Harvest Photography

All posts tagged Harvest Photography

Friday ~ November 11, 2016

Posted by Dave Updegraff on November 11, 2016
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , .

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Happy Friday and Happy Veteran’s Day!!

A huge THANK YOU to all who have served our great country!

I have three images for you today all taken the same day but at different locations.  The first two were taken at the Green Island Nature Preserve and the last one is a harvest scene I came across on the way back to Dubuque.

I’ve been by this old shed a hundred times and never gave it a second look.  But for some reason it caught my eye this day and so I had to make an image of it.

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I was trying to capture an image of a duck that kept diving under the water to avoid me.  So I took some shots of the grass trying to anticipate when he would resurface.  In post processing I decided I liked the grass by itself.  🙂

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I couldn’t let the harvest season go by without a decent shot of a combine.  I love these smaller 6 row combines.  After he completed this row I waved at the farmer and waved back and had a smile on his face.

That’s it for today.  I’m spending the afternoon helping a friend set up his new computer and transferring all his data to the new computer.  It will be good to catch up on stories while the data is transferring.

Thanks for stopping by the blog.  Enjoy your day and be careful.  God Bless America!

Wednesday ~ October 21, 2015

Posted by Dave Updegraff on October 21, 2015
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , .

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Happy Wednesday!

Some more farm and harvest images for you today.  Once again I find myself in my typical state of nothing on my mind of relevance and I’m out of time.  🙂

So you don’t have to read my babble today.

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These images are from my road trip on Thursday.  As you can see from the first image it started out as a very cloudy day.  I was expecting rain but the clouds eventually gave way to blue sky and warm temperatures.

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I have built and managed many websites over the years.  It’s been a hobby / sideline for me and I enjoy it.  I have divested myself of some of the websites of late, some by my choice and some by clients who do not want to pay my increased fees, which is another way of me saying I don’t want to manage this website any more.

Anyway I am finding that ending a website relationship is twice as hard as creating one.  Go figure.  🙂

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

Wednesday ~ September 30, 2015

Posted by Dave Updegraff on September 30, 2015
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , .

September-29-2015

Happy Hump Day!

A couple  of early harvest images for you today.  We had a pretty good rain yesterday morning and I saw these two combines sitting in the field on the way to work.  I reasoned they might still be there in the afternoon on my homeward commute because it would probably be too wet to continue the harvest.

I was delighted to see them both in their original position and I had some softer light from the evening sun shinning on them.  🙂

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I’m doing some video work for a project this evening after work for my company.  I used to shoot a lot of video and make training videos as well as video vignettes for website work.  About the only video I work with now is from the Phantoms and they have been pretty much non-existent of late.

I actually was pretty good at editing video and using some special effects along with green screen effects.  But like any skill if you don’t use it on a regular basis it deteriorates. Additionally the video editing software has changed a lot and I haven’t kept up with the changes so it is a real challenge trying to piece some video together in a coherent manner.

This morning I’m desperately charging batteries for cameras that haven’t been powered on for several years, hoping that the batteries will last long enough to get the footage I need. 🙂

So that’s all I have for today.  It should be interesting working on this project.  I have two video cameras and if they fail I can always use one of my DLSRs as a backup.  Believe it or not I’ve never really shot any footage with the DLSRs even though they have the ability to do so.

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

Wednesday ~ October 29, 2014

Posted by Dave Updegraff on October 29, 2014
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , , .

Combine @ Dusk

Happy Wednesday!

A challenging day yesterday and to make it even more of a challenge I was supposed to have my pre-op physical yesterday afternoon, which got canceled because my Doctor was sick.  I had moved most of my appointments to Thursday and the bulk of them on Friday to accommodate yesterday.   The only time they could get me in was Friday at 11:00 a.m., it was either that or reschedule the surgery, which I did not want to do because it’s getting harder to drive in the dark.

