A Change in the Weather

The last few weeks have seen the temperatures drop considerably here in NE Kansas.  It's been fantastic having all the windows in the house open throughout the day (and night!) and I'm looking forward to having a very welcome drop in our electricity bill.  But, the change in weather seems to have occurred much earlier than I'm used to since moving here.  If you ask anyone that's lived here long, August is typically the most miserable month with extreme heat amplified by high humidity.  This year, I think August missed the memo and July recieved it instead.  July was horribly hot and dry, yet August was quite pleasant and September has seemed much cooler than years past.  Yes, Autumn is quickly approaching (officially, 1 more week) and I'm loving it.

Autumn has a way of triggering my memories more than any other season.  I'm not completely certain why that is, but I think some of it is because Autumn seems to bring about the year's highest amount of activity.  There just always seems to be more going on this time of year - school, harvesting, sports, hunting, holidays approaching.  We grow up learning that Summer = Vacation and it's no different now, even for those of us who no longer get those 3 Summer months off.  Working during the Summer often has a more relaxed feel to it because it's easy to get fixated on actually taking time off from work.  Haven't we all heard the line, "I'm already in 'vacation' mode," from someone days before their actual vacation begins?  But, once the Dog Days of Summer have come and gone, it's time to hunker down, tighten up the belts, ramp up the activity, and begin the push to get things completed by the end of the year and prepare for Winter.

The action doesn't stop with us as nature also takes a cue from the changing weather - ducks and geese are beginning to move, deer are hitting the rut, turkeys are gathering in large rafters, leaves are beginning to turn, wild sunflowers are popping up everywhere!  It's these events that get me excited as a photographer and make me anxious to get out in the field.  Unfortunately, I haven't spent much time photographing the Fall season the last couple years.  Maybe it has something to do with grad school, children, and a full-time job?  But, although I know this season is gearing up to be a hectic one, I'm going to take every possible chance to get out and enjoy the outdoors with my camera.  With that in mind, I sat last night and found these photos from the past couple of years that fit my mood.

Enjoy!

15 seconds

My last 3 weeks have been absolutely insane.  So insane that I now know what it's like to completely lose touch with almost every aspect of my life except work.  If someone were to ask me about notable news headlines since August 8th, I might know of 1 or 2.  Worst of all is the time spent away from my wife and kids as I labored to finish the first phase of a very big project at work.  I think I went 3-4 days without seeing my youngest daughter because I was gone before she woke up and came home long after she was in bed.  But, I managed to complete this first phase and am finally decompressing.

Yellow, Blue, and White

Obviously, I had very little time to think about photography, although I do believe it's continuously shuffling in and out of my subconscious even during my busiest moments.  So, during one of my many long, long days, I was rushing from one area of the plant to another and a quick glance to the sky stopped me in my tracks.  For the next 15 seconds I managed to think about nothing else except that one moment.  The sky was amazing and if there were some way I could've taken a picture of the entire expanse of its beauty, I would have.  I didn't have my trusty Nikon, but I did have the next best thing, my iPhone.  I snapped a picture and back to work I went.  Yep, 15 seconds.

1,000 Blog Views

Earlier today I happened to notice that my blog had surpassed 1,000 total pageviews, which is a cool milestone.  Somehow I've managed to hoodwink enough people into thinking I really have something important to say.  :)

In all honesty, I really appreciate anyone that visits this site and takes some time viewing my photography.  I remember writing my first couple posts thinking, "Nobody is ever going to read this stuff," mainly because I wasn't sure what I wanted to say.  Those first posts took quite some time to complete and post because I kept starting over from scratch.  In the end I had to remind myself on the reason I wanted to write a blog and why I got passionate about photography in the first place - it's my creative outlet to please myself.


A few years ago I realized that life continues to hand you more responsibilities in the form of marriage, children, work, mortgage and a hundred other things.  While all those things can be tremendously rewarding, I found that I wasn't a very creative person anymore and it bothered me.  I struggled with trying to figure out why I didn't really enjoy drawing, or painting, or making music like I used to when I was younger.  But, along came photography and I suddenly found my creativity again.  Most importantly, I didn't feel like I needed to please anyone with my photographs except me.  Why was this important?  Well, we all know how much time we spend in our daily lives trying to please other people and sometimes it gets overwhelming.

Bottom line is this:  I love taking pictures.  It's one of maybe 3-4 activities that I've found where I completely lose all sense of time - I'm simply off in my own little world.  The idea that other people (you!) might actually enjoy my photography and my thoughts is an added bonus of which I'm deeply grateful!

So, if you're not feeling creative go pick up a pencil or a paintbrush or, better yet, a camera and get busy creating something.  You never know what you might discover.

