Wheel tower

This is a wheel tower my grandpa built. I didn't spend much time shooting it, and my flash wasn't working right. I'd love to go back some dark night and try this again...

Combine

I shot my cousin combining corn earlier this fall. I still need to go through the pictures more carefully, but these caught my eye the first time through. I also have a couple of panoramas that are kind of neat, but I'm not sure how they'd look in this small format.




I think both the picture above and the one below would make great puzzles.

For the birds

I've never been much of a bird photographer. I saw these guys by my feeder at the same time this afternoon, so I thought I'd give it a try.

The last of the ice...I hope

This is sort of the look I was going for the other night, but my flash wasn't nearly powerful enough. I like these though. I converted them to black and white because there was no color in them to begin with.



As much as I've enjoyed shooting the ice, I hope we're done with it for a while. I'd like some regular old snow for a change.

Night tree

This didn't turn out at all like I had hoped, but it's still sort of interesting...

Ice Storm

Ice storms can be kind of pretty. These are all from my backyard.

Icicles really lend themselves to black and white...






But some looked nicer in color, especially that last one...

Clock Tower

From a weekend trip to Galena this past spring...

Tractors

I have an uncle with an amazing tractor collection. The last time we had a family thing at his place I took a few detail shots of a few pieces in his collection. This one is my favorite.


I also like these two, but something about them doesn't work as well for me. I think it's the color in the Oliver that doesn't look quite right to me, and I really wish I couldn't see my reflection in the other one. I'd love to spend more time shooting here.

Pella

A friend and I went to Pella, Iowa last spring to shoot flowers. Pella celebrates tulip time every year, and they usually have an amazing array of tulips blooming throughout town in May. This year, a late frost zapped most of the tulips. By the time we were there, the flowers were looking pretty ragged. Unfortunately, my friend had challenged me to come up with three pictures that I was happy enough with to print and mount. I couldn't leave empty handed. These are the three I printed...




I never printed these, but I still like the way they look too, especially the ferns.



I enjoy shooting flowers, so hopefully the weather will cooperate a little better next year. If not, it's always worth a trip to Pella just for the bakery.

Happy Holidays

I'm finding the holiday card photo is getting more and more difficult to shoot as the boy gets older and has more attitude.

Mr. President

I took this picture of Bill Clinton last summer when he was in town campaigning for his wife.


I'm generally not a big fan of running type over photos. I made an exception to that rule when I met the man himself and he signed the photo.

Cyclocross

Yesterday was my first time shooting cyclocross. I went to the race as a fan, but ended up so captivated by the sport I couldn't help but try to take some pictures. It didn't hurt that the field had some top tier talent. The race was the Elite Men's race of the Jingle Cross Rock cyclocross race in Iowa City.

Here's the winner, Todd Wells. I think he's sticking his tongue out in every picture I have of him.

Wells made everything look easy.

Chris Horner, who finished 15th in last year's Tour de France, finished second. He made it look pretty easy too.

Some of the other riders seemed to struggle quite a bit more.

I love the light and the motion in these pictures of Wells and Horner descending. Too bad there was yellow tape everywhere.

I even like this more obscure one.

They seemed like pretty normal guys too. That's always nice to see.

Ansel

I'll try to start things off with one of my favorite pictures of my old dog, Ansel. He died a couple years ago.

Pictures

I hope to be posting pictures here soon. Just things I shoot that catch my eye that don't have any other outlet.