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.

Innocent Boys at Spades Park

I was at a festival on Saturday, August 27th at Spades Park on the east side of Indianapolis.  The festival was called the Feast of Lanterns.  The festival had vendors, exhibitors, a lantern auction, community organizations along with games and a play are for the kids.  Throughout the park, were hung lanterns and festival lights. The larger lantern displays were to be lit with candles while the smaller lanterns would be lit with the festival or Christmas lights.

During the day and into the evening, several bands played on the main stage.  Most of them were so-so and I didn't feel as if I was missing much as I wandered around the park. While waiting for the lanterns to be lit, my main reason for being at the festival was to photograph the lanterns at night, I sat down to listen to a band playing on the main stage.

The band turned out to be the Innocent Boys, a local band from Indianapolis.  I really enjoyed listening to them play and realized what a great opportunity this would be to do some low light and concert photography.  So, off I went.  I primarily went for close up individual pictures of the band members.  I took a few wider angle shots of multiple band members, however I was determined to come out of the evening with some good shots of the band members.

The are around the stage was wide open, front, sides and in back of the stage.  I was shooting with a couple of other photographers and we didn't have any problems moving around the stage area to get pictures.  Of course, we respected the audience and didn't stand in their way during the show.  When I shot from the the front of the stage, i was sitting on the grass and I like that angle better than just relying on line of sight pictures which can be boring. Always change your viewpoint when photographing people, climb up on something or kneel/crouch to get a lower viewpoint.  In my opinion, changing your viewpoint makes the pictures so much better.

So, here are a few pictures of the band, starting with the Lead Singer/Guitarist and here are the settings: f5.6, ISO 1600 and 1/80th.  I know, a high ISO. Well, until I can get a good f2.8 lens, the higher ISO's will have to do for know.

I like how this picture turned out of the singer. The awful blue hues from the stage lights are gone and he looks much more natural.

Next, on to the very animated and great playing upright Bass player.  I'm not sure why, but he reminds me of a younger Tom Waits.

The settings for this picture are the same as for the lead singer.

Finally, on to a close up shot of the drummer:

In the left side of the picture, I cleaned up this picture a little by cloning out a light stand.  It was just too distracting.

The band had two additional members, a keyboard player and a guitarist.  I haven't quite finished with those pictures.  Maybe next week.

Next week, more from the Innocent Boys and pictures from the last band to play on Saturday, the New Christy Minstrels.  Have a good weekend!  

Long exposures in the midway

It is that time of year again in Indiana. And by that, I mean it is time for the State Fair!  I was fortunate enough to visit the fair a couple of times this year and had the opportunity to photograph some of the midway rides.  Unfortunately, more games, food stands and rides were packed into the midway area, making for a much tighter and confined space which took away a lot of the good vantage points for photographing the rides, unlike last year.  I was able to get three really good shots this year and I've posted those pictures below:

This is probably my favorite picture from the fair this year.  Not only was the swing set ride (YOYO) moving in the foreground, the ride in the background also started in motion. The colors in the game booths in the right of the picture also stand out very nicely.   I was really happy to see both rides in motion at the same time as I had waited a long time hoping to see both in action.  The rain and sparse crowds in the midway area had a lot to do with the minimal activity on the rides this night.  The black band that is present around the YoYo ride is the riders themselves in their swings.  I like the look of the rides against the blue sky just after sunset.  This settings for this shot are ISO 100,  f22 and a 6 second exposure. 

This is a closeup shot of the same Yoyo ride.  I was backed up against the bumper cars and had the lens as wide open as was possible. I was fortunate to not have people walking through the frame during this exposure and the picture turned out quite nicely as result. Sometimes the "ghost" images of people are quite useful and look good in some of the long exposure pictures I have done at the state fair, but for this one I'm glad I have a clean image. The settings for this shot are ISO 100, f22 and an 18 second exposure.

