Tundrabeary
Here is another fantastic beer from Tommyknocker. Since my wife and I loved the Maple Nut Brown Ale (Check it out) so much we decided to try another flavor from the mountain town brewery. This one did not disappoint either! It was very light and sweet. It was a good sweet though, not one that gave you gut rot after one. It is by far my favorite summer ale. I’m sure there will be more recommendations from Tommyknocker in the future. Keep an eye for them.
I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!
Sunday Cemetery
I had a little fun with Photo Tools a bit last night to step outside of the normal tools and filters I use. I came out with a post processed image that is not like my typical stuff. I was trying to go for a darker image that fit a cemetery. I think I like this result, I’m not sure. We’ll see if it is still pleasing to the eye tomorrow. I’m still loopy after a long run in this heat and humidity.
Take a Seat
I don’t know why but I found this old garage very interesting. It had good symmetry but was put off balance by all of the flowers on the right side. I love the vine reaching through the busy side of the frame to the ‘boring’ side of the garage. I thought the whole thing worked well together. I tried a composition that was zoomed into the right side with one of the doors and flowers. Let’s just say that didn’t make the cut. It would have been nice to get more detail of the flowers but that’s alright. At least I tried.
I can see this old garage with its owner sitting in that old chair back during the towns prime. Kind of makes me think of the movie Cars with the hopping town that was forgotten about because of the interstate system.
Old Sunday Farm
I found this cemetery hidden behind the dog park on Saturday. It only has about 10 graves surrounded by a wooding fence. I found a giant boulder with a plaque attached to it stating the importance of the this cemetery. Supposedly this is where prominent evangelist Billy Sunday was born and grew up at. He was very well known for this during the first two decades of the 1900’s. He was also a baseball player in the 1880’s for the National League. How random is that? Anyways, it gave a couple good opportunities for some shots.
Yuri & Boomer
Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a great weekend. My wife and I took our puppies to the dog park on Saturday. We were the only ones there in the morning. It was really nice because I was able to capture some fun moments of the two. I love the water ones personally. Yuri, the husky, taught Boomer to drink water straight out of the spigot. Since Yuri was a pup (he turns 2 in November) he has always had the strangest ways of drinking water. When you have water in a bowl, he dunks his whole head in the bowl to drink. It’s quite odd but extremely funny. I will try to get some photos of it sometime. I’m always too busy laughing when he does it. It never gets old!
Enjoy!
Carnation Fresh Milk
So last night I was so excited because I was actually able to do some real shooting for the first time in a couple months! I took some back roads home and came across Sheldahl, Iowa. A town I have never heard of. It probably only had a population of a couple hundred. It had some interesting things in it that I was able to capture such as the back half of an old milk truck. I had to capture this! I got a couple good angles and I was on my way to the next interesting thing. Hopefully they turned out!
German Wall
I hope everyone had a great holiday! I know I sure enjoyed the long weekend. I love going through my old photos from Germany. I always find new stuff I missed. Not hard to do when you have 8,000 photos from the trip I guess. This is just a simple abstract HDR from the small town of Fussen Germany. Enjoy!
Tommyknocker
The Tommyknocker Brewery is a place that brings a lot of memories back from my childhood. My dad and I would stop by this Colorado mountain town restaurant every time on our way back down to Denver from the ski slopes. Of course I could never have the beer, until this past week when I found it in the local grocery store here in Ames, Iowa. So of course I had to pick up a six pack. This turned out to be one of my top 5 favorite beers of all time. Now I know the truth as to why my Dad wanted to go there so badly. It wasn’t the amazing buffalo burritos, but rather it was the hand crafted beers. The Maple Nut Brown Ale is actually brewed with maple syrup that gives it an ultra smooth flavor. I highly recommend it if you happen to stumble on to this beer.
I hope everyone has a great Forth of July weekend with many great photo ops!
Frosted Tree
I thought I would cool things down a bit today. We are suppose to have a 105 degree heat index today. It’s awesome to have that Midwest humidity. Hopefully this starts to fuel some awesome storms to go shoot. I’m getting really jealous of Scott Ackerman (check out his awesome storm shots). He has captured some awesome moments. How hot is it where you are at?
A Tornado Inside?
Why, yes there is a tornado inside the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. This what a neat exhibit to show how a tornado is created. I wish I got more motion out of the mist but of course I couldn’t use my tripod. Maybe next time. Short post today. I wish everyone a fantastic Tuesday!
