Sunday ~ July 21, 2024

Posted by Dave Updegraff on July 21, 2024
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , .

Welcome.

I debated long and hard about this post.  I almost didn’t follow through with.  The problem is It reflects lack of preparation, not having the right equipment with me, and not properly preparing for the type of photo shoot.

I have photographed this event 20 times before and had a fair amount of success with the shoot.  This time however I did not build on that past experience.  While I was taking images of my grand kids (much more important event) I heard and saw the war birds flying over.  Then I remembered this was the weekend that they practice for the big air show in Oshkosh.

So without stopping at home to pick up my long lens and my normal camera, I just drove out to the airport.  There was nothing flying when I arrived so I didn’t know which runway they were going to use or where they might be staging or for that matter if they were going to fly at all.

So when they did finally start taking off it was obvious to me that I was in the wrong place and that all I could do was to try to get some shots as they got airborne.

They were pretty close to being out of the range of the lens I had and to make matters worse I’m still trying to learn this new system.  Not to mention that my panning with a long lens is woefully pathetic.

The final blow was looking at a guy I know, who obviously did his home work and is very familiar with his set up and his equipment.  His images were stunning.

I’m not looking for sympathy, it was a hard lesson to learn but I won’t make that mistake again.

Enjoy the rest of your day and be careful.

Saturday ~ July 20, 2024

Posted by Dave Updegraff on July 20, 2024
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , , .

Welcome to my Blog

What a great day for me this Saturday.  I captured over 420 images, a lot of which will not see the light of day.  (i.e. they will not be part of the blog.)

Jeanne, Angie, and the four grand children had a picnic at the park on Grandview.  The idea was for the kids to explore, burn energy, and share fun with each other.

I joined the group after their lunch, and some were tired of the park while others were still having fun.  Such is life.

I decided, after trying to capture each beloved grandchild, that I would render them in black and white.  Sort of show the mood or attitude of each child.

After spending about 45 minutes with the group they decided to head to the library.  The kids love to get new books at the library (as they are avid readers.)  Me, not so much, so I headed to the airport where the old warbirds were practicing their formation flying, in preparation for the great spectacle of Oshkosh, which starts Sunday afternoon.

I got lots of images from the airport.  Many of which were not of enough quality to see the light of day on this blog.

I have introduced a new camera system (mirror-less) into my camera equipment and it is proving to be a steep learning curve for me.  More from the airport tomorrow.

Enjoy the rest of your day and be careful.

Thursday ~ July 18, 2024

Posted by Dave Updegraff on July 18, 2024
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , , .

Welcome

Every so often I like to photograph flowers.  The rich beautiful colors they offer are like a magnet to me.

I drove out to the Dubuque Arboretum last week in hopes of photographing some flowers.  From my vantage point (my vehicle) it didn’t seem to have the color vibrance I was looking for.

Perhaps if I had taken a stroll to some of the flower beds my impression may have been different.  Considering the fact that I have some challenges with walking very far contributed to my assessment.

So as I was leaving Maquoketa yesterday after Rotary, I took the Hurstville road out of town, which happens to go by the wonderful lime kilns of Hurstville

The Master Gardeners had been busy with planting and tending to a wide variety of flowers, which were easy to get to without a lot of walking.

So, I stopped and captured a few images.  I saw a butterfly (that I could not identify), but he was too fast for me to get a good shot.

Enjoy your day and be careful.

Wednesday ~ July 10, 2024

Posted by Dave Updegraff on July 10, 2024
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , , , .

Welcome

One of the neat things about taking roads you are unfamiliar with is that you are apt to find really neat stuff.  Such was the case on our latest journey.

I hate to admit it but I couldn’t find this place again as we took so many different roads.  I would like to find it  again and spend more time with this truck.

Of course I’m very happy that I did find it in the first place.

Enjoy your day and be careful.

Sunday ~ July 07, 2024

Posted by Dave Updegraff on July 7, 2024
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , .

Welcome to my Blog

Jeanne and I took a drive Saturday and took some roads that were familiar to us and some that were not.  I like those best of all because we see things that we have never seen before.

I know that we are often called fly over land or nothing but corn.  So be it.  All you have to do is drive a little and you see broad expanses of beauty.

The hard part for me is watching the road while looking for something to photograph.  Jeanne has said for years that she would not be surprised to get a call that I’m somewhere in the country and in a ditch. 

What was a little unusual this day was the abundance of dramatic clouds.  Everywhere you looked you would see these billowing massive clouds and occasionally there was rain falling from them.

And then you step back and look at where you were standing and you see this beauty.

