Day 243 Keeping the Fog

Keeping the Fog

Robert was in costume today and it was foggy again. If Split Rock Lighthouse was still being used then the fog signal would have been going but since the keepers are just tour guides now they can stand around and talk about the lighthouse and fog signal instead of play it.

Day 242 Fall Fog

Fall Fog

Fall is well on its way and the lake has started to be covered by fog regularly. I think this is a neat image because of the detail that you can see in the rock then the lake below slowly disappearing into the fog.

Day 241 Keeper of the Light

Keeper of the Light

I was just starting to leave Split Rock Lighthouse for the end of work when I looked back and saw this seen unfold. I liked the steep angle of the lighthouse with David Abazs just leaving in the keepers costume. The sky could be more interesting but at least it is a nice blue.

Day 240 Fruit Snack

Fruit Snack

I went to a pot luck tonight and there was loads of wonderful and beautiful food. The fruit pile was my favorite both for food and photographic purposes. I love the scattered mixture of red blue and yellow.

Day 239 Fairy Clouds

Fairy Clouds

These clouds were so neat and they backdropped the lighthouse wonderfully. I like the low angle of view making the lighthouse tower way up into a beautiful sky.

Day 238 Money

Money

Something about this money in the envelope caught my attention and I just had to photograph it. I found it very interesting how depending on how I edited the photograph the little 05s to the left of the face disappeared or showed prominently. I have been turning more and more photographs recently into black and white. It worked well with this photograph and just gave it a nice feel.

Day 237 Lookout

Lookout

Split Rock Lighthouse sitting on a 130 foot cliff has a very nice view. I like the simple palet of colors of this photograph and the light contrast of the blue and the bricks and cement.

Day 236 Blue Lake Superior

Blue Lake Superior

I loved Lake Superior and all its moods and colors. What I was trying to do in this photograph was to show the blue lake on the left and the gray lake on the right. There was a big cloud hanging over the right part of the lake taking away the beautiful blue color of the water. That was when it became so clear how much of that blue color is from the sky. Let me know if you can notice the difference in color?

Day 235 Sowing

Sowing

I really liked this angle looking down on the sowing machine. I tried a few different depths of field and focus points and liked this one best. I like it shallow creating depth and putting the attention on the buttons. There wasn't much color in the photograph to begin with but I liked it better in black and white.

Day 234 Big Cats

Big Cats

Laura bought a puzzle at the zoo and finished it in a day and night. I then was wondering around looking for photographs and saw it. It was pretty neat and I decided that it would work best in black and white to add contrast and pull out the black cat.

Day 233 Blueberry Pie

Blueberry Pie

It is blueberry season and it has been a bad year for them. But we did still get a few gallons from our patch and I used a few of them to make a blueberry pie. It was fun and was a great way to avoid other things that needed to get done. It took forever because I don't usually make the crust from scratch. It wouldn't hold together and roll out and I kept retrying after letting it cool then freeze. Finally I just pressed it into the pan and laied rolled chunks over the top. It turned out fine. It tasted kind-of like blueberry jam in a salty pie crust but thats okay and it made for a good photograph.

Day 232 Cute Monkey

Cute Monkey

Laura and I went to the local zoo today. It is a great zoo that has a wide range of animals but is small enough that you can walk everywhere and see the whole place reasonable well in a day. We spent all day there and visited all the animals, revisiting some many times. This monkey was very cute and unfortunately in a very low light exhibit. I defiantly got to use the high ISO, film speed, of my newish camera. The monkey moved a lot but I got a few clear photographs and this one was my favorite. I like the composition and the way he is clinging the branch, and you can see it's eyes looking intelligently at something.

Day 231 Milky Way

Milky Way

I was out today trying to get star trails by making many 30 second exposures. This attempt failed but I will try again sometime sooner rather than latter. I did make this photograph of the milky way after that project. I am living up north in the middle of nowhere so the stars are beautiful. The night sky is one of those things I really miss in any mildly or densely populated area and really appreciate when it si one of those sub -40º nights and it is truly breathtaking. This wasn't one of those wild nights but it was still beautiful and much of the milky way was visible.

Day 230 Leaving Duty

Leaving Duty

I thought the keepers leaving the lighthouse at the end of the day was very photo-worthy and managed to get a few shots off. Unfortunately they walked in to the shade you can see at the bottom of this photograph and then you couldn't see them very well. I do like this one though because you can see both the lighthouse and the fog signal building.

Day 229 Brass the Climb

Brass the Climb

Working at Split Rock Lighthouse I have found a fondness for brassing. It gives me something to do with my hands while I wait for visitors to drop by and ask questions. I also like how shiny and reflective brassed brass is. I liked the gold spark of shine in the brass and the composition with the ladder and plain background.

