I found this jewel when wandering around the city of Duluth, taking infrequent snapshots I thought would be fun. During my wanderings I decided to make the legally questionable jump down onto some train tracks I had seen the day prior from the freeway. As I was walking and stopping to snap a few quick shots I found that one of the locomotive cars had a tiny door that was open. Though the safety factor of the climb seemed to be another questionable move, I went on after convincing myself that the stairs were safe and there were no vagrant dwellers inside after yelling the obligatory “Hello!” as in “I fear for my life and should anyone be in there I will smack you with my semi-stout tripod…”
Shortly after receiving no responses, I climbed on in, with very little visibility and only a guess as to what I might be pointing at I snapped a few shots. Now that I can see the detail and the cramped quarters, I can see what seems to be an engine. I cannot very well imagine working in conditions like this, extremely cramped, probably very very hot, not to mention extremely dangerous with all the open machinery.
Fortunately I was not injured nor arrested in my perusings, although from now on, my flashlight will be coming with me..
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Rating: 8.5/10 (6 votes cast)
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This area was a bit of a pain to get to, it required climbing down a 20ft. nearly vertical wall with camera, tripod, and remote shutter release in tow. I cannot say it was the easiest photo to shoot, but I will say that the green in the foliage in the foreground was some of the most brightly green colored shrubbery I have ever seen, even this HDR shot does not do it justice.
While I was busy shooting from down below, a friend was up top chatting with another guy that drove from Chaska, MN up to this area for the same purpose, which is quite a bit farther than we drove. I was surprised because he was using a Canon S5 IS, with the CHDK software shooting in RAW and told me he was having some good luck with HDR.
This was one of my first shots of the day, and likely will turn out as one of the best once I get the fine tuning done, but for now, here is the lackluster product straight from the software.
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Rating: 8.0/10 (7 votes cast)
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Good news first, I was able to plan and execute a mini, affordable vacation to the North Shore of Minnesota in the Duluth/Two Harbors area for some great photos. Did not require much in the way of planning, and it was not a terrible drive either, since we left on Saturday.
Bad news…. After taking 202 photos, I got back to the hotel for some post process jive, only to find that halfway through my venture at the split rock lighthouse my photos were sabotaged by some evil little hairs on my CMOS sensor (Well not on the sensor itself, on the low pass filter that covers the sensor). So sadly, many of the photos taken are complete and total garbage. I am not sure what cause the dirties, but I do know this, that I took three photos of an object, did not move the camera, and took three more photos with some people out of the way and somehow the dirties appeared, no settings changed, no movement, nothing…. Not happy about this at all!
Again, on the bright side, there will be a post this evening, though it will not likely be from my recent batch. Also some more good news, I discovered that my Canon Rebel XT will take auto bracketed shots without me touching the camera or plugging in the remote. If the camera is set to do auto bracketing and use timer mode, it will count down for ten seconds then fire off the three auto bracketed shots. I was extremely happy to find this out, would have come in handy many many times in the past.
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There is a long, involved story to this photo, but for you, I will cut right to the good stuff… I decided on a Friday, the Friday before the Saturday on which I think this photo was taken, that I was going to make the 3+ hour drive north to the Virginia/Cook area of Minnesota. It was mid April and I saw no snow in the sky nor the foreseeable future, alas, I was wrong, it started snowing about an hour into my drive, at which I left for at about 10 P.M. Now this was not a regular MN snowfall, this was a crazy MN snowfall, regardless, I was granted the opportunity to capture many, in my opinion, of my best photos. Sadly, this was before I was very capable of HDR, and even if I was, all there was to capture outside was white sky, white ground, and extremely large snowflakes on my lens…
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Rating: 6.7/10 (3 votes cast)
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During a short meander at the beach I found this dilapidated automobile that I am confident is a Ford Model T, though I am not certain of this. I find it demeaning how a once modern and innovative automobile has now become a piece of signage along with all of our other junk….
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Rating: 7.3/10 (4 votes cast)
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I was at a party Memorial Day weekend, and this loud bike pulled up. I was very excited to snap a few shots of it, but I was very aware of the challenge it presented, three different light sources, providing three different shades of light. One being amber, one yellow, and one nearly white. I could not very well use the AWB setting, and I was confident the CWB setting would not work well either. So against all hope for a proper white balance setting I settled with tungsten, since all the lights were tungsten. The color of the bike is nearly perfect, yet you can clearly see the different sources of light cast in the area. This shot, I feel, is a perfect example of where a standard approach may not have been possible, and the application of HDR really made this photo shine.
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Rating: 7.8/10 (4 votes cast)
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A little earlier in the day than my typical posts, hopefully this becomes regular.
Yes, this is Ginger the dog. Do not let her apparent calm appearance fool you, she is evil, really evil. She was relaxing for a brief moment from terrorizing small children and her little sister Froot Loop.
I thought this was a “classic” photo. The dog lazily relaxing in front, the Radio Flyer wagon in the back. Just had a small town lemonade feel to it. I do hope you enjoy it, It is one of my favorite pet photos I have yet taken.
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Rating: 9.5/10 (6 votes cast)
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Well, it is currently 2:21 and I am unable to sleep, so I am trying to get some convenience out of facebook… We shall see if it works, hopefully this test stays in beta…
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I shot this photo walking around at the beach in Forest Lake. The lighting was really good I thought, and this is very much a half baked attempt at cleanup, but I think it turned out pretty well. I really enjoy the curves and smooth lines of classic cars, especially in the chrome. I am likely going to release a version in the future that is a little better in the cleanup category, but for now, this is what you get.
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Rating: 7.5/10 (2 votes cast)
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Flickr…
So in the recent days I have been kind of disappointed by the apparent lack of enthusiasm about my photography. Especially after all of the effort I had put into redesigning my website, however, after jumping over to flickr and checking my comments there, I guess that is where everyone has been running to for commenting purposes, so to all of you that have been making comments I was able to reply to you today, sorry I was a n00b.