Saturday ~ August 26, 2017

Posted by Dave Updegraff on August 26, 2017
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , .

Happy Saturday!

Addie J. Roling joined our family at 2:07 p.m. August, 25, 2017.  Mother, Father, and children are all doing well!

Mark came up from Kansas City to be there for the birth.  He has made every one of the kids’ birth day.

The rest of the family got to meet Addie around 4:30 p.m.  Josh had a cold hence the mask.  You can see the rest of the family was more interested in a movie on the iPhone.  🙂

Gabby claims Addie is her sister and she just wants to hold her.

Enjoy your day and be careful.

Monday ~ August 21, 2017

Posted by Dave Updegraff on August 21, 2017
Posted in: Daily Posts.

Jeanne Fay

Happy Monday

Jeanne

“When no one else can understand me. 

When everything I do is wrong. 

You give me hope and consolation.

You give me strength to carry on.

And you’re always there to lend a hand in everything I do.

That’s the wonder, the wonder of you.” 

“And when you smile the world is brighter.

You touch my hand and I’m a king.

Your kiss to me is worth a fortune.

Your love for me is everything.

I guess I’ll never know the reason why you love me as you do.

That’s the wonder, the wonder of you.”

Happy Birthday Honey.  You are my best friend, my soul mate, my lover, my life partner and I love you with my life.

Sunday ~ August 20, 2017

Posted by Dave Updegraff on August 20, 2017
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , .

Happy Sunday!

First, a thank you to my life long friend, Diana!  Thank you for checking on me to make sure everything was all right.  I tend to get in these motivational / creative funks from time to time and it takes a while to get the energy flowing again.

Last night we celebrated Jeanne’s birthday a couple of days early.  Angie and Ben had us over for a birthday celebration and we had a wonderful time.

A couple of weeks ago I gave Josh my little Nikon Coolpix camera that I normally carry on my bike.  He has shown a keen interest in photography and so after getting his Mom’s permission I gave him the camera.  My wish is that he develops a real passion for photography and that we can spend some quality time teaching and learning from each other.

Gabby also likes to take pictures.  This is a little camera that actually takes pictures.  I don’t think you can download the images to a computer but you can see what images there are on the back viewing screen.  I’m sensing a pattern here as I’ve been taking pictures of the kids since day one and maybe Gabby will want a better camera as she gets a little older as well.

This was the birthday dessert from last night.  Angel food cake with strawberrys, whipped cream, and home-made ice cream.  I paid the price for eating this but it was worth it.  🙂

That’s it for today.  Enjoy your day and be careful.

Friday ~ August 11, 2017

Posted by Dave Updegraff on August 11, 2017
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , .

Happy Friday!

On the way home last night I was watching these big cumulus congestus clouds build in the sky, wondering if they would eventually turn in to a thunderstorm later down the line.  I have two images for today.

Of course I had to stop by my favorite windmill and frame it with the big clouds.

Enjoy your day and be careful.

Thursday ~ August 10, 2017

Posted by Dave Updegraff on August 10, 2017
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , .

Happy Thursday!

I have two images today.  The beauty of a well maintained golf course is pleasing to the eye and I enjoy photographing them.   I use to have a passion for golf and played reasonably well.  Now I tend to endure golf and play lousy.  🙂

The image above is the great group of friends I played with yesterday.  Maquoketa had its annual Chamber Golf Outing, which actually has little to do with golf and more about socializing and raising funds for this wonderful organization.  Our organization is a great sponsor of the event and the Chamber.

Enjoy your day and be careful.

Friday ~ August 04, 2017

Posted by Dave Updegraff on August 4, 2017
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , .

Happy Friday!

Indulge me a little today as my offering is not so much about photography as it is about the pride I feel for the organization I work for.

