talked about how John had visited with them about life insurance but spent most of his time telling them about St. Andrews. (In reality wasn’t that more about life insurance then life insurance.)

John’s love of St. Andrews was second only to his love of his family.  He was a past president in 1956 and later he co-chaired a committee to build a Columbarium at St. Andrews, which would be his final resting place.   How very fitting that he and his co-chair are the first to be placed in the Columbarium.

So as one life ends another is just getting started.  The cycle of life continues but is a complete mystery and filled with never ending questions of why.  But I know for me I will never forget John.  As the minister said we are all broken in someway and far from perfect.  However John was a pretty good model to emulate.

Today we drove over to Ames for the family visitation and then the funeral tomorrow.  I have never really liked the whole idea of visitations or wakes but I understand the human need and how important it is to the healing process.

I also do not like the long line you have to wait in, only to talk with a half-dozen people you don’t know so you can  get to the one of two you do know.  Well Jeanne and Mary decided (on their own with no influence from me) there would be no lines.

Everyone would just mingle and it would be more of a celebration of John’s life.   The room had some wonderful flowers placed at the front (including a beautiful arrangement from my Ohnward family) of the room along with a photo of John, his old trombone and the original case it came in (more about that.) His favorite Scottish red hat and his hat from the war with an American flag  that was appropriately displayed with the military fold.

When John enlisted in the Army they discovered that he had some musical talent including playing the trombone.   So after six months of regular soldier duty he was assigned to a military band and spent the rest of the war touring the front lines playing music for the troops.  Although he was a veteran he chose not to have a military presence at his funeral.  He also did not want anyone giving any tributes to him.  Just a simple homily.

On his trombone case he would write the name of all the cities and towns he played in during his tour of duty.  John still played the trombone throughout his life in a small ensemble and often times at church.  He loved music so much and was in the choir, barbershop and other choral groups.

Oh by the way Jeanne got his trombone in 6th grade and played it all through high school in the band until she finally dropped out-of-band her Senior year.

I took a picture of the trombone display with my blackberry but I do not have access to it today so perhaps I will post the image later.

After the visitation we went back to Jay’s home and had a dinner and a lot of remembering.  Everyone was there with the exception of Ben, Angie, and Josh.  Ben was on call today so they will be over Monday.  The image above is Jeanne trying to take a photo of the cousins.  In the time it took her to take one image, I had composed, focused and shot 8 images. 🙂

Above is Tim, Mark, and David.  This is the shot that  Jeanne was trying to take a picture of.

Oh one other thing.  You remember last week the Photographer who posted a couple of my Christmas images on his blog?  Well he posted an article about Christmas and the spirit of helping people.

I wrote the above comment on his blog about a book that I’m reading.   One of the suggestions the book makes is finding something positive to say to one person a day.  It can be by e-mail, voice, or some other form of communication.

He read my comment and decided to not only buy the book himself  but also to make his readers aware of it.  Pretty neat.  I would highly recommend this book to everyone.

Thanks for checking in.

One of the things I like to do at this time of year is look at the images I have taken over the past year.  It is a neat way to look back  and remember.  It also stirs some pretty emotional memories both good and bad.   The image above is one I did on the “Asbury Shoot” this Summer and it is one of the images I didn’t use at the time because it just didn’t appeal to me.  Maybe it is because I am missing the green grass and warm breezes of Summer that I decided to use it today.

I shot a total of 3,397 images in 2010.  I suspect it would have been a lot more because there were a large number of images that got deleted off my hard drive after I looked at them.  That’s saying a lot for me because there is something about an image (even a really bad one) after I have captured it that makes it special to me and I don’t like to delete them.  Even though I would never show them to anyone.  🙂

This is my favorite image for 2010.  There wasn’t even a close second.  I had thought about this image for a couple of weeks before shooting it.  I hadn’t even told the kids about it.  I had it all set up, even with a soft box for kicker lighting when they came over for dinner one evening.

I guess you could say this is my favorite retro look black and white.  The one below would have to be a close second.  Funny thing about the one above is I was not going to use it at all until I decided to do it in the retro look.

