Just a couple of belated shots posted here. As always, please visit my Flickr Photostream for more!
Photos
100% my photos.
Don McLaughlin, one of my contacts on Flickr, encouraged me to attend this event. I was only able to make it to the Friday evening opening ceremonies, but I managed to get some great shots. Next year, I think I’ll try to spend more time at the event. For more information, please visit the White Eagle Pow Wow Web site.
Please check out the Des Moines Flickr Friend Photowalk Group for more photos from this event and other Photowalks by this group. And, as always, be sure to check out the slideshow and set on Flickr for more of my photos from this event.
Hand Painted Tipi
Grand Entry Dancers
Grand Entry Dancers
Grand Entry Dancers
Des Moines Eagle Claw Acrobalance Team
Here are a few photos from my last trip to the Des Moines Farmers’ Market. As always, there are more photos on my Flickr feed and a slideshow.
Here’s a selection of photos from my visit to the Des Moines Farmers’ Market on July 9th. My wife and I have discovered that it pays to go early — both for shopping and making photos. Later in the day, the crowd gets a bit thick and it gets more difficult to move about and get a clear shot.
As always, please visit the set on Flickr or view the slideshow for more photos!
Once again, I spent some time visiting with my parents over Memorial Day weekend. Mom just got a new camera from Dad for their 40th anniversary, and I chipped in with some accessories and an afternoon tutorial as an early birthday gift. After waiting as long as we could stand for the battery to charge, we took a miniature photo walk around her garden/yard. The following are a few of my photos from that session.
As always, be sure to click through on any images you like to see the larger size on Flickr.com, or view the slide show here.
Spent some time last weekend in my parents’ yard photographing the first emerging plants of spring and other scenery around their home. All of these photos were taken with my 50 mm macro lens. After enjoying these, please stop by my Flickr photostream to see more from this set.
On our recent trip to Chicago, we decided to spend a morning at the Chicago History Museum. Here are a few selected photos from that visit, with more available in the Flickr set.
Diorama of the Great Chicago Fire
Flintlock Rifle
Silent Movie Camera
I recommend putting this museum on your list of “must see places” in Chicago.
My wife and I took a mini vacation to Chicago last weekend. This was our second trip to Chicago, the previous being way back in 2003. Back then, we visited both the (then) Sears Tower (now, Willis Tower) Skydeck and the John Hancock Observatory. While the Skydeck is definitely taller, you simply cannot beat the view from the Hancock Observatory. The John Hancock Center tower is much closer to Lake Michigan (see this map), therefore you get a better mix of lake and city views. This time around, we skipped the Skydeck and opted instead for the more scenic JHO. Here are a few photos from that excursion.
Chicago Hancock Observation Deck North Shore
Chicago Hancock Observation Deck 900 N Michigan Ave
Chicago Hancock Observation Deck South Shore
My wife and I both agree. Unless you have a compelling reason to say you’ve “been there,” skip the taller Willis Tower Skydeck in favor of spending more time at the John Hancock Observatory. You won’t regret it!
Let me take a moment to promote my Wife’s new food blog, Girl Meets Oven. She has spent a lot of time and effort getting this blog started, and we hope it becomes a smash hit. We’ve also joked (more seriously than joking, though) that we will need to get a treadmill and start working out more with all these yummy baked goods around.
As always, there is a full set of these photos available on my Flickr Photostream. Please take a moment after reading this post to explore them (or just jump right there). Every one of these photos was taken with a very basic setup consisting of my Canon 50D with a Bower SFD 52C flash on top, typically pointed at 60 to 90 degrees from the focal plane. All were taken with my new favorite lens for use around the house, my Sigma 50 mm f2.8 macro lens. I played with adjusting my flash exposure compensation a bit, and found that backing it off by 1/3rd to 2/3rds of a stop sometimes gave a bit better result, depending on where the flash was bouncing.
First off, we’ll start with our busy worker bee, who found herself the subject of my photo while concentrating on composing her own photo.
Next, let’s take a close up look at some of the key ingredients of the cookies she was baking. Here are some cherry and chocolate chips, mixed together in a bowl:
And another macro shot of some ground cinnamon and nutmeg (I think):
Here’s another ingredients shot. We’ve got a mix of walnuts, dried cherries and chocolate chips in a coffee mug:
And finally, a few images of the finished product:
And again, there are more photos in this set, so hop on over to my Flickr page to check them out! No, I didn’t help much with the preparation and baking of the cookies. In fact, I probably got in the way a lot. But when it came time to eat these tasty cookies, I was more than ready to offer my taste buds up for the challenge!
Now, on to shopping for a treadmill. . .
Another really simple post this time. Just wandered around the house and grabbed these images.
Here are two variations on the same photo of our cockatiel, Birdie.
I like the top version better because I think the colors pop. Lori likes the bottom version better because she says it is softer. The bottom one is pretty much exactly as it came off the camera, after a bit of cropping.
Birdie was a “rescue” from a friend. Birdie had a run-in with one of their cats and was injured, so they decided she needed a new home. She has since fully recovered and can fly around just fine.
Here’s a photo of Lori preparing the evening meal. Red potatoes are my favorite, but I’m not a big fan of how she handles that knife.
