Archive for the ‘Nature’ Category
Well Hello!…. random. internet. visitors. It is now Summer! Longest days and shortest nights of the year. Enjoying the heat? We sure are. Well, trying to find time to enjoy it at least. Been doing lots of shoots. Family, children, parties, mostly children. There seems to be a trend. I think I may know where my photography is going. I’m still trying to define my style.
“A perfect Summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken”. — James Dent
Been traveling a lot this Summer. More travels are planned including places to Tennessee, Iowa, Kentucky, and Florida! Will post photos when I have time to process them.
“People take pictures of the Summer, just in case someone thought they had missed it, and to prove that it really existed”. — Ray Davies
Tags: beach, butterflies, Children, flowers, hand prints, photos, sailboats, sand, Summer
Posted in Animals, Children, Nature, Personal, Summer |
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7 hours of driving and we were in the middle of nowhere. No cell phone reception, no internet, and no tv! I felt a little panic strike me as the reality of being disconnected from the rest of the world settled in. We drove out to Atlantic, Iowa to visit Grandma Schrum. She hadn’t seen our new baby yet, and the last time we saw her was a year ago. After the first night of going through no phone and no internet… I was ok! It felt great not to know what was going on with the rest of the world. Seemed like everything that happened in this little town, happened with special attention, and no distractions. Everything was so… SIMPLE.
Grandmother Schrum and her Great Grandchildren
On the way to Iowa, we stopped by a Mcdonalds and found this statue of no significance to the restaurant.
I sat outside, and listened to the windchimes blow in the wind for a long while.
Tags: Atlantic, Farm, Farmland, Grandmother, Iowa, Roadtrip
Posted in Children, Family, Nature, Personal, Sculptures, Trips |
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This past weekend we brought the kids over to Cosley Zoo. Located in Wheaton, this Zoo offers a display of 35 different species on display.. and best of all, it’s free to get in! Notice how I didn’t take any photos of the animals. I couldn’t get a clear shot of the animals since most of them were either caged or sleeping under some sort of shelter. I wanted to capture the children in their curious ways.
Kian eating his mother's shoulder Maleyah and Kaiden taking a break
Kailyn sitting on her aunt Tena
Maleyah and Kaiden taking a break
Tags: Animals, Children, Cosley Zoo, Kaiden, Kailyn, Kian, Maleyah, Nature, Personal, Tena
Posted in Children, Nature, Personal |
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I didn’t get any processing done last night. However, I did work on the process! I upgraded my Photoshop CS3 to CS4. It was such a daunting task since I had so many plugins that I did not want to lose. I also decided to incorporate using Adobe Lightroom 2. I used to always be against using the application, but since I have over 30,000 photos to keep track of… this would enable me to speed up my workflow and organize my images a little better. I’m very pleased with the outcome of using Lightroom 2 and editing in CS4. This should enable me to spend less time processing, and more time shooting!
As my wife and I were driving home from work a couple days ago, we pulled into the Willowbrook Wildlife Preserve. It was a beautiful day out, about 85 degrees warm and sunny. As I was snapping photos of the Butterfly Garden, I started thinking to myself that these are the last days of Summer. Where did it go really??? I didn’t even get a chance to sit at a beach, or ride my bike by the lake. I was a little upset, but now I’m really looking forward to some Autumn photos.
Willowbrook Wildlife Preserve is a great place to stop by at. It’s pretty much a rehabilitation center for animals that has experienced a life threatening event, and cannot survive on their own. I noticed that most of the animals displayed have been hit by some sort of car or another. They are displayed out to the public like a zoo setting, only all animals are being treated to recover. Once they recover, they are then released out in the wild at a discreet location in Dupage County. It’s really nice being able to see a Bald Eagle up close, or a Red Fox lounging around. Big credit to the Willowbrook Wildlife Preserve, I really hope they continue to rehab animals in the future.
Tags: Adobe, CS3, CS4, Lightroom 2, Nature, Personal, Photoshop, Plugins, Willowbrook Wildlife Preserve
Posted in Nature, Personal |
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I’m not big on Nature Photography, but today’s photoshoot was a little getaway of mine. During a family party today, I grabbed my dog Luna and left for a little bit. The sun was about to set and I really wanted to catch the perfect sky out today. The clouds seemed like they didn’t move, and it just seemed like a great day to be walking alone with my dog. We first drove out west through some cornfields in North Aurora. These were neverending. It seemed every field had a “Private Property” sign up, and I didn’t feel like getting shot by a farmer today, so I started driving up north to see if there was anything worth capturing… and there it was… The Kane County Forest Preserve. When Luna and I first arrived, we immediately saw a what looked to be some sort of Lookout Tower.
Lookout Tower
There were no other cars in the parking lot as the park was about to close… and me, being myself, continued to venture out down this eerie path. I walked down this path not knowing how long I would go down, but had a feeling there would be something worth seeing.
Path 1
Path 2
We walked for about a half mile through this eerie path and stumbled upon a ledge overlooking a lake. The sun was just about to set so I tied up Luna to this post nearby. I began snapping away for about 10 minutes when Luna began to bark. The hairs on my neck began to stand as I remembered that there were no other cars in the parking lot. Then out of nowhere, this woman walked up and sat down about 5-10 feet from me. Out of everywhere else to see the sun set… she had to sit this close to me?? I thought that was really odd. The weird part was that when she walked up, my dog went silent. I tried making conversation with the woman; About how nice the sunset was, but she never really made eye contact with me. She replied with short answers and seemed really out of it. Just staring out to the sun. It began getting really dark out, so I packed my stuff up and started walking down the path again. As I was walking, I started thinking about my little encounter with the woman and had this uneasy feeling. What if she were a ghost? The hairs on my neck stood up again. I looked back down by where she was sitting, and it was almost completely dark out… but I could still see her sitting there. I was convinced she was a ghost. No woman in their right mind would be sitting in a dark forest preserve staring out into the sun like that. I hurried along and drove back to the party.
The Lake Sunset
Tags: Kane County Forest Preserve, Luna, Nature, Personal, Sunset
Posted in Nature, Personal |
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