Merritt Reservoir

A group of friends and I went up to Merritt Reservoir to near Valentine, NE last weekend to get pictures of the Milky Way. We shot from sun down to sun up. I could not believe how clearly you could see the stars out there. This is my favorite shot from that night.


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Aksarben Planet

This image was from a series I did at Aksarben Village. The images I got were your standard variety location shots so I decided to spruce the images up and did this funky rendition. This provides a total 360 degree view of the main strip in Aksarben Village.

Last Night's Storm

We had some pretty nice storms last night. When they started developing I jumped in my car with my trusty camera and hit the gravel roads. I was only able to get a few images before the wind and rain kicked into high gear. Here is one of the better shots form last night.

Hidden Image

Today I was going through my image banks trying to organizing my files. While I was doing this I discovered this image that I totally forgot taking. I really can't tell you much about this image except that it was taken near Indian Cave State Park in Nebraska. This is why I regularly go through my old images, I always discover pictures that I have overlooked.

Rosenblatt

Here is an image I took last year before they moved the Road to Omaha statue to Ameritrade Park. I finally finished the final touches on it today. Now that this last image is done maybe I will start working on some photos of the new stadium.

Baby Mantis

My boy Logan caught a small Praying Mantis this weekend. He couldn't wait to help me take pictures of it. My favorite is the image of Logan looking at the little green guy.

Omaha Part 2

Here are a few more or my downtown images of Omaha.

Omaha

A group of friend and I went out to take some shots of Omaha other night. It was an awesome night for photography, though when we got back I realized I was eaten alive by mosquitoes. I think I was bitten over 50 times. But you know, it is all worth it if you get a good shot.

Country Road

A good friend of mine and I went out to take sunset/full moon pictures the other night. We spent 2 hours driving around for a good vantage point to capture our subject but had no luck. On our way home, after giving up, we stumbled on this farmstead and cloud formation. Slamming on the breaks we got out of the car to set up our equipment. After taking a few images I set my exposure for 30 seconds and had my friend drive my car down the road. This gave the cool ghost line going through the image. I hope you all enjoy the image.

Rosenblat

So it is that time of year again. That time where talk of the College World Series is a buzz throughout Omaha. It is the first year that the games will be held at Ameritrade Park. I can't help but think about how they use to be held at Rosenblat Stadium. To me it will never be the same now that the Series has been moved away from this classic place. Here is a picture from the last game I attended at Rosenblat last year.

B&W Photography Magazine Merit Award

I just found out that a few of my images have been selected for publication in Black & White Photography Magazine. This is a national magazine that specializes in high end black & white photography. I was selected for a Merit Award for my insect photography. My work will be shown in issue 84 that will hit news stands in mid June or early July. Below I have included some of my insect images. These are not the ones that are in the magazine though. If you want to see those rush out to the news stand.

Hard Drive Adventures

The other night I was looking for a specific image I wanted to print out for a Mothers Day gift. I grabbed the hard drive the image was on and plugged it in. Well to my surprise I found that all the data on the hard drive was corrupted. Yup that is right, my hard drive and all my pictures on it were gone. The bummer was that this was the only back up I had for my Kansas trip I took last year. I was freaking out because there was two really great shoots from the trip that I did not want to loose. Well I was up to about 2 in the morning looking for the images. I eventually found them. These were the only two images I was able to find from the trip thought.

While I was looking frantically for these images I did find some other pictures I love that I have never done anything with. Since I have previously posted the Kansas pictures I decided to show you the other images I found. All these images are taken from rural Nebraska. The first is of Carhenge in Alliance. Next is of Courthouse and Jail Rock. The last image is of a misc country road outside of Papillion. Hope you enjoy.

Baby ELi

My youngest boy just turned 4 months and to mark this joyous occasion he took it upon himself to learn how to laugh. When I saw this I instantly grabbed my camera and started shooting. Though I did not get any good images of him laughing I did get some great smiles. There is something about a babies smile that brightens up your day :o)

Special Effects Fun

A few months ago I got the idea to do some fun special effects shots. Basically I wanted to combine people with elements (fire, water and air). This is an idea that I have had for several years but never forced myself to do until now. Here are the image I have come up with so far. I have a few more advanced concepts like these that I am itching to do in the future so keep an eye out.

