The Festival of the Illuminati returns to Minneapolis. New York has a Christmas shopping parade on Thanksgiving, but in Minneapolis they have one every Thursday through Sunday night from turkey day ’till Christmas. It’s pretty interesting, a few floats, a band and lots of people. What makes the Holidazzle Parade so unusual is that it’s in the dark at 6:30 and all the people in the parade are covered in lights. I want to know how they are powered — must be some big batteries.

This is a ten second exposure at f10 & ISO 100. I’m using the new Tamron 11-18mm to fit all this in, as you can see, there is very little distortion. Pretty cool getting both sides of the street, a parade and the top of a skyscraper all in the same frame.

That skyway you see is not unique. Minneapolis has a habitrail system that spans the whole city. You can walk on the second floor in the warm air from one side of the city to another. Since you are above the traffic, it’s actually the fastest way around too.

I took quite a few images of the Holidazzle, so check back tomorrow. There’s another place for you to check too, I met Greg from View from the Tundra photo blog for the first time. We scurried through the skyway and took lots of pics along the way. After shooting the parade, we stopped and took some shots of Sam who runs the Red Wagon Popcorn Stand across from Gaviidae. The popcorn stand is on the other side of the skyway in my photo above. Sam’s a real nice guy, he offered us hot cider and hot chocolate. He said he’ll have chili there tonight, so if you get down to the parade, stop by and see Sam, he’ll set you up with some warm goodies.

Bare trees and matted grasses await their snow cover in the Minnesota River valley. It’s nice to get out of the city and see that there are quiet places waiting contemplation. This time of year always draws me out to the woods to watch the changes. The holiday season rushes in and activity picks up to a fevered pitch; everyone racing about shopping and going to parties. It’s easy to miss this quiet transition.

The man is forecasting snow this weekend so check back and see the most Northern metropolis venture into it’s wonderland. It’s the time, as Garrison Keillor says, when nature makes a concerted effort to kill you.

My experimenting with the Tamron 11-18mm ultra-wide continues. I found this giant burr oak along the Minnesota River Valley while chasing woodpeckers. It’s a lot of fun switching from 300mm to 11mm lenses. A shift in perspective is an understatement.

The shape of this tree and the stark texture of the bark inspired me to change the colors. The power of the blue sky was being diminished by the bland brown of the tree, so I made the tree monochrome. This kept the texture but lost the bland brown (which played such a critical roll in yesterday’s image). Yes, I pumped up the blue, but not much. It’s fun to play with an image in post, but you should have a reason or logic behind your decisions. Before you start messing with it, ask yourself: what are the strengths and weaknesses of the original image? How can I play them up or down?

Are you using Lightroom? If so, let me know, I’m really enjoying it and still discovering the power of the fantastic program.

Ah, the lovely browns of late autumn in Minnesota. I went exploring along the Minnesota River yesterday and though I chased a woodpecker for a while, I chose this picture for today.

The high-noon sun is usually a problem for most situations, but I found a way to make it work. The high light was glancing down on this little fluff-ball giving it dimension — notice the way the stems have clear light and dark sides. Since the sun was high, the dark-brown trees were, well, dark. By using my telephoto at the widest aperture and placing the subject just inside my minimum focal distance, I was able to throw the background completely out of focus.

Depth of Field (the area in focus) is determined by three things: aperture, distance to the subject and focal length. In this case, I was maximizing all of these factors which makes for a nice Bokeh. I’ve done this before and probably will again. A good time to try this is when you have a good solid color in the background or a confusing one.

Bokeh is the light effect created by the out of focus light from the background. The quality of this effect on the image is a function of and an important distinction in the quality of the lens. For example, at some point everyone who has an SLR with interchangeable lenses discovers the 500mm mirror lens for $90 on ebay. Why is this powerful lens so cheap? It has very little glass in it and two problems: the aperture is fixed at f/8 and the bokeh looks like little donuts. Seriously, little white donuts.

That’s it for today, have fun and keep your focus!

The Ultra-wide continues it’s unrelenting tear through the unsuspecting countryside. I went out yesterday and suffered under the piercing glare of the noon sun, only to return laden with painfully harsh images of highway construction. I sifted through the dregs and came up unsatisfied — it’s hard to find enough interesting subjects to fill 103 degrees. So like a dutiful housewife, I returned to the fridge (ok, half terabyte drive) and pulled out leftovers from the day before. I give you and Ultra-Tall of the lake.

This is one of the islands playing a title role in the Lake of the Isles. It is only about thirty fee across the water from where I am standing. Not too shabby of a lens eh? Check back tomorrow, the daily saga continues.

First day with the new lens. I chose the Tamron 11-18mm Ultra-Wide because it has the least barrel distortion of all the less-expensive ultras. The weather wasn’t cooperating with me, all I had was a gray Minnesota morning to work with. This is the Northwestern bay of Lake of the Isles, that thing in the lower left is a rock sitting on the ice. Yes, ice. The lake is beginning to freeze over.

So far I like the lens and will be putting more images from it on the site. My first reaction to the images from it was that there didn’t seem to be a wow factor, but I’m expecting something unusual from the images — they just look normal, which was what I was wanted when I bought the lens. No fisheye effect, just a nice undistorted image that I didn’t have to back up to take. Comically, I had to hang out over the railing to keep the pathway out of the image.

It’s just going to take some time to figure out the optimum subjects and uses for this beast. Check back tomorrow, the sky is blue and I’ll see what I can find.

We survived Black Friday, so are there any Black Sabbath sales today?