Tuesday ~ May 19, 2015

Posted by Dave Updegraff on May 19, 2015
Posted in: General Posts. Tagged: , , , .

May-18-2015

Happy Tuesday!

I went looking for some wildlife to photograph yesterday and couldn’t find anything of interest.  Lots of red-winged black birds, common grackles, and robins but nothing else.  I did see an eagle but he would have been nothing more than a black spot with a white dot.

So I wandered around the Mud Lake area and finally decided to make a couple of images of this little back water area of the Mississippi River.  The sky was blue and the clouds were puffy and that is my favorite sky.

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Later I photographed some farm buildings.  Nothing that really struck me but still I enjoy farm buildings especially old barns.

That’s it for today.  I have an early morning meeting.  Thanks for stopping by the blog.  Enjoy your day and be careful.

Monday ~ May 18, 2015

Posted by Dave Updegraff on May 18, 2015
Posted in: General Posts. Tagged: , , , , .

May-17-2015-C

Happy Monday!

I spent the last part of the week in Minneapolis, MN attending a training seminar along with 19 other folks from our organization.  It was a wonderful experience, both from the training aspect but for me and more importantly from connecting on a more personal level with many of my fellow employees.

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As I’ve aged I find it less enjoyable to travel.  The car ride was six and a half hours.  Once I got there it was enjoyable but there was a lot of information to absorb.  I do not enjoy sleeping in a hotel so as you can see I’m not a good traveler.  🙂

Having said all that, I learned some new things (which is always good) and I reaffirmed other things.  Interestingly at the end of the seminar the trainer said something that was incorrect.  Not only did she say something incorrect, she kept repeating it.  I knew it was wrong but it was 20 minutes until the end of the training and I didn’t want to embarrass her, prolong the seminar for others, and knowing her she would have never admitted she was wrong. So I kept my mouth shut.  😦

May-17-2015

Other than the first image (taken with the Samsung mirror less camera) I did not hold a camera in my hand until yesterday.  Saturday and Sunday were filled with catch up things, being Grandpa, and yard work.

The background on this image is not very good but it is the first opportunity I have had to photograph a Gold Finch this season so I was happy to finally capture an image of one regardless of the background.

My friend Andreas invited me up to his house to photograph birds but I just couldn’t make it work.  I would have had much better images for you if I had been able to go.

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I leave you with this image of our little dog Maggie.  I’ve posted pictures of her on this blog before.  She is 11 years old and has been a wonderful little friend.  We found out a couple of weeks ago that she has congestive heart failure.  It’s pretty bad but she is not suffering right now.  Yes she has trouble breathing but she is not in pain.

We have her on medication and can’t bring ourselves to put her asleep until her quality of life changes.   I don’t normally let her lay in the grass like this but why not now.  She enjoys it so much.

That’s it for today.  My plan is to do some photography today as my image cupboard is quite bare.

Thanks for stopping.  Enjoy your Monday and be careful.

Wednesday ~ May 13, 2015

Posted by Dave Updegraff on May 13, 2015
Posted in: General Posts. Tagged: , , , , , , .

April-11-2015-2A

Happy Hump Day Wednesday!

I never tire of photographing wildlife.  Be it the ubiquitous Mallard Duck or any other common critter.  I enjoy watching them interact with their environment an each other.  Of course what I really enjoy is photographing them.

The Ducks and Geese in this post were all photographed at the 16th Street Basin.  It has not been replete with wildlife this season as it was last year.  But occasionally like this past Monday there will be a few water fowl there.

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I caught these ducks napping in what little sun there was Monday  It was overcast most of the day, cool and windy.  I guess they had nothing better to do then nap.

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I have never seen a pose like this.  He was rubbing his neck on his back and scratching his underside with his foot at the same time.  Sort of like rubbing a circle on chest while patting your stomach.  🙂

That’s it for today.  Thanks for stopping by the blog.  Enjoy your day and be careful.

Tuesday ~ May 12, 2015

Posted by Dave Updegraff on May 12, 2015
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , .

May-11-2015-C

Happy Tuesday!

Great day yesterday even though the weather was not all that great.  I had an early morning appointment with my Endocrinologist for my 9 month check up.  When I was diagnosed with Diabetes my A1C number was 9.9 (very high.)

Ninety days later I was down to 6.2 then another 90 days 5.8 and my number for yesterday was 5.1.    Anything under 6.0 is considered non-diabetic.  So for 6 months I have been below the threshold of having diabetes.

Now I’ll always have diabetes but right now it is in remission.    So eating right, exercising and being diligent about testing has paid off.

It goes without saying that Jeanne has been my rock through it all.  She has encouraged me, helped me make the right decisions and watched what I ate like a hawk.  I could not have done it without her help.

