Little Augie

I am one proud Daddy! 

My wife and my son.

I thought long and hard about what I wanted to say about this picture and finally realized, there is nothing to say.

I know, another picture of my stinky cat. I am sorry. I took this one while playing around with my new flash. I need to get familiar with it before my son arrives. As soon as he gets here, I promise, there will be no more pictures of Charlie. Well, at least not as many. 

Check out my cat looking at me like I am the crazy one.  Stoopid kat.

Minnesota State Fair

Ahh, the Great Minnesota Get Together. 100,000 people pushing around, trying to get to the next food stand.  It is food on a stick. Everything you can think of... on-a-stick. Pickles, on-a-stick. Shrimp, on-a-stick. Even Summit Beer, on-a-stick. It is ALL about food, food and then some more food.

Yep, more food. It seems there is a pronto pup stand on every single corner.

If you are able to pull yourself away from the hundreds of food stands, there are a couple of rides you can check out.

And when you can't find the food you want or the ride you like, you sit down in the middle of the road and pout. 

This one I don't understand. I kept asking my gal what makes grown people wear these ridiculous hats during the state fair. I mean, really!

Another beautiful hat. Its like Minnesotas version of the Kentucky Derby. Ridiculous. Yes, that is a walleye on his head.  

I took this photo with my iPhone on the tracks behind work in St. Louis Park. I first made some adjustments to it in the App, Dynamic Light. I then uploaded it to Instagram and put the "Early Bird" effect on it. 

Independence Day

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

My gal and I sat up by the Smith Bridge on Monday night to view the 4th of July fireworks over the Mississippi River in St. Paul. This was my first attempt at fireworks photos. Overall, I think I am pretty happy with the way most of them turned out. Although, next time I will work harder to NOT sit right behind a bush. Here are ten of my favorites. All of these were taken with a Canon 28-135mm lens set at f/8, ISO-100, focal length 47mm and the shutter was open for 6 seconds. 

Nine Mile fishing

My gal and I were walking along Nine Mile Creek yesterday when I saw these two boys fishing. It reminded me of when I was younger and how my friends and I could spend whole days down by the creek fishing. There is nothing better to a young boy than summer vacation!

Downtown St. Paul I94/35E

I know, I know, another photo from my balcony. This was taken last summer when I was just starting to play around with shutter speeds. I really like the look of the clouds and the lights. Also, I must have caught a plane in the upper right hand corner as it comes into Holman Field here in St. Paul.

Lily pad

Last 4th of July, my gal and I spent the weekend at a friends cabin in northern Minnesota. I was taking pictures of their dog jumping off the dock when I looked down and saw this lily pad. I liked how the water droplets were just sitting on the pad. After a few adjustments in Photoshop, this is what is left.

Body - Canon 50D
Lens - 28-135mm 3.5-5.6
Aperture - f/5.6
Exposure - 1/1600 secs
ISO - 3200
Focal length - 112mm

Minnetonka

 

This photo keeps randomly popping up on my screen saver and I like looking at it. It was taken in a park in Minnetonka that I would drive by while delivering out there. I am not sure of the parks name but it is located on Victoria St just south of Day Place. 

Body - Canon 50D

Lens - 28-135mm 3.5-5.6

Aperture - f/5.6

Exposure - 1/200 secs

ISO - 100

Focal length - 28mm

Basilica of St. Mary

I was asked to take photos of a party in downtown Minneapolis. The party was on top of the Eitel Building on Willow Street. The view from the roof had amazing views of Loring Park and the Basilica of St. Mary. As the sun went down this photo presented itself.

Body - Canon 50D
Lens - 28-135mm 3.5-5.6
Aperture - f/5.6
Exposure - 1/50 secs
ISO - 3200
Focal length - 85mm

Buddies

A friend from work asked a bunch of us up to his cabin on Big Kandiyohi Lake in Minnesota for a relaxing weekend. After a full day of boating, skiing and drinking beer, a storm moved into the area. A couple of buddies, Kevin and Theron, wanted to watch the incoming storm from the end of the dock. I shot this photo as they took in the show.

