camera button friday: there is no right lens

We are having amazing weather here in the Midwest (almost 10 days in a row of record high temps...it is in the 80's when it normally is below freezing!) therefore, a great excuse to revisit Parfrey's Glen.  This is one of the places I have told myself I should re-visit all year long, both because it will look very different in the seasons (here in the snow) as well as I feel I need to challenge myself to see it in a different light. (pun intended)  

So to challenge myself, I intentionally took the "wrong" lens - a wide angle.

"Naturally," you say, "it looks amazing." But, in practice, it is really tough.  The scene is very cluttered, super unorganized, and just doesn't make sense....like this image below, which represents most of the images I came home with.  BAD!!!!!!

The photo made sense in my head...just not in camera.

A telephoto lens would yield more images because (once you get over the grandness) this is a place for capturing details.  So at first, I even resorted to using the wide angle like a detail lens by getting really close. 

Any exercise like this that limits you, is always disappointing in the beginning.  It was only after I learned to see past the obvious, and really LOOK at a scene to find the images, that it started to get fun.  This takes time, and an imagination....oh, and work.

A wide angle was the perfect tool for some shots, this last shot (and the first) couldn't have been done without the wide angle...but they really took a lot of work to get, not just the climbing (or the crouching for the first shot) and jockeying my eye-line, but a bit of 'seeing' the shot before it was captured because otherwise I would not have looked so hard for it. There are several images before and after these that didn't work.

Butr there were so many other shots that the wide angle was not the right tool for.  At first I was distracted by those "missed opportunities." I am sure that if I would have taken "all the right lenses for this subject" I would have missed several of the shots I did get.  But, I would not have worked as hard to make the images above.  I would have been distracted by all the possibilities and switched lenses to get the next shot in front of me.  The funny thing (and a little ironic) is that before I went I was debating doing this exercise because I was unsure what images I would "miss" by not having the "right lens."

I guess I "missed" shots either way.

For all you that really need to know, I used a Nikon 17-35mm of an FX body (full frame) but a 12-24mm on a DX body (or a Canon 1.6x croped body) would have yielded the same results.

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ed and wendy's real pre-wedding portraits

See the first set of Ed and Wendy's pre-wedding themed portraits here.
After the guns were put away, we also decided to do a couple traditional shots as well.

how to make a REAL omelet

Heath (and his family) invited us over for breakfast...but I think Heath just wanted to show off his omelet skills.  He sure has them, or at least it seamed like it this time, we will have to be asked back a couple more times to sample them to have a more definitive analysis.

a different kind of pre-wedding portraits

Ed and Wendy wanted to do something different for their pre-wedding portrait session...

You have seen the movie Mr and Mrs Smith, right?

All those times playing guns as a little boy and AirSoft in college finally paid off.

Trying not to scare the locals (or get shot at by the police) we raided an empty parking garage with painted plastic guns and blue steel looks.

We also did the traditional pre-wedding portrait shoot after this...but more of that later.

melting ice

This winter in Wisconsin has been...different.
It feels like we have swung from below freezing temps to above 50 every other week.

Over the weekend I noticed that the lake was melting.  When this happens the wind actually pushes ice sheets up onto the rocks and they pile until they melt.  Pretty cool stuff.

snow and a bonfire

The other night, Mike invited several people over for a bonfire in the back yard.  First off, that would be unheard of in California.  Second, it is snowing.

There was more than one time that night that I was muttering, "Only in Wisconsin."  And it was not just because he was serving brat's, and beer.

And I love it here....

Technical: there was very little light there, despite the fire, so all of these were beyond the reach of my camera, even at extra high ISO and a fast lens.  But it was still fun.  You would have though that I would have said that I just can't take photos and left it at that....but no.

walking our block while it was snowing

After work on Friday, while the snow was still falling, I just had to get out and see it all.  It had been snowing nonstop for 6 hours so there was quite the accumulation.  I just walked up and down the street we live on until I got to cold.