Last Chance! Three Remaining Outdoor Art Fairs for the 2014 Season

I want to thank everyone who visited my photography booth at the various art fairs I've attended this year. This has been our best season yet! If you didn't get a chance to do so, you can still catch me at three more venues before we wrap up the outdoor show season and start hibernating! Here they are:

• September 20-21 - Marine Art Fair - Marine on St. Croix, MN
• September 28 - Millstream Arts Festival - St. Joseph, MN
• October 4-5 - Fall Colors Fine Art and Music Festival - Stillwater, MN
 

Pewit's Nest Selected for the Cover of Capture Wisconsin II Book

A few weeks ago, I was informed that my photograph "Pewit's Nest" had been selected to be on the cover of the Capture Wisconsin II book! This photograph was captured last October in Pewit's Nest State Natural Area near Baraboo, Wisconsin.


The cover image was selected by editors and voters from tens of thousands of eligible photos on the Capture Wisconsin website. There were dozens of very deserving candidates in the final round of voting, so I feel very honored to have this image selected to represent this book, featuring some of the best of Wisconsin photography.

More info and to purchase the book here: http://store.pediment.com/blogs/news/15201489-capture-wisconsin-ii-cover 

A Preview from Glacier National Park

Between art shows, I managed to sneak away for nearly a week in Glacier National Park late last month and into early September. I experienced favorable light on several occasions during my time there. Here is a teaser image of the Swiftcurrent River at Sunrise that I rather quickly processed on my laptop (therefore, it's not yet final) while enjoying the lobby of the Many Glacier Hotel. There's more to come — stay tuned!
 

Greetings everyone!

I will be returning to the Twin Cities for the Uptown Art Fair this Friday - Sunday, August 1-3. The Uptown Art Fair is Minnesota's largest and most-attended art fair, running Friday noon-8pm, Saturday 10am-8pm, and Sunday 10am-5pm. I'll be located in the same spot at last year, booth # 2114-2115 on the first block of "The Mall" coming from Hennepin Avenue.

I also have two other events slated for later in the month:

• August 16-17 - Art Crawl through the Gardens - Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, Chaska, MN

• August 23 - Northwoods Art Festival - Hackensack, MN

 I look forward to seeing some of you soon!

As most of you know, I'm primarily a [natural] landscape photographer, so I must admit that shooting fireworks is not at the top of my list of subjects to photograph. But after reading a recent post by Sean Bagshaw Photography on the Photo Cascadia blog about a different method for capturing the exploding light bursts, I simply couldn't resist giving it a try and having some fun with it during the local Fourth of July display.


Photographers, read on further...

The technique is simple — with your camera in "bulb" mode and fixed upon a tripod, twist the focus ring of your lens steadily (in manual focus mode) while the shutter is open for a second or two. Begin the exposure with the fireworks well (but not too far) out of focus and end the exposure with the burst in-focus (or very close to that point).


It's not as easy in practice – timing is one of the main challenges. You want to time the shutter to open at the point of the explosion and close before the light fizzles. Also, this technique works better with displays that shoot more single bursts of fireworks, as opposed to those that shoot lots of them in succession. In other words, the grand finale is not the time to employ this approach. This technique definitely relies on a good deal of trial and error, and success will not be on your side all (or even most) of the time.

Greetings everyone, and welcome to those of you who are new to my photo journal. Here is where I normally will show my most recent work.

This spring/summer, so far, has been a busy one for me with art fairs scheduled each weekend since May 17. It's been a challenge for me to find enough quality time lately to process more of my latest photographs, but I'm expecting that will change after this weekend, when I will have nearly two weeks between consecutive shows. I will likely be showing some new work in my next photo journal update.

Until then, here is my schedule for the next month. I will be traveling to a triad of Minnesota's neighboring states: Iowa, Wisconsin, and North Dakota (sorry South Dakota - maybe next year). To those of you near any of these events, I hope you'll stop by and say hello!

• June 28-29 - ArtFest Midwest - Varied Industries Building, Iowa State Fairgrounds, Des Moines, IA
• July 12-13 - Art Fair on the Square - State Capitol Square, Madison, WI
• July 17-19 - Downtown Fargo Street Fair - Fargo, ND