Orta Lee Cameron

Recently I was given a few very old images of Orta Lee Cameron (better know as my Grandma) to restore. Looking at these images I started to think how interesting it is that we associate people only with our own personal experience with them. For instance with my Grandma I have always known her as the caring person who was always there to take care of me with a smile. She was always the one person I could run too if everything was falling apart. Whenever I visualize her in my head it is in my personal frame of reference though, a woman in her golden years of life. Never do I see here as (in physical form) as a different person. With looking at these images I am reminded that she was also a child not some much different from my children now. She was also a young woman about to experience love for the first time (with my Granddaddy). I am left thinking about the hundreds of other pictures of her that represent the history of my family. It is great that we have this media of photography that can capture not only an image but also one’s emotion and sense of being in time.

This all got me thinking, in the future how we will reflect on the past? Will we still have hard prints of images like the generation before us or will everything be digital. Will we be concerned with the older images or will they be forgotten and erased for the latest and greatest profile pictures. In the past people cherished family pictures because you only had a few and they usually were one of a kind. Now everything is digital and you can have hundreds of images at a click of the button. Does this devalue the images? Are pictures going to be less important to a family’s heritage? Time will tell. Me I still miss the days before digital where you had to work in the dark room for hours on one print. Man I’m getting old!!!

Sandhill Cranes 2011

It’s that time of year again. The time where I pack 100lbs of equipment into an off-roading vehicle, drive down to the Platte River at Kearney, NE at 4:00 am and shoot images of the Sand Hill Cranes. When we arrived in Kearny, at about 6:00 am, everything was still dark. We went to our usual hot spots to scope out if the birds were there. We ended up finding a good number at our usual location, War Axe. When the sun came up it was hidden behind a sky full of clouds. Finding ourselves a little bummed, we jumped into the car to scout out some other locations as we waited for the clouds to clear. The clouds did clear about a 1/2 hour later and we had perfect lighting for the rest of the day.

The best time for taking images of these birds is when they have left the riverbed after sunrise. It is this time that they go to the fields to eat spent corn from the earlier harvest. What is really nice about this time is that it is the time they play and dance. They communicate by dancing and throwing corn stalks into the air. This is what I love to photograph. The birds are so eloquent and graceful in their dancing. This is also the most difficult time to photograph them because they are really edgy and fly away for the smallest disturbance. I was rewarded this year because I spotted a Leucistic Crane dancing. These are cranes that are often mistaken for albinos because they are all white. Instead of missing the pigment of color, which would make it albino, they have the gene to make their feathers all white. Being very rare I was pleased to get an image of one spot on.

At the end of the day we gathered on the bridge close to the Minden Exit to watch the cranes return to the river for the night. Regretfully the birds were flying in east of our location so we were unable to get decent pictures. This was until the moon came above the horizon. When planning the trip I decided to go on a weekend with a full moon. This provided a great backdrop for some night photography. All I needed was for the cranes to cooperate and fly in front of the moon for a nice silhouette. Well the cranes had other plans. It seemed as though they were trying their best to fly over or under the moon leaving me empty handed. I had just about given up when one solitary bird flew right where I needed him to go. I pushed the shutter release and nailed the shot I have been waiting for, for several years. With that the day was over and it was time for the long trip back to Omaha.

We will end with the technical stuff. This year I rented a 300mm 2.8 IS Prime Canon L Series lens. Attached to this was a 2.0 Canon extender. This extender dropped my 2.8 to a 4.5. All this fun stuff was mounted to a Canon 20D. With the lens, extender and the cropped sensor on the 20D I had about a 960mm zoom. Last year I used the same body and extender with the 400mm 2.8 Prime. That lens was awesome but really cumbersome, needing a tripod for almost every shot. I am the kind of photographer who likes to run and gun, the 400mm was so big that this was not possible. The 300mm provided great optics with less weight and smaller lens size. This gave me great versatility, which allowed me to capture some really great shots that I would have missed with the 400mm lens.

My Wife

The other night my wife helped me out with a little side project. This project includes macro pictures of lips in different positions such as smiling frowning and so on. Well since she was all done up I decided to do a few head shots of her as well just for the fun of it. With looking at these pictures I realize how lucky I am to have her as a wife. I will publish some of the macro lip pictures in the near future.

Eli Part 2

Eli is growing so fast, he is now five weeks old and is no longer a new born. These are my latest images of him.

Sniffin Scents

When I am not doing photography I am working on graphic design. Recently I have been working on some design concepts for a new candle company called Sniffin Scents. My first project for this company was the designing of the logo shown below (also shown are some variant concept designs for the logo). Most recently I have completed some product shots for their website (www.sniffinscents.com).