So this past weekend, my girlfriend and I spent Saturday at Thunder over Louisville, which was held on the Ohio river.  We had planned this trip a couple of months ago, but couldn't get a hotel room anywhere near Louisville due to them all being booked up for this festival.

I did some searching around on Flickr and on the web for information and pictures of Thunder and while I found a lot of air show and fireworks pictures, I couldn't a whole of useful information about the event.  I searched many times through the official Thunder website, but I couldn't find a map of the event.  I think it would have been helpful if a map of the festival area was available for download.  We were able to find the lawn viewing and food areas by following the crowds, but it would have been very helpful if we could have downloaded something before driving down to Louisville.

And now a few words about properly packing for the weather.  We checked the weather when we left and didn't see a problem with temps in the mid 50's in Louisville.  So, I brought a windbreaker and wore a short sleeved shirt. When we arrived in Louisville, it felt a lot chiller than the mid 50's.  We had totally overlooked the   wind coming off of the river.  Yes, it was probably about 10 degrees colder where we picked our spots close to the river.  Let me put it this way, the wind was brutal and kept us cold throughout the day.

The overcast skies also prevented the air show from being a normal air show.  The planes were unable to do any stunts and could only do slow speed passes.  The other downside to the overcast and cloudy skies also meant that the modern planes blended in very well with the dark clouds.  It made photographing them very difficult as they all appeared as silhouettes in the sky.  I think I have some decent pictures of the jets and WW2 warbirds, but I'm just not certain. All in alll, it was great seeing an F-15, F-16, F22, C-130, C-5,
 C-17, A-10, B-2, a few Corsairs, P-38 and so much more.  The coolest part of the air show was seeing the F-22 and P-51 perform several formation flybys.

The fun part of the evening started for me after the sun went down.  I was anxiously awaiting the start of the fireworks show.  Before the start of the fireworks, I moved closer to the water to get better pictures of the fireworks.  Did I mention I was cold sitting on the lawn?  I was much colder down by the river and was seriously questioning my sanity in moving down the river's edge.  After looking at my pictures, yeah the cold was worth it !

Looking through all of the pictures online led us to believe there would only be fireworks shot off from the bridge and from the barges in the middle of the road. What we didn't see were the barges near the Indiana side of the river.  Both barge locations and the bridge set their fireworks off at the same time.  When I started shooting and seeing the results, I just couldn't believe what I was seeing in the screen.  This was by far the best fireworks display I have ever seen.

Despite the crummy weather, I think we had a good time and are already looking forward to a possible return visit next year.  The wonderful fair food (loved the tacos!) played a part in making a cold day much better.  How about some pictures?

I took about 150 shots of the fireworks and of the planes that were lit up and flying in formations (and one plane was dropping fireworks) prior to the start of the fireworks show.  I was able to make some good light trail photographs thanks to the well lit up planes.  I'll have to process and post those pics soon.  All of the fireworks pictures were shot in manual mode and I used the Bulb mode on the Canon 30d for the shutter speed, the aperture was set to f11 and the ISO was set to 100.

Here are a few pics:

Blue Memorial

Blue Memorial
Originally uploaded by indykaleu


This is a shot of the Congressional Medal of Honor Memorial along the canal in Indianapolis. I have made several shots of this memorial in the past and haven't done much to those pictures in terms of processing.

This time I wanted to do something different and while editing the RAW image, I decided to tweek the white balance and see what I could get with the image.

The above image is the result of changing the white balance to Tungsten and further 'cooling' the picture by also changing the temperature of the image.

I'm very pleased with the photo and the experimentation in processing the image.

After a long layoff I dragged my rear end out last night with a coworker and my camera for some night photography.  My coworker was new to night photography and had only recently bought a dSLR.  He wasn't happy with his previous attempts at night and long exposure photography and wanted to learn more about both.    
Last night was also his first time shooting in manual mode.

We started out on the canal in downtown Indianapolis for some basic shots of the city skyline and of the canal itself.  My friend was hesitant at first to shoot in manual mode but after a few shots and then seeing the difference in his pictures, he was hooked.  We later moved down to the canal and made several shots of the Congressional Medal of Honor memorial and from there we walked over to Monument Circle.

At the Circle, I showed him the basics of how to shoot car trails. Unfortunately the traffic wasn't moving quick enough for good light trails, but he was very happy with his results.  At this point we were both getting tired and my feet were starting to protest (we had done a lot of walking) so we started to head back his car.

We stopped along Virginia avenue to shoot some additional light trails.  This is a good location to due several intersections meeting in this spot.  I made a few long exposure photographs including a 64 second exposure that really made me happy.  After looking at it, I do wish I had went up a floor or two in the parking garage that was above us and shot from that angle.  I've made several shots of the city skyline from the top floor of that garage but haven't done any light trail shooting yet.  It is a good location so I know I will be making a return visit sometime soon.

Anyway, on to the photos,

The first picture is of the Congressional Medal of Honor Memorial along the canal in downtown Indianapolis.  I've made several pictures of this memorial in the past, but for this photograph, I made some changes in post processing.  The memorial is green in color but I wanted something a little different.  In processing the image, I changed the RAW white balance to Tungsten to achieve the blue color.  I'm very happy with the composition of the picture and the difference in the color and white balance.  Being able to tweak the white balance is a major reason why I only shoot in RAW.  It just gives better results.

This second picture was made at the tip of Virginia avenue and was also made in downtown Indianapolis.  I was at the location hoping for some bus traffic to pass by, but they weren't running so late on the weekends. I'll have to visit this location again during the week for some bus trails.  This shot was done with a 64 second exposure and at ISO 100.

In the end, it was a good time getting out last night with my coworker to do some night time shooting in Indianapolis.  He had a good time and learned a lot about manual mode and about shooting long exposures. He is definitely eager to learn more and wants to go out again and soon.  The next step for him is to get a better pc and to acquire Photoshop Elements or Lightroom 4.  I have both programs and would be lost without them in processing my pictures.

Happy Easter everyone!