Feeling a bit Black and White

I love color photography and it's hard not to.  We're surrounded by color and we're used to associating specific colors with different emotions.  In fact, take any art class and I guarantee you'll receive an art instructor sermon at some point that discusses several color-to-emotion relationships.  But, a lot of the emotion that certain colors evoke just seem to come naturally, as if our brains are wired that way.  That's why color photography can be so powerful.

An Adventure Awaits

So, one would think that if all colors, except black and white, are removed from a photograph that we would end up having an emotionless photo, right?  Well, it depends.  Some of the time, that color-less photo IS going have no emotion and look like nothing more than a gray slab.  But, other times the transition to black and white arouses emotions just as powerful as those brought on with colors.  How can this be?

For me, black and white photography is about simplicity.  You take away all the distractions and get right down to the raw data - the nitty-gritty.  If that raw data is captured effectively, then the final output can be pure bliss.  But, instead of colors, black and white photos must rely more heavily on compositional factors - shapes, leading lines, framing, balance - and the use of lighting, contrast, and textures to awaken our emotions.  And, although there is no color, I'm fascinated how the many shades of gray can affect me as if the colors were there.

Bighorn Sheep on the Lookout

With that in mind, I've been in a *mostly* black and white mood when working with several new photos that I captured on our recent vacation to visit some of my family.  We traveled back to my hometown (Green River, Wyoming) and continued to Grand Junction, Colorado and enjoyed every minute of it.  Compared to past vacations, I really didn't take that many photographs.  But, I'm quite happy with those I did capture.  New photos can be found in both the "Nature and Wildlife" and "Landscapes and Scenics" galleries.  However, I've also created a "Black & White" gallery as a quick-click way to showcase my color-less creations.

To wrap things up, there is one more new gallery titled, "iPhone," which, as you may have guessed, features photos captured and edited on my favorite mobile gadget.

Enjoy!

Reorganize

Spent a great amount of time tonight completing some housekeeping on my main photography website.  I never really liked the way I organized my photos to begin with, so I renamed a few galleries, moved pictures here and there, and added a new gallery.  I probably should've spent more time on this task from the start, but I was in a hurry to get enough photos on the site to make it meaningful.  Not sure if I'll end up keeping things exactly as they are now, but I'm happier with what I changed.

I still had some photos from my pre-vacation 50mm outage that I wanted to post, so those are now in my new gallery, "Things," which can be found here.  They didn't really fit in any of my other galleries, so I simply created a new one.  As a preview, here are a couple of my favorites:

I already mentioned that I recently returned from vacation.  Although I didn't take nothing close to the amount of photos that I normally would have, I did get some that I'm very happy with.  Hopefully, I'll get those posted sometime this week.

Enjoy!

Nifty Fifty

As promised, here are some more photos taken with the 50mm f/1.8D lens.  It's a very fantastic lens and extremely fun to shoot with.  I can't imagine a better lens for the price.

An interesting FYI, the sunflowers in two of the pictures were a surprise addition to our flower bed.  Apparently, the birds feeding throughout the winter on black oil sunflower seeds from our feeders aren't very efficient eaters.  We had several sunflowers sprout this spring and two of them are now about 4 1/2 feet tall.

Enjoy!

Happy Father's Day

Ok, two months since my last post is completely unacceptable.  But, it's been a busy couple of months (aren't they all?) and the summer is in full stride here in Northeast Kansas.  I've been doing a ton of shooting, but the majority has been around the house chasing kids.  In fact, I'm fairly close to eclipsing 10,000 pictures on my new camera, which is a cool little milestone.  I can only imagine how many images pro photographers take because I take a lot!

As much as I love shooting my children (they change so quickly!), I look forward to every opportunity to get outdoors to shoot the world around me.  It's even more exciting to see the world through a new lens, which is just what I've been doing the last couple days.  All praise be to Father's Day!

Nikon recently introduced it's newest 50mm lens, the AF-S Nikkor f/1.8G, but that's not the lens I got.  I am the happy new owner of the 50mm AF Nikkor f/1.8D, which is about $100 less than the new lens.  I jumped on the f/1.8D due to it's excellent price and outstanding optical performance.  My assumption is that the f/1.8D will be phased out with the introduction of the new AF-S version, so I wanted to get one while they were still available.

So, over the last couple days I've put the new lens through it's paces.  Again, mostly pictures of my kids, but I managed to turn the lens to one of my cats and got the capture you see here.  Everything about this picture I absolutely love: the sharpness, the color, the contrast, the depth-of-field, the composition.  It just works.  And, here's the kicker, this was shot through our living room window while my cat, Paris, napped on the bench that sits on our front porch.  Pretty impressive lens!

I will be adding some more photos captured with this lens in the next couple of days.  I went out this evening for about an hour and got several more photos that I'm very happy with and eager to share.  This lens will definitely be getting a lot of playing time in the future!

To finish, here are some photos I've captured with other lenses that I recently posted to my photo website.  Click on any picture and it will redirect you to the image on my photo website.  I hope you enjoy them.