Downtown Omaha - Holiday Lights 2008

Every year I go downtown to photograph Omaha's holiday lights. I attempt to take a unique image each year so that I am not duplicating previous years efforts. This year I tried to focus more on the trees and the lights and made the buildings secondary in scope to the rest. In past years compositions I had the buildings as the primary subjects with the lights there to accompany them in the scene. By the way, this was the coldest night in several years. Before going out, I bundled up in gear I bought for a Canada trip and in many layers. Fleece pants, underarmor, gortex, 2 sets of socks, 2 sets of gloves and a heavy winter coat. My feet and hands were still numb when I was done.

Technical Details:

Canon 5d MK II, 17-40 f/4l @ 19mm, f/11, 15 sec.

Omaha, Nebraska

A Frozen World

After nearly a week of being closed, the arboretum opened and I took the opportunity to take a look around. It had been a fairly nice weekend with Saturday close to 60 degrees. The first part of Sunday was also nice, but then the temperature dove below freezing. This gave me another opportunity to look for ice that had thawed and refrozen which can create for some interesting natural patterns. For the most part, however, the ice and snow were scare and there was only a mucky muddy residue left. I did manage to find some nice rock patterns that continued below the ice in a small pond. In this image I particularly liked how the edge of the ice went around some of the rocks that poked above the surface.

Technical Details:

Canon 5d, 50 CM, f/9, 1/125 sec.
OPPD Arboretum

To view other photographs, order this photograph as a print, or purchase licensing rights, please visit my website at http://www.journeyoflight.com/.

Orange and Blue

Tonight's image of a sunset over DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge was taken the same evening as "Petals in the Snow". As I get my prints ready for my upcoming exhibits at the refuge I came across this one and processed it. This one will not be in the exhibit as I already have several other wintery type frozen lake photographs and I am trying to avoid too many of the same type of image.

Anyway, I have a story related to this image. That evening, as I was composing this photograph I saw what I thought was a dust spot in the view finder. I looked at my filters, looked at the view finder itself and tried to figure out what it was. Finally I just looked up to see if it could be something on the lake. Lo and behold it was a deer standing in the middle of the frozen lake looking at me, still as can be! It was too far away to really be made out with a wide-angle lens which made it look like a spot, but it was definitely a surprise - for both of us.

Technical Details:

Canon 5d, 17-40 f/4l @ 28mm, 1/4 sec., f/22, Singh-Ray 2-stop Hard ND grad, Singh-Ray 3-stop ND Filter, 2 exposures combined in Photoshop CS3
DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge

To view other photographs, order this photograph as a print, or purchase licensing rights, please visit my website at http://www.journeyoflight.com/.