Back at Henry's Barn (p.a.d. 30)

Day 30. I made it. Thirty Days. A whole flippin' month.

After yesterday I doubted I'd make it. I was feeling pretty low at work and even though it was a half day it dragged. Looking outside the window I could see heavy dark clouds I was resigned to not getting an outdoor shot today. Doing something indoors beckoned.

However I should know better than to trust the Minnesota weather for as I was leaving work clouds were breaking and by the time I reached Henry's Barn in Hassan patches of Blue sky were noticeable. I decided to stop and cheer myself up with a picture.

Old fuel tank (p.a.d. 29)

It's been grey and cloudy and very windy all day today. I'd been expecting a storm and hadn't had much of a chance to take any pictures. So when I got home I dashed across the road and took a shot of this old fuel tank. Before the heavens opened.

Now its a couple of hours later and any storm passed well to the East of us. So I needn't have rushed. I HATE being rushed taking a picture.

splash of colour (p.a.d 28)

So today I returned to the scene of the image that grabbed me by the scruff of the neck yesterday. Close inspection made it clear that the exact picture I wanted wasn't there but this one is pretty darned close.

Last minute p.a.d. 27

Well when I went back to check the scene I saw at lunch time It wasn't exactly how I wanted it to be, (notwithstanding the fact there was a big white truck in the background). So I had to come home and find something to photograph. I have no idea what this plant is. I just like the swirling pattern of the leaf. It would have been nice to have a macro lens to get in closer on the swirl.

Don't you hate it when that happens?

I like running. It's good for me. It keeps my Doctor off my back.
Strangley I like running marathons too. You can't beat the feeling you get when you cross the finish line after 26 point 2 miles.
Training works well for me as when I'm out running I often look around to see if there's anything that would make an interesting picture.
Today it happenned. I saw one. A total and utter belter of a scene that grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and yelled in my face.
"TAKE A PICTURE OF ME!"
The lighting and the colours were perfect. But of course it's hard to carry a camera around your neck when you run. It was in my bag by my desk.
So I'll return to the scene after work but of course by then the light will have changed and the scene will have lost its magic.
Perhaps tomorrow...

Seen better days (p.a.d. 26)

I'm always drawn to fading and cracked paint so when I saw this hydrant whilst out walking at lunch the subject of picture of the day was never in doubt...

Born of frustration (p.a.d. 25)

I don't know wether it was the fact that I'm still tired out from yesterdays model railway exhibition or that it's just a grey day that has sapped me of my energy. But I just can't be arsed to do anything. But this afternoon I had a cuppa and forced myself to take a picture.

A well developed sprout on my wifes' Spider plant. I took the photo, it looked OK I guess but not quite what I was looking for, not inspiring. It didn't do anything for me at all. It looked even worse when I viewed it in iPhoto so in frustration I just messed around with the sliders.

Ooh...

Hang on a mo...

I might be getting somewhere now. So in all honesty all I did was aimlessly "faff about" with the sliders and effects. I blew the highlights out totally probably oversharpened it and meddled with the noise too. I don't know what on earth I was doing but I sure as heck like the finished article at lot better than the original picture.

Concentration (p.a.d. 24)

One of my other hobbies is model railways, and yesterday my wife and I were at the Granite City Train show in Saint Cloud, MN showing one of my many layouts. At one point a friend I hadn't seen for a while stopped by for a chat. So Lorrie took over operating duties and when I looked over and saw her deep in concentration I knew that this was my picture of the day. It came out well more by luck than judgement as the mix of lights played merry hell with the white balance and I was holding the camera way above my head in order to get the angle I wanted for the composition.

Not what I was expecting (p.a.d.23)

Got some more catching up to do. Busy weekend you know...

On Friday I was looking forward to getting out with my camera. I just downloaded the firmware update for the camera the night before to improve the autofocus speed and also on Wednesday my new Panasonic Lumix 45-200 zoom lens had arrived so I was planning on trying to shoot some trains at speed in Elk River.

But that was not to be. Track maintenance work mean that there were no trains running while I was there. So I drove home looking for something else to photograph. Once again working on the theory that I'd know what it was when I saw it. I was driving down a back road looking at a beat up old grain silo in the distance when suddenly I saw this.

A fence post with some coils of barbed wire. Immediately I knew that it was the picture. So I set the camera on the tripod on the side of an embankment and took the shot. It has to be said that the task was made much easier with the tiltable EVF of the camera. There was no way I could stand behind the camera to compose the shot the way it was sited on the embankment.

