Canon Rebel XSi

Photo: The view from our balcony after about 30 hours of snow. Isn’t it pretty?

Whenever we get one of those marathon snow systems here in Chicago where it snows non-stop for at least 18 hours, you can almost be guaranteed of three things when it finally stops:

1. There’s a ton of snow on the ground,
2. It’s going to be very frigid because all the moisture is out of the air,
3. and the clouds will be all but gone and it will be super sunny.

That was the case earlier this week, and I took the opportunity to setup on our balcony and catch this shot in the morning before it got too bright out.

It’s an HDR image of 3 exposures, which was necessary since I wanted to capture the blue sky in the background and the snow down below.  One of my HDR shots that doesn’t look like HDR, which is actually a big goal of mine.

- Kris

Photo: A panoramic view of Honolua Bay in West Maui near Kapalua.

One of the bigger panos that I’ve managed to shoot well enough to work. This view was a combination of 12 vertical images I captured on a golden hour excursion during the ‘09 Maui Photo Festival.

Since I was facing generally northwest with trees and mountains between me and the 7am sunshine, the light wasn’t the greatest. Still, I liked the detail in most of the final image and decided it post it here on the blog.

Click on the photo to view on Flickr and see a larger version with more detail.

Save Honolua

One last note about the area of Maui that this photo was taken. Its natural beauty is currently being threatened by commercial and private development, and one of the groups aiming to stop those threats is the Save Honolua Coalition. If you wouldn’t mind, take a moment to read the story behind their cause and follow their regular updates on the Save Honolua Coalition page on Facebook.

Mahalo,
– Kris

Photo: The outreached arm of the Sharks netminder falls short of another Hawks goal.

With hockey probably being the fastest sport that isn’t measured in horsepower, it’s glimpses like this which break the game down into frozen moments that make we want to shoot the sport more often.

Not to mention get back out there myself.

- Kris

Photo: Blackhawks defensemen Duncan Keith releases a blast from far boards.

Thinking of starting another hockey week by going through photos from old games and either retouching them or giving them a little creative adjustment like you see here.

It’s February already, and I have two Wolves games coming up near the end of the month with similar seats to those we had last time – nice and close. More details on that coming soon.

– Kris

Photo: A view of the mysterious Alau Islet from the intriguing red sand next to Koki Beach near the small town of Hana, Maui.

Another image reliving our fond memories of visiting Hana last February and making the wise decision to spend a night there.

Going back to Hawaii (Photography)

No official trip plans to Maui yet, but as I’m starting to revisit my previous images of Aloha and running them through my newest workflow, I’ll be working to add a format and output step for posting to the Hawaii Photography site, too.

Of my latest images (i.e. since September), this is the first one I’m adding there, but will work to go back and upload some of my recent creations as well.  To see all my photos at HP, check out my profile page.

And if you have lovely images of Hawaii that you’d like to share with other fans/photographers of the Aloha State, be sure to sign up while you’re there.

– Kris

More Reading: More on Hawaii Photography (Dec ‘08 post)