I have three images for you today about a group of young people I have had the pleasure of working with for the last eight weeks.  Every year for the last few years our organization has offered a special “Leadership Internship” to junior and senior college students.  They take a weekly leadership course that I teach and then visit various businesses and talk to community leaders learning about everything from the Federal Reserve Banking system to how to start a business on your own.  They learn about reading inadequacies, food scarcity, and the challenges faced by our farmers.  They spend time with our bank presidents and learn even more about leadership.

We require them to have a community minded project and then they present a program to our senior management team on how to attract and retain Millennials in the work environment.  In the next few years Millennials will make up the majority of the work force and they are quite different than the Baby Boomers and Generation X of today’s workforce.  In fact close to 50% of today’s workforce is made up of Millennials.

So the first image of this post is of the Interns presenting the community of Eldridge a bike repair station as Eldridge has an avid biking population.  The interns raised the money from donations and a program from our organization called “Pay It Ohnward.”  It gives our employees money to invest in projects and charities that are close to their heart.

The second image is of the Interns presenting Eldridge with $600 in “Pay It Ohnward” money.

This image is of some of the employees from our different banks that showed up to support the Interns.

A little photography talk…  This is actually two images that I tried to do a photo merge in Photoshop.  Unfortunately (and it rarely happens) Photoshop couldn’t merge the two images because they were so badly miss aligned.  (Photographer error.) 🙂

So I manually aligned the images.  If you don’t look too close and it is passable.  Lots of minutes blending, masking, and cloning here.

Enjoy your day and be careful.

Sunday ~ July 30, 2017

Posted by Dave Updegraff on July 30, 2017
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , .

Happy Sunday!

I have three unrelated images for you today.  Well they have commonality in that they are from our Minnesota trip but other than that they are unrelated to each other.

Every evening Mark and Julia would build a pit fire and we all would sit around and watch the kids play and the sun go down.  It was a great time of the day.  On this particular night they had S’mores and I had to capture this image of Austin enjoying his.

I believe this is a Double Crested Cormorant.  I am always reluctant to identify a bird because I’m usually wrong.  I do not study birds but I do enjoy making images of them.  There were some pelicans near by so he kept his distance from them.  I did read that they spread their wings like this to dry their feathers.

The best way to end this blog is with another sunset.  I have about 600 images of sunsets for the trip.  I won’t show them all but I do have to show some of them.  🙂

Enjoy your day and be careful.

Friday ~ July 28, 2017

Posted by Dave Updegraff on July 28, 2017
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , .

Happy Friday!

It wouldn’t be a proper vacation without some snapshots of the family.  So I have three images for you today and it just so happens I have three grand children.  🙂

This is my 6-year-old grand son Josh.  He was a little trooper on the boat and fished almost all the time.  He finally caught a nice 3.5 pound Northern Pike and he was thrilled beyond belief.  I was so happy for him.

Gabby took a turn at fishing but it didn’t last long.  It wasn’t her favorite thing to do  so she amused herself with other things.

This is the only image of Austin I have from the boat.  We were on our way in and he was not a happy camper.  Normally he has such a great disposition but something was bugging him this evening.

I hope you noticed that I snuck in another sunset for you.  🙂

Enjoy your day and be careful.

Wednesday ~ July 26, 2017

Posted by Dave Updegraff on July 26, 2017
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , , , , .

Happy Wednesday!

I have four images for today.  I would encourage you to at least look at the 4th one for a fluke of luck.  🙂

Yesterday I showed you an image I called “Golden Lake.”  It was a beautiful time of the evening when the sun was in its transition from yellow to gold to red.  The image above was from that same series and it features my Son, Mark and his significant other, Julia who took the camp’s paddle boat for a spin and I captured this image of them.

On their return trip, I ripped off about 20 – 25 shots to make sure I had a good one for the blog and for them.

When I was processing this photo I noticed a black spot of something in the upper left hand corner of the image and was considering removing it.  I took a closer look and discovered what that spot actually was.

This is the same image as the last one except I cropped it down so you could get a better view.  You can also click on any of the images for a larger more detailed view of the image.

There were several fishing boats trolling back and forth in this area and now I know why.  🙂

Enjoy your day and be careful.