Fun With Nature.

Some of you may have seen these when I posted them on the Facebooks a few months back.  As I was backing up all of my photos to an external drive today, I decided that these needed their own post. Keep reading to see a few more shots, but the lead is still my favorite.

Music on Broadway

Last Thursday kicked off the inaugural Music on Broadway or MOB. The first of four this summer, the event hosted a roller derby scrimmage, live music, and a pub crawl that continues throughout the summer.  For more information visit the FM Downtown website. This event is another in a long line of great things going on "Downtown Baby" all summer. This and all the other events are brought to you by the Downtown Community Partnership and organized by my good friend Jed Pahan. If you missed the first one, don't worry, there are three more scheduled throughout the summer.  For more pictures from the event hit the link below.

Hey There Boss Man

I know what you're all thinking. "He must be running out of ideas for posts." Quite the contrary. Looking back over my library of photos this one in particular jumped out at me.  Mostly because David (of David Hastings Photography, your one stop shop for all your photography needs!) isn't making a funny face. Well, that makes four in a row. Not bad for the first week.

Shooting with a 62 year old lens.

Day three, so far so good. Today I wanted to show off my 1949 Keystone Criterion A-12. I bought this camera at a garage sale this spring for 10 dollars. I'm not entirely sure if it works or not but for ten bucks it's cool enough just to have. In the mean time I decided to use a spare body cap for my Canon to function as a DIY mount of sorts. Keep reading for pics of the lens and the shots I got with it.

Sunset

As for the second post in what will hopefully be many to come, I'm posting yet another HDR. This particular one, or series was taken on the way home from my nephew Alex's birthday in Thief River Falls. We may not have mountains or tall buildings, but we sure know how to do sunsets.

Cut the cord already...he's one.

Within 24 hours of being in midtown Manhattan, I was at a campsite in Thief River Falls MN.  I noticed a few differences, but all in all they're basically the same.  Both had roads, cars, people, etc. It was really just an understated version. Jess and I were up north for our nephew Alex's first birthday. The lead picture shows you what kind of day it was. The mix of a toddler, Mountain Dew, and matches made for a great party.  As with most gatherings, I had my camera with and Alex was camera fodder. The best part about all these pictures is that they are mostly untouched right out of the camera. The only changes I made were to pop the colors up a bit.

Lance Thorn...Eat Your Heart Out.

 

So here's the story.

I blood pumping muscle New York...Revenge of the Soho

I understand that my naming scheme is out of order but I felt that since we ate in Soho this was too clever to not use. 

I blood pumping muscle New York...The Phantom Menace

Good morning everybody. It's 7:30 and already almost 80 degrees already. We're on our way up into the mid 90s with a heat index over 100. For anyone that knows me...not my favorite temps. So while I'm still in a good mood, I present to all of you the other shots from the park. Enjoy.

I blood pumping muscle New York...A New Hope

The post to follow this one will have more pictures from Central Park but in the meantime I present you with yet another NYC HDR. This statue was interesting but not interesting to photograph. I tried numerous angles but nothing was giving me that spark I feel when I get a good shot. My last effort was to try and HDR and I think it turned out quite good. More Central Park tomorrow morning..ish.

I blood pumping muscle New York...Return of the Jedi

Times Square is busy.

I blood pumping muscle New York...Strikes Back.

Good morning New York City.

I blood pumping muscle New York

Lady and Gentleman...Tonight we go from web log to travel log.

At the Park

 

I shot these pictures in what felt like a Chicago song...Except that it was Sunday...and not the fourth of July...but it was at the park.

Jessica...one quarter century and counting.

Although it is a bit belated, here are some of the pictures of those near and dear to us that made it out a few weeks back for Jess' birthday shindig. I think you'll find that the final picture does a phenomenally better job of closing out the night than anything I could ever wright. So with that, Happy Birthday Jessica.

Long Exposures

The theme of my last post was black and white photography. The pictures in this post were taken with even less available light. The obvious answer to taking these pictures would be to lock down my aperture to 1.8 and crank the ISO to 1600.

Get Hitched

My good friend and colleague, David Hastings, will be showcasing his videography at the "Get Hitched" wedding show to be held at the Plains Art Museum Tuesday, November 9th. For more information you can visit www.gethitchednd.com or David's Blog. If you're in the area, need a videographer for your upcoming nuptials, or just really like shopping for wedding vendors...stop on by.

Jed and Joe...Concentrated Sex.

I was thinking to myself, I really shouldn't do two posts in a row about art.  Then I figured that no one really reads this and I shouldn't dictate my posts according to my un-readers' opinions. So today's post is less a discussion about art and more a showcase of the true essence of what art is.

Art for Art's Sake.

    "Art for art's sake" is the usual English rendering of a French slogan, from the early 19th century, ''l'art pour l'art'', and expresses a philosophy that the intrinsic value of art, and the only "true" art, is divorced from any didactic, moral or utilitarian function. This definition, pulled from Wikipedia, is something I've been thinking a lot about lately. The thing that brought it to the forefront of my brain wanderings was an episode from eleventh series of Top Gear. The episode was featuring the Alfa Romeo 8c (pictured below).

The connection between this particular car and "Art for Art's Sake" comes from a call Jeremy Clarkson had from a curator of the Tate gallery. He stated that a car can never be art because "true" art can have no purpose outside of itself. Within the show Jeremy concluded that this particular car didn't perform very well and was hopelessly impractical. Because of this it was good at looking good and nothing else. This got me thinking. I've finally figured out the reason for people that are famous but really have nothing to contribute to society. The likes of Paris Hilton,  Joseph Scallon, and any and all fashion models. They don't create anything, they don't contribute to society, and they basically only fulfill the purpose of being nice to look at. If I gave off the wrong impression with that I apologize. I like art, and that is what they are. They give us all something nice to look at. I know what some of you are thinking. Paris Hilton isn't art, she's hideous. But let me ask you this. Do you like the way that all art looks? I don't really like most of Pablo Picasso's works but you'd be hard pressed to find someone that doesn't think his works are art.  On that note, the only thing left to do is ask if I can hang one of these people on my wall. Anyone?

New Blog, Same Infrequency.

Hello and welcome to Blog 2.0. The website hasn't changed but the blogging service has. The fact that I didn't want to pay Steve Jobs way too much money every year deterred me from signing up for mobile me. This caused numerous issues trying to add comments or an rss feed. In addition to interactivity, the new blogging service, blogger, has a much easier posting interface which should, in theory, improve my posting frequency. If this isn't the case at least there will be functioning comments so that you, the reader, can keep me accountable. 

With that in mind, this concludes blog 2.0 - post one. But for good measure...here's a few of my latest pictures of my nephew.