The Blog

Photo: Grandma’s Hands

Grabbing a hold of Grandma’s hands while playing at the dinner table.

Back Story

With less than two weeks before our son’s first birthday, it was time to carve the turkey with my wife’s extended family as we’ve done for so many years past.

With my mom tagging along as well, she had her turn to play with our little guy, and I captured this image during that little exchange. May be one of my favorites from the day, if not the favorite.

You can check out the rest of the photos from the holiday in the Turkey Day gallery, and let me know which one you like the most.

Photo: Close Up

Posing for a quick little head shot.

Back Story

Taken a few weeks back, my son and I did a photo shoot in our living room while giving Mama a break. We started out playing with one of my older camera bodies, but it wasn’t soon before he traded it for one of his stuffed toys, and then just started moving all over the place.

We shot around mid-afternoon, which is when the sun makes its way over our the side of our building where our balcony is. I decided to bump up my ISO to 800 and shoot with natural light rather than breakout the speedlight.

To see more photos from the rest of the shoot, visit the Home Shoot, Nov. 2011 gallery.

Photo: Holiday Photo

A great holiday image in front of a festive, decorated tree.

Back Story

As we try to do every year, we made our way to the mall on Sunday to start our holiday shopping before the madness begins after Thanksgiving.

While we were there, we spent about 10 minutes to shoot holiday photos in front of the 3-story tree they have in one of the courtyards. Even in such a limited time, I still managed to get a few keepers that are just itching to compete for the title of Holiday Card this year. We’ll see how that goes, with so many candidates of our young family taken this year.

You can see more photos from Sunday in the new gallery page – Old Orchard Holiday, Nov. 2011

– Kris

Photo: Cheerful

Christian enjoying some down time on the ground in between car rides.

Back Story

It’s hard to believe it’s been almost a month already, but this photo was from our weekend in Door County, WI at the end of October. It was our third road trip with Christian, and now that he’s getting bigger and more mobile, staying buckled into his car seat while on the road makes him a little impatient at times.

That just means once he’s out and roaming around, he’s that much happier. As you can see here.

Too see more photos from this weekend, visit the Door County, Oct. 2011 gallery, or click on the photo below.

Photo: Door County Star Trails

Star trails from a 12 minute exposure taken on a perfectly dark night at Peninsula State Park in Door County, WI.

Back Story

It’s fairly easy for me to say that this is new crown jewel in my night sky portfolio, no question.

The family and I were up in Door County, WI last weekend as kind of the last peaceful moment before the holidays kick into high gear. Joining us were my wife’s aunt and uncle, who were responsible for us exploring Door County in the first place.

For the last weekend in October, the weather was extremely nice and the skies were incredibly clear for most of our time there. While exploring the state park in Fish Creek during the day, I made a comment on how nice it would be to come back at night and shoot the stars. Well, that’s what we did.

The Setup

After shooting individual 30 second exposures for about a half hour, I decided to break out of that and go a little longer. So I found the north star (which was a little tricky since the sky was just littered with stars, mind you) and shot a 4 minute exposure at ISO 1600.

Liking what I saw after the 4 minute exposure, I decided to expand on that to get what you see here. I dropped down my ISO to 100 (4 stops) and then tripled my exposure time to 12 minutes, shooting wide open at f/4 on my 24-105mm lens.

Even on the LCD screen afterwards, and showing my wife and her family while zooming in, it looked pretty nice. I would have tried going for a 24 minute exposure, but with everyone with me, that would have been too much for me to ask of them. Maybe next time.

Tweaks in Post

It would have been interesting to see how the 24 minute exposure would have came out, since I ended up increasing the exposure in post by 2 stops. I also cooled down the WB a bit to get back to more of a black sky, an the noise reduction in Lightroom helped quite a bit, too. After bumping up the Clarity slider to 100, you have what you see above.

I also had a quick 4×6 print ran off yesterday, and was very happy with how it transferred from my screen to print. Next, I’ll probably try to blow it up more and see how it looks on a grander scale.

Until Next Time…

Even though much of my previous night sky shooting was done in Maui, the conditions there were never as great as I had seen them this past weekend. And who knows when I’ll get to be back with conditions like that again. I may have to wait an entire year, but if that’s what it takes, I’ll do it. I’ll be prepared to be there all night (or at least until the park closes at 11pm).

In any case, this was my first attempt as shooting star trails like this, and I have to say it’s pretty fun.