Hello old Friend (pad 22)

This subject, what I call the "baby pine cone" is a dear subject to me for, a few years ago I photograph of a similar subject won me first prize and a special award at the Mille Lacs County Fair. In fact I only lost out for the grand prize to a four foot square painting. My 8" x 10" didn't stand a chance as "a good big 'un allus beats a good little 'un". As we like to say back home. Still It's a great subject that I'm sure I will revisit many more times.

Gnarly tree trunks (p.a.d. 21)

The twisted gash in the main trunk really caught my eye and I tried desperately to find an angle where the background wasn't too "busy". This is probably the best I could do, and there's still too much going on in the background.

Iris (p.a.d 20)

Found it in the garden this evening. Well actually loads of them. I figured it wasn't a weed. But I didn't know what it was. Until a member of the micro four thirds forum versed in such technicalities as flower identification pointed out it was in fact an Iris.

Iris. Nice flower.

The Cherry Blossom (pad 19)

OK Have to play a bit of catch up Here's yesterdays picture from the p.a.d project.

The complete flowering cherry. Now that it's finished blooming. The blossom is falling even as I write this

The old lodging house (p.a.d. 18)

I've had designs on taking a picture of this building for a long time. I've even swung by the place three or four times already this month in order to get it into the p.a.d. project but the sun had been in the wrong place or worse there had been cars in fron't of the building. However this morning things fell into place. The Sun was quite favourably positioned and the place was deserted.

Everything came together quite nicely for this shot of an old Princeton lodging house.

Return of the blossom (p.a.d.17)

The weatherman lied!

He said the wind was going to drop today.

He lied. It didn't. Not yet anyway.

But with some of the blossoms already starting to die off, I waited around for some 20 minutes or so in two shifts to wait for the wind to even ease off so I could get at least one more progress picture. Like I said before I could never be a nature photographer. I don't have the patience to wait around for that moment to get that perfect picture. But eventually the wind did ease and by holding the branch out of shot I at least got something.

This is still the same blossom that I photographed at the start of the week I just changed my viewpoint ever so slightly so the blossoms opened out more.

I think there's still a couple of days more photographs in the blossoms yet. So perhaps a few more pictures will appear. Though the speed at which the tree blossoms ad then turns to leaves is quite amazing.

Can you hear the ghosts of your childhood? (p.a.d. 4)

Something different from me today.

Knowing that the wind was going to play havoc with my plans to photograph the Cherry blossom again until dark. I decided to go and look for something to photograph. I didn't know what. I knew I'd know it when I saw it. After about 12 miles on the road I saw it. An old derelict abandoned Schoolhouse.

I explored the scene, saw my shot and took it.

But I was not content with that. As I saw the scene I knew what I wanted to say with the picture and I was eager to try out some tweaks and effects to put that feeling across.

I don't know if the image is too contrived or what. But to me it puts across what I wanted to say. So its fine by me.

Bossom #2 (p.a.d.15)

So today I reach picture number 15. Half way though the month. I'm a bit surprised I made it this far.

Anyway today I took a quick look at the Cherry blossom and decided that it was worthy of a shot.

Getting a picture was a surprisingly difficult task. For a start it was windy. Very windy. So the branch was blowing all over the place. I even tried holding the branch out of shot to stop the movement. It made little or no difference, so I just stood around and waited until the wind dropped. I think that the blossom is actually in my shadow so while holding the detail a bit it looks rather dull.

Never mind though I'm sure that I'll be back shooting the same subject tomorrow judging by the progress of the flowering.

Old swing (p.a.d. 14)

Not much to report today. Torrential rains at lunch and blowing wind leaving work meant I couldn't re-visit last Wednesdays location to see how that had bloomed.

So I had a quick explore in the abandoned garden next door to see what there was.

Surprisingly little actually, just this old swing

The yellow and the blue do catch the eye in the rather drab colours otherwise. Which upon reflection I do quite like.

The Cherry Blossom (pad 13)

We have a cherry blossom in our back yard that when it blooms is quite beautiful. So I thought it would be interesting to record the progress of an individual blossom as it blooms. Like time lapse photography except simpler. I won't do it every day just when there's real noticeable progress. (mind you that might come fast...)

Anyway here's todays shot

It was really breezy out there today and I had to really persevere to get a shot that didn't have any motion blur in it. Hopefully next time the breeze will be down.

Woodpeckers at work (p.a.d.12)

I've been hearing a lot of woodpeckers nearby the house lately. I like woodpeckers. Especially pilleated ones. I think they are a quite beautiful yet angry looking bird. Last year we had one pay a few visits to the suet feeder we keep in the garden.