U-505
The U-505 exhibit at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry is truly remarkable. This U boat is one of five remaining from WWII worldwide with U-505 being the only one ever captured (and in one piece) during WWII. We took a tour of this boat to get a perspective of what it was like to live on it. The space was sparse. It was hot and humid, I couldn’t even begin to imagine what it was like during war time. And did I mention it was really really cramp in there? Even though we were able to get a taste of what it was like on the U-505 during its time at sea, it was just a small bite. I couldn’t imagine being down 200 meters under the sea surface with the body heat of a 100 other men while having a destroyer dropping depth charges on you. It is a scary scary thought.
I hope everyone had a great weekend!
Down the Alley
So this is my first image to use textures with. I’m not a huge fan of textures but people such as Heath O’Fee and Chris Kenison are starting to convince me otherwise. They have done some pretty nice stuff with texture, so go check them out! When textures are done right (this image is a bad example) they can be pretty cool I must say. This being my first, I was pretty timid with the textures. I really just wanted to add a little more to the concrete and even less to the brick walls. I don’t think it turned out too bad, but I’m not sure. Give me your thoughts. What do you use for textures?
I’m Back!
WOW! It has been way too long since my last blog post. I apologize to all of you for my month long hiatus. It sure has been a busy month I must say. I had some personal stuff to tend to. Also I had two of my best friends fly in for a weeklong visit all the way from Maine and New Mexico. Oh, and yeah, I got married followed by a weeklong honeymoon! My lovely new wife and I took a trip out to Las Vegas, which was an amazing time. We relaxed by the pool, went to the Cirque Du Soleil KA show (highly recommend), had some awesome food, did A LOT of people watching (there are some interesting folk there), and did a tiny bit of gambling (we came out ahead!). One thing I REALLY REALLY wanted to do was go out and shoot. But I was good and didn’t take pictures during the entire honeymoon (shh, don’t tell my wife one of the main reasons I didn’t was because I forgot a piece to my tripod back at home). I was able to jimmy rig it so I could get a few night shots from our 20th floor balcony. These shots are the only shots I took in the past month. I must say I REALLY miss photography and am excited to get back into the swing of things. It’s good to be back!
Blowing in the Wind
I hope everyone had a great weekend! Today we go way back to March when I stumbled on a worn down park shelter. It was a windy day, as you can see by the rope blowing in the wind. To get some shots of this door I had to prop it open so it wouldn’t move on me. This is one of my first shots I’ve done to show natural motion within the scene. Sometime I forget that it is alright to have things moving in your frame. It gives a whole new layer to the photograph that adds more interest. It can help to put the viewer right there in the moment of the shot.
Rotnest Island
Okay, I cheated a bit with this image that has been on my Smugmug site for awhile. I reprocessed it a bit and it is new to the blog. So, here is the last image from my little trip down memory lane I dragged you along with this week. This gorgeous place is The Basin at Rotnest Island. The island is just off the coast of Australia by Perth. You can actually see the city skyline just to the left of the lighthouse on the horizon. We decided to bike around the whole island on our extremely short 4 hour trip. It was only 26km around the whole place. It was challenge not to stop at every bay that is just as gorgeous as this one. I could go on and on about our journey with stories filled with swimming, cliffs, lizards, biking, quokkas, and so on! I won’t do that to you on this fine Friday though.
I hope everyone has a awesome weekend.
Cheers!
Fishing
Today’s images (not sure which I like better) are from the coast of Perth, Australia where during our trip we got to spend 18 wonderful days. This amazing city is in my top five where I would realistically want to live, right along with: Denver CO, Phoenix AZ, Queenstown NZ, and Minneapolis, MN. All are unique in their own way, with their own rich history and fascinating foods. Perth is actually the most isolated major city in the world and at the time of our visit it was one of the fastest growing cities in the world. They had a lot of urban design and planning issues that were coming up. Such as, where is the water going to come from and where are all of the expected 1.5 million new comers in the next several decades suppose to go? It was an interesting challenge that landscape architects, planners, scientists, and the government have to solve.
Make sure you check out tomorrow’s image. It is from one of my favorite, if not my favorite, places in the whole wide world.
Franz Josef Glacier
This is Franz Josef glacier in New Zealand. It is located very close to Mt. Cook and Fox Glacier on the South Island. This image doesn’t show much scale but as you walked closer to the glacier’s front it made you feel like an ant. I would have to say that the ice wall was about 100 feet tall. It was very impressive and humbling. Along this path of polished rocks were several waterfalls we walked by. You can see one on the right side of the valley portrayed as two nearly vertical white lines just above the front of the glacier. Also, flowing from under the glacier was a river, it hides within this vast valley on the opposite side I stood here. This area of New Zealand is a must see if you are on the South Island.