Anyway, after having a little pity party I got things rearranged and if that hadn’t happened I would have never been able to get the shot above.  I think this is my image to submit for the contest, which closes at the end of today.  🙂

Windmill @ Sunset

It was gray and cloudy when I left work and I really didn’t think there was going to be a photo opportunity.  Then about halfway home the sun broke through the clouds and it got very interesting.  I decided to take a route home that I rarely take and then stumbled on this combine as the sun was beginning to set.

I thought the light was over but the closer I got to home there was still some light shining up into the clouds so I captured this windmill with the many wonderful colors of the setting sun.

God Beams

This was actually the first image of the evening.  When the sun broke through the clouds and showed the “God Beams.”    Lots of cars passing me while I’m on the side of the road wondering, “What the hell is he taking a picture of?”  🙂

Anyway it was a fun ride home and I got to take pictures.  Top that off with KC winning last night and it was a good evening.

That’s it for today.  Hope you enjoy your mid-week hump day.  Thanks for stopping by and be careful.

 

Friday ~ October 25, 2013

Posted by Dave Updegraff on October 25, 2013
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , .

My favorite combine

Short post today as I have an early morning presentation to give.  This is my favorite combine to photograph.  I’ve already photographed it a couple of times this month (one of which I posted this week.)  I had no intention of photographing it again or at least not this soon, but as I drove past it last evening on my way home it called out to me, “Come take my picture.”  🙂

Just a red bench

Most mornings in the Fall, when I leave for work I head East, which means for a few blocks anyway I’m driving into the bright sunlight.  One day, a couple of weeks ago,  I noticed in my rear view mirror this red bench sitting up next to a tree and the way the morning sun reflected on it suggested that it might make a nice image.

The problem is I’m usually late when I get out of the house so I never have the time to photograph it.  Yesterday when (late as usual) when I raised the garage door and saw the sunlight was soft and with a touch of orange mixed in I decided to photograph the bench.   So I got my camera ready before backing out of the garage.  I drove down to the end of the block to photograph the bench.

Well long story short it made me even later than I normally am.  Even though the sun was shinning on it the first couple of images I took my shutter speed was too low so I had camera shake blur.   So after I increased the ISO (not enough by the way) I got this image, which is okay but not what I wanted.  Lesson learned don’t try to hurry the shot.  If I can’t stop and do it justice then just don’t do it.

Enjoy your Friday.  It means that tomorrow is a sleep in day!!  Thanks for stopping by the blog.  Be careful.

Thursday ~ October 24, 2013

Posted by Dave Updegraff on October 24, 2013
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , .

October-23-2013

Happy Thursday!  I had no lunch meetings or engagements yesterday and that means I’m going to lunch with my camera.  So a quick stop and Subway and then out to look for some harvest images.  I was very lucky yesterday as I headed West out-of-town I saw some dust clouds and when I went down the road to see where it was coming from I found two different farmers harvesting their corn crop.

These are twin combines and they apparently had stopped for either repairs or for lunch break because they were just sitting there with no activity.  I imagine they were getting a bite to eat.

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Across the road and down a little bit was this single combine working on the corn.  He had just finished unloading his hopper and as soon as he was empty he was back at it.  As I drove some of the back roads around Maquoketa I was impressed with just how much crop is still in the field.  It looks like a lot of the bean crop has been harvested but there is still a fair amount of the corn still standing.

I’m sure some of these farmers wonder who the guy in the suit is taking pictures of them working in the field.  Is he some government spy or some large corporate buyer looking over the land.  I just smile a lot and wave.  Occasionally a farmer will come over and ask me what I’m doing.  Once I explain to them about my passion for photography they are happy to let me shoot away.

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I have made many images of this barn.  I have been tempted several times this Summer to shoot it again because it got a fresh coat of paint.  Yesterday coming back into town the brilliant red mixed with the gray clouds, green grass, and golden corn stalks was just too good to pass up.  I hope you like it as much as I do.

That’s it for today.  I may not have a blog for Friday as I’m teaching a class early Friday morning.  I’ll see if I can find something worthy of your attention tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your day.  Please be careful.