Some of the pecking has been close to the house, some not so close. However when I was shutting the garage door this evening I saw that one fellow had been very close. He'd been plying his trade on a tree right next to the house!

These are some big holes. You could fit a quarter in the bottom one easily. I wonder if this means our pilleated woodpecker from last year has returned?

What? Whaat? Whaaat!

When I'm not photographing or working I run Marathons. I have 13 of them under my belt so far. Many early weekend mornings are spent pounding the roads around my home town getting in my long runs. Todays run was 15 miles. Not too difficult. Running is great, I get time to think about things or even look for photographs. The best thing is you never know what you're going to see out there. Things like this...

Yep, thats an airplane in someones front garden. OK I didn't take the pic while out running. I came back later.

It's not just an airplane it's a bit of modern aviation history. It's a Foxjet ST600. From what I've been able to research three ST600 mockups were made in the late 70's to illustrate the concept of a small lightweight executive jet that could fly out of smaller regional airfields. So I assume that this is one of those three mockups from 1977-78.

The concept was years ahead of its time and was only really hampered by the choice of power its Williams WR44 turbofan was also selected to power the cruise missile and thus the US military decided that a civilian concern couldn't have access to such a piece of military hardware. Thus killing the project.

So there we are a bit of aviation history in my town. A pretty interesting run.

Not flowers today.

I worked hard at trying to find a scene that wasn't flowers today. I felt three "spring is coming themed pictures" in a week would be a bit too much.

So in the end I came up with the same subject as yesterday. A wooden building.

Like Henrys' barn, I've had my eye on this building for a while too. Tired and worn out, siding falling off. Whereas Henrys is well cared for. So it does make for an interesting comparison.

Henry's Barn, Hassan, MN p.a.d 9

I've been watching Henrys Barn for a long time. Years, in fact. It's a bit off the beaten track, even though I-94 passes within half a mile of the place. It's quiet there. Just a small Red barn standing in front of some trees. But it just looks so good, with the green leaves as a backdrop in the summer, Orangey leaves in the fall, standing out against the snow in the winter. That just leaves the spring for a picture like this one. The Red of the Barn standing out against the deep Blue sky.

Yep it's difficult to take a bad picture of Henry's Barn I think.

Am I copping out? (p.a.d day 8)

Taking the easy alternative. I mean everyone is doing plants these days. But they make such a good subject. Especially those blooms that are starting to open. Like this one.

So mindful of the fact I could be accused of taking the "easy" way out with another flower pic. I tried to get a little abstract. Getting as close as I could and then cropping even tighter to make it a bit more abstract. And now I see the tiny black spot there.

Ruined!

The old and the new p.a.d.7

I don't think I could ever be a nature photographer. I doubt I have the patience.

You see, I was wandering around the car park at work looking for a subject for todays image and I was drawn to the trees that were budding all around. In many places the buds had some old dead leaves with them. I thought this an excellent subject. But to try and photograph that on a breezy day was nigh on impossible. The dead leaf was so light the merest breeze set it all a tremble. Not to mention the cars driving by. Anyway, I stood there for a good 10 minutes waiting for the breeze to drop and the traffic to stop. Releasing the shutter when I thought conditions were right. Well they never were, of course. But I had a dozen pictures to choose from of which I think this is the best.

The rim lighting effect around the buds is particularly pleasing to me.

I might have stayed out longer to persevere to get a better shot but in the end I ran out of lunch time. Still it was another rewarding photo experience.

Last vestiges of Easter P.a.d. 6

Six days? Have I already done six days? I've surprised myself even now.

So before Easter gets too far away I thought I'd take a look around my wife's Easter decorations to see if anything grabbed my attention. I liked this arrangement.

Of course it could be improved by tucking that label away or even better not having any table background at all there. Then there is that niggly fact noticed by a member of the mu-43 forum that the yellow egg isn't fully closed.

But enough of the negatives. The flash is pretty good soft and even. I had to rotate the head of my FL36 flash 180 degrees and point it at the ceiling to get it.

Spring is almost here P.a.d. day 5

After the weekends excitement of the grass fire I though that something a little calmer was in order to start the week. The Tulips are starting to come up in my Wifes' garden and this particular one caught my eye, small and cradled by leaves.

A nice calming image. I'm drawn to the faint colouring in the tip of the bloom there.

Aftermath (picture a day day 4)

Saturday was quite the day. You've seen the beautiful blue sky in the picture taken on Saturday. Well it was rather breezy, which was a problem as I shall shortly explain.
As you know I'd been down at the old depot getting some pictures there while I was there a few fire engines went by.
"Grass Fire" A local said to me.
Another one went by, and another. "Looks like a good size grass fire" He added as further fire engines passed by, sirens blaring.
I drove home and could see a plume of smoke rising into the sky. It looked for a moment like it was coming from our house. That initial moment of concern passed quickly as I could see no fire engines in the street.
As the situation developed We found we could smell burning and we could see smoke blowing across the road. Then the firefighting aircraft from Brainerd flew over- twice.
It was not difficult to work out something major was going on.
We tried to get a look-see as we headed over to St. Cloud for dinner. All roads around the fire were blocked off but we could see some flames in the distance. When we returned some three hours later some roads were still closed.
When we saw the news later that night we found out that it was the largest grass fire of the spring in Minnesota. Someone had been boiling down maple syrup the fire blew over and spread like... well, wildfire. It came within about 3/4 of a mile of our house.
Curious we decided to go and have a look at the aftermath in the morning.
A black scar in the grass about 2 miles long was still smoking.
There, a bit of reportage photography for Easter Sunday. Better than cute cuddly bunnies and chocolate eggs.

Up on the roof (picture a day day 3)

It was a beautiful day today. Not a cloud in the sky in the afternoon. I felt bad being cooped up in the Old Princeton Railroad depot with the model railroad club. So at my first opportunity I nipped outside to see what chances there were for a picture. There were many chances incorporating old freight cars. But in the end I plumped to this interesting shot of a section of the roof.

I worked hard on location to place the chimney stack at the lower third position as a focal point and only had to crop very slightly at the bottom to remove some bargeboards to complete the picture. Other than that no other tweaks. The sky really was that blue.

Sherburne at Sunset

It had been a grey grey day all day here in mid Minnesota. Nothing more annoying than that when you want to go out and take pictures. It did rain for a while, late afternoon. But we'll draw a veil over that. I was convinced that I wouldn't get any more than my one shot from earlier in the day. However, about 6:15 or so I noticed things brightening up a bit. So I took a look outside and saw the clouds breaking in the west and making the clouds to the east look rather interesting. With that I was gone. I jumped in the truck and headed out to Sherburne to see if I could have any success.

Above: Love them clouds.
Above: I really, really, really like this one...
Above: I'll never forget taking this one. I watched the scene through the viewfinder and as the sun came out from behind a cloud the rushes went from flat and dull to bright and golden. I could feel the anticipation as I clicked the shutter.

There is almost no post production on these pictures. I sharpened them up in iPhoto and tweaked the saturation ever so slightly to bring the yellows up a bit like I remembered seeing them in the viewfinder.

All in all not a bad hours photography.

10th and North Branch

Here we are; picture No. 2 in the picture a day project.

I was all fired up today to get a good, colourful, dynamic shot on the way home from work. But alas, the lack of a blue sky killed that. So by the time I reached home I was feeling a little disappointed that I hadn't seen anything to grab my attention. It was then I remembered the house fire from Saturday's blog entry. With the fire out and the smoke cleared, I was sure there would be a photo op there. That was, if the builders hadn't demolished it already.

They hadn't...

I was now able to get closer and photograph the remnant of the chimney stack from the basement upwards. Made for quite an interesting picture with the chimney standing proud rising from the rubble.

Once again the metering of the E-P2 in Program is pretty spot on there's detail all the way acros the tonal range.

The sad thing is that even though I'd run past that house many times a week on my marathon training runs. I can't for the life of me remember what the house looked like.

I. P.A.D.

No nothing to do with the upcoming new piece of genius from Apple, the iPad.

But Picture A Day. I've recently signed up at the micro four thirds forum mu-43.com for users of the micro four thirds system.

One of the things they promote is the "picture a day" project. You post one picture a day on the forum for critique and observations from other members. I'm also trying to be doubly difficult by taking one picture a day for the most part.Of course there are days when I will take more. But mostly my time and other commitments will dictate only being able to take one picture.

So beginning April 1st I'm trying to partake. Here's my April 1st picture.

Taken in the car park at work, it shows the back of the entrance sign flanked by some trees. A nice, simple, geometric composition. The square of the sign and the triangles of the trees. The juxtaposition of natural and man made, dead and living etc; etc;

I like it. There are a few niggly details, like the right hand tree overlapping the sign, but if I were to move to clear that then the tree would be overlapping another to its right. The left tree touches the edge of the picture because if I was to give some clear space to its left then the branches of another tree would appear... Oh well you can't have everything.

It was very much a "gut feeling" picture. I saw it and it thought it needed recording.

Quite reasonable for a first picture.