Apr30

Mad Dash Mud Run

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Mad Dash Mud run

Kudos to the Stephenson County Fairgrounds, the AASSC, and other sponsors for bringing in this popular and growing trend of obstacle racing to Stephenson County. This is a beginners obstacle race where costumes and teams are encouraged. This won’t include some of the crazy obstacles that the popular “Tough Mudder” race has. Personally, I have no desire to run through electrical wires and get shocked. I live on a dairy farm. I get accidentally shocked by electric fences way more than I care to as it is. If you are 14 and over of any athletic ability, please join us on June 8th. I think I heard something about a beer tent being involved also. Go to http://www.AASSC.org and click on the eventbrite button to register. Hurry price goes up soon.

Apr29

Spring time on the farm

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Dover2

farming2

kitty5

It has been a very wet, cold spring.  There has been a lot of flooding near the Rock River and other waterways in our area.  We are so glad the weather is finally turning around and becoming spring like.  The oats have been planted and now the farmers are going to be going 24/7 for the next couple weeks if the weather holds. 

Mar17

Pet Photography

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It is very important that you pet feels comfortable and at ease, so instead of forcing him to come to you go to him. Most important is to get down to his level; We all know how a dog looks when viewed from above, this is the way we always see them. Show us the way they see world! Sit on the floor or lie on your belly and remember to shoot from HIS eye level or below.

Read more: http://digital-photography-school.com/9-pet-photography-tips#ixzz2NoZKB2Jz

Jan23

Taking Pictures in the Snow

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Julia and Daisy

I recently started taking all my photos on manual setting and in raw. This means for 1 thing, I had to buy a 32GB Compact Flash card AND I had to learn how to set F-stops, shutter speeds and ISO’s on my camera. I’m still learning.

We happen to have a great sledding hill in our back pasture. This is something kind of rare here in Illinois and it is also why our farm has dairy cows instead of corn fields. For years I’ve taken photos of kids sledding only to find that my subject is dark. Dang. I just learned how my camera will always want to make white gray. (All cameras, not just mine ) Hmmm…which means when I’m shooting in snow, my camera will try to make the snow gray but in doing so it also makes my subject darker. So when shooting in snow, I have to compensate for that by Overexposing. That seems so backwards but it works. This pic of Julia and Daisy had the settings of F3.5, 1/640, and a ISO of 100. It was taken with a 85mm lens. In the past, I would of probably set my shutter speed at 1/1250 thinking I was going to need to make it darker. Not so.

I see snowflakes today and think I’ll go out and play a little.