All Smiles

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Minneapolis Sculpture Garden (1 of 5)

On a Saturday back in August, Stacy and I spent a few hours at the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. It was a beautiful, sunny day and I was excited to get out and take some pictures. I had never seen the Spoonbridge and Cherry, which I had heard was synonymous with all things Minnesotan (not really sure why). This was a prime opportunity for me to work with the circular polarizing filters I had bought for my lenses. I was pretty happy with the results. I had noticed, by looking at their work online, that some local photographers like to come here to take senior & wedding portraits. Sure enough, we saw two wedding parties and a senior there for photographs that day. The garden is a free venue and there is limited free parking close to it. There is also paid parking that isn't too expensive. So, check it out sometime, you will have fun.

Joel

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Cowles Conservatory

Standing Glass Fish

Stacy inside Cowles Conservatory

Flower

Joel inside Cowles Conservatory

Minneapolis Sculpture Garden (2 of 5)

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Spoonbridge and Cherry

Spoonbridge and Cherry with the Basilica of Saint Mary in the background

Spoonbridge and Cherry

Alene Grossman Memorial Arbor and Flower Garden

Butterfly

Minneapolis Sculpture Garden (3 of 5)

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Butterflies

Butterfly

Bumble Bee

The Spinner

Prophecy of the Ancients

Minneapolis Sculpture Garden (4 of 5)

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Hare on Bell on Portland Stone Piers

Stacy standing next to Walking Man

Man sitting at a bus stop

Stacy thinking she's avoiding getting her picture taken

Basilica of Saint Mary

Minneapolis Sculpture Garden (5 of 5)

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Minneapolis Skyline

Spoonbridge and Cherry

 

Look Up

Como Conservatory - St. Paul, MN

Iowa Sunset

My wife and I were driving down to IL from MN and experienced a beautiful sunset in IA. Stacy, my wife, took these photographs through the side window of our car as we were driving down the interstate in the rain. God's creation can be so beautiful!

Joel

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Saturday Lightning 1 of 3

Sorry for the repetition of the lightning photographs, but I just took these and wanted to put them on the blog.

We had a storm go by us to the north of our home this weekend and I stepped out on our balcony to take a few pictures. It was one of those storms where there is a lot of lightning, but hardly any thunder. I saw lightning bolt after lightning bolt, but hardly heard any thunder. It seemed like it was really close too. Amazing!

I used my Canon 50mm prime lens, with the aperature set at 1.8, for most of the photos. Then I switched to my Sigma 18-125mm zoom lens and tried a few wide angle shots and a few zoom shots. They didn't turn out very good. It's suprising the difference between 1.8f & 3.5f. The amount of light gathered by the faster lens (Canon 50mm 1.8f) is amazing. Plus the improved image quality is noticeable between the prime & zoom lens.

I have a lot of fun taking lightning photographs. It's awesome, to me, to capture such an intense creation of God, that happens in a moment.

Joel

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Saturday Lightning 2 of 3

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Saturday Lightning 3 of 3

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Lightning 1 of 3

These are my attempts at photographing lightning strikes. I had always been intrigued by photographs of lightning & storms and wanted to try my hand at capturing the beauty of a storm. So I learned how to do it and waited for a good storm. I've only had a few opportunities to try it, but I think it's a lot of fun and look forward to many more storms to chase. Let me know what you think.

Joel

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Lightning 2 of 3

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