
Tuesday windmill

I grabbed my photo buddy Ken, whose work is showcased a lot on KFYR TV’s Sky Spies page, and we headed north to catch the sunset. Little PJ was still suffering from a cold, but on the mend. His RSV test was negative, he’d had a fun day at home with mom and afternoon with dad, so it was time to dash out and see what the sky had to present.
I drove us out in the middle of nowhere, near my favorite Northern Lights spot, and found this windmill. I haven’t actually been on this particular road in the daytime, so I never knew it was there before! We took a number of shots from a variety of angles, and this was my result. It’s amazing how different my shots look from the ones Ken took. We had different angles, resulting in a different chunk of sky, so I had none of the gold or brilliant color that he had. Instead I opted for the cool blue of the northwestern sky.
We were about to head for higher ground and set up for the sunset when my beloved wife called to tell me that PJ had spiked a nasty fever. We threw the gear in the truck, pointed it back toward town, and I came home to tend to my little man. A little bit of baby Tylenol cured the fever, and he spent the rest of the evening playing and laughing with daddy until bedtime. I saw that Kevin Lawrence used one of Ken’s windmill photos on the 10 o’clock news, so apparently the brief venture up north turned out as a photographic success for both of us.
Some of our office members (myself included) got whatever stomach flu is making the rounds, which led to a 102.1 fever on Tuesday. I went back to work Wednesday but came right home after work to sit back and recover fully. The agony of having two new lenses in the camera bag and a stomach that’s still sorting itself out was tolerable…but just barely.
On my way out the door I talked to one of our clients, who said the same stomach bug had worked its way through his office last week. Look out!
While going through some past photos for another project yesterday I came upon this particular shot, and I have no idea why I haven’t shared it with you sooner. In keeping with my strict policy of not trespassing, this was shot from a section line road and not on private property. The farm resides next to the wind turbine “farm” up near Regan.
Going through old photos is a blast. I’m new to this photography thing, so by “old” photos I mean ones I’ve taken since I got my camera from Bob’s Photo a couple years back. An SLR camera was something I wanted since high school, and I’m trying to make up for lost time by taking pictures almost daily. It’s a great release!
It’s unfortunate I couldn’t get an angle without the power pole in the background, but at least I did capture the gradient of the evening sky. This windmill is on 26th street in Bismarck, actually, although I’m sure it’s outside the city limits. Since the enhanced 911 conversion, rural roads are given street names and numbers, making it hard to determine where that line is drawn.
…makes me happy…oh, sorry. Didn’t mean to kick into John Denver mode there. Yes, it must be a disorder: I was lying in a field at sunrise this morning, listening to my iPod and waiting to see what the sun would do. So much for sleeping in! Before getting down on the ground to get this angle, I was on my feet for a while. So I guess you could say I was outstanding in the field. Okay, I’ll quit the puns. Here’s the pix:
There were some ups and downs to this little adventure. It seems that I can’t leave the house without something blogworthy happening, and today was no different. While I got lots of nice sunrise and pre-sunrise pictures, I also had some other trials. First, the cap for the lens I was using fell out of my pocket out in the middle of this field, and I noticed it once I’d hiked back to the truck. Being of the stubborn sort, I hoofed it back out there and actually found it within five minutes! To help, I brought the camera and lined up the picture the same way, then followed my tracks back toward the truck. Whew! Canon charges an arm and a leg for those things. Oh, one more thing:
A lot of those other dots are caused by a dirty sensor on the camera. This is a problem unique to digital cameras, since film uses a new surface for each exposure. When you own a digital camera where you change lenses a lot, there comes a time to clean it. Sensors attract dust, and dust shows up when you point the camera at bright stuff with narrow apertures (I think this was f/22). Drat.
I just ordered a couple of different sensor cleaning kits, so it’s time to try them out. It’s never fun to stick foreign objects into a $1500 camera, but I honestly don’t trust anyone else to do it for me. I’ve always been the same way with my motorcycles, mountain bikes, and other stuff. There are too many horror stories flying around out there. So I’ll be sticking a solvent swab into my computer very soon. Hopefully I’ll do it right, or it’ll be hard to come up with more photography for the ol’ Blog!
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