The end.. or is it?

That's about as far as it goes really.Ninety plus days with my new camera, I actually got to 111 before I missed a day. A picture a day for 111 days. Something I thought I'd never be able to do. I've developed as a photographer in that time. Discovered new ideas and concepts and as such it's time to move on and explore those. So I present to you blur-o-graphy A blog about my fascination with taking blurred pictures. There's some interesting stuff over there. I hope you'll go and take a look.

Thanks for watching this blog!

Day 92 Clouds

One of my favourite photograph books is "Horizons" by Craig Blacklock. I which he set up a camera on the top of a cliff overlooking Lake Superior and photographed the Horizon. A super selection of pictures and something I was reminded of when I looked out of the window this morning. So, "What the heck" I thought if its good enough for Craig Blacklock then its good enough for me

day 91 picture

I found a scene with a strong diagonal stress to it. I wondered if blurring it would work. I'm not entirely sure if it does or not. The colour seems strong enough Perhaps its just the diagonal blur thats disconcerting. Ah well it's an experiment and a lesson learned...

Day 91 Withdrawls.

Day 91 came. There was no pressure to take a picture. But out of habit the camera went in my bag as I headed out to work. But I was busy at work and never got a chance to take any pictures. Still wasn't bothered. However, as the day wound on and I got home I started to feel like something was missing. The need to take a picture grew and grew and by 7pm I was getting quite desperate. I hunted around the garden looking for plants weeds, bugs anything to excite me into a photograph. It was Doctor Who on BBCAmerica at 8pm surely I could hold out until then and once that was on I'd be so engrossed in the show I'd forget all about it.
Not so fast. Every commerical break I looked out of the window longingly at the evening light (the fact that this Doctor Who story involved Vincent Van Gogh did nothing to curb my artistic feelings) So one break I got up and went outside and shot pictures.
It made me feel better.
The pictures? You'll have to wait until I process them

Day 90 Sunset Blur

Well, I did it. I made it to 90 days, a picture a day. For this last shot I waited til the end of the day to capture something symbolic of coming to the end of the task. I'm really quite taken with what I call "blur-o-graphs" so I tried out the technique as the last rays of the sun shone on the woods next door.

Day 89 Tomato waiting to ripen

My wife has a tomato plant in a pot on the deck. This is the first tomato to appear. It's about golf ball size. It still has a way to go before it can grace one of her salads...

Day 88 Red Lily pad

Sunday I was sat on the dock in the gorgeous sunshine and saw this red lily pad a few inches below the surface of the water. I'd never seen a red lily pad before. So I thought it an excellent subject for the day

Day 87 the elusive hummingbird

Saturdays picture is an attempt to catch a hummingbird feeding at the feeder on the deck

Day 86 reflections

Playing catch up today. I was away up at the lake all weekend. This is the reflection of our neighbours speedboat in the water

Day 85 Peeling Birch Bark

Seen this morning as I put the garbage out. Peeling bark from the Paper Birch in our front garden

Day 84 Feet up

Nothing clever, nothing creative. Just what I saw today in the car park at work

A fool and his money

Look at this. A Lubitel camera for sale at Amazon for $300 dollars.
What on earth?
Who is going to be stupid enough to pay $300 for one of them?
I bought one when I was first interested in medium format photography. I paid the equivalent of $50. It was a cheap way into medium format.
Cheap is the operative word. They are cheaply built with suspect quality control and prone to light leaks for starters.
But market these flaws correctly and associate the Lomography name with them and all of a sudden you can pay through the roof for them.
These cameras are not worth $300. Not in a month of Sundays. Amazon and the retailer must be laughing all the way to the bank...

Day 83 Infinite monkey theory

I don't know why I was thinking of the Infnite Monkey Theory when I saw this picture but I was. For those of you unfamiliar with the I.M.T. it is that if you stick a monkey in front of a typewriter for an infinite length of time he will, in time, type the works of Shakespeare.

So by the same token if a person picks up a camera and without looking takes a picture he will, in time, come up with a good shot. This one isn't too bad and it only took me a dozen attempts...

Day 82 cloud

Nothing more than a snapshot today.As I came out of work my eye was caught by this rather interesting arrangement of clouds.

Day 81 Underwater

I've been away up at the lake this weekend which always gives some kind of interesting photo opportunity. Like these weeds underwater. I've seen people like Jim Brandenburg and Craig Blacklock photograph this subject and fancied a go myself and while out running I saw this chance. So after I'd run I picked up my camera and went back to the spot

Day 80 VerndaleRail

On Saturday I was out with a group of fellow railfans on the Staples sub in Northwest Minnesota only a handful of miles from where the tornadoes struck on Thursday. We saw no evidence of any damage anywhere so we had a great time watching and photographing trains. A couple of my fellow enthusiasts children got into this shot. Which kinda sorta makes it echo some of the marvellous English railway posters from the golden age of trains

Day 79 bark

Something a little calming after yesterdays excitement. I took a stroll in the woods out the back this morning perhaps hoping to find a tree down or something. No luck on that count but I did discover some fir trees with some remarkble bark.

Day 78 Storm

Total and utter fluke this.

A big storm went thought town this evening.

You can't beat a big heavy storm for some great clouds so I stepped out in the rain to take a look and while I was taking this shot of the clouds over the road I snapped this...

Day 77 Prairie... Not

A sliver of land underneath a big sky it could only be the American Prairie. Except it isn't It's by the entrance of my office building. to the left and right are other offices and over the horizon is Highway 169 bustling with cars at rush hour...

