Our New Intern

Finn is our new Intern. Not really for me and my photography but for 2100 Productions, the multi-media company we work for. He is staying with my wife and I while he is here in the states. Finn is from Norway so we will have a ton of fun...and he is a photographer so you will probobly see his face in future posts as well.

Technical: Wide angle zoom. The kicker is the really big and therefore soft light that is inches from his face.

Obama in Madison

Since I have never been to a political rally and we are hosting an intern from another country, I thought attending the Barack Obama rally in Madison last night would be a cultural experience. We waited in line outside in the bitter cold for about 30 min, raced to barely get seats, waited another hour and a half for a 30 min speech. This is an interesting country we live in. Aside from any political feelings for and or against him, Barack is an amazing speaker; articulate and personal...like a small town pastor speaking to his congregation. It was a lot of fun and I am really glad I went but a little disappointed my request for a press pass was submitted to late.


Technical: Sitting up in the top nose bleeds I was glad I had my telephoto zoom, but also wished I had something more powerful, also used a wide zoom. Funny thing: I was not let into the rally at first because of my camera. Not until the volunteers asked around did they get a cop that laughed and let me in. In all the fuss she didn't even frisk me either. Crazy eh?

Walking on Water

Living in the Midwest for the first time has a lot of interesting challenges and new things. Like a frozen lake. I have wanted to walk across this lake ever since we moved out here but never trusted myself. Today I got just that opportunity. Becky (co-worker from Texas) Finn (co-worker and house mate from Norway) and I (crazy Californian) decided to go out and take a chance, Becky and Finn really wanted to go ice fishing too but we didn't know how to go about that. As we were walking on the lake we saw a fishing hut off in the distance, all of us being from out of state (or the country) we were curious and decided to go check it out. What do we find? A fisherman that is just checking his lines and turns out has a bite! We had perfect timing! He was just pulling out a 31 inch Northerner from the lake. This thing was huge! Just then we also felt the snow coming, the beginnings of a 8-14 inch accumulation so we headed out, not before taking several pics first of course.

Tech: just carried one lens, the ultra wide zoom. loving it but could have gotten the same images with the wide zoom too. It is crazy how hard it is to take a picture that shows you on the middle of a large frozen lake.

Shannon and Joel

Urban Landscapes

Most of the time that I am out photographing nature I look for similar things; beautiful and interesting nature shots. I was challeneged at the most recent InterVarsity conference that I was photographing to a new way of seeing things. Taking a break from the conference for about an hour, Mike and I walked around the streets of Indianapolis to take photos. I was having a hard time at first until I realized that what I was looking for (pretty shots) was not what was here, I needed to change my thinking to see the shots that were all around me. Not that there were ugly things to take photos of but there were different scenes before my eyes. I soon learned to see beyond my normal photos and grow to take different images. It was a lot of fun and revived my energy to go back into the conference and finish out the weekend.

Technical: All images were taken with an extra wide zoom. If I had taken other lenses I might have gotten distracted by what lens to use and missed the point of taking photos. I had a lot of fun working the subject into the lens I had, it was also interesting to see what Mike got with his normal prime and compare our different ways of seeing the same subject.

Emily and Francis

Winter light

In most of my latest nature treks, or photo walks or hikes with a camera...whatever you want to call them, I have been disappointed with the images. I have learned to like the images but they were never the shots that I was hoping for in the first place. There is one element missing from them that I regard highly in nature photos and that is great light. Most of the time that I am out walking in the snow it is overcast outside. (mostly because it is warmer when it is overcast and usually well below zero when it is sunny) Not the case on my most recent trek! I finally had great light on a day that I was able to go take photos. I had a blast!

Technical Jargon: I switched back and forth between my wide angle zoom and my telephoto zoom, these are usually what i use the most for nature. I also had my macro but didn't really use it much.

Julia and John