Thursday, February 16, 2006

Photo safari




I went on a photo safari today with Josh & Lanette. It was a bit dodgy at first -- the clouds were positively dreary and we all were in the mood for chipper shots, but once the sun went down, the photos got interesting. :) As always, clicking the photos makes them larger (in this case, much larger) in a new window.






As you can see, when we can't find anything to point our cameras at, we point them at each other.






This was in a park in a small town south of Lincoln. Lanette's hands almost froze solid and shattered!






Josh and Lanette were trying to take some cheesy self-portrait and, being the attention whore that I am, I jumped in and said "HEY, EVERYBODY! WATCH MY HEAD ASPLODE!"






Lanette sighed and wandered away, while Josh seemed disinterested. "NO, REALLY! I'LL DO IT AGAIN!"






Josh asked me to take this photo. (Best read in a slow deadpan, a'la Ben Stein): "Hi, I'm Josh Fiddler of Fiddler Corn and Grain. Come on down people. Come on down. Come on down to Josh Fiddler Corn and Grain before February twentieth and get a free ear of corn. Bring the family. Fiddler Corn and Grain. The best prices on mid-grade corn in Lancaster County, or your next bushel is twenty percent off."






Eventually I decided to start looking for abstractish stuff...






And shapes and colors and forms.



We did a dinner break at this point and chowed down on by far the bloodiest steaks and burgers we've ever seen. Yeah, I know -- burgers ain't supposed to be bloody. Neither are steaks, in my opinion -- but eventually, after sending it back enough, you realize that the cook has no idea what he's doing and you just eat what you've got and make a mental note to tell everyone in the world on the internets that "BJ's Family Resturant (yes, that's its real name) east of Lincoln off highway 2 is a great place to eat... if you want to DROWN IN COLD COW BLOOD!"






After dinner, I found this wonderfully lit church on top of a small hill. A bunch of bulb shots ensued!














On our way back to Lincoln, I noticed that Lincoln was really glowing something fierce onto the low cloud deck -- and it was visible from more than 30 miles away. However, I didn't think this would look very cool in a photo. Josh talked me into going down an old county road until, lo and behold, we all found a windmill. A windmill makes any photograph work! :)






Waaay cool photos. The wide shot of this is something I'll probably make an 11x14 of; it looks much nicer at full resolution than it is here, even in the larger window. These were bulb shots for 1 minute or so at f/9. First was at 17mm, second at 35. (More like 26mm and 49mm after the 1.6 form-factor crop of the 20D)



All in all, an awesome night! Tons of fun and well worth the time and gas. :) Josh's cat, you agree, right?






MEOW!

3 comments:

Ryan McGinnis said...

Yup! Posted at like 12:30 AM at that. :)

We had a good half-inch of snow on the ground when I woke up this morning. I'm glad the storm held off until today!

Anonymous said...

The swing picture is beyond amazing. I wish I could see stuff the way you do.

-- Josh

Ryan McGinnis said...

Ha, I often think the same thing about your stuff! Maybe we can trade souls and then we'll both be happy? ;)