Body - Canon EOS 50D
Lens - Canon 28-135mm 3.5-5.6
f-stop - f/5.6
exposure - 1/30 seconds
ISO - 1600
focal length - 122mm

Memorial Day

This is the headstone of my Uncle Fred at Fort Snelling National Cemetery. This is one of two stops I make every Memorial Day. The other is to Cavalry Cemetery in St. Paul to say thanks to Josias King, the first man to enlist for the Union in defense of our country in the Civil War.
Please take some time on this day to remember the brave men and women who have given up everything so the rest of us can have our freedom.

Howe Elementary School

As I was delivering in South Minneapolis, I noticed this school. It is the Howe Elementary School on 37th St and 43rd Ave. It looked so empty and deserted. The first thing I noticed was this sign and the bushes that almost completely covered it.
f/4 - 1/125 sec - ISO 100 - 41mm

I liked this photo because of the shoe left in front of the door. I thought that it really captured the whole theme of desertion.
f/4.5 - 1/200 sec - ISO 100 - 60mm

As I was driving by, I could almost hear the children laughing, screaming and running around. I imagined a bell signalling the end of recess or the school day. The school may not be talking now but it's past will speak forever.
f/3.5 - 1/320/ sec - ISO 100 - 28mm

All photos taken with Canon EOS 50D body and EF 38-135mm 3.5-5.6 lens

Split Rock Lighthouse II

I had not planned on posting another photo of the lighthouse until I saw something in this one. As I was messing around with it in Photoshop, I noticed their are two windows that are reflecting the scenery. The one on the bottom of the lighthouse is reflecting the sky and the one on the top is reflecting the lake and the shore. It is probably all nothing really, I just thought it was neat.

Body - Canon EOS 50D
Lens - EF 28-135 1:3.5-5.6
Settings - f/9 1/400 sec ISO 320 30mm
Software - Photoshop 6.0

Music in Mears

Again, I am not sure I really like manipulating photos after the fact but here is another attempt. This was a photo taken last summer at a Downtown St. Paul event called, Music in Mears. This is a friend of mine, Martin Devaney, and his long time band mate, Jake Hyer. You can catch these two playing at almost all of the many clubs around the Twin Cities. 

Split Rock Lighthouse

I normally don't mess around with the photo after it has been taken. Meaning, I don't use software to make it look better. I don't know if that makes me a purist, stubborn or maybe even ignorant. Quite possibly, it is all three. Either way, I did take this cliche photo of Split Rock Lighthouse last year on a trip with my gal and decided to start screwing around with the color saturation and contrast and all of that crap. This is the result of my experiment. I am not sure what I think. I may continue to toy around with some photos but will still try to keep things "real" with the old SOC (Straight Out of the Camera.) The photo was taken with an EF 28-135 mm lens set at f/9, exposure - 1/250, ISO - 250 and focal length - 135 mm

Minnehaha Falls II

More from Minnehaha Falls. This bridge is a couple hundred feet from the falls. For this shot, I left the shutter open for 2 secs with f/22 and 100 ISO.

Update:  I have been shopping HDR software for sometime. It can all be very confusing, frustrating and expensive. So imagine my happiness when I was turned onto this $.99 app from iTunes for my iPhone. I can take pictures with it from my iPhone or run photos from my camera through it. The second photo is after some editing in the app. It is called Dynamic Light. Thank you @StPaulPhotos.

Minnehaha Falls

I was running a route in South Minneapolis last week and noticed a couple of old schools that I wanted to shoot. I went back today to see if I could get a couple good shots. I went over the pics while drinking a glass of wine at a local wine bar and sadly, I wasn't all that pleased with anything I took. I was really hoping for some good black and white photos. Who knows, maybe I will like a couple of them after not seeing them for awhile. Anyway, I wasn't planning on going to Minnehaha Falls on my trip but I was too close to leave without a visit. I am very happy I decided to stop. I got a couple of photos that may rank up there with my favorites. I opened the shutter on this one to 1.3 seconds to get the "flowing" feeling with the falls here. F-stop was at f/18 with an ISO at 100. I may go to the falls more often to see if I can find more of these gems.  

Charlie the cat

When I get bored at home, I will take out my camera and attempt to take shots of our unsuspecting cat, Charlie. Sometimes, I don't really know if he is as unsuspecting as I think. Actually, I am pretty sure he suspects I am a moron as he tends to get very irritated when I am pointing my lens just inches from his face. But, for all the times he wakes me up at 4 a.m. with a crash of something, somewhere, I really don't give a s@#t what he thinks.