The whole purpose of me writing about my experience with Diabetes is to help others who may or are experiencing this disease.  You can get it under control.

May-11-2015-A

Yesterday I went out to Mud Lake and found one of my favorite water fowl to photograph.  I enjoy capturing images of the Blue Heron.  In the first image he was stalking his dinner.  in the image above and below he came to rest on a dead tree that had washed up close to the shore and was just taking life easy.

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This was kind of a cool look.  I don’t think I have ever had a Heron look me straight in the eyes before.  🙂

I stopped over after my Doctor’s appointment to visit with Angie for awhile.  I got to hold Austin and Angie took some video of me holding him.  Unfortunately my iPhone misbehaved and none of it came out.  It was great to watch him go through his facial contortions and listen to his cooing.    🙂

That’s it for today.  I hope you enjoy your day.  Thanks for stopping by the blog and be careful.

Monday ~ May 11, 2015

Posted by Dave Updegraff on May 11, 2015
Posted in: General Posts. Tagged: , , , .

PreConstruction_April-18-2015

Happy Monday!

A short post today as I’m showing still images captured by the Phantom.  These  images show the progress on Angie and Ben’s home remodel project.

04-28-2015

I’ve never gone through a remodel project but I can only imagine that it seems like it takes for every for the project to be completed.

We had some water damage in the basement of our first home and had to have some cabinets rebuilt.  That was a two week project that i thought could have been done in a couple of days.  🙂

05-03-2015

I see my Endocrinologist today for my six month check up.  Hope my numbers continue to be good.  I got a 20 mile bike ride in on Saturday.  I altered my route just a little to stop by the kids home and wish Angie Happy Mothers Day.

05-10-2015_Angie-Ben_Home

So that’s the progress up to now.  Weather permitting I hope to take fly over videos every weekend and then build a composite video of the entire project.

That’s my plan but then again Angie and Ben are still waiting on me for the wedding pictures I took of them.  🙂

Have a great Monday.  Thanks for stopping by the blog.  Be careful.

Friday ~ May 08, 2015

Posted by Dave Updegraff on May 8, 2015
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , .

May-02-2015-6A

Happy Friday!

Today I finish up my Fire Training Shoot.  It’s been fun showing you the progress of the fire and the training.  Like most times I pick up a camera I learn new things.  I learned a lot on this particular shoot and hopefully I will improve from what I learned.

This medical helicopter came flying directly over the fire scene and I was fortunate enough to be able to capture it in flight.

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Above Brandon hand catches his Phantom.  The grass was pretty thick in the area we were flying and if you tried to land in it there was the risk of the copter tipping one way or the other and breaking some props.  In that situation it is better to catch it in mid-air than to try to land it.

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So what were the things I learned.  First lesson don’t be so stationary with my photography.  It is a bad habit of mine to shoot from one location and not seek other angles.  I was restricted somewhat in where I could go but there were still many different angles that I didn’t capture and I’m disappointed by that.

I learned that I should either take video with my Phantom or still shots with my camera.  When I try to do both I don’t do either one justice.

Although I did some I didn’t do nearly enough pre-planning.  I could have taken a page from the firemen’s preparation and scouted out things much better.

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Take this shot for example.  I should have moved further left to get all the fire in the frame instead of some of the firemen with no fire in the background.

Final lesson (although I’m sure there are more that I’m not thinking of) is that I really suck at video editing. A few years ago I was shooting predominately video and doing a lot of training videos for our organization, so I got pretty good at editing.  Fast forward a few years and all the software has evolved and my skills have deteriorated.

So I have to put some more work in on learning how to work with my current software.  Having said all that there is a 6 minute video below that you may watch if you like.  You’ll see what I’m talking about.  🙂

Thanks for stopping by the blog.  I hope you enjoyed the week of this event.  Back to normal (whatever that is) next week.  Enjoy your Friday and be careful.

Thursday ~ May 07, 2015

Posted by Dave Updegraff on May 7, 2015
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , .

May-02-2015-5A

Happy Thursday!

I have good or bad news for you today depending on your point of view.  I have one more day of images / video from the fire burn that I’ll show tomorrow.  If you’ve enjoyed the fire narrative and images then it’s bad news because we’re done.  If you’re tired of them then it’s good news because we’re done.  🙂

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Up close and personal with the fire in this image.

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This was pretty cool how the entire structure collapsed in on itself.  The result of excellent planning and execution.

Once the fire started it didn’t take long to completely consume the structure.  I’ll say it again there is something that is very engrossing about watching a fire.  It’s exciting, emotional, and scary all at the same time.

May-02-2015-5

I shot this image with my new Sigma AF 15 mm f2.8 diagonal fish-eye lens.  I’ve never had a super wide-angle lens. I’m still in the newbie stage of shooting with it so I haven’t really learned how to make the best use of it.

