Jack Ergo, pianist, Graceland University Symphonic Band Concert
After 24 years at Graceland University, Jack Ergo is retiring, so this is his last performance with the band as a faculty member. Parker Worden, the band director, planned the concert as a tribute to Jack. This is a selection of photos from the concert.
Click any of the images to see a larger version.
There is no Planet B. Take good care of this one!
John Muir
Today is John Muir’s birthday! He was born April 21, 1838. He had a profound influence on how Americans viewed our wild lands and his influence led to the establishment of many of our National Parks and other protected lands. He was nicknamed “The Father of our National Parks”. Tomorrow, April 22, is also Earth Day, so I am combining the two in this article.
Here are photos from some of my favorite national and state parks along with quotes from John Muir.
Screen Capture. Click to see a larger version.
I walked into the office this morning and this photo on my computer monitor greeted my eyes. This is a favorite memory and a favorite photo. Great job screen saver!
Dance Recital, Living Art Studios
One of the highlights of the year in Lamoni Iowa is the annual spring dance recital featuring the dance students at Living Art Studios. The award-winning Graceland University Gadets also performed. This is a selection of photos from this year’s recital. If you want a print, you can order prints here. Ordering information is at the bottom of this page.
Click any of these photos to see a larger version.
Sarah, Professional Fitness Trainer
Your camera is in love with middle gray. The quicker you learn how to deal with this infatuation, the better your photos will look, including all of your color photos.
Lunar eclipse, totality.
Lunar eclipse, March 14, 2025. Click the image to see a larger version.
Exposure Data: Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 100-400mm lens at 400mm, f/8, 1 sec, ISO 3200.
Blood Moon Lunar Eclipse from Lamoni Iowa, May 15, 2022.
Don’t miss it. This total eclipse happens this Thursday-Friday, May 13-14 (depending on your time zone). This article will show you how to photograph it. To see it, just grab a lawn chair, a warm blanket, a cup of hot chocolate, and go outside and enjoy the show. A pair of binoculars adds to the show. Continue reading
Deer, Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado
I usually prefer to go to Colorado in the fall to create landscape images, but I needed to be in Denver in early March anyway. So I headed south to the Great Sand Dunes and arrived February 28, 2008. The temperature was 44 degrees, so pretty pleasant for photography. It can be much colder in late February.
It was a week and a half after Valentine’s Day and most of the dozen Valentine’s Day roses in a vase on the dining room table were done and had been thrown away, but a few were still looking good. I asked Sami to lay on the floor, handed her a long stemmed rose, and I carefully arranged her hair. Then I stood up and pulled the best looking petals off of more roses and randomly dropped them on her. Some didn’t land quite right so I re-positioned a couple of them.
I recently watched The Devil Wears Prada for the first time. Fascinating and fun movie. In one scene, Amanda (Meryl Streep) the very particular and tough-as-nails editor of RUNWAY magazine says to Andy (Anne Hathaway) her new 2nd assistant, “Did Demarchelier confirm?” Andy is clueless. So Emily (Emily Blunt), Amanda’s 1st assistant, grabs a phone and says, “I have Patrick”. I got the Demarchelier reference instantly. I am a huge fan of Patrick Demarchelier’s work. You may not recognize his name but you have probably seen his work.
Snowy Egret Feeding
Some days are “so so”, some days are average, and some days are amazing. Summer is not my favorite time of year to photograph birds at the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge, but July 14, 2016 was an amazing day. This photo of a feeding Snowy Egret was just one of many fine images from the morning. He stabbed at his prey and it came out of the water but not in his beak.
The view across the wildlife refuge looking west at the Dumbarton Bridge.
Located on the east side of San Francisco Bay near Fremont, California, the Don Edwards San Fransisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge is one of my favorite places to go when I am in the Bay Area.
Rachel
This is Rembrandt lighting. The best clue is the triangle shaped light on her right cheek.
Beth warming up in the car after the incident.
It was January 24, 2020, out in the country in Decatur County Iowa. “The Incident” is etched in my memory!
It was five years ago today at about 4:30 in the afternoon. It was cold and the wind was fierce, but Beth and I were determined to get a portrait of her playing the violin in the snowstorm. Why were we doing that? That story is here.
