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NIGHT SKY IMAGE SALES ABOUT CONTACT |
July 27, 2009: Done with the badlands now. I've got a ton of images to go through when I get home. I don't want to waste too much time in this coffee shop, so I can get out and see the black hills. A lot of wildlife images on this trip. Bison, Sheep and Rattlesnakes. Last night the campground I stayed at had a herd of bison invade the grounds! I'm just glad they didn't try to eat my tent. Woke up at 3am this morning to flashes of lightning and quickly went out to get some shots, of course it stops when I get up there, did get a couple bolts though. So next up is the black hills (Harney Peak later today probably), then the snowy range in Wyoming. Here are a couple...
July 26, 2009: Currently in Wall, SD just outside Badlands national park getting Ice for the cooler. The badlands are way bigger than I expected them to be, and there is a lot more driving than I imagined. Camped at sage creek campground last night, probably be back there tonight again. I'm going to stop in Rapid City tomorrow on my way to the black hills and upload some images so far from the trip. So expect some images on the update tomorrow.
July 22, 2009: Finally got around to doing the Arkansas report, its really dumbed down though. I couldn't sit there and type out everything that happened, that would take hours. The account is here. Going to South Dakota and Wyoming on Saturday for probably a week, maybe a little more. I'm hoping to break my bad run of luck since the tornado at Aurora. Basically wasted the entire day watching crap storms and not seeing NLCs for the 10th straight observing (or trying to) session. Oh and missing the Northern lights that were visible in my backyard apparently. Hmm, I better start doing all nighters when stuff like that happens, because I can't wake up at 4am anymore. Its late, if this doesn't make sense, thats probably why.
July 20, 2009: Reworking (or working I guess) the Prints section, Found a cool and cheap way to sell photos and still have the same domain, I just can't embed it directly into the site. It's the Sub domain Prints.Tonightssky.org. I have linked it on the top navigation bar and Will likely change that throughout the entire site at some point, probably not until I get more stuff up there, which will probably be after I get back from South Dakota. I never work with images at full size to put them on here, I just downsize and save for web.
Tried for fog two mornings last week the second day did get some but it was well south of where I went. Here is one from a higher vantage point looking SSW.
Not much else going on really. I need to actually get some reports up, I just can't get motivated to do it. At this point I'm just researching places to go to on the South Dakota trip that I'll be taking on July 25 and staying for about a week. As I'm typing this I'm realizing how stupid I sound lol. I need to stop doing these so late at night.
I'm noticing that a lot of my images from Aurora and Odell are really noisy, yet they were shot at ISO 200. It might be time for a new camera body. Sigh.
July 15, 2009: Well lately I've been trying to chase on my days off, but both days (in fact four out of the last five chases) were cap busts. Then more recently I have been monitoring the possibility of a NLC display or Noctilucent clouds. These are mainly seen Far far north, but recently they have been seen farther and farther south. So I go out and watch for them last night for about 40 minutes, and I see some lightning off to the NE and pull out the 300mm and shoot it. I wait around long enough and the lightning sucks, so I leave and didn't see any NLCs. I get home and check my email and Mike Hollingshead saw a fantastic display just 25 miles from where I was. Check out this amazing image of NLCs visible in Blair, Nebraska. Needless to say I was pretty mad I left so early. All I can do is hope for another display tonight I guess.
While I'm waiting for Tonights show I should probably try to get some accounts done since I have the day off, well here it goes...
July 8, 2009: So I've got some new plans. My friend invited me to go to Wyoming for 5 days in September to the wind river range. I was planning on going for two weeks here in about a week and a half, but money is a bit of an issue. If I go by myself I'm looking at a $600 trip probably, I go with them probably $200. So I've decided not to go to Wyoming quite yet, instead I'll be going to the badlands/black hills of South Dakota July 19th- 24th or 25th. This won't cost me much, since I'll be camping at a free campground in the badlands, so just the cost of gas (about $100 to get there and back) and food. I haven't been there before, but I've seen some real cool scenes on Mike Hollingsheads Website. This update is going to be long lol.
I also added the twitter thingy at the top. This way you all can know what I'm doing without me having to go through the pain of getting into the html editor and typing all that out. I can just quickly hit the bookmark button, and type out what I am doing and hit enter! Not sure how long I'll keep it there, I'm not sure I like how it looks. Email me if you have any opinions on it.