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This is Brandon Beck.  As you recall Brandon is an investigator with the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department and is an avid pilot of Phantom Quad Copters.  He stopped by my office yesterday to bring me some really neat stickers he had created for the Phantom.

While there he showed me his video of the fire scene.  It is a little over 3.5 minutes and beautifully rendered.  I told you a few days ago that Brendon attached a GoPro camera on the fire helmet of his brother, Bjorn.  Bjorn was going to do some fire heat training and they wanted to capture that on video.

When you look at the video you’ll see Bjorn holding a device that looks at first like a cell phone but it is actually an infrared sensor.  It measures the heat of a fire and where Bjorn was, it registered 1200 degrees.  The camera got very hot.  🙂

Click here to see this great video.

That’s it for today.  Hope you enjoy your day.  I’m doing some training at Camp Courageous today.  One of my favorite training sessions to do.

Thanks for stopping by the blog.  Be careful.

Wednesday ~ May 06, 2015

Posted by Dave Updegraff on May 6, 2015
Posted in: General Posts. Tagged: , , , .

May-02-2015-4B

Happy Hump Day!

Today I continue with the training fire burn of the Maquoketa Fire Department and show you the progress of the burn.

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More images with less babble.  🙂

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You can see on the left that the structure is starting to concave and is getting ready to collapse onto itself.

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It finally gave up and fell onto the floor of the structure.

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Ever vigilant and ready to control any unexpected activity of the fire.  Where these guys were standing the heat of the fire was really quite intense.

That’s it for today.  Hopefully tomorrow some aerial video of the fire and some other interesting side photos of the event.

Thanks for stopping by the blog.  Enjoy your day and be careful.

Tuesday ~ May 05, 2015

Posted by Dave Updegraff on May 5, 2015
Posted in: General Posts. Tagged: , , , .

May-02-2015-3A

Happy Tuesday!

I continue with the Saturday training session for the Maquoketa Fire Department.

This image shows that the fire has been started.  It was ignited in the basement and if you look closely at the left most window you can see the fire showing through.

May-02-2015-3D

One of the things that has always impressed and scared me about fire is just how fast it can travel once it gets started.  I understand that this house was set up with a “chimney effect” to facilitate the burn but having said that, fire still travels and spreads at an amazing rate.

It wasn’t long until the left side of the house was fully enveloped.  Fire needs three things to exist.  It must have heat, oxygen, and a fuel source.  In this particular instance it had an abundance of all three. To put a fire out you must remove one of the three.

May-02-2015-3B

As the fire enveloped more of the house it got pretty interesting.  There was a steady 15 – 20 mph wind that was blowing toward the front of the house (sorry I can’t tell you the compass direction.)  Even though the wind was strong and I was restricted to 30 feet away from the house the heat was intense.

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Fire is an interesting photographic subject.  I shot about 350 images (I thought I had taken more but I mistook how many images I had left on the card as opposed to how many I had taken.)  I would have liked to take more but once the fire started it really didn’t last all that long.

What about the aerial video?  More on that later.  There is still lots to show and tell you about this fascinating day so please come back tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by the blog.  Enjoy your day and be careful.

Monday ~ May 04, 2015

Posted by Dave Updegraff on May 4, 2015
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , .

May-02-2015-2A

Happy Monday!

I will continue today with the house burn from Saturday.  My thanks again to Chief Mark Beck and the Maquoketa Fire Department for allowing me access to their fire training session.  It was a lot of fun and brought back some vivid memories.

Of course the rational for training in these kind of conditions is so that it becomes more routine and when faced with the actual event when the adrenaline is high you don’t make mistakes or delay that could put your fellow fire fighter in additional danger.

Checking each others air tank is essential when getting ready to enter a smoke-filled structure.

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Practicing alternate techniques for forced entry into a building is essential.  You can see the amount of gear these firemen have on and I remind you that the temperature was hovering around 80 degrees, so it was uncomfortable for them wearing all that protective gear.

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Practicing search and rescue.  When I was in Public Safety we would cover the inside of the smoke mask with cardboard to simulate a smoke-filled room and then you would follow the hose or lay a rope line, so you could find your way out of the structure.

Mark said the department has a smoke making machine so their training is much more realistic.

May-02-2015-2D

One last team discussion before setting the structure on fire.  I was impressed with the organization and planning of the burn.  Mark discussed many of the behind the scenes preparation and the rationale for some of the training which really helped me understand what was going on.

Later in subsequent posts I’ll show you what all the planning yielded.  It was impressive.

That’s it for today.  More of the fire scene tomorrow and as the days follow.

Thanks for stopping by the blog.  Enjoy your day.  Stay dry and be careful.