This image I captured on the way to one of our banks after the first snow fall.  It really lent itself to B&W and that was what I was thinking about when I shot it

This is my favorite pure black and white image.  This was taken inside the retreat deck house by the pond at our friend’s home .   Becki and Steve Kent have such a lovely, wonderful place on the Lazy K Farm.  Jeanne and I just love to go there and relax.   Lots of pictures to take there as well.

I experimented a lot with HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography this year.  Above is my favorite image (mainly for the colors.)  It was really difficult to choose my favorite in this category because some of the HDR images were pretty dramatic.    That is what I really enjoy about HDR  you can do so many different looks with it and run the gambit from surrealistic to really detailed images.

This is one of the images of the Nativity (from the 5 in the HDR Range.)  Because of the lighting conditions I couldn’t expose for the highlights without losing the detail in the shadows and if I exposed for the detail in the shadows the highlights are blown out.  Therein lies the beauty of HDR.  You capture all the values of the luminance range.

Without a doubt this was my favorite color image of the year.  This is pretty true to what I saw.  Okay I punched up the sky a bit but and enhanced the shadows but it is pretty close to what I saw.

I could go on for another hour.  There are so many images that have a story but then again I would loose your interest in a matter of minutes.  Obviously the birth of Joshua Michael was the highlight of the year.  I like this Grandpa stuff and I can’t wait to teach him things that will drive his parents crazy 🙂

A lot of sadness in 2010 as well.  The loss of Krista Grant was extremely difficult for me.  She was a trusted friend and a source of much inspiration.  The loss of Ed Tubbs was also hard.  Ed’s positive attitude, will to live, and can do spirit was a powerful lesson in perseverance.

Of course the loss of Jeanne’s Father, John Andreae was a blow to all the family.  Especially after seeing him in such good spirits on Christmas day.  My very favorite image of John was one I took of him in his living room on his birthday.

It was the first year of our marriage and I had made John a Pitching Wedge and he was just thrilled with it.  He was swinging it in the living room and I captured the swing, and his smile with my 35mm camera.  I made an 11 x 14 inch photo and framed it for him and it will be displayed at his visitation this afternoon.  I wish I could find the original to post.  Maybe one of these days.

Well that’s enough looking back.  As a good friend once said to me during a particularly difficult time, “Don’t look back too long or you’ll loose sight of where you’re going.”

I wish us all a happy and prosperous 2011.  Thanks for stopping by.

Certainly a bittersweet time with the passing of Jeanne’s Father.  But the opportunities and challenges of a new year are also at hand.  I put the above notice from the funeral home for those of you who wanted to know.  In addition you can read the obituary by clicking here.

The above image is from the other day when I did  the icy tree shoot.  I didn’t really like this image because it was too dark.  I was arranging some images on my storage disk this morning and it caught my eye again.  So I took it over to Photoshop and this is what I came up with.

I kind of like it, I hope you do.  Anyway I hope we all have a great 2011. Thanks for stopping by.

At 3:30 am I heard the phone ring and Jeanne answered it.  I couldn’t make out what she was saying and I kind of drifted back to sleep.  She finally jiggled me and said “Well I got that call that you never want to get, Dad’s gone.”

A flood of emotions washes across you at a time like that.  The shock of how sudden and without any warning.  Because I had just seen him Christmas day and he was in good spirits.  I think I described him as robust.

The sadness that never again would I see him or be able to shake his hand or hear him sing a song or hear his bowling stories.

Then a feeling of calm and peace surround me as I thought about him.  He was 88 years old and had a loving wife of over 50 plus years, two wonderful daughters, four grand children and one great-grandson.

He had been retired many years and enjoyed his retirement immensely with golf, bowling, and volunteering.  He had more friends than you can count on all fingers and toes and everyday he drove to Hy-Vee in Ames and had coffee and cookies with his cronies.

Except for a couple of bouts with some staff infection he had been pretty healthy and lived at home.  He used a cane but got along pretty good.  He passed in his favorite recliner, in his own home, in his sleep.

It is as if God said, “John, you’ve been a good man and it is time you come home to me and because you’ve been such a good man, I will make your passage comfortable.”

Both of my parents spent their last years in a nursing home and their last days in a lot of discomfort and pain.  I was so thankful that John did not have to experience that. Certainly we will miss him and it will not be the same without him but he is in a very good place and finally singing in the big choir