1321 Union - Worldwide Photo Walk

Kansas City had two events for Scott Kelby's Worldwide Photo Walk. I chose to go to the early morning event. The location was in West Bottoms area. The original townsite for Kansas City sets on a bluff above a number of streams, including the Missouri and Kansas Rivers. The original city was surrounded with floodplain valleys to the west, north and east. They are all known as the Bottoms.

The West Bottoms is an old industrial district. It was the home of the former KC Stockyards. It is bordered by the Missouri and Kansas, and Turkey Creek. It is an area of old brick factories and warehouses. There is plenty of dirt, graffiti, and general grunge. This image is one that shows one of many examples of deferred maintenance.

Image taken with Nikon D90. PP with Dx06 and CS5.

Photo Adventure - Tire'd

The main event for our trip to Moab is a photo school. It is a landscape photography oriented class. So what did we do for one of our first shoots? We went to visit a ghost town and worked on an assignment to shoot small details.

This old truck wheel has been setting in the grass for a long time. There was more interesting junk on the ground and around the abandoned buildings.

The class is also focused on Photoshop for post processing. All steps in CS4

Photo Adventure - The City Market

The City Market has existed in one form or another in Kansas City since 1857. It is located on 3rd St just above the Missouri River. The original river landing is just below the market plaza. These days there is a weekend farmers market year-round along with a number of full time vendors.

We went down this morning early to take advantage of the early morning light and to take part in a program taking place first thing. A wonderful bakery with fresh cherry and walnut danish was an excellent incentive as well!



All images were shot with Nikon D90 with 35-70mm f/2.8. Post-processed in CaptureNX2, with "Bounty" processed from three images using Photomatix Pro

Photo Adventure - The Soo Paw

It's a dark night.  The moon won't rise for another couple of hours.  Out on a rural highway an oasis of light appears to the weary traveler.  But look at that sign!  Have we gone back to the '50s?

In a way, you have!  The Soo Paw motel has stood here for at least 60 years, and this sign has been here for most, if not all, of that time.

While visiting with family out in Nebraska, I headed down the road one night to this spot on Nebraska Highway 25.  When I came past the motel on my way in a couple days earlier things appear to be in better repair than some other trips.  When I get there this evening there are trucks and pickups parked in front of most of the doors.  Must be the new grain plant down the road.

Enjoy these images from the past!

Winter on the River

The severe weather has finally broken. The gray skies went away on Saturday. We won't see temps above freezing until later in the coming week, but nothing like getting out into a little sunshine to take care of the cabin fever!

Debbie and I spent Saturday afternoon and evening in Leavenworth, KS. We attended McPherson College basketball games in the evening at St. Marys. There is a quilt shop that Debbie likes to visit, so we went over early.

I had my camera along for the ball games, so while she was in the store I went down to the riverfront. Leavenworth sets on the Missouri River, and they have a nice park at the riverbank. This image is from the there. Please enjoy!

Happy New Year !

First, I want to wish everyone a Happy and Prosperous New Year !

We've been at home in Missouri after Christmas in Nebraska. We've had a great time with the kids and family. The weather across the midwest for the entire holiday season hasn't allowed for great photography. The natural colors on the plains at this season are buffs and grays, and with the cloudy skies it makes for a very monochrome color palate.

What do you do with a capture with little color? Work with the contrasts of the image and try to generate an interesting image in black and white. This image almost begins as sepia in it's original color. I've played with a number of settings to get to this "antique postcard" look.

The conversion is done in Photoshop CS4 using adjustment layers:
- B&W Conversion at default settings
- Exposure, with offset set at -0.065 (to generate mid-range contrast)
- Photo Filter, choosing Sepia filter, then increasing the density to 40%

The vignette is a large brush (1000 px) with a speckle pattern and 10% opacity. Used two overlapping passes to provide the graduated pattern. No sharpening to help with the antique look.

First Day of Winter

After a warm fall, we are seeing a rather cold and gray December.  We are not anticipating a White Christmas, but many areas west of Kansas City will see a major winter snowstorm starting tonight and running through Christmas day.

I drove up to Squaw Creek NWR yesterday.  The winter has truly arrived.  There was quite a bit of snow remaining on the ground.  The marshes are frozen and the migrating geese and ducks have moved on south.  The only waterfowl we encountered were two pair of swans that we saw fly by a couple of times.

The eagle was the first one that we encountered on the refuge. It was sheltering in a tree near the entrance to the refuge. There were only a few eagles left of the 150-200 that were there a few weeks ago. The covered lane is a connecting road between two portions of the refuge.

Photo of the Week - Quality Hill

I took a drive into the city to scout some photo locations for possible future use. The day had been overcast, and I didn't expect anything more than shots of possible angles. As usual, the light changes and opportunities may abound!

I went up into the Quality Hill neighborhood of downtown Kansas City. This neighborhood sets at the crest of the Missouri River bluff. It holds a lot of older architecture and views in many directions.

The sun was just at the horizon, and it was illuminating the underside of breaking clouds



The setting sun also shone on the gilded dome of the Cathedral, making for a bright spot in the closing dusk

Photo Walk - Eudora

When I take off for photo shooting adventures out-of-town Debbie usually goes along with me. To make the trip interesting for her (as well as me) we look up quilting shops along the way or in the town were I'm planning to shoot.

This weekend one of our stops was in the small town of Eudora. Of course I wandered around the small downtown main street.

These images are from my personal photo walk around Eudora. There were some interesting architectural features on a couple of the buildings. One of the businesses on the street was the motorcycle shop.

Photo of the Week - KC River Market Photo Walk

Debbie and I participated in Scott Kelby's World Wide Photowalk '09. One of the local walks in Kansas City was in the River Market area. The River Market is a shopping and entertainment district on the north end of downtown KC,MO. It is the area where the original city was settled, just above the Missouri River. Much of the shopping is a farmers market and ethnic foods market. The three photos are just a few of what I'm posting on my gallery. I highly encourage you to look at the other photos in the gallery this week.

This motorcycle is a Ducati. It was parked outside of one of the office buildings on Delaware Street.
The vegetables in the market building offered great opportunities for color and texture

Photo Adventure - Lake Shawnee

Debbie and I had an adventure day today. We traveled from KC to Topeka, KS to visit Lake Shawnee. My reason for visiting is that I will be shooting wedding pictures there for a friend on July 5th. So I wanted to see the "lay of the land" and get a feel for the light.

Our friend Cat has picked a beautiful location. The service will be here in the gazebo. Another event was setting up while we were there. There were at least three in the area.


The picture of the gazebo is taken at about the same time as the service in July. If it is typical Kansas weather it will be a bright day, like today. I will have to deal with some deep shadows and high dynamic range.

Debbie was my practice model. I like how this photo came out. With the high dynamic range between the foreground and the background I'm going to need to use a lot of fill flash.


When I go photo adventuring, Debbie gets to go quilt shop hopping. We found two nice shops in Topeka. She found materials or books at each shop. Sometimes we go on quilt adventures: Debbie puts together a list of shops to visit, and I try to find something to shoot when we get there!

Love you Hon!

Photo of the Week - Sandy Creek Bridge

It was a rainy morning in eastern Missouri. We are down visiting Mom S. and I got up early to get some sunrise shots and explore. Well, the rain clouds took care of the sunrise. I had found information about Sandy Creek Covered Bridge historical park. It is part of the Missouri State Parks. It is a beautiful park tucked into a valley setting.



The day was cloudy, and eastern Missouri is emerald green this year from all the spring rain. Sandy Creek isn't showing much, but the Mississippi and the Merimack are both out of their banks.