50 Miles south of Chicago on a Summer Night

So I found out the Canon 6D can see the milky way just 50 miles south of Chicago. I’ve had this camera for almost 6 months now & I finally had a chance at photographing the milky way this past weekend.  This was taken

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Moonset at Sparks Lane

Spring in the Smoky Mountains at Cades Cove..  As the sun was rising, the moon was setting over Sparks Lane

Couple – Graphic Art

As I was standing far away on top of a sand dune, I waited & hoped for some interesting silhouettes to capture…  So I stalked this couple with my camera lens zoomed to 300mm, waited for the moment & snapped.

The sunset was colorful & vibrant but I wanted to punch it up a little bit so I did some minor edits.

Below is a step by step

An easy Photoshop Edit

I seen something like this in my flickr feed the other day & just thought it was pretty wild, so I decided to give it a shot with one of my photos from when I went to the skate park last year.
Yeah, I used Photoshop for this and I’ll tell you how I did it in just 7 easy steps.

My Luckiest St. Pat’s Day Ever

As soon as I found out there would still be a chance to see the auroras last night, I planned on driving north to Michigan to find somewhere dark to photograph & watch the Northern Lights.  We ended up at West Side County Park in Fennville, Michigan.  I did some stationary light painting to light up the foreground in this shot.

This was taken with my Rokinon 8mm f/3.5 fisheye lens

Settings: 10 second exposure, f/3.5, ISO 3200

Although yesterday during the day light hours the intensity of the solar storm was up to a 9kp, it didn’t last into the night.. I’m not sure what the kp was when I was watching them, but I’m guessing it was maybe 5kp. My alerts only go off if it’s above a 6kp since I’m near Chicago we need strong storms in order to see them.. The higher the kp # the better chance southern states have of seeing the Northern Lights.
To get your own Aurora Alerts, sign up here

Sunset Fire

 

Sunset was amazing last night… We found a patch of dead trees which made for some interesting shots but I felt like getting a little creative with this so I focused on the trees and panned the camera downward during exposure. I think this one is my favorite.

Tonti Canyon

A fisheye isn’t just a lens… it’s a way of seeing.

Winter’s Paradise – Starved Rock area

 

Winter’s Paradise – Matthiessen State Park

Starved Rock and Matthiessen State Park are great spots to hike year round, but I think winter is my favorite time of year to hike here because the crowds are few and you get to see all the different ice formations, and walk on the frozen creek within the canyons

Ball

I used natural light from the window that Marley is looking out of and in Lightroom I used the brush paint over the background and adjusted the exposure down to clean it up & make it solid black.

Ice Pancakes in Saint Joseph

Watch the waters of Lake Michigan jiggle like jello.

Time lapse shot with GoPro.