I stopped in to Gail’s place again last week to shoot the Valentine’s line, and lo! she showed me the cover of February’s issue of Madison Magazine. “Did you see this?” she asked?I looked up from my light stand, “Sorry?”
“We’re on the cover!” says Gail.
And the rest is history.
If ever given the chance to go or not to go, for the sake of making art, you should always go.
—Chase Jarvis (on photography)Starting Monday, we started watching the forecast for Iowa, and it seemed to be a bad idea. But Friday was supposed to be nice. Unfortunatly, a storm was moving through on Wednesday, and would be hitting us on Thursday. But we left Thursday morning, in the snow. I had already cleared by driveway of 2″, and another 3-5″ were expected. I gave my wife a low-down on the snowblower earlier that morning. We drove from Madison to Dubuque and stopped for lunch. It was still snowing, even though we had expected it to clear up but Iowa. Once in Iowa, in the open plains, we experienced white-out driving and drifts over the interstate. It was amazing.
We made it early evening, and stopped at the wind farm for some sunset-like photos (except it was super cloudy by the time we got there). I think some of the photos will still be kind of neat and the company will want them.
Friday morning we ate breakfast and had “coffee” at the hotel and drove out to the wind farm. We arrived around civil twilight and i set up. it. was. fantastic. i almost forgot to shoot, it was so beautiful. But the temps were -30F in the wind, and it is windy in Iowa.
Anyway, above is a picture of me in a snow swept field in full cold weather/hazard gear shooting in -10 (-30f wind chill) at sunrise. In this shot, i had my canon 40d with 70-200 f2. IS. On the tripod i had my 7d set for 10-sec delay with Tokina 12-24 f4.
A few days behind, but this morning i found myself catching up on some blogs, and read an interview with Ray Ketcham on Mark’s JerseyStyle Photography blog. Of all the advice and insight Ray packed into his responses, one witty remark made me chuckle. then write it down. and now i’m sharing it with you. “Nikon and Canon [etc]…the stuff going on in my head isn’t brand specific.” How deep is that? It’s not the tool, the medium, or the outlet, it’s the result. Good find, Mark.
| It was a dark and stormy ‘morn when I drove into the flooded parking lot of Gail Ambrosius Chocolatier. I turned my collar against the rain and splashed through puddles to bang on the delivery door. Gail opened the door and welcomed me in, a little too cheerful this early on a dreary Saturday. We did some quick chit-chat then I braved back out in to the storm and unloaded the gear. We. Had. A. Blast. And Glass Nickel Pizza for lunch. Gail and her team make a great series of chocolate (i’m not just sayin’ that, my wife agrees).
Below are some of my favorite photos, but not necessarily my favorite chocolates (ahem! Blueberry, Gail, I’m just sayin’!) |
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Caramels |
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Shiitake Mushroom |
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Cointreau |
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Rose |
One of my favorite “set it-and-forget-it pieces of software, SoundSource by Rogue Amoeba was disabled in Snow Leopard. We were now faced with opt-clicking on the volume button to get different output selections. This was like driving a ferrari and suddenly finding yourself in a renault. It worked and got you places, but wasn’t any fun anymore. Now i can split system sounds to computer speakers and music to my headphones, etc… I assumed, incorrectly, since Sound Source was free, it wouldn’t be updated. My Bad. This might not be new to some of you, but i just found out (and downloaded) the Snow Leopard version. Thanks Rogue Amoeba, i should have had more faith (especially since i own two other of your softwares, Airfoil (way cool!) and Audio Hijack Pro.
SOPHISTICATED SONIC SELECTION
SoundSource is a tiny application for Mac OS X enabling you to switch your audio input and output sources with a single click, and even adjust their volume settings.
New in 2.5:
SoundSource is now a stand-alone application, compatible with Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and requiring Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) or higher.
This really isn’t a photography entry, but it’s something that really bugged me and I thought i’d share it.
Quicktime X vs Quicktime 7 Pro registration
Snow Leopard comes with Apple’s new Quicktime X, which seems pretty nice in and of itself. If you upgrade from Leopard, and have Quicktime Pro, don’t worry, it’s now in your Utilities folder.
Get a new machine and migrate your old one? You’ve lost Pro. Don’t worry, there’s documentation available at Apple Support…basically pull out your install DVD and you can install QT 7 from there. Before wiping out your old drive, retrieve your prefs/registration.
Quicktime X shows all the clutter of your working environment.
Solution: Spaces and a little app called SpaceSuit.
Moving QTX (and QT7) to a different Space, allows me to have nothing else in the background. Except my desktop wallpaper. SpaceSuit allows me to change the background to whatever I want, which I made a 90% black wallpaper. I know have a “theater” in which to watch my videos.
The clutter involved with quicktime x is appalling.
Using SpaceSuit and Spaces, clean up your quicktime video watching
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Fall Anemone amidst prairie grasss and others. natural lighting.
Those awful, awful, loud bug the end of summer are Cicadas (in America anyway). Coworker found this dead guy and a luna moth on the front porch. Anyway, wanted to treat this guy with respect, but since they are so hated by most, i wanted to do so in a creepy way. Then i thought: Jersey Style a la Mark K — Jersey Style a la Mark K (Not that he’s creepy, i mean, but he’s got this Noir thing).
STROBIST: Canon 580EXII TTL gridded flash directly above with green gel (not that it comes through on this version). 2nd flash my right with built-in Canon wireless slave. Hobby style printer paper left of bug as reflector.
100mm macro lens. Used Lightroom to create greyscale then add split toning.
Granted, i can’t say i’ve seen every gun spinning trick rider extraordinaire out there, but award winning Brian Bausch asked me to update his website and I was happy to help. This guy is amazing, check out some of his videos. He and his wife Paula (also award winning mounted shooter) do some unbelievable stuff.
