Prairie Burnin'

Today the DNR burned the prairie next to our house. It was the first one I had ever seen and thought it was pretty cool. So I snapped a couple of pictures of it. This one was not the best since the focus is on the trees in the foreground, but it had the most impressive flames in it so I'm posting it. What was interesting to me is that even though the flames look impressive, the fire itself was quick and light. I went into the field after they were done and beneath the charred surface there was still green vegetation underneath. Many of the fallen branches hadn't even been blackened by the fire.

Depressed Bear

Although I enjoy taking my kids to the zoo occasionally because they like seeing the different animals, I don't envy the animals that were unlucky enough to end up there. Especially animals that have a large range in the wild like polar bears. I thought this picture captures what it must be like to be a polar bear confined to a small pen for life.

Rising Storm

This is an old picture that I took with my first digital camera back when we lived in Utah. It remains one of my all-time favorites. I love the way the light is hitting the building storm cloud and the wispy clouds in the background make an excellent background that seems to compliment the lighted cloud in the center. I'm not a good enough photographer to explain it any better than that, all I know is that when I see this picture, it just seems right.

The Buzz

Ok, I'm done posting Chicago pictures for now. I have a few more that I like, but they are similar to what I have posted so I'll wait on them. Today's picture is one of Yin's favorites. I thought it turned out well too. I took this picture in our flower garden at our previous house in North Carolina. One thing to notice that I didn't as I was taking the picture is that besides the bee, on the lower right hand side of the flower there is a little grasshopper.

Top of the tower

This is a picture from the 103 rd floor of the Sears Tower, about 1400 feet above the city floor. I like this shot because you can see most of the other large buildings in Chicago including the second tallest in Chicago, the John Hancock Building (black one in the distance on the left side). Plus you can see Lake Michigan (a name I learned this weekend that means "large lake") in the background. You can tell it's cold too, since the ice extends out quite a bit.

Sweet Home.....Chicago

If anyone reads our other blog you will know that my wife and I spent some time in Chicago this last weekend. We both grew up in the Chicagoland area and, at least I, never really appreciated what a cool city Chicago is. It has many good picture-taking opportunities, some of which I was able to capitolize on and many I will have to get another day. The next few posts will be from our trip. This was the first picture I took and maybe one of the best. All the glass on those buildings gives a great chance to play with reflective shots. With blue skies and decent lighting I think this one turned out pretty good.

Playing around

I've been a little busy so was unable to post anything yesterday and most of today. We spent the last several hours driving up to Yin's parents house in Chicago. Along the way I was looking for something to do and got out my camera and played around with long exposures on the highway. I've seen some pretty neat pictures that some people have gotten this way. As you can see by this one (my best) I am not quite up to form. Maybe I should rename this blog Yang's picture-taking failures. Oh well, I had fun doing it anyway.

A Rare Sighting

With it being Valentines Day, I figured I'd post a picture of my wife and I. Out of the thousands of pictures I have taken, this is one of about 5 that includes my wife and I in the same shot. This is a picture of us on our 10th anniversary trip to Ireland and I thought it was appropriate for today as the scene is a romantic one with the beautiful Irish countryside and waterfall in the background.

A Beautiful Failure?

When I took this picture, I was attempting to capture a reflection of our front yard in my wife's eye. As you can plainly see I was unsuccessful at capturing anything but a blurry shadow of the reflection, but in my attempt I did capture something that I don't give my wife enough credit for. She has beautiful eyes, which I often overlook because of my resentment that none of our kids got my brown eyes. When I can stop and look at it objectively as I can in this picture, I guess my kids should consider themselves lucky.

Weather

I think I've said this in our regular blog, but I love the weather. Many of my pictures reflect this passion of mine. While I have taken pictures of all kinds of different weather related phenomenon, the most spectacular pictures I have are of lightning. This one is one of my favorite, not only because there are two bolts in it, but also because of the proximity of the one on the right. You can see that it is in front of the treeline which means it hit in the farm field I was parked next too. I've gone out on quite a few nights to take lightning pictures and rely on the idea that you can't get hurt by lightning while sitting in your car. Still during the height of the storms (and this one in particular), my adrenaline is certainly flowing and I am often left questioning my own sanity. Oh well, pictures like this one are worth it for me.

Work in Progress

Well this is my first post for my picture blog, Yin might post pictures too, but she doesn't usually take too many pictures. I on the other hand love photography, and figured I might as well post some of my pictures here and if anybody likes them they can tell me or if anybody has any suggestions on how to make them better I'm all ears. Right now I take my pictures with Nikon coolpix 5700. I like it, it takes great quality pictures but the automatic focus is slow so it limits my ability to take action shots. I hope to get a digital SLR sometime in the future, but unfortunately for me it is in a long line of expensive toys that I would like to get.

This first picture, as the name implies, is a work in progress. I have always wanted to take one of these. Finally this last year I got around to actually remembering to take the picture on the summer solstice, autumnal equinox and winter solstice. Having a large lake less than a mile from my house now gave me a backdrop that I liked too. I would still like to blend the transitions between the pictures taken on different days better. Fortunately for me the sky conditions were pretty similar and I think I can get the colors similar with a little work, but as you may be able to tell (the picture is pretty small), the lake is frozen on the winter solstice and it makes for a pretty rough transition. I'll post again when I have it looking better.