prairie grass

Here is a completely untouched frame from my photo walk that occured during my son's soccer practice. The light was so sweet that night.

Sorry for the long delay in posting. With hectic work schedules and a round of freakish spring frost, photo making has taken a back seat.

More to come!

bennett park

My latest attempt at a "tree portrait" that includes more than just a tree.

Click here to buy this print.

flowering dogwood

Click here to buy this print.

crazy harry's fireworks

I spotted this gem yesterday while taking the boys to the park. I wanted to stop then, but I didn't want to be that guy encouraging his kids to "go play in that parking lot over there while Daddy takes some pictures." Sans children, this was a great place to shoot some frames.

I tried not to mess with it too much. As I look at photo magazines/blogs/online galleries, I continue to notice that the great photographers I like are not afraid of middle greys. I have usually leaned towards high contrast. I had felt like that was the best way to grab detail out of the frame, and make it pop. Crazy Harry's Fireworks has given me an opportunity to work on getting comfortable with letting the middle tones be middle tones, as well as letting them speak for themselves.

I also shot the following frame, an excavated area behind Crazy Harry's.



I'm not sure what I think of it. I've decided I want to branch out in my composition of the "tree portraits" I've been shooting by adding other elements to the mix besides the sky. The excavated wall was the original reason I wanted to shoot Crazy Harry's Fireworks, but I wasn't able to frame a shot that I liked with both elements included.

What do you think? Would this hang well with the other tree portraits I've been shooting?

courtney ridge

I took my big boys to a park down near the river today. As we were winding our way to the playground, I spotted this row of baby trees up on a ridge. I love the "Dust Bowl" era look I got with this shot.

double date and cattails

Double Date is certainly not the greatest photo that I've ever taken, but there are elements of this frame that I love. Compositionally, I like what I was trying to do, but I have not yet figured out how to seperate the similar tones that exist in the foreground and the background.

Double Date was taken at Bernheim Arboretum, south of Louisville, KY. On my last day there I asked my friend Will where he would like to go, and this is the place he picked. I had never been, and I had a great time.

It was a peaceful place, with lots of nature to shoot, including this frame, called Cattails:



To see the other shots I took at Bernheim, click here (they are title Bernheim Arboretum I and Bernheim Arboretum II).

woodland steps

photo set: signs of spring

I've learned to shoot photos during winter months. That suited me well - lots of high contrast moments, subjects tending toward isolation, stalking the world in black & white. You know, all the introverted, reflective crap.

But now it's spring. Whole different ball game. Whole different sport.

Yesterday I tried to go out, drive around, and find some inspiration - standard winter modus operandi. I don't know about you, but I can't find frames of springtime to shoot from the driver's seat of a 2001 minivan. I have to walk. After I had come home discouraged (I never even got out of the van), I strapped my youngest to my back and we walked Liberty for 1.5 hours. Fantastic. Spring is here, and it was only by walking up to it that I got to find it.

I'm not a botanist, so I don't know the names of anything I shot yesterday. But, boy, do they look pretty!

little boxes

Six months ago I moved from the urban core of Louisville to a suburb of Kansas City. To say the least, the adjustment has been...odd.

Street after street of cookie cutter houses are making me want to vomit (apologies if you live in one and like it). Everytime I drive past a sub-division (which is all the time), I sing gently in my head,

Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky -
Little boxes on the hillside
and they all look just the same.
There's a yellow one and a green one and a pink one and a purple one,
and they're all made out of ticky tacky,
and they all look just the same...

Thanks, Malvina Reynolds. It felt good to be self-righteous for just a moment.

trees on hospital hill

I went out for a landscape shoot today, and returned with four really pleasing (to me anyway!) images of trees. I had recently read an article about Paul Kozal which had some stunning shots of fog laden treescapes that I felt inspired by. As I was driving past the hospital here in Liberty, I saw four trees and a stump up on the ridge line and knew that this was my chance to work out my own vision of trees.

I did not even come close to Kozal's style, and that's okay wih me. First of all, he usually shoots in foggy weather and today was the brightest that ol' Mizzou has been for a while. Second, Kozal echos the pictoralists and I am more of a "straight photography" guy (think Ansel Adams and Edward Weston). His shots are so dense and textured. I preferred a more airy feeling. But the guy is a great eye, and I'm glad his work has pushed me a bit.

I'm very partial to this one, called hospital hill I. I liked the composition when I was standing on the side of the road, but I liked it even more when I got home and looked at it on the computer. I hadn't noticed the birds when I hit the shutter release. What a stroke of luck!

Anyway, if you want to see the other three in the series, click here.

oaks of righteousness (isaiah 61:3)

They will be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the LORD, to display God's glory.

straight way (psalm 5:8)

Lead me, O Holy One, in your righteousness,
because of those who lie in wait for me;
make your way straight before me.

let the rivers clap (psalm 98:8)

Let the rivers clap their hands,
and let the hills ring out with joy before the Holy One,
who is coming to judge the earth.