Beth playing her violin in the snow.
First things first. Yes, see really is a real concert violinist. Yes, she really is playing the violin.
Why is she doing this out in the snow? Good question.
Sarah, Professional Fitness Trainer
Your camera is in love with middle gray. The quicker you learn how to deal with this infatuation, the better your photos will look, including all of your color photos.
Dawn at Sprague Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park
The exposure compensation scale on your camera is one of the keys to mastering exposures, getting better images, and ending up with professional quality colors. This means taking your camera off of full auto mode and taking control of your own exposures.
It was my happy privilege to do winter portraits of Beth Presler who is a superb violinist. This article has suggestions for photographing any musician on a cold, snowy winter day.
Snow Hummocks, Merced River
Just like metering daytime winter scenes, the key to metering evening winter scenes is knowing what to meter and deciding how much exposure compensation to use.
Kristina in the Snow
The white snow in a winter scene can and often does fool a camera meter into underexposing a portrait, so here are the steps to take to get the right exposure. I throw in a few portrait suggestions too.
Sunset Light on El Capitan
We spent most of the Christmas holiday in the Bay Area visiting family. When we left the Bay Area the morning of December 30, 1990, we decided to make a side trip to Yosemite before making the long drive home.
Kristin
Kristin wanted to know if we could squeeze in a photo shoot while she was home for the holidays. “Of course”, I said. December 29 was the day that worked for both of us. Despite the sunshine, the windchill was 26° during our shoot. We were texting Christmas greetings to each other today and I reminded her how cold it was for this photo shoot. She didn’t realize it was that cold. She was caught up in the shoot.
Jack Ergo, original file (left) and optimized version (right).
For a variety of reasons, cameras do not capture what your eyes are seeing when you click the shutter. One of the reasons is dynamic range. Your eyes see a remarkable range of tones from black to white in a wide variety of lighting conditions. Your camera has a much more limited dynamic range. That is one of the issues with this photo.
Graceland Concert Choir
Graceland University in Lamoni Iowa did two Christmas concerts. The first was a more formal concert in the Shaw Center auditorium with the Graceland Concert Choir and the Graceland Symphonic Band. Two nights later there was a more casual, laid back concert in the Shaw Center lobby with the Graceland Jazz Ensemble and Graceland Harmonium, a smaller vocal group. Cookies, hot chocolate, coffee, and water were served. The cookie stuffed crowd was invited to sing along with Harmonium on the Christmas carols. Click any of these images to see a larger version.
Living Art Studios Dance Recital
Every year, a highlight of the Christmas season in Lamoni Iowa is the dance recital put on by the students at Living Art Studios. They were again joined this year by the award winning Graceland Gadets. If you want to order prints go to the links below. Click any of these images to see a larger version.
High School Jazz Band.
The Lamoni Schools Christmas Concert featured the High School Jazz Band, the 6th Grade Band, the 7th and 8th Grade Band, and the High School Concert Band. If you want to order prints, go to the links below. Click any of these photos to see a larger version.
Sarah Ellis – Window Blind Shadows.
Sarah was is town Thanksgiving weekend so we squeezed in enough time for a photo shoot. November 27 was the only date that worked for both of us. I had a special project in mind. Early November through late February is the only time of year that the sun is low enough in the sky to shine in the south facing window in my studio. I put a set of window blinds in the window for this part of the photo shoot and opened the blinds half way. Alignment was critical. It took quite a bit of doing to get the bands of sunlight to line up with the pupils of her brown eyes.
Mila Avani
Some photographic concepts are planned out well in advance, and some are spur of the moment. This was one of those spontaneous, “in the moment” ideas. Mila and I were doing portraits in the area around Marquette Michigan. It was after dark by the time we arrived at this location and the ore dock was lit up in the background. It just seemed like a great idea to rim light Mila with the lights in the background.
Trunk or Treat
The local weekly newspaper asked me to send them a bunch of Trunk or Treat photos, so I did. These are my favorites. As it turned out, it was a much busier news week than usual, so only two of my photos made it into the paper. Every year Trunk or Treat is sponsored by the Enactus program at Graceland University here in Lamoni Iowa.