Last night we had a cool looking shelf cloud come through at about 2a.m. unfortunately it was right over Omaha, so the city lights kind of ruined any good imaging, not only that but the lightning sucked. I had to get my tripod out too...ugh. I normally use a clamp mount that I slap on the window and shoot away, but I'm in a hurry to get out there and forget to grab it. I need a new bag to keep all my camera stuff in. Now that I got that new 300mm lens I can't fit it. Too bad because a nice camera bag runs about $100. But you gotta do what you gotta do. Anyway, the storm last night weakened (as usual) as it approached me, and the strongest gusts I felt were probably 40 miles per hour...maybe less. Oh yeah, last night I was off on the side of the road with my hazards on watching the shelf weaken, and waiting for a bigger gust when a cop turns his lights on in my face and takes forever to get out of the car and come talk to me, I guess I was in a bad place, even though I was off the road on the side. He was just checking if I was alright, I guess he saw me turn my hazards on. So that was interesting.
I went and tried to shoot the skyline last night again, this time from a bluff farther away with my new lens. I found some really cool overlooks that would be nuts to shoot lightning from, AND they don't close at 10p.m. like lewis and clark park! Definitely will be going back to those spots at some point to shoot lightning coming in from the west. Here are a few shots from that...even though the twilight colors didn't help much.
I should have stayed at lincoln monument (top photo) for twilight, but due to a better foreground I went back to fairmount. Just imagine that first location with a CG!! wow, I'm getting too excited about this but that would be amazing. Thats my new goal. Not sure why i'm having so much trouble forgetting that that my ISO is up, the first one is a bit noisy at 800 I believe. I met some interesting people at fairmount park lol. Talked to four different people and two guys that were bugging the heck out of me while I was trying to take advantage of the best ops of the day. One guy asked what I mainly took pictures of, and I told Him I chase, and he tried to tell me he chases with the army LOL. He asked me if I was out during the last Omaha tornado, I thought, when was the last Omaha tornado? oh at 2a.m. in June of 08'. He then told me he was chasing that storm at two in the morning. Then another guy kept asking me questions about my camera and whatnot, basically I couldn't focus and all the images turned out rather bad, I guess bad light closer to the horizon is also a fault there, but people, seriously I'm trying to photograph this! I guess thats council bluffs for you. (no offense Jared lol)
I got the first fireworks show report done with photos here But I'm still working on fireworks show #2. Here are a few from that for now. Actually the guy in charge of it all (John Martin) let me get in passed the gates and shoot it from a little closer (even though I probably would have been better off shooting it behind the crowd). There were thousands of people watching and it was a crazy show. Twice during the show a huge wall of fire went up right in front of me (shown in photo below).
Working on the Arkansas report still, but I think I might finish it before September lol. I might sum it up more than I'd like to just to get it done.
July 4, 2009: Got a lot of the images from Justin Unrau's show done tonight, but not the report done yet. I also went out and shot a big(ger) show in Omaha tonight, and got hooked up and got to go passed the gates and shoot that show (although even being passed the gates, I still wasn't close enough) But I'm sure i'll get some good ones out of that too. Here is a crazy one from Justins show.
I was so focused on getting the foreground exposed right that most of the fireworks are partially blown out, but you live and learn I guess. Too bad there wasn't lightning, that could have made this an epic night. I'll try and get some reports up soon, I've got three to do now, Arkansas, July 3, and 4th. Thats a lot of typing.
July 2, 2009: I've never been this busy before, just a lot of things going on. First I'm working full time, I'm starting too shoot for people now, yesterday I was running around town for my friend Nick Kelley, tomorrow I've got to go to York, NE for a fireworks show that my friend Justin wants me to get some shots of (which should be sweet) and the 4th of course I'm shooting somewhere, not sure yet exactly where. Working during the mornings all these days. Then on the eleventh I'm going to shoot a wedding in O'neill, NE. Of course after that the big Wyoming trip. Just a ton of stuff going on, I've hardly got time to get a report up for Arkansas, which I might try to do tonight.
Purchased a telephoto finally, a 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 with vibration reduction. A little slow, but I've used the lens before and its a quality piece of glass for the price. I'm pretty excited to be able to expand my shooting range now. It's weird, now I have to get a bunch of new stuff after getting that lens, like a new camera bag (mine can barely hold two lenses), heavier tripod, and a set of ND filters. I'll probably have to shave WY down a few days. Anyway, just a few of the plans for this month. Tomorrow night there is a small chance for thunderstorms around here, that could yield some interesting results with the fireworks show tomorrow. I'll try to get that Arkansas report up, I think I have all the images ready, I'm just not excited to type out the whole experience.
One more thing I've been trying to work on is setting up an automated print system so people can just use their credit cards to purchase prints. I think paypal will work, but It will probably be a lot of work. If anyone knows about how I might be able to go about doing this, please contact me
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