Category: effects

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Infrared Photo of a Fountain

This is the Heffelfinger Fountain in the Lyndale Park Rose Garden on the Northeast shore of Lake Harriet. It's the second oldest rose garden in the U.S. and was designed by Theodore Wirth. Yes, this is infrared. I've posted a few of these over time and y'all demanded more of them, so here ya go. I'll be bringing you photos of the parks and trails for most of the month; I'd like to prove the beauty of this city's greenspaces before I begin the State Fair. The State Fair is big deal here, it runs from the 21st thru Sept 1st. There's tons of fun there, but it's mainly about things you really shouldn't be eating — on a stick. Batter-fried cheese curds, Batter-fried candy bars, Batter-fried oreos, some obscenity called a scotch egg and walleye-on-a-stick are a few crowd pleasers of yore. The latter I've not seen, but my dad is fascinated by — since he won't come up here, I gotta go find one. So enjoy the pretty pictures while they last.

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Obstruction: Distortion

Continuing with the obstruction theme, today's distortion is brought to you by the reflective and warped doors on a building at the University of Minnesota across the street from a Caribou Coffee. I like how this image pairs well with yesterday's image: similar composition and subjects. This was a fun image to compose, though I was inspired by and standing right where my friend Bob was when he took a picture of the same thing (plagiarism is such an ugly word), I focused on the reflected buildings, not the door and really had to work to get the open sign legible. It's all about the coffee. I was out with Bob and Matt walking around the new stadium construction at the U. It's going to be quite the beast! It's impressive to think that the St. Anthony Bridge (new 35W Bridge), the University Stadium and the new Twins' Stadium are all being built at the same time. Three major Minneapolis landmarks being created at the same time. Tomorrow Obstruction: Constriction

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Spotted Sandpiper, Actitis Macularia

An early morning on the shore of one of ten thousand, this little Spotted Sandpiper carefully studies the continental breakfast buffet. So many choices, but they are all still bugs. How can I tell that this is a SPOTTED sandpiper? He wandered off to the side of the sun and I caught this photo. He sure was busy, darting around catching bugs. He'd hunker down low and chase them! It was fun to watch until I had my fill of bugs too. It's hard to hold a big lens still while you have bugs crawling on you. I'll have to work on that I guess.

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Storms Over Minneapolis

As the storms rolled in, I raced off to hide my Jeep in a parking ramp to avoid the hail. The hail never came, but the totally awesome clouds did.

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Good Morning Minneapolis

There's a reason to get up at 4:45am, you get to see this!

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Cell Phone Sunset & Rainbow

Thank goodness for the cellphone, if not, I'd have had to just stand there and enjoy the rainbow. What's Cell Phone Sunday all about?

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Minneapolis City Hall

Olde time city hall, with a modern parking garage.

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Afton State Park

I captured this vista during my hike on Sunday at Afton. It's amazing what a wide-angle and some clever processing can do to a cold Minnesota plain. The ultra-wide-angle lens that I have been using for a while now has some interesting characteristics when it comes to distortion. It's an aspherical lens that has almost no fish-eye effect, but it tends to stretch lines that go to the corners. Also, if you point it anywhere that is not the horizon, it tilts everything causing "falling lines." This means that I have to shoot landscapes straight on, placing the horizon boringly dead-center. So now I look for compositions that can handle these conditions an here is one of my favorites. I was able to through some great diagonals across the image with the path and the clouds. Turn up the post processing to emphasize the lines and I think it works. Also, the way I processed it is close to a lightroom preset called "direct positive" that I have used before. It made the image look like a photo my dad of my grandparents standing in a wheat field taken in 1966. The direct-positive look mimics the way that color photos were processed in the 1960s. It's pretty rough on the image, but when the right opportunity comes along, I love to use it.

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Grand Finale

And now for the grand finale of the Holidazzle parade with the IDS Tower in the background. That was Santa's sleigh with all the reindeer that just went by. Learn more about Night Photography techniques in this post.

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Minneapolis City Lights

I really enjoyed working with the lit floats in the Holidazzle parade — this one had lots of red lights and I managed to start the exposure just before it entered the frame. If you look at the center bottom you'll see a blue and purple light. That's a woman selling lighted wands, you know, for kids — she's got a box full of them. This is the same perspective that posted earlier, you can learn about the exposure and the scene on that post. Though they are the same scene, the lighting and processing are different. On the previous one I tried to keep the color as close to real as possible, but on this one I was going for the effect of the light. Up the street on the left is Sam's Red Popcorn Wagon. As I mentioned earlier, Greg and I stopped by to take some pictures and Sam offered us Cider and Hot Chocolate. He's a really nice guy and enjoyed us taking pictures of him and his wagon. I finally have a photo processed that I like of him and here it is: As you can see, this was some tough lighting conditions, I had to give up my long exposures for the portrait. I was confronted with a real-life Edward Hopper indoor/outdoor subject. Only difference was that the inside was much brighter than the outdoor. I wanted the buildings in the shot so I had to get down low. So even though the photo was a challenge to take, Sam was such a nice guy that I wanted to get this picture posted. If you get to the Holidazzle, stop by and get some chili from Sam.