Pebble Beach
No this isn’t the golf course but rather a beach right by the train station at the town of Kaikoura, New Zealand. I was looking through my old photos yesterday for a wedding slideshow and was taken down memory lane. So I thought I would share some of the photos I found over the next few days. They aren’t perfect, they are taken with just a Pentax 8mp point and shoot, but they are from a trip of a life time that opened my eyes up to the world and photography. This trip took me 43,000 miles through Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand, and Australia. It was during these 94 days where the passionate seed for photography was planted in me. I look back at all of these pictures and think to myself, “Man, if I knew what I do now and have the equipment I have now, I would have a lot of awesome photos!” Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. I will one day (hopefully soon) return to these places. The people, cultures, food, and scenery have left a mark on my heart.
In this photo I personally love the mist coming of off the ocean in distance and the sunlight giving it that yellowish tint.
Cheers!
He’s Praying Over You…
I hope everyone had a great weekend. Mine got better after I got my computer up and running. Since my photo week fell short on Friday because of those computer troubles I thought I would do one more photo of the giant bug sculptures today. I have gotten a lot of very positive feedback on this mini series. I wanted to say thank you very much for those kind words. This image is of the praying mantis that was placed in the center of where my fiancée and I wanted to get married. Wouldn’t this have been cool to have in the background of our photos? haha. We’ll see what our photographer can do with the bugs for our photos after the ceremony, he is a fun and creative guy. Check him out over at http://www.taber-photography.com/. Let me know if you have any creative poses to help us out from the few photos you’ve seen. I really wish there would have been more clouds in the sky but the flat blue keeps the mantis the main focus of the image. Enjoy!
Spider Trumps Mosquito
Today’s image is dedicated to my photo buddy Mr. Chris Nitz (Check his awesome site out, http://www.chrisnitz.com) who hoped for a spider to come along and eat the annoying mosquito from yesterday’s post. I also wondered what Chris did. Why would someone create a sculpture, what I think to be, the most annoying bug on the planet. Correct me if I’m wrong but do you know of any more annoying bugs than a mosquito?
Attack of the Ants!
RUN THEY’RE COMING FOR US!!! AHHHHHH!!!!
I couldn’t resist, but on serious note. The local botanical gardens in Ames, Reiman Gardens, is a gorgeous place to walk around during the spring. Recently started a tradition of having interesting themes placed throughout the gardens. Last year it was gnomes all over, this year it is giant bugs. I mean these guys are all super sized! This ant is about 7-8 feet tall and 15 feet long. It just so happens that my fiancé and I will be tying the knot at Reiman in less then a month! Where we originally planned on walking down the aisle they placed a giant praying mantis. I thought it would be cool to have him in the background of our wedding photos, but unfortunately my soon to be wife didn’t. I honestly think all of these bugs are seriously cool and well done. They are actually tasteful in the gardens. Who would have thought?
Ashton & Jennie
Happy Friday everyone!
I thought I would end our week in Madison County with a love story. This is an image from within one of the covered bridges. Unfortunately all of the bridges I came across had graffiti like this all over them. Most of the tags were clean with people stating the date that they visited or confessing their love for one another. Out of all the markings, Ashton & Jennie made sure theirs was the biggest in the bridge. They wanted to make sure we knew about their love.
But I didn’t post this image because of Ashton and Jennie. I posted this image because of something weird going on with the horizontal beams on the right side. I can’t decide if they were warped in real life or if my lens warped them. Its funny because its only on the right side and not the left. I figure if it was the lens that the distortion would be on both sides of the frame. What do you think? What would be the best way to fix this?
Thanks for your input! I hope everyone has a great weekend!
Sculpted by Glaciers
As I drove through Madison County, I felt like I was driving through a different state. It was very hilly compared to where I grew up in Iowa. This was caused by the glaciers thousands of years ago. I believe these hills are part of the tip of the Des Moines glacial lobe. The glaciers made their way down from Canada pushing all of this soil down to Iowa. And boy did they do a fine job sculpting the landscape in this area.
Hogback Bridge
The Hogback Bridge is one of several covered bridges I came across down in Madison County. It was a gorgeous spot in the rivers valley. I didn’t take too many contextual shots on this trip because the trees hadn’t leaved out yet. I’ll get some more on the next journey.
Adam Olson 