Ice Cream Band

It's been fun for Jan and me to get to know members of the band Dan Perry and Ice Cream. They gave their final performance on September 7th, 2014. I had a little fun taking pictures of them.

I even taught myself how to make them spin...

Thanks for all the great music, Ice Cream!

Seldom Seen Scene

The world is full of interesting people, most of whom I have not met. One such person is the creator of an unusual monument in the bluff country of southwestern Wisconsin. She has created a fascinating venue that features a stone circle, composed on 19 monoliths meticulously arranged and oriented. In addition, there are numerous other monoliths on the site, positioned strategically in reference to the rising of the sun or positions of stars. Not many of us have the ambition that this person has to conceive of a dream, and then execute it. I admire her for that. The site is called Kinstone. I'll let you hunt around the Internet for it. Thanks to +Jon Dannehy for taking us there.

Vote for your favorite Norway photo!

Here are four of my top Norway pictures. Please vote for your favorite!

 Entry #1. The Bryggen, Bergen


Entry #2. Balestrand

 Entry #3. Hornindalsvatnet

Entry #4. Molde Sunset

Travelogue: Hawaii #4

When +Janet Swanson and I went to Hawaii we really enjoyed botanical gardens at Waimea Valley on the north shore of Oahu. There was an amazing variety of beautiful plant and animal life. Here's a two-fer, with just a glimpse of the beauty we saw there.

Travelogue: Norway #5

When +Janet Swanson and I were in Oslo, we used part of the afternoon one day to tour the harbor area. There are a couple of "minicruise" services that allow you to "hop on,  hop off" at a few destinations around Oslo harbor. As we boarded one of the boats, we ducked below out of the wind for a moment. There was a little snack bar below deck, and seated around a table were four older gentlemen enjoying a huge bowl of shrimp. I assumed they weren't tourists, but just four buddies who were hanging out on the boat to shoot the bull. I asked the boat tour guide to ask them on my behalf for permission to take their picture. They gave me some good-natured guff (via the interpreter), but I told them I'd give them half of the proceeds I was going to make selling their portrait. They laughed, and let me take this shot.

Travelogue: China #3

Here's a view over Shanghai from the so-called Pearl Tower. This view barely begins to describe the expanse of the city. The skyscraper to the left has the nickname, The Bottle Opener. It's the Shanghai World Financial Center, among the tallest buildings on mainland China.

February 2012 Balloons

Hard to believe there was so little snow on the ground two years ago, when I took these hot air balloon pics. I always love the creativity that goes into creating a hot air balloon.

Travelogue: Hawaii #3

+Janet Swanson and I are recalling our Hawaii trip, and one of our memorable moments was going to see the double waterfall at Wailua on the island of Kauai. The waterfall itself is amazing (it was part of the opening scenery in the old Fantasy Island tv series), but we got just as much of a kick talking to a mainland transplant that we affectionately refer to as "Coconut Dude". He was camped out by the overlook of the falls. He was not selling coconuts - for that would have been a clear violation of the No Soliciting sign that was posted there - but he had a stack of fresh-picked coconuts that he was giving away for a "free will donation". He left the mainland to pursue his love interest on Kauai (not sure how that was working out...), and he was biding his time climbing trees and *not* selling coconuts. To this day, we get a good laugh out of his free spirit. A good reminder for us all to let go of the seriousness of the world sometimes.

Today you get a three-fer... three shots from Wailua Falls and "Coconut Dude".

Travelogue: Norway #4

One of the things I loved about traveling in Norway was the spectacular scenery as we drove from one city to the next. Here, +Janet Swanson and I were making our way to Balestrand. We had just come through some hilly inland terrain, and had crossed a mountain crest on our way down to the next fjord. Here is our view of the little town of Vik, through which we passed on our way to Balestrand. I like the moodiness of the sky against the pastoral green valley.

Travelogue: Caribbean #2

Under that palm tree in the center of the frame is where I asked Jan to marry me ;0)

True Confessions

So the story goes like this:

In college I used to hike the woods around campus, looking for wildlife. You could usually catch site of a deer or two, sometimes a mink or a fox. One afternoon in January, I was going a little stir crazy, so I decided to take the camera out on a hike, determined to get a nice photo of a deer.

I took one of my usual routes where I had seen deer before (sans camera, of course), and kept my camera at the ready. Needless to say, the deer did not get the memo, and no deer were to be seen. On the tail leg of my hike, dejected by my failure to see even one deer, sure enough off in the woods I spy a nice buck. The woods were thick enough that I only had an obstructed view. I then made my tragic error: I left the trail.

The deer went deeper in to the woods, as you would expect, and I followed, thinking (thinking?) I could a) keep up, and b) get a better view. I was confident I knew where I was headed, and where I had come from, and that I could find my way back.

Fast forward: I never saw that deer again that day, and I got totally discombobulated as to my whereabouts. As light faded, and winter chill set in, I now faced the realization that I was lost in the woods in the middle of January. I imagined the headline: "College sophomore freezes to death in woods... deer eludes capture."

Trudging on, I emerged out of the woods into a cornfield. I headed toward the road, and made my way back to campus. I never got the picture of the deer, and instead all I got was this picture of the lousy cornfield.

Minnesota Views: Bee and Wildflower

Let's get out of winter for just a moment. Here's an image from northwestern Minnesota in the fall. If you were to design a flying machine from scratch, you would not make it round and chubby like a bee. Yet, somehow they maneuver just fine. Go figure.

Travelogue: Caribbean

Here's a fun shot from the island of St Thomas, in the Caribbean, taken in October, 2009. This is the trip where I asked Jan to marry me. At the time I took this picture, mind you, I did not yet realize I was going to ask her. ;0)

Travelogue: New Hampshire

Jan and I took a trip to Vermont and New Hampshire a few years back, to enjoy the fall colors. One of our stops took us to a Shaker Village near Canterbury, NH. Even though it was a cloudy day and the colors were subdued, it was a nice place to visit. Here's one of the images from our visit there.

Travelogue: Boulder, Colorado

So the way the story goes, I was scheduled to take a road trip with a group of high school friends out to Estes Park in Colorado. Our departure date was Saturday, July 14th, 1979. Why do I remember this so clearly? Because the day before was Friday the 13th, and that was the day I had an emergency appendectomy, and missed the trip!

Fast forward nearly 30 years, to January, 2009. I took a trip to Boulder to take part in a week-long banjo camp led by Dr Banjo himself, +Pete Wernick . I flew out first, and Jan joined me mid-week. We took a little time to drive out to Estes Park, so I could finally close the loop on that little chapter of my life story.

Here's a glimpse of the mountains, and a shot from banjo camp for good measure, featuring Charles Holloway on mandolin and Luke Dewhirst on guitar. You can find out more about Charles with his band, the Green Mountain Bluegrass Band, and Luke with his band, The Bluegrass Regulators.

Minnesota Views: Lake Calhoun

An acquaintance invited Jan and me to join him for an evening of sailing on Lake Calhoun. It was his way of thanking me for helping him during his job search. It was a beautiful evening on the lake, and we sailed almost to sunset. I grabbed this silhouette of "Captain Mike" as we headed back to shore.

Travelogue: China #2

When I was in China in 2009, my hosts took me to a venue for some souvenir shopping. There was a fellow doing calligraphy, so through my interpreter I asked him to compose something for me. Jan and I had been together for a couple of years already, so I requested something that would describe my feelings for her.

I'll leave it as a mystery for now exactly what it says... Drop a comment if you think you can interpret it.

Travelogue: Los Angeles

I had to dig through the archives to find this one, and I've dressed it up with a little HDR tonemapping, but here's a fun memory from a trip to Los Angeles back in 2005. I was walking around the "old town" part of LA (did you know there is such a thing?), and stopped for a bite to eat at a little Mexican diner with outdoor seating. Live music was a happy bonus to the delicious food I had there.

Up Close: Study #1

I enjoy macro photography, taking close ups of things around me. Now that we are just coming out of the deep freeze, I thought I'd offer one of my abstract images, which shows frost "ferns" on a south-facing window of my house. These frost patterns come and go daily. They form overnight as temps drop, and they vanish the next day as the sun comes up and warms the window. Like snowflakes, they are never the same twice, so it's a bit of a mystery to see what patterns they will take on any given day. On this day, they looked strikingly similar to fern leaves.

Travelogue: China #1

Since we are in the far east, let's take a look at China, too. My visit there was part of the same trip that included Singapore. The skyline in Shanghai is unrecognizable from what it was 20 years ago, so much construction has gone on there recently. One of the signature towers, but by no means the tallest, is the so-called Pearl Tower. My host in China took me there, and we paid to go up to the observation deck. This photo is a vertical panorama composite, treated with Photomatix to give the painted surreal effect.

Travelogue: Singapore #1

I had the opportunity to travel to Singapore a few years back. I did not take as many pictures then as I normally do now, but I did go back into the archive and dig up a couple little gems. While taking a walk around Singapore, I came upon this little outdoor fountain park. I enjoyed a beer at an outdoor bar, and watched little kids splash around in the water. I added a little fantasy to the image by using a process called tonemapping. Enjoy!

Minnesota Views: Keller Lake

These photos appeal to me on several levels, most of which are invisible to you, the viewer. Allow me to briefly explain.

I was out shooting with two cameras on a cold day in November... one camera shoots film, the other is digital. Part of Keller Lake had frozen over, part had not. I was having fun getting shots of the geese reflected on the ice when something startled them. I had both cameras around my neck, but neither one in hand at the moment, so I instinctively grabbed the film camera, manually focused as quickly as I could and caught the shot below. It has a painterly quality I really like, but was completely unexpected. Other than cropping, adding a small rotation, and adjusting the brightness slightly, this is how the image came out on the film.

My two cameras are both made by Olympus, one a film camera from 1979, and one a digital model from 2011. However, their respective lenses have different mounts. I've come across an adaptor that allows me to use the old lenses on my new camera. The old lenses are not ideally suited to the new technology. As a result, pictures come out with some graininess and other distortions which normally are unacceptable. In the following two examples, I think the flaws enhance the shot in some ways. Here are the geese reflected in the ice, just before they startled, and a look at the foot bridge at the far south end of the lake.

Travelogue: Norway #3

This turned out to be one of my favorite stops on our journey through Norway. This is the little town of Balestrand. Jan and I got up early to catch the sunrise over the fjord. This was the view as morning light fell upon Balestrand.