Sunday, October 11, 2009

Cold mornings


Well, today the weather was great for what I wanted to do. I have been watching this place on the river. Once the weather was just right I was gonna go take the perfect picture. Today the weather was perfect for it. But needed to have brought the rest of my gear.

I gotta up a little later than I had planned. Being I've tried this shot for years I had the "it ain't never gonna happen" blues. ANd the fire place felt SOOOOO good. Besides did I really want to drive 30 mile north just and try to take a picture? In the truck the round trip would cost me $10.00, and I am sure the picture will not get that kind of income. But as the last second was upon me I took off and headed out.

Once in the truck I thought, need the tripod. It is in the Honda, the locked Honda. Need the good lens, in the same Honda, Locked. So i thought screw it and took off.

Have you ever tried a 2 second exposure, hand held? Even with the IS turned on. If it would not have been 20 degrees, and if I wasn't shivering...it may have been Ok.

But the angle I wanted just wasn't there. With the light the way it was I'd wanted to close up the aperture to like 11.0 and then crank the shutter down to like 1.5 seconds and hope for a slow exposure I could come up with something. NOT.

But as I was writing off my east facing shot I noticed a descent west shot. It turned out better than the shot I drove there for. So if your going out to take pictures, take ALL of your gear with you. Don't be a knot head like me!

Thursday, October 1, 2009



So there I was, just finishing up the wedding shoot. I get a text.

"Just shot a nice 4 or 6 point"

Great! I thought. My sons first buck. I was happy I was done with the shoot. I went in the church, grabbed my camera gear, packed up the laptop.

Ding-dong.. "He's Down"

Off I went. I was in Reed City and headed to Barryton as fast as my POS Honda would go. It wasn't long and I got another text. It was the picture above. By the time I got there they had the deer closer to the house. I walked down to them and saw a young kid setting on the ground. Looked like he was about to pass out. Seams he has the same stomach his Dad has. HAHA. He loves to hunt, but hates the "cleaning". He was hunting with a friend of mine, Brian. It looked like He had called everyone from Barryton to do what they call "Party with the Buck". And Boy could that buck party!

It was great, Brians friends grabbed the deer, skinned it, quartered it and before it was in the car we had some fresh venison on the grille. Maybe a beer or two also! We sat around a camp fire and I listened to Will tell me how it all happened. No buck fever he claims. Yah right! But it sounds like he took the deer at about 230 yards and took a perfect shot. Deer went only about 2 yards and was done!

So now, he gets to set in the blind and watch Dad hunt! His only tag now is for 4 points or more on one side. In the area we hunt....that's not often. I am working on pictures I took. It was dark, camera had a hard time focusing (it had just took 600+ wedding pictures, it was tired). I'll work on them and see if I can make something out of them. Hate to think that a cell phone picture is all we have! But it is better than nothing at all.