At the Berry Farm
We went to a local berry farm to pick blueberries this past weekend. Came home with nearly 2 pounds of delicious blueberries! Oh, and new photos, too: blueberries, cherries, and horses. Gallery: At the Berry FarmRead more
40 Years Ago: Apollo 11
Forty years have now elapsed since two from amongst our human species landed on the moon. About six and a half hours latter, Neil Armstrong set foot on the lunar surface. The collective effort of NASA, the many scientists and engineers, and the astronauts themselves was perhaps our greatest human achievement, or at least the greatest human achievement of modern times. This has no doubt been said many times in the days leading up to this anniversary, and be said even more today, so perhaps it’s a bit of a cliché. Cliché or not, I also think it’s true. I have long watched footage of the launch of Apollo 11,…Read more
Prairie Panorama
I’d like to highlight one photo from my recently published Petroglyphs and Prairie blog post and photo gallery. It’s my large panorama of the prairie at the Jeffers Petroglyphs. This is but a very small version that will fit on this page. Click on the picture and you should be able to see a slightly larger version in my galleries. For an even better view, I have posted a larger version that will allow you to scroll from side to side on my website at http://www.restenergy.net/prairiepanorama.htmlRead more
Petroglyphs and Prairie
On Friday last week, I visited the Jeffers Petroglyphs. I had been there several times while growing up in Cottonwood County, but it had been a very long time since I had last been there. The site has over 2000 images carved by Native Americans into the hard Sioux quartzite outcroppings which were worn flat by the great glaciers that once covered the area several times during the ice ages. The earliest carvings were probably made as early as 7000–9000 years ago, and carving continued until a couple of hundred years ago. According to the Minnesota Historical Society, who owns and operates the site, this makes it one of the…Read more
Apollo 11 + 40 years
The 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing mission is nearly upon us. The lunar excursion module (LEM) named Eagle, piloted by Buzz Aldrin and commanded by Neil Armstrong, touched down on the Sea of Tranquility on July 20, 1969. The JFK Presidential Library and Museum has a really cool looking website to celebrate the anniversary. It will follow the events in real time, including animations of key events, I understand. You can also get twitter updates of the radio transmissions between mission control, the command module, and the lunar excursion module as they happened 40 years ago. It definitely looks worth checking out. You can find the website…Read more
Garlic Shrimp au Gratin
I’m a big fan of shrimp. I developed this recipe several years ago, when I was looking for something different to do with this delicious seafood. It’s rather loosely inspired by a dish I had at a restaurant in Bellingham, Washington. Cooking the shrimp in butter and garlic imparts a subtle garlic flavor, while the cream and cheese creates a lovely unctuous quality. The dish is actually lighter than you might first expect, given the butter, cream, and cheese. Most of the butter is left behind in the pan in which you cook the shrimp, as is most of the cream in your gratin dish. Paprika sprinkled on top adds…Read more
Field-side Flowers
Over the July 4 weekend, when I took the previously posted landscapes, I also spent some time looking at the flowers at field’s edge. Gallery: Field-side FlowersRead more
Landscapes from Central Wisconsin
The rolling countryside of Central Wisconsin provides some ample opportunities for rural landscapes. Here are a few in a new gallery which will surely expand over time as I add more images from the area. There were some nice clouds on July 4, and they feature in a couple of the photographs here, as well. In keeping with my recent theme of exploring HDR photography, a few of the images here have been created with those techniques. Gallery: Central Wisconsin LandscapesRead more
Cathedral Revisited: HDR
Looking back at previous work for potential HDR images, this wide angle view of the National Cathedral in Washington, DC presented itself. When I was visiting the cathedral last summer, HDR photography wasn’t something I had looked at much, if at all. But might I be able to make use of it never the less? I didn’t have the bracketed exposures typical of HDR photography here. But there are other ways to proceed. I almost always shoot with in my camera’s raw mode, saving the data from the sensor for later processing, rather than letting the camera change it directly into a .jpg file. Because this captures a wider dynamic…Read more
The Making of an HDR Image
Several of the images I posted in my gallery of photographs from the Portland Japanese Garden were completed using High Dynamic Range Imaging (HDR) techniques. I’ve mentioned this a few times and posted a bit about it when I first started exploring the techniques. There are lots of tutorial articles online and books (I’ve recently purchased HDR Photography Photo Worship by Pete Carr and Robert Correll, and have found it helpful.) that contain detailed information. But I thought I’d share with my readers a bit about the creation of one of those images from the Japanese Garden.Read more
Portland Japanese Garden
I think the highlight of my trip to Portland was the Portland Japanese Garden. I’ve long loved the peacefulness and beauty of Japanese gardens, and this one was no exception. Built over several acres and including five different traditional garden types, it is wonderful to wonder through the meandering paths with the discovery of new views and beauties. The Iris photos I posted about a few days ago were taken in this garden near the large waterfall and pond you’ll see in these photos. This gallery also includes a mixture of the regular, single-frame, digital photography (perhaps you can call it “traditional”) and high dynamic range (HDR) imaging techniques which combines…Read more
Roses, Roses, Roses
On my recent trip to Portland, Oregon, I visited the International Rose Test Garden. The garden has 4.5 acres of rose plantings, with over 500 varieties and several thousand rose plants. The variation in color and shape of the roses is amazing, the the blooms are simply beautiful. Unfortunately, photographs will never capture the lovely perfume that filled the air from the thousands of blooms. In some ways, all those roses was a bit overwhelming, but I hope you will take some time and explore the many images I’ve shared in my new rose gallery. Please feel free to leave comments, especially when you find a favorite photograph. Gallery: RosesRead more