Huron Lighthouse from Nickleplate Beach....

Things have been pretty busy with work, so photography has taken a little bit of a backseat lately.

But did manage to get away for a little bit on a weekend not too long ago and took the picture below of the Huron Lighthouse from Nickleplate Beach....

(5 Exposures at F11, ISO 100, 85mm)   

Thanks for looking!

Brian

Lake Erie from Mitiwanga

For the 4th of July fireworks, we visited my wife's Uncle, who lives right on Lake Erie in a small village called Mitiwanga.

A couple of hours before the fireworks started, a pretty big storm came through.

The storm left some great clouds right at sunset, and cleared away just in time for the fireworks!

(5 Exposures at F11, ISO 100, 17mm)  

Thanks!

Brian

Cedar Point in Color....

With my most recent blog post being Cedar Point in Black and White, it's time to present Cedar Point in Color!

First up is the Top Thrill Dragster.  I can only imagine what it would be like to go 0 to 120mph in less then 4 seconds, and then straight up 420 feet.  The reason that I can only imagine is that I don't have the cojones to find out!

(5 Exposures at F11, ISO 100, 24mm)   

 

Now here is one of my favorite rides that I will get on...the Gemini.  Apparently God also likes it, as it appears he's blessing it with some sun-rays! 

 (5 Exposures at F11, ISO 100, 40mm)  

And this one presented a nice challenge.  I found this great vantage point which showed many rides all at one point.  I really wanted to find a way to show all the rides with their cars at an interesting point.  So this shot is made up of about nine composite shots.  I used 5 exposures to create a nice HDR sky, and then I would snap a shot when each ride had it's cars at the apex, or at an interesting point.  Then I layered the cars into the final shot, along with the people.

(9 Exposures at F11, ISO 100, 30mm) 

Thanks!

Brian

Great Clouds!

Not too long ago, I went out during the day because the clouds were just spectacular!

A lot of times, I'll want to wait for sunset for shots like this, but I couldn't resist.  Besides, the weather map was saying that these clouds would clear by the time sunset came around, so I ran around trying to get some great landscape shots while these big puffy clouds were around.

(5 Exposures at F11, ISO 100, 24mm) 

(5 Exposures at F11, ISO 100, 17mm)

I liked the one below so much that I made it my banner at the top of the page....

(5 Exposures at F11, ISO 100, 17mm) 

Thanks!

Brian

Old Tree

Not far from the Ohio Turnpike, I saw this tree out in the middle of nowhere, with nothing else at all around it.

I thought that it looked pretty interesting, and the clouds certainly helped the scene as well!

(5 Exposures at F11, ISO 100, 17mm)

Thanks!


Brian

Storm Over Cedar Point....

Before going out to dinner in Sandusky (my favorite pizza place!), we decided to stop over at the Sandusky Sailing Club to see if there might be a good view of Cedar Point.

Well, a neat storm was passing over Lake Erie, which made for a pretty dramatic scene.  I really like how the stormy clouds are contrasted by the bright clouds underneath and to the left.

(5 Exposures at F11, ISO 100, 40mm)

Thanks!

Brian

The Sky Can Change Quickly!

About a week and a half ago, we had four or five days of nearly constant rain.  Sometimes the sun would peek out, but generally, we just has lots and lots of rainy boring weather.

While this was going on, we had absolutely phenomenal clouds coming and going, but not much sun getting through to really make them look great.  I don't mind gloomy and dark clouds (they do make for some great photos), but I really wanted some sun with these clouds. 

During one of the days where the rain had stopped and the clouds were still around, I left the house close to sunset trying to capture these clouds along with the sun, and I think that caught a good shot.

I saw a pretty decent formation of clouds, and then the sun started to peek out a little bit, so I started setting up my camera.

The final result is below, and I was kind of lucky.  When I started setting up for the shot, it was a decent looking scene, but not spectacular.  I almost went back to the car to keep scouting.

In a very short time, the sun lowered just enough to go behind the low clouds without penetrating, making them look very dark and gloomy.  But the sun wasn't low enough yet to do the same to those high clouds.

The result was pretty amazing and the whole scene opened up as shown below very fast.  It looked really neat to have both dark and gloomy clouds along with clouds that were very well illuminated in the same frame.  And then those beams of light started to also spray upwards right about when I was ready to shoot!

This moment only lasted about 30 seconds.  It didn't take very long for this scene to completely change as the clouds moved and the sun set.  It's really amazing how scenes like this can exist for such a short time period.

(ISO 100, 24mm, f10, 1/100 sec)

Thanks for looking!

Brian