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.