I’ll take this flyover land anytime.

Enjoy your day and be careful.

Friday ~ July 05, 2024

Posted by Dave Updegraff on July 5, 2024
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , , , .

Welcome to the blog.

Although admittedly I am a little late with my 4th of July greetings, I still consider it appropriate for as I write this blog there are any number of neighbors shooting off loud fire crackers.

I know you get tired of me telling you this but you can click on any image to reveal a much larger and more detailed image.

We had the “kids” and their families over for 4th of July lunch as they all had later evening engagements to attend.  It’s called. We’ll take what we can get and be happy about it.

I took numerous random images of the grand kids and perhaps I’ll show those at another date.  After everyone left I suggest to Jeanne that we take a drive down to the river to observe said river which at this time is at almost historic levels.

We also went to the lock and dam and it was shut down as the river was well over the flood gates and the lock was gated and closed to traffic.  There is also so much debris in the water that it is not safe to boat.

It was kind of weird walking around the river as it was well over the sidewalk but not a bother for the roadway.  There were a number of folks fishing around the dam but they had to share the area with some pelicans who were also fishing.

I watched one pelican stab at the water a number of times but unfortunately for him, he never caught anything to eat.

More images tomorrow.  I’ve been busy.  🙂

Enjoy what’s left of this day and be careful.

Monday ~ June 24, 2024

Posted by Dave Updegraff on June 24, 2024
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , , .

Welcome.

I had lunch with two wonderful friends today and after that we toured around Maquoketa for awhile and then I drove down to the dam.  It’s always interesting to visit the dam and you never know what you’re going to find.

The temperature at noon was about 91 so it was getting kind of muggy.  Don’t know how comfortable the fisherman was but if he was catching fish it doesn’t matter.

The river is still kind of high so there was a pretty good flow going through the dam.

Enjoy your day and be careful.

Friday ~ June 21, 2024

Posted by Dave Updegraff on June 21, 2024
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , , .

Welcome!

I had lunch with two dear friends today in Maquoketa.  We ate at a place that I had known about for sometime but had never eaten there before.  It was great.

When I came out of the restaurant I was struck by the big puffy white clouds.  I hadn’t paid any attention to them before so I was happy to see them as this is one of my favorite kind of sky for photography.

A few months ago I did a video of a project called, “Together We Build.”  A wonderful project and at the time of the filming it was just steel beams and open ceilings.  So today we were able to take a tour of the nearly finished building and it is beautiful.

Then we went for ice cream at Moore’s.   And as usual they have a  wide variety of flavors to choose from.  I went with the strawberry flair, which was delicious.

On the way home I stopped at an area where I used to photograph a nice windmill against a dynamic sky.  The windmill has since fallen off but the frame work was still there so I used that to showcase the wonderful clouds.

Enjoy your day and be careful.

Thursday ~ June 20, 2024

Posted by Dave Updegraff on June 20, 2024
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , .

Welcome to the blog.

It was a cloudy and overcast day.  There were some awesome cloud formations but by the time I got out with my camera they had blended into just plain gray.

I was trying to think of what I wanted to photograph and I drew a blank.  So, I thought I might go down to the river as there is usually something interesting there.

Then I remember an on-line course I took a few days ago entitled “What to shoot when there is nothing to shoot.”

So I got to thinking about a small park in the industrial park with a pond, and old bridge and other things so off I went.

I was still thinking about shooting monochrome but when I started walking around there just wasn’t anything that actually lent itself to black and white.  So I went with some of the wild flowers and grasses.

It was good to get some exercise as well as finding some subjects to photograph.

Enjoy your day and be careful.

Tuesday ~ June 18, 2024

Posted by Dave Updegraff on June 18, 2024
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , .

Thanks for checking on the blog.

I had lunch with a friend of mine in Maquoketa Monday and after lunch I decided to take some back roads home to see what I could find to photograph.

I’ve been in a black and white mood for a couple of weeks now and enjoying finding things that I think would make a good image in monochrome.  In my view I think many times an image is so much more powerful and meaningful in monochrome than full color.

My style of photography (other than head shots) has always been what I call “run & gun.”  By that I mean I drive around various places and if something catches my eye I will stop and capture an image of it.

Remember you can click on the image to reveal a larger more detailed version of the image.

This is difficult for two reasons.  It sometimes is very hard to find a place to park close to what I want to photograph

Additionally taking  your eye off the road can be dangerous.  I’m very careful but there have been a couple of times.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed today’s offering.  Once again, thank you for checking in on the blog.  Enjoy your day and be careful.