Day 76 beheaded

I thought I wasn't going to have anything to show for today, everything I tried didn't work out then in desperation while walking around the garden I saw this impatiens head stripped from the hanging basket above during the previous nights storm that had fallen into some hosta leaves.

Day 75 you choose

I'm having way too much fun with this little camera. It makes me want to go out and try all kinds of things. Today from some reason I was thinking of those long exposures where you zoom while the shutter is open. I had a go and I got a result I liked on my second attempt. (I did keep going but 'skeeters and the rain put a stop after about a dozen more goes.)
Anyway I pulled the picture into CameraRaw and then elements and had a play.
Not much of a play I only upped the saturation. But then in one shot I upped the clarity and in the other I knocked the clarity all the way down and now I can't decide..

Above: With the clarity set at +100 things become harder and the zoom is more apparent
-100 makes things softer and gives a more impressionist feel

Day 74 tree-o

I saw this whilst out at Riverside park today checking out the bridge demolition The three tree trunks just seemed to line up nicely. I've also been experimenting with this one as a blur-o-graph...

The result of the weeks work

Quite to my surprise this is entry 100 on this blog.

I've just returned from reviewing the scene at the bridge demolition. As you can see from the picture below it's as good as gone.

This section of wall below is about all that remains untouched.

Day 73 another blur-o-graph

A really dull rainy day today. The perfect opportunity to try some more "blurography". There's little information out there on how to do it so I have to learn by experiences. I probably shot a good dozen or so of this one area and this is number 12 thats why I stopped.

"Quit while you're winning" say I.

I'm formulating some theories on this blur-o-graphy lark and grass seems a pretty easy subject to cut your teeth on. Being vertical it's easy to tilt the camera vertically and not loose sight of what the subject is.

Day 72 what I was waiting all week for

Now come on. I was there for over a hour. You didn't think that I missed a close up of the side panel being lifted away did you?

Friday at the Bridge

I arrived at the bridge about 2pm on Friday afternoon expecting that the side facing Riverside Park would be removed. In fact I was hoping quite desperately that it hadn't happened yet. I was not to be disappointed. When I arrived a good sized crowd had gathered as the removal of the side was underway.

Things were naturally proceeding quite carefully and a closer inspection of the pillars revealed that there was a rather ominous crack in the pillar.
Still after much to-ing and fro-ing and careful winching the side ended up on the south bank of the river where it would be broken up into rubble.
Leaving the pillar still standing precariously by itself.

Thursday at the bridge

On Thursday evening I was greeted by the sorry site of only the central section remaining and even that had most of its decking removed. Yesterdays picture of the day showed that happening to a section of the deck.

I watched the process intently and looked up at the crane jibs silhouetted against the cloudy sky...
The section was lifted onto a couple of steel trestles in the river where it was carefully watched into placed by one of the workmen
Then the section of deck was roughly hauled up the bank to be broken up...

Wednesdays Bridge work

Time for a bit of catch up. Here are some shots of the bridge demolition from Wednesday. As I arrived as the sun was setting I was expecting to see the middle section removed but no, most of the south bank sections had been taken instead.

and the decking sections were piled up on the north bank of the river.
While on the south bank workers stood around one of the excavators peering into the engine compartment as they are wont to do.

Day 71 Removal

I was pretty lucky when I went down to check on the latest bridge removal progress this evening they were actually removing a section of the bridge deck

Two fer... Day 70

Bit of a treat for you today. Two pictures. The first was taken first thing this morning as I spied the sunlight caressing the heavily dew laden grass. I thought "I bet there's a picture out there" and rushed out with my camera in hand and took some shots. Examining some I discovered that I had accidentally set the camera to f22 and a slow shutter speed, blurring everything. But I really liked what I saw so I carried on like that. Here's my favourite of the bunch.

Then tonight I went down to the river to record the days results of the bridge demolition, of which more another day. After finishing there I was drawn to the flow of the river over some rocks. I could see there was a picture in there and hoped I could record it. So I set my camera up with as slow shutter speed as I could waited until the exposure time got down to over 3 seconds and click.
I was right there was a picture there. This is exactly as I hoped it would look. I've never been so pleased with a picture in my life before.

Bridgework Tuesday

Here are some views of the demolition work going on on the bridge as for 6pm on Tuesday. As you can see one section of deck has been removed and is being demolished on the river bank in the second picture. I expect to see the middle section removed when I go back on Wednesday evening.

Day 69 Drilling

A grey day in town is apt conditions for the demolition of the Dunn bridge. Here a worker drills some preparatory holes for the removal of the centre span

The bridge is coming down

Well as I've alluded to in a previous entry the Dunn Memorial Bridge in town is coming down sad but necessary as it may well fall down. Work has now started a feeling more like myself after a mornings rest I drove down to riverside park to see what was going on. Here's a few shots of the start of work.

Above and below: Sides are as good as removed

Above: This pillar remains to hold up a safety cable
Above: Excavator works at dumping rubble into the river for some construction purpose

Day 68 paying the price

Tough day the day after a marathon all I wanted to do was rest. So this morning I hobbled across the road to collect the mail camera in hand and snapped this temporary road sign associated with the tearing down of the bridge in town

Day 67 another day, another marathon

Just some shameless self promotion today. Today I ran the minneapolis marathon, my 14th marathon. It was a tough day that necessitated a trip to the first aid tent due to the conditions and on top of that I stepped in a pothole at mile 23 and limped the rest of the way in so I deserve this medal.