Floating roses

Not really a whole lot to explain here. I kept on walking past this bowl of water with roses on the way to the restroom at a wedding a few weeks ago. I looked at it every time and finally decided to go back with my camera. Beck's Beer with the assist on this one.

Harriet Island

I went down to the river to get some night pictures of downtown when I noticed this couple. Unfortunately, I was a little slow with these two. Seconds before I shot this, they were locked in a kiss. I would have liked to have gotten that one.

Dad

This picture was taken some time ago. The quality may not be the best, but with this photo, it is all about the content. This is my father. I was on vacation in January 2005 and decided to drive to St. James and spent a little quality time with the Ol' Man. On this particular afternoon we were driving around the area of his boyhood home, Balaton, Mn. He would point out all the farm houses and let me know who lived there and if they were related to him or just friends. It seems he knew every single farm! He would also talk of riding his horse over to this farm or that and how they would play cowboys and indians or head into the woods and hunt anything that moved. He was truly moved back in time over 50 years and at times he seemed as though he was still seeing things as they were in 1950. For this photo, I was standing in the gravel road as he stood looking at the field that used to be the farm on which he grew up. His parents moved from that farm in 1972 and into the big city of Slayton, Mn. I am not sure how long the run down farm stood empty at this spot, but I do have some very old memories of driving by it as a boy and Dad would get a tear in his eye as we slowly passed the lot. It was amazing watching him standing and looking into what I thought was empty farm field and trying to imagine what he was seeing. This was one of my most fond memories with my father and now, as the sight of his farm would once bring a tear to his eye, it brings one to mine. I miss you Pops.

Gauge

This is a picture of a friends dog, Gauge. My gal and I spent the 4th of July with our friends and Gauge in northern Mn in 2010. We spent quite a bit of time throwing just about everything in the water for Gauge to fetch. I can't help but wonder if he was waiting for me to throw my camera in the lake for him to fetch.

Target Field seats

Another photo from the home of my favorite 9, Target Field. This was taken in 2010 at the open house a few weeks before the opener.

Wicker Park

This was taken underneath the Blue line train in Chicago's Bucktown/Wicker Park neighborhood. My gal and I frequent this neighborhood for its eateries, bars and shopping. The place we never miss while there is Piece Brewery and Pizzeria. Some of the best pie and beer we have had on our travels. Check it out.

St. Paul sky

I woke up early to give myself extra time to get to a training session for work. I normally don't do this. I have a bad habit of cutting things down to the minute. I was waiting for the elevator when I noticed this sky. I was very fortunate that morning. I had time to go back to my condo to get my camera for a couple shots before I had to go. In the end, I made the training on time... barely.

St. Louis Park treehouse

I drive by this, this mansion quite a bit as it is close to where I work. This has to be the biggest and coolest tree house ever! Lucky little shits.

City deer

I left work in a hurry tonight. I was trying to get a couple of shots of downtown while the sun was setting. On my way, I saw these deer off the side of the road. I spent about 20 minutes taking photos and just watching. In all, there were about 10 of them. I was amazed at how calm they were. It was like I wasn't even there.

p.s. I didn't get my skyline photos. Maybe tomorrow.

Surly Furious

I recently bought a new Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens. This was one of the first photos I took. Nothing special, I just like bokeh. Oh, the Surly Furious is pretty good too.

Target Field

Not really a whole lot to say about this one expect this is the home of my favorite 9. The Metrodome will always hold a very special place in my heart but it was time to go. I am so happy we have a stadium like Target Field in Minnesota. Play ball!

Mystery Lake

This photo was a complete surprise. I was at a friend's cabin for the weekend by Siren, Wisconsin. After eating breakfast on Sunday at a purported Al Capone hideout, I headed for home. Before leaving, my host gave me some incorrect directions. I was driving for 15 minutes before I finally decided I was heading in the wrong direction. Upon looking for a place to turn around I found this beautiful pond. I believe it is called Mystery Lake. I wanted to stay longer but the only thing I could get on my radio was the Packers/Bears game. I had to get home!