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This was my annual photo outing to the daisy garden across the streetfrom our house. My mom loves daisies, so I try to catch them in fullbloom for her every year.

This year, I wanted something a little different, so I went over onthe windiest day of the week. The setting sun had dipped below thetree line, so using ISO 100 at f/27 allowed me a half second exposureto maximize wind blur. This was an adventure, because I never knewwhen I tripped the shutter what the next wind gust would do to theflowers.

I love that a few of the shorter flowers that were hidden from theelements are still reasonably stationary and sharp. Any suggestionsfor improvement?

The fourth annual Lincoln Berean Church car show drew about 80 entriesand countless visitors. The threatened rain waited until the next day,fortunately. I spent about three hours wandering around Saturdayafternoon with my 10-22mm and 90mm macro lenses, and have the sunburnto prove it. IMHO, that was the perfect pair of lenses for an eventlike this.

This one was shot at 10mm, and looks mostly the same as when it cameoff the camera. I debated uploading the color version, too, but theturquoise Vette and blue sky clash badly. The only thing I don't likeabout shooting at car shows is that the shiny paint jobs reflect everyspectator and neighboring car. The owners' red lawn chairs reflectedin the car door at far right also detract from the color version. Iregret not taking a shot of the entry label so I'd know the year &owner of this great looking classic.

My wife's anniversary roses have served their purpose and have seenbetter days, but I wanted to play with some new lenses and lightingbefore they got thrown out.

This shot was lit with a Sunpak 544 flash at 1/4 power fired into areflective umbrella handheld somewhat above and to camera left. Asheet of white styrofoam at lower right provided some fill. The doorin the background was lit with a bare Canon 430EX at 1/8 power fromback camera right at handle level. The shot was taken through my41-year-old Nikon 50/1.4 lens mated to my Canon DSLR body. Compared tomy other fast 50mm lenses, this Nikkor is huge, not quite as sharp,and has a long minimum focusing distance, but it's still worth the $20I paid just for its old-school aesthetic value.

My wife's anniversary roses have served their purpose and have seenbetter days, but I wanted to play with some new lenses and lightingbefore they got thrown out.

This shot was lit with a Sunpak 544 flash at 1/4 power fired into areflective umbrella handheld somewhat above and to camera left. Asheet of white styrofoam at lower right provided some fill. It wastaken through my 41-year-old Nikon 50/1.4 lens mated to my Canon DSLRbody. Compared to my other fast 50mm lenses, this Nikkor is huge, notquite as sharp, and has a long minimum focusing distance, but it'sstill worth the $20 I paid just for its old-school aesthetic value.

This is a different, but very similar, shot from the B&W version Iposted. I think the postprocessing gives it something of an "oldmasters painting" feel. Which do you prefer?

My wife's anniversary roses have served their purpose and have seenbetter days, but I wanted to play with some new lenses and lightingbefore they got thrown out.

This shot was lit with a Sunpak 544 flash at 1/4 power fired into areflective umbrella handheld somewhat above and to camera left. Asheet of white styrofoam at lower right provided some fill. It wastaken through my 41-year-old Nikon 50/1.4 lens mated to my Canon DSLRbody. Compared to my other fast 50mm lenses, this Nikkor is huge, notquite as sharp, and has a long minimum focusing distance, but it'sstill worth the $20 I paid just for its old-school aesthetic value.

This is a different, but very similar, shot from the color version Iposted. Which do you prefer?

I love the warm, pastel color gradient here.  The simple, high contrast subject in the center of the frame really jumps out at you.  Nicely done.

The colors and overall dark tone of this shot are amazing.  I love the depth of field chosen and your overall composition, too.  Hands down the best dragonfly shot I've seen.

Incredible lighting and colors!

They start arriving in Nebraska between Grand Island and Kearney in early March and stay until mid April. The numbers are starting to thin out as I write this on 7 April.

 

I took my 8-year-old daughter, who loves both animals and photography,with me to watch the Sandhill Crane migration this year. 500,0004-foot-tall birds stop in central Nebraska for six weeks each year enroute from Mexico to Siberia. They spend their days foraging for foodin cornfields near the river, but at night they seek shelter fromanimals in the wide, clear sandbars of the Platte River. It's quite asite to see 10,000 squawking birds in one spot. Better yet, they allland and take off at roughly the same time each sunset and sunrise.It's only a two hour drive from our house, so we made it into a 24hour camping trip.

Noelle captured these shots with our point & shoot camera from an oldrailroad (now hike+bike) bridge in Ft. Kearney State Rec Area. Theonly postprocessing I did was a slight crop. I set the camera tounderexpose by one stop, and she did the rest -- with a little helpfrom God's palette.

I took my 8-year-old daughter, who loves both animals and photography,with me to watch the Sandhill Crane migration this year. 500,0004-foot-tall birds stop in central Nebraska for six weeks each year enroute from Mexico to Siberia. They spend their days foraging for foodin cornfields near the river, but at night they seek shelter fromanimals in the wide, clear sandbars of the Platte River. It's quite asite to see 10,000 squawking birds in one spot. Better yet, they allland and take off at roughly the same time each sunset and sunrise.It's only a two hour drive from our house, so we made it into a 24hour camping trip.

 

Noelle captured these shots with our point & shoot camera from an oldrailroad (now hike+bike) bridge in Ft. Kearney State Rec Area. Theonly postprocessing I did was a slight crop. I set the camera tounderexpose by one stop, and she did the rest -- with a little helpfrom God's palette.

