BUGS, BUGS, BUGS!!!

So it is summer and what does that mean? It means its time for bug photography again. Here are some of the images I have been working on over the last few days. All images were taken with a Canon 20D and a 100mm macro lens. The first is of a juvenile praying mantis. This creature hatched from one of two egg sacs that were on a patch of prairie grass in front of my house. These the images were taking utilizing natural lighting.




This image is of a monstrous wolf spider my friend caught the other day. This thing was HUGE! When we were taking pictures of this guy he jumped of the drop cloth and me and my friend jumped and screamed like little girls. My wife couldn't stop laughing at us. Finally the spider (and us) chilled out long enough to pull off some images. Image was taken using 2 studio strobe lights.





There are some small creatures that look rather cute close up (like the above wolf spider). On the other hand there are some freaky creatures that look outright evil. Check out the below spider from my garden. This guy looks like he would be straight from a horror movie.

Last night we had a few storms in Papillion. After the first storm everything turned orange and we had this full rainbow behind my house. I started noticing that the storm was still going behind the rainbow. I grabbed my camera and started shooting away. I was able to pull the image below off holding the camera and eye balling when the lighting was hitting.

After I took that shot I went to the front of my house to see an amazing sunset. There was two problems. The first was that there was not a good vantage point for a landscape at my current position. The second was that we had lost the power in the neighborhood and I could not get my car out of the garage. Looking down the street I noticed my buddy had his sons car out in the road. So me, him and another friend grabbed our cameras and took of to Walnut Creek Recreational area where I had just enough time to nab the middle shot.

After the sun went down we stuck around taking lighting shots in the dark, see the last photo. It was pretty impresive. The bummer was when we got home we still had no power so we were unable to work on our photos until the next day. Hope you enjoy the shots as much as I did taken them.

Over the last weekend my dad and I decided to skip town and photograph the burrowing owls of western Kansas. After a 6 hour car ride we discovered that the owls were not where they were the previous year. So we hopped back into the car for another hour to another location we have been researching. Well regretfully the owls were not there either. Instead of searching another day for the illusive owls we decided it would be best if we switched our focus to landscapes. About an hour away from our current location was the Chalk Pyramids. This is a rock formation that was left over from a vast inland sea. The first two images below are from there. We waited at this location for about 5 hours until we had the perfect light for the pictures below. I have also included several other images from my trip as well.

Recently I have been working on a project for Thanksgiving Lutheran Church. They have asked me to get some images for their web page. This is one of my favorite images from the project. If any of you have been to this building you know that it is rather large. I had difficulty fitting the whole building into the image. Even with the 5D (full sensor) body and a 17mm lens I could not fit everything in one frame. To solve this dilemma I took six images and stitched them together in CS3. I love the colors that the artificial lights give the structure and how the clouds add a dramatic element to the picture.

Nebraska Crossing Show

About a month ago I was approached to do a show with a couple of other local artist. The main purpose of the show was to share our work with local businesses. It went off great and I made a few good contacts as well as met several great artist. This was actually the first time I showcased some of my my color work so it was very exciting. The work is still up and can be viewed any time at the Nebraska Crossing Outlet Malls near Gretna.

Sandhill Cranes Part 2

Here are a few more images of the Sandhill Cranes. I took more of an artistic license with these using minor adjustments during RAW conversion to give a more dramatic look.

Sandhill Cranes

Last Friday a group of friends and I went to Kearney Nebraska to take pictures of the Sandhill Cranes. We piled in the car at 3:30 in the morning for the 2 hour trip. Though we should have all taken naps on the way down none of us could sleep because of the anticipation of the day that was to come. We arrived at where we were going to take our morning pictures at about 5:30. It was still dark out and we could hear the cranes all around us.

Regretfully there were not as many cranes on the Platte compared to my previous years here. The good news was that the birds were more active this year. They danced and played with corn stalks for us all morning. This is my favorite time to photograph them because when they are dancing it really brings out their personality. As the day moved into the afternoon the birds became really jumpy. So much so that they would fly off the moment they saw our car. We decided that this would be the best time to take a lunch break. After we filled our stomachs with some good barbecue we jumped back into the car for 6 more hours of shooting.

This day I tried out a 400mm 2.8 L Series lens with a 2.0 teleconverter. This gave me on my 20D about a 1200mm lens. The lens was considerably bigger and heavier than my 100-400mm L Series that I primarily use. So much so that I had to use a tripod for ever shot. Even though it was more cumbersome and time consuming to use I loved the lens. It offered superior optics and it was really really fast. If you ever get a chance to try out this lens I would recommend you jump on it, you will not regret it.

Here are a few shots from the day. I will be posting some more later this week so stay tuned.