Day 228 Fire Power

Fire Power

I have really grown to LOVE clouds they are often extremely beautiful and when you add nice colorful light they become wild. I liked the fiery feel of there clouds and then silhouetted the windgenerator to provide an element to focus on.

Day 227 Nightlight

Nightlight

I hade fun making this photograph. I liked the fading light in the sky silhouetting the electric windgenerator. But it needed some more light in the foreground so you could see the hoop-house. I tried a few different flash settings and think this one had the best balance of lighting. I wanted it to be lit but not like it were daylight.

Day 226 Wood on Wood

Wood on Wood

I like wood. I like its many patterns and colors. I like how in this photo there are multiple different patterns and lightnesses of wood. I also think that having the hairband adds a key element with a different color and not being wood.

Day 225 Golden Flower in a Field of Gold

Golden Flower in a Field of Gold

I was walking around enjoying the beautiful evening light and photographing the same surroundings I have photographed many times before. This provided me with a wonderful chalenge of trying to find new things to photograph and/or new ways to photograph the same old things. There was this one patch just bursting with Black-eyed Susies. I love how the yellow petals of the flower are light up by the sun and how that same golden light gives the background a nice glow.

Day 224 Locked Tight

Locked Tight

It was rainy today and I was looking around for neat things to photograph. I was leaning against this big metal box and then turned to fiddle with the lock that is on it as I do regularly. Luckily I looked first and was able to stop mysel from disturbing the scene. I was able to make a few photographs including this one wich I like because fo how it fills the frame and that the droplets on the lock ar in sharp focus.

Day 223 Big Big Big Lens

Big Big Big Lens

I like to say I have big camera lenses but they are nothing to this massive lens for Split Rock Lighthouse. It contains what appears to be 252 pieces of glass prism. You can see almost half of them in this photograph. It is very impressive and I think this photo dos a nice job of showing the quantity of pieces and size.

Day 222 Old Style Living

Old Style Living

In the kitchen of the restored keepers home at Split Rock Lighthouse I noticed this nice bouquet of flowers hanging over one of the 1920s era teapots. I struggled to not over explose the white flower especially since I only had my point and shoot camera but I am happy with what I was able to work out. parts of the white flower are blown out highlights but it doesn't distract from the rest of the photograph.

Day 221 Sundown

Sundown

It was starting to get late and I was just heading outside to make some photographs for today. I immediately noticed the wonderful gold color the sun was giving the grass in the pasture. I tried a few different compositions and settings but liked this one best because of the nice contrast of bright and dark. I also like the rays of the sun and the silhouette of the water windmill.

Day 220 Golden Teapot

Golden Teapot

I like the interesting angle and the contrast of the silver and black with the warm glow around the edges. It is really amazing all the cool photographs you can discover when just looking closely at everything around you.

Day 219 Ball Ride

Ball Ride

The morning after the wedding we all had breakfast in a gym. After the younger people had finished breakfast they grabbed basketballs and shot some hoops. I think this is just a fun photo with some nice quirks.

Day 218 Married

Married

I enjoyed trying to find representative ways of showing the wedding. I tried many variations of photographing the couples hands intertwined. Many didn't turn out very well at all but I do like this one. I like the simplicity and the very low contrast. Then what really makes it work is having the gold bracelet which adds to the warmth and gives your eye something to focus on.

Day 217 Newlywed Games

Newlywed Games

The night before the wedding there was a dinner and some games. The main game was for the newlyweds and involved questions about each-other to test how well they knew each-other. They were very fun/funny and made for some great photographs.

Day 216 Water Slide

Water Slide

For the wedding I was photographing they set up a water slide for the children. It was loads of fun for everyone and made for some good photographs. I liked this one best because of the big splash and the great expression.

Day 215 Dark Light

Dark Light

I like this photograph because of the large area of darkness but then there are the three globes of light that shine on the top. And those lights cause reflections on all the glass and the rest of the chandelier wich pulls it out of the darkness. I think it is a very dramatic photograph of something very simple.

Day 214 Waiting

Waiting

I spent much of the night waiting for my next bus in the Minneapolis Grayhound bus station. I only managed to make a few photos but I liked this one because of the tilt and the woman who is peaking around the corner in the center of the photograph.

Day 213 Storms Rolling In

Storms Rolling In

There have been many big storms that have moved through the area and many of them have had truly breathtaking clouds. I liked how the clouds make such a dramatic scene for the keepers homes at Split Rock Lighthouse.