This ride is know as "Fireball" and this is so much better than the pictures I took of this same ride last year at the fair.  I was fortunate with this picture that the trucks and generators that cluttered my pictures of this ride last year from about this same view point were gone from the area this year.  I was able to get fairly close to the ride and made this wonderfully uncluttered picture of the ride.  This ride seemed to be very popular and it wasn't long before it was up and spinning and as a result, I have several good shots of this ride.  The settings for this ride were ISO 100, f22 and a 15 second exposure.

All in all, I had a good time shooting these rides at the fair.  The surroundings made for some tight angles and different compositions, but hey, I can't have it my way all the time when I am photographing, so in the end, I did the best I could and came up with some good pictures.  I had a lot of long stares and questions about what I was doing there, sitting on the ground looking up at these rides through a camera.  Most people liked what they saw when I showed them my results, while some people just shook their shoulders and moved on.  I guess they just couldn't understand the addiction of long exposure photography and moving lights!

If I can get motivated, I'll post a few more pictures from the fair this week. 

Duncan Schiedt, jazz musician photographer

Tonight at the meeting of the Indiana Photographic Society, we had the opportunity to listen to Duncan Schiedt, a noted jazz musician photographer.  Duncan has been photographing musicians for over 60 years and he has photographed some of the legends of the jazz world:  Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and many, many more great musicians. 

He told us of his first time listening to jazz music, via BBC radio while attending an English school.  After the overseas school trip ended, he returned home and was visiting a friend who showed Duncan his darkroom.  Duncan told us that after spending an hour in the darkroom, he was hooked on photography.  He then combined his two loves of jazz and photography into a lifelong passion.

His first ever picture was taken with an Argus camera and was of  Benny Goodman and Lionel Hampton (he showed us this picture tonight). He only shoots using film or slides and still develops and prints his own pictures.  All of his work in the jazz field are done in B&W because as he puts it "Jazz music is black and white due to it's range of emotions, moods and the brilliance of the music."

During his presentation, he showed us over 80 slides of some of the various musicians he has photographed over the years and also told personal stories about the musicians.  Some of the stories were about the musicians he has befriended while other anecdotes were about the pictures, asking the musicians to pose in a certain way or just about the process involved in taking the pictures.

In addition to his work photographing jazz musicians, he has also worked as a fashion photographer, theater photographer, worked in the film industry on over 100 16mm films and has written several books.  His first book was a biography about the life of Fats Waller.  His work has also been used by Ken Burns in the PBS series "Jazz".  He brought several books to the meeting and I purchased a book and he was gracious enough to autograph it for me.

All in all, it was definitely one of our best meetings and I was thrilled to see his work.  I didn't know many of the musicians in the pictures (I'm learning who they are now by reading his book), but I know great photos when I see them, and his are definitely wonderful.  This book is something I will definitely treasure and will use it as inspiration for when I am out with the camera. 

The Black Widow

The Black Widow
Originally uploaded by indykaleu

Ahh, the start of fair season here in Indianapolis. This is a shot of the Black Widow ride and was taken at the Marion County State Fair. I always loved this ride as kid and now I have a picture of it...haha

When Rene and I arrived at the fair it was raining, which was frustrating for me but it was also good as Indy has not had any decent rain in a long time. After walking around the fair for about 20 minutes and getting our caricatures drawn (fantastic work by the way), the rain stopped and we headed out once again to see the rides.

Rene pointed out that people were in line for this ride and we headed over for some pictures. I took a few pictures with another ride in the background, but when I went to process them this weekend, I thought the background ride was very distracting.

I'm glad I was able to get this shot from a different direction. This was an 11 second exposure, set at f22 and ISO 100. I do have another picture with a shorter exposure time that shows off the ride in more detail.

I'm just so happy that Rene didn't mind me wandering around to photograph the rides and put up with change of directions and standing around for several seconds. Sweetie, it's just too bad we weren't hungry. I can still smell the corn dogs. Oh well, we still have the state fair coming up this weekend.

How to Take Photos in Low Light – PictureCorrect

How to Take Photos in Low Light – PictureCorrect

This well help me a lot at night.