I took my 8-year-old daughter, who loves both animals and photography,with me to watch the Sandhill Crane migration this year. 500,0004-foot-tall birds stop in central Nebraska for six weeks each year enroute from Mexico to Siberia. They spend their days foraging for foodin cornfields near the river, but at night they seek shelter fromanimals in the wide, clear sandbars of the Platte River. It's quite asite to see 10,000 squawking birds in one spot. Better yet, they allland and take off at roughly the same time each sunset and sunrise.It's only a two hour drive from our house, so we made it into a 24hour camping trip.

 

Noelle captured these shots with our point & shoot camera from an oldrailroad (now hike+bike) bridge in Ft. Kearney State Rec Area. Theonly postprocessing I did was a slight crop. I set the camera tounderexpose by one stop, and she did the rest -- with a little helpfrom God's palette.

I took my 8-year-old daughter, who loves both animals and photography,with me to watch the Sandhill Crane migration this year. 500,0004-foot-tall birds stop in central Nebraska for six weeks each year enroute from Mexico to Siberia. They spend their days foraging for foodin cornfields near the river, but at night they seek shelter fromanimals in the wide, clear sandbars of the Platte River. It's quite asite to see 10,000 squawking birds in one spot. Better yet, they allland and take off at roughly the same time each sunset and sunrise.It's only a two hour drive from our house, so we made it into a 24hour camping trip.

This was the view from the Ft. Kearney State Rec Area bridge atsunset. The cranes were a good quarter mile to the west, directly intoone of the prettier sunsets I've ever seen. You couldn't have askedfor a better backdrop. This was all the closer I could get with mycheap Tele-Vivitar 400mm f/5.6 (M42) lens.

Here's a photo of the lighting setup for this shot:

When a friend of mine couldn't make it to a group dinner, I made himan appropriate avatar by adding rust colored modeling clay (to matchhis hair) to an Obi-Wan bobble head. Coincidentally, I spent the nextday making some drinking straw gridspots for my flashes, and Greg Jr.volunteered to be my test subject. Read the technical details forspecifics on the lighting layout.

I'm reasonably happy with how the lighting turned out. I'm quitehappy that my new gridspot was able to project a tight enough beam toilluminate the light saber while adding only minimal light to Greg'sbeard, but I still wish the spill onto the beard had been lessobvious. Any suggestions for improvement?

I love this shot. The expression on the girls' face is adorable. She truly is having a conversation with the little goat. This is scrapbook material if I ever saw it.

The Cub Scout Pinewood Derby Salt Valley District Championship raceswere held last Saturday in Lincoln. My son made it to districts bycoming in 3rd in his den. His car didn't fare so well at districts,but he still had a lot of fun. A friend of his from our den took firstplace.

I don't know the owners of any of these cars, but this was by far thebest panning shot and probably the most interesting shot overall thatI got that during the six hour event.

Shot with my manual Nikon Nikkor 135/2.8 AI lens from circa 1981mounted on my Canon digital body. Any suggestions for improvement?

Very good composition. Nice use of fore & background elements. The range of colors is gorgeous.

 

The darker sky on the left is caused by your circular polarizer. Polarizers darken the sky most at 90 degrees from the sun and least at 0 & 180 degrees. Since the sun was probably 60 degrees to camera left, the polarizer darked the sky the most about 30 degrees to the left of straight ahead, and by the time you work around to the right side of the shot, the polarizer effect is starting to wane.

Although the temps weren't horribly cold last night (15F), the highwinds made the wind chill low enough to create some cool frostpatterns on my sons' bedroom window again this morning. It was anovercast morning with zero color outside, so I kept this onemonochrome and used the contrast to enhance the detail. The texture inthese frost patterns never ceases to amaze me.

Shot with my Tamron 90/2.5 macro on a 15mm extension tube. This sceneis about 1.5" tall in real life. Any suggestions for improvement?

The farm house where my grandma has lived for 72 years has seen better

days, but it's always a warm, inviting place that we love to visit.

The outside wall was not desaturated; it's just a very bland wall.

Any suggestions for improvement?

I love the colors and all the lines. Nicely composed & very eyecatching.

This was the scene out my daughter's bedroom window one cold (5F)January morning a few weeks ago. The scene was far more incredible inreal life, but the outdoor lighting didn't allow me to adequatelycapture the moment. Instead of enjoying God's artwork, you're stuckwith my rendition of it, with somewhat enhanced contrast and saturation.

This window is immediately adjacent (just inches away) from the windowin "Spawn", which I shot a minute later. Both patterns grew throughthe evening under identical circumstances, but the resulting patternsare radically different. I never cease to be amazed by our Creator'simagination.

Any suggestions for improvement?

This was the scene out my daughter's bedroom window one cold (5F)January morning a few weeks ago. The scene was far more incredible inreal life, but the outdoor lighting didn't allow me to adequatelycapture the moment. Instead of enjoying God's artwork, you're stuckwith my rendition of it, with the contrast and saturation turned up toeleven.

This window is immediately adjacent (just inches away) from the windowin "Organic Ice", which I shot a minute earlier. Both patterns grewthrough the evening under identical circumstances, but the resultingpatterns are radically different. I never cease to be amazed by ourCreator's imagination.

The natural lighting out this window is really boring from aphotographic standpoint. What do you think about the postprocessinghere? Too over the top? Any suggestions for improvement?

Today, my firstborn son moved one step closer to manhood, and itoccurred to me that his time here with me is likely more than halfover. Micah is bright, goofy, creative, sensitive, athletic,nostalgic, analytical, fun loving, and more. He is almost exactly likeme, only better, and I love him dearly. This morning, he turned ten.

Any suggestions for improvement?

Goofing around with a remote flash and the front face of our living

room fireplace. The knob controls the damper. These textures just

caught my eye. Any suggestions for improvement?