TULIPS IN MAY

One of my favorite rites of spring is going to see the tulip displays at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum.  I would love to be able to go to the Kuekenhof in Holland, but that is a little far to travel.  If you ever get a chance to be in the Netherlands between mid March and mid May you should definitely try to get there.  However, the Arboretum in Chanhassen is a great alternative.  They plant a multitude of tulips in several locations and always have a wide variety of plants to look at.

The masses of color are wonderful to see, but I really like to spend time looking within the masses of flowers for unusual pairings, or the juxtaposition of one color into another.  I also look for the wonderful designs of color and shapes within a single flower.  Taking this approach it is easy to spend hours in a single area.

I usually work with my macro lenses for these types of pictures using either a Nikon 105mm/2.8 macro, or a Nikon 200mm/4.0 macro.  On my D300 DX camera this gives me the equivalent of a 150mm/2.8 and a 300mm/4.0 lens . With these lenses I am able to do both blurred backgrounds, as well as, get good depth of field.  I find the best time to take these types of images is when it is overcast, or there is a slight mist or rain.

Below are several pictures of the tulips from this year and one from last year.

(Click on Images Below for Larger View)

Submitted by Dynolights Member Steve Shor

More Badlands Images

These images were taken in the Badlands, South Dakota, with other members of the Crosstown Camera Club of Minnesota.  The two images of the rocky formations were taken on the eastern side of the park at Door Trail.

They were taken with my 70-200 Nikon lens and processed in camera raw.

The s-curve road was taken on Sage Creek Road which is my favorite area to be in the park.

The subdued light made this shot possible and the image was processed using Color Efex Pro.

Submitted by Dynolights Member Lil Polley

Badlands Images

A number of Dynolights members have headed to the Badlands of South Dakota for some spring shooting. One Group just got back and some of us are heading out this weekend.

These images were created on the Crosstown Camera Club outing to the Badlands May 5-8.  I actually had about a day and a half in the Badlands and a half day in the Black Hills. For the most part my Badland formation images were processed in Lightroom 3.4 and Photoshop CS5.   “Pastel Formations” was taken right after sunrise and some of the color was lost  in the sky.  I brought out the sky using HDR with Photomatix at the most natural  settings to bring out the remaining delicate colors in the sky.  There was a gorgeous sunrise on Saturday, May 7th.  It was a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10.  “Door Trail Sunrise #2″ was taken then.

Of course when you visit Wall, SD you must visit Wall Drug and have breakfast. This is a handheld HDR image of the main entrance to the Wall Drug mall taken with my Canon Powershot G11 camera and processed in Photomatix, NIK Color Efex Pro and Photoshop CS5.

Submitted by Dynolights Member Cynthia Fleury

Peter Wong’s New Project

I have been thinking of a project to satisfy my creative side for a while. Getting involved with camera clubs around town, joining a group of like-minded photographers and just going out to shoot like I used to in my college days got me juiced.

My ‘bread and butter’ work is photographing golf courses, naming them “Golfscapes”. Images I have seen, from online websites of photographers I admire and other images from the past were playing in my head like a repeating slideshow. But that elusive project that I can sink my teeth into was just beyond my grasp.

I have always been very active, playing sports, running marathons, and in the past five years I have been trying to get past the “I am a weekend runner” phase. I started doing more than just cardio exercises. Yoga, weight training, pilates, bootcamp training and spinning were some of them. In my mind these exercises seem to slow down the effects of aging, help in combating the effects of chemotherapy from eleven years ago and the mysterious illness I had that stumped even the doctors at the Mayo Clinic.

My daily stop at the gym started a small but yet potential idea. I started referring to the idea as “Healthy Bodies”. I look at the trainers, other members of the gym and realized that they are the people and bodies I want to photograph. Ideas started forming in my head of how to photograph them. The next step is to ask them to be my models, which can be a daunting task. Luckily the trainers are a fun bunch and they agreed.

The first shoot was about 2 hours and it was a blast!! The trainers were very helpful in pointing out the muscles and how to make them “jump” out. It was an exhausting couple of hours but very rewarding. I am now armed with some good images and will approach more people to be part of my project. I think this will be a year long “Bodyscapes” project. Enjoy!!!

Submitted by Dynolights Member Peter Wong

Wind Turbines – Minnesota

Well, I went down to Ames Iowa again and coming home along I35 near sunset I went looking for wind turbines. This time I found a wind farm in Minnesota. It is visible from the intersection of I35 and I90, about 10 miles west of 35 and a mile north of 90 by a little town called Manchester.

I should say that Manchester looks like a great place to do some shooting so I have to back sometime and have a better look around. This time there was not much in the way of cloud cover but the light was wonderful. These photos were taken while standing in the middle of a farm field looking both west and east.

Submitted by Dynolights Member Forrest Pearson

Urban Outing

Last month I got an unsolicited email from someone in Texas. It said he was coming to Minneapolis to video an event at Orchestra Hall and he was bringing his camera gear.  He was interested in taking skyline shots of the cities he visited and wanted any information about locations in the twin cities to shoot.  The email had been sent to a number of camera club members in the area, so I wasn’t sure if I needed to reply.  Since I live downtown and am familiar with many of the classic locations for images, I ended up sending him a detailed map of the locations I recommended with my impressions of the best times to visit each one.

When he came to the cities he emailed me for more information.  From our communication I learned he was staying 4 blocks from my home, so I offered to take him out shooting one night when he was free.  It turned out to be an entertaining evening.  I learned my guest and I had a lot in common.  We were the same approximate age, both former camera club presidents, and both interested in night time urban photography.  The only major difference between us was he came from the warm end of the Mississippi River. We ended up shooting for over four hours in both Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Below are two of the images I shot during the evening.  The first was shot from a freeway overpass south of Minneapolis to capture the light trails in and out of the city.  The image looked better in color than B & W, but I didn’t think it had the same POP as it does in B & W with color added back in to focus on the red light trails. (The white trials were similar in both color or B & W).

This second image depicts the St. Paul skyline looking north from a bluff in Mounds Park. This shot was also a long exposure taken from the very edge of the bluff about 100 feet straight up from the highway below.

After reviewing the nights work I had a number of images I thought were great captures I would never have made had I not responded to the unsolicited email.  I certainly wouldn’t have gone out alone that night (It was unusually cold and windy), if not prompted to do so by a visitor who only had a short time to go out shooting.

Submitted by Dynolights Member Mark Karney

The Vintage Life Project by John Olson

Member John Olson is currently working on his “Vintage Life” project that represent scenes of historical significance.  His images mix current digital technology with the feel of antique imagery.  The two images below were taken in Rollag, Minnesota over the last labor day weekend during the Western Minnesota Steam Threshers reunion.

The site for the event is quite extensive covering many acres.  The displays include steam tractors, stationary steam engines, steam railroad, steam powered construction equipment, steam powered boats, antique tractors and cars.  Almost all are fully restored and operational.  Old horse drawn equipment, and reconstructed vintage buildings and structures can also be found.  John then processes the images using a special technique that embodies the images with an antique look that compliments their historical perspective.

By Dynolights Member John Olson

Minneapolis Skyline

The above two images of the Minneapolis skyline were taken at sunset to take advantage of the brilliant reflections created by the setting sun off of some of the buildings.  Each offers a slightly different composition with different lighting contrasts.

The first image conveys sunset tones (blue/purple) in contrast to the building reflections.  The second adds a deep green tone in the foreground.

By Dynolights Member Larry Grace