March 22, 2015 | Categories: Photography, Time Lapse | Tags: 2015, beautiful, bridge, bridges, canon, city, clip, cloud, clouds, colorful, colors, contrast, downtown, foreground, glow, handheld, landscape, lapse, march, metro, minnesota, mississippi river, mn, nature, photo, photography, photos, picture, pictures, power lines, pretty, river, saint paul, scenery, sequence, setting, shot, shots, silhouette, silhouetted, skies, sky, skyline, sring, st paul, st. pual, sun, sun set, sunset, sunsets, tamron, time, timelapse, tree, tripod, twin cities, twincities, urban, vid, video, vivid, winter | Leave a comment
As many of You know, there was a total lunar eclipse this morning. I wandered out of the house at 3:30am to find a good spot to shoot it from. Not far from home, I set up My tripod, dialed in the intervalometer and captured some of the event in the sky, among other things. This shot, is the first time I’ve ever done image stacking. Needs some improvement. I know..

That should give You a rough idea of what some of this video looks like. I did a much wider time lapse, consisting of 160, 15 second exposures, which were taken every 18 seconds. I then repositioned and zoomed in, taking 400 shots, 3 seconds apart, with a closer view of the neighboring city’s skyline. As the night becomes day, one can see the massive cranes, constructing the new Vikings stadium on the left side of downtown. Which is impressive, considering they are about seven miles away. The sun came up as the moon was setting, which ended up bleaching out the shot just before Luna dropped out of view. Vimeo’s free accounts don’t give a very good image quality, but it does look a little better if You watch it on their site, instead of mine. :(




October 8, 2014 | Categories: Photography, Time Lapse | Tags: 2x multiplier, 3am, 5am, 6am, 6d, 70-200mm 2.8, animated, animation, blood, bright, canon, city, clip, crane, cranes, dark, day, daylight, dock, downtown, eclipse, full, glowing, hub, industry, lapse, lights, lines, luna, lunar, midway, midwest, minn, minneapolis, minnesota, mn, moon, moonset, morning, mpls, night, october, orbit, penumbra, photo, photographer, photos, pictures, power line, power lines, rail, scenic, set, setting, shadow, shots, sigma, sky, skyline, skyscraper, skyscrapers, stack, stacked, still, telephoto, time, timelapse, total, tower, traffic, train, trains, umbra, video, view, waning, waxing, zoom | Leave a comment

I bought a Canon 6D and their 24mm f/1.4 L series lens to go with it. Anxious to make use of these new toys, I started asking around to see if any of My friends wanted to go camping. An old friend that I rarely talk to opted in, along with Her husband and three dogs. The morning of departure, I shot them a text to see if they were running on schedule. The reply was, “We have to cancel.” Her family rents out a few houses around the neighborhood, one of which was to get new tennants after the weekend. The person who had lived there decided to leave the place packed full of crap, clutter and furniture. It looked like a pack rat was living there. Hell bent on getting out of the city, I met up with them and we had the place mostly empty in under three hours. Happily, we then proceeded to get in the van and drive north. It was already after noon on saturday, but in My book, any time outside of city life is time well spent. It was a lovely drive, just south of Lake Superior’s western-most point, we encountered a thick fog. These pictures do not do it justice, one could barely see a hundred yards for a good twenty miles.
Just south of the lovely town of Duluth, the fog lifted and my friends, who had never been to this part of Minnesota, could see why I love this little city, perched on a hill. The place has an unusually elaborate system of bridges. Partially due to the fact that this is a busy port town, but that still does not explain why the highway has so many bridges, crossing, rising and bending in every which way. Duluth has so many great angles and lines built in to it’s infrastructure. Some time soon I think I shall head up there, just to photograph the genius of those who designed and built the city. Passing through, I snapped a couple of shots through the dirty windows on the car.
For those of us from the Twin Cities, Duluth is the gateway to the north shore. Once You have passed through town, You find Yourself on the red road. The red tarmac doesn’t last long, but is a much welcomed sign that You have left the urban environment behind. From that point, heading north-east along Lake Superior’s coast, is a long, long stretch of rolling hills, rocky shores, winding rivers and endless forest. My favorite place to be! We headed up the coastal road passing through the many State Parks and National Forests. Eventually finding ourselves at Cascade State Park, which is a little more than an hour from the Canadian border. It was already pretty late in the day, but we rapidly set up camp and got a fire going. After filling our bellies, we walked the couple hundred yards over to the lake and spent about two hours just sitting, taking in the vast darkness. It was a foggy night, visibility was quite low, but the sound of the waves rolling onto the rocky shore was just what I needed.
Once back at our campsite, we all went to bed pretty quickly. In the morning, we took a walk up the Cascade River, pausing for Me to take the following pictures and proceeded to head south, Hoping to make a couple of stops along the way back home.
My friend has a bad back, which chose to throw Him into a state of agony on this trip. I felt bad that He was in so much pain, so we took it easy on the return trip. In the end, we passed by all but one of the sights that the North Coast has to offer. I simply would not come up here without a stop at that which has become My favorite waterfall. Which I took a bunch more pictures of.. The overcast sky made taking pictures a lot nicer than the bright, sunny day the last time I was there. I took My time, stopping every couple hundred yards, pondering the angles I desired and taking more pictures, long exposures, all the way up the valley. The place was nice and quiet, we only saw two other groups of people the whole time we were there. What a wonderful place.
After basking in the cool water for a while, we climbed back into their van and headed towards home. Driving back down the coast, leaving behind the natural beauty of this post-glacial landscape and entering the land of human civilaization. The farther south You go, the impact of man kind becomes more and more evident. The lone road gets wider, sparcely placed houses give way to towns, tunnels bring You under towering rocky hills and eventually, You find Yourself looking at the ports and populated hills of Duluth. We paused there to stretch our legs and take a final look at the vast expanse of water, before climbing back into the van and continuing south towards Saint Paul. We managed to ride the leading edge of a storm for a couple hundred miles, all the way home. Arriving back in city life, just in time to see a very bold and beautifully colored sun set. Sorry, I did not get a picture of that, there were buildings in the way…
August 27, 2014 | Categories: Photography, Random Thoughts | Tags: 24mm f/1.4 L, 35 south, 35e, 35w, 6d, adventure, arete 3 asl, beautiful, beauty, blur, blurry, bridge, bridges, camp, camping, campsite, candle, canon, cascade, cascadestatepark, cascading, city, city lights, cliff, close to canada, clouds, cloudy, coast, coastal, cook county, creek, delayed, descent, drive, driven, driving, duluth, earth, explore, exploreminnesota, falls, fire, fog, foggy, foreground, forest, forests, freeway, glow, good times, gorgeous, granite, haze, highway, highway 61, hike, hiking, i35, images, industry, interstate, journey, lake, lakesuperior, landscape, line, long exposure, long exposures, massive, middle america, midwest, miles, minn, minnesota, mn, natural, nature, nature's, north, north coast, northern, park, parks, path, photo, photographer, photography, photos, picture, pictures, port, ports, quarried, quick, rain, rapids, rei, river, rivers, road, roadtrip, rock, rocks, rocky, roots, scenery, see, sharp, shooting, shore, shores, short, shots, sights, silver creek, site, splendor, stairway, state, steps, storm, stream, superior, superior hiking trail, tent, the north, thenorth, town, trail, trails, travel, travelling, tree, trees, trip, tunnel, tunnels, vacation, valley, valleys, venture, view, walk, walking, walkway, wall, walls, waterfall, waterfalls, wayside, weather, wetlands, wild, wilderness, wood, wooden | Leave a comment
I went out to shoot some time lapse stuff with My friend Thai Phan Quang. We ended up on the walking bridge over 35W, a few bocks south of the I94 junction again. I am trying to stockpile a bunch of different time lapse series so I can eventually make a video which contains nothing but time lapsed segments. This is a single, 1500 image sequence from rush hour today. It lasts a little longer than 45 seconds. I was hoping for more cloud activity, but since there was very little, it seemed right to frame things just above the tallest buildings. The music is by My big Brother’s band: Heiruspecs. The song is ‘Snapshot’ off of their most recent album, Night Falls.
After shooting that sequence, I did some small perspective changes and adjustments. Going for a slightly different feel, by blurring the traffic a little bit. Then shot this twelve second set, consisting of 500 images. Hope You enjoy this silent, short one. Not in HD, because I don’t pay Vimeo and am limited to one, high quality upload per week.
August 12, 2014 | Categories: Photography, Random Thoughts | Tags: 17-50mm 2.8, 30fps, 35w, 480p, 720p, afternoon, andor, andorblogs, animate, animated, animation, bridge, bridges, buildings, canon, capture, capturing, cars, city, commute, congestion, day, daylight, daytime, definition, down town, downtown, evening, film, flow, franklin, freeway, gridlock, hd, heiruspecs, highway, hour, junction, lane, lanes, lapse, light, link, links, long, metro, metropolis, metropolitan, midwest, minn, minneapolis, minnesota, mn, motion, moving, mpls, pair, photo, photographic, photography, photos, quality, resolution, road, roads, rush, rush hour, scenery, sequence, set, sky scraper, skyline, skyscraper, skyscrapers, slow, snapshot, south minneapolis, stream, street, streets, summer, sunny, system, t4i, tamron, time, timelapse, town, traffic, trucks, twin cities, twincities, two, urban, vid, video, vids, view, vimeo | Leave a comment
August 3, 2014 | Categories: Photography | Tags: 2014, andor, andorblogs, angles, august, beautiful, beauty, bee, bees, blogs?, bloom, blooming, blooms, border, bumble, butterflies, butterfly, canon, close, close-up, color, colored, colorful, contrast, eat, eating, flower, flowers, garden, green, images, lens, many, natural, nature, nectar, on, orange, pattern, patterns, perch, perched, photo, photographer, photos, picture, pictures, pink, planter, planters, pollen, pots, potted, pretty, purple, range, red, rock, rocks, rocky, scheme, sigma 70-200mm 2.8 os, stand, summer, t4i, tall, telephoto, varieties, variety, view, yard, yellow, zinnia, zinnias, zoom | Leave a comment

August 3, 2014 | Categories: Photography | Tags: 2014, andor, andorblogs, black, blogs?, bowl, browned, canon, caramel, carmel, chicken, contrast, cook, cooked, cookinginthetwilighthours, digital, dinner, eat, eats, food, fry, glass, green, hot, images, img, imges, late, meal, meat, night, noodles, pea, photo, photograph, photography, photos, pic, pics, picture, pictures, ramen, salty, sauce, savory, seasoned salt, shot, shots, snap.peas, spicey, stir, stirfry, sugar, supper, sweet, t41, tamron 17-50mm f2.8, view | Leave a comment
July 5, 2014 | Categories: Photography | Tags: 17-50mm, 70-200mm, barge, barges, beetle, bench, bend, bends, bluff, bluffs, boat, brick, bugs, building, buildings, burial, camera, canon, capitol, car, city, cityscape, classic, color, daisies, distance, downtown, dragonfly, east side, f2.8, field, flower, flowers, flowing, foreground, fountain, high ground, hike, hydrant, image, images, insect, insects, invasive, japanese, landscape, lens, lenses, lime stone, limestone, lush, macro, marlin, menace, middle america, midwest, minn, minneapolis, minnesota, mississippi, mn, mounds, mpls, park, path, paved, pavement, photo, photographer, photography, photos, picture, pictures, pigseye, pink, point, portrