Category Photography

I haven’t been to a Glenwood home game since I graduated ten years ago, but I decided I’d go to the game today since it was a playoff game, and I’d get to take some shots.  I used my 70-300mm lens for the whole game and shot from the upper half of the bleachers.  It was a mostly good vantage point, with the only downside being sometimes people in front of me got in my way and messed up a few shots, but over all, no big deal.  I ended up picking this shot because I like the lighting in it.  The day was mostly overcast, with the sun breaking through only a few times.  I liked the shadows made by the players in the late afternoon autumn sun.

“Playoff”

I was in Chicago earlier this week for work and we stayed at the Palmer House downtown.  It was a very nice hotel, and I found this in the elevator lobby.  From a little research online, this was an Elevator display panel from the 60’s.  I felt it was pretty neat looking, and a bit Art-Deco’ish, which I thought was cool.  It was a spur of the moment shot, but I really like it as it’s not something you see very often, and they definitely don’t make them like this any more.

“Selectomatic”

I decided to make this week an easy week, but also take a photo that had a story to it that I could share with you, and what better than one of our cats we rescued?  This big guy was one of our free cats we have taken in.  My wife has a soft spot for cats, which has sort of rubbed off on me.  Several years ago in the wee hours of the morning, my then girlfriend woke me up around 4am and put this skinny bag of bones gray kitty on the bed with me and told me to watch him, she had one more to get.  Since I was still waking up, I thought she was just messing with me.  We have another gray cat and that’s who I thought this was.  After I got my wits about me I could see this one was obviously not our’s.  The story goes she had been hearing a kitty crying outside all night.  She finally decided to go find it, and it was stuck up a tree.  Except it wasn’t the one she brought me, but instead a black kitty.  While she was trying to get the black kitty out of the tree, this gray one ran up to her as well.  So, she brought him in, and got the black one out of the tree as well.  We figured they were brothers since they appeared to be the same age, and they seemed to be hanging out together outside.  I told her we could call them Blackie and Grayie for the week or two it took to find them new homes.  I figured calling them by their color would not allow us to get too attached to them.

I was wrong.

All that being said though, these two kitties ended up being two of the best cats we own.  They’re both very good cats and have two very distinct personalities.  Grayie seems to have the attitude of pretending to not like you, but he’s the one that demands the most love in the house.  He’s always hanging around you and wanting to jump in your lap.

Just today I was working on my computer and I turned around, and there he was laying in the chair behind me, just looking up at me with those giant innocent eyes of his.

“Grayie”

Another busy week for us and another wedding to go to.  This makes our fourth wedding this year, not counting our own!  I was trying to get a shot like this and it ended up coming out pretty good.  I shot in shutter priority and set it for 1/200th.

Congratulations Emmy and Jake!

“Bride”

Saturday I went to Taylorville’s Chilifest which is held on the town square.  I was there plenty early and caught their cheerleader and dance shows, and I took around 300 pictures.  After that was over I went and sampled some of the chili around the square.  While tasting the little cups of deliciousness, I saw a man sharing his cup with his friend who waited patiently for it.  A spur of the moment snap I took and it ended up being my favorite one of the whole day!

“Best Friends”

Wow, only 12 photos left until my project is complete.  I can’t believe it, this year has just flown by.  I had a busy week this week as my main computer which I do all of my photo editing died last Sunday (luckily I had last week’s photo already scheduled to post).  So I spent a lot of time this week building and setting up my new machine.  This didn’t leave much time for me to get out and shoot, but I did manage to get some time in today.  This is my favorite time of year.  I have always loved fall, with all of the leaves changing colors and the great weather we finally get in central Illinois.  I decided to try and capture some of nature’s beauty of the season.  I will also probably try and squeeze in more fall pictures while the season lasts, but we’ll see what happens.

“Autumn”

There were so many pictures from Las Vegas to choose from it was once again difficult to pick just one (however the you can find the rest over in my Picasa web albums).  This one was a fun one to shoot.  Bellagio’s fountain goes off periodically and put on a great water and light show.  There is just something about watching a water show in the middle of the desert that is pleasantly ironic.  Lugging my tripod wasn’t too bad since it came with a nice carry case and it is pretty light, so snagging a long-exposure of the water show was pretty easy.  This particular shot was exposed for 1 second with an aperture of f/5.6

“Oasis”

Constructed from 1931 through 1936 during the Great Depression, Hoover Dam is primarily a method of water reclamation, to supply water to California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming.  It is built in Boulder Canon, on the Nevada and Arizona border.  The Dam’s hydroelectric turbines, generating 4.2 billion killowatt hours of electricity a year for Nevada, Arizona, and California, is a bonus to the Dam’s main purpose of water reclamation.

My wife and I were fortunate enough to be able to come to Las Vegas, and there was absolutely no way I was going to miss out on one of the great engineering accomplishments in the world while I was here.  It is simply amazing.

The photo is a panoramic photo, stitched together from three separate images.

“Hoover Dam”