Sony SLT-A77V
Fall Family Outing
“Your children are the greatest gift God will give to you, and their souls the heaviest responsibility He will place in your hands. Take time with them, teach them to have faith in God. Be a person in whom they can have faith. When you are old, nothing else you’ve done will have mattered as much.”
― Lisa Wingate
Honing my Family Portrait skills. I thought the family seemed pretty relaxed for this one. I also thought the setting, with the river running through the background, was relaxing, too.
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Epic Spiral Stairway
Things are looking up. (Well, I was, anyway.) This is a view of a unique spiral stairway with my wife and son looking down at me. (Probably thinking, “Can we go now? How many more pictures are you going to take?”)
These are photos I took a couple of years ago as we toured the company my son works for – Epic in Verona, WI. They specialize in software for the medical industry. They have a very cool campus with buildings that tend to be theme oriented, accented with unique architecture, sculpture and artwork. Plenty of cool stuff to point a camera at.
All these images are looking up at the same stairway from different angles.
View a larger version of any of these photos just by clicking on them.
Frosty Treatment
1 + 1 = 3
A mother and father’s wedding rings look huge when placed on the toes of their newborn son.
During our first photo op, our son and daughter-in-law placed their wedding rings on the toes of Samuel – their first child, our first grandchild. Sammy was 1 week old at the time of this photo.
See a larger version of this image by clicking on it.
Nirvana
Solitude on Ice
The morning was cold. The sun was rising…and so was a mist from the patches of open water near the lighthouse that stands at the Alogma, Wisconsin harbor.
I posted a color image from this same morning a week ago – Frigid Sunrise Fog.
Click on the image to see a larger version.
Family in the Woods
I photograph a lot of different subjects – sunrises, lighthouse, birds, bugs, flowers, scenic landscapes, etc.; just browse through this website. The one subject that intimidates me and always proves to be my greatest challenge is people.
I can go to shoot one of my favorite lighthouses at sunrise and if the finished product doesn’t live up to my expectations, no big deal. They’ll be another day and another sunrise. The only person who is out anything is me and the only real loss is my time. When I photograph a sunrise, I’m trying to capture a moment. With a portrait, you have to first try and create “the moment” and then successfully capture it.
When photographing people, I’m not the only one who has a stake in the outcome. Others are investing their time and come with their own expectations. If I take fifty shots of a sunrise and I mess up some camera setting or I just don’t like the way any of them turned out – nobody knows but me. When you take fifty shots of a person, make them go through a battery of facial and body contortions, you’d like to have something of value to reward their patience and effort.
This photo is from a family portrait session last fall. A great group to work with – and a good lookin’ bunch, too. I like the way this turned out, but it comes in low on my “satisfaction” scale. There are a number of technical issues that spoil it for me (I won’t bore you with the specifics). I did a lot of post processing, trying to overcome those issues, and it’s still not quite there.
The good news is, each portrait session is a learning experience. And, as they say…”Practice makes perfect.”
You can view a larger version of this image by clicking on the photo.
Frigid Sunrise Fog
It was a mighty cold Sunday morning in Algoma, Wisconsin! The temperature was right around zero. The harbor was mostly frozen.
A mist was rising from the small area of open water in the harbor. Beyond the harbor, the larger body of open water we call Lake Michigan, created a fog bank that picked up the color of the rising sun (peeking from behind the lighthouse).
To get a closer look, click on the image and a larger version will open in another browser window.
January Fog
Whatever lies beyond that tree has been swallowed up by a eerie mid-winter’s fog.
This is was snapped in the middle of the day, in the farm field across the road from our rural home in Kewaunee County, WI. I’ve taken quite a few photos of this tree over the years. See… Spring Enchantment, Day’s End Elm and Serene Sunset.
To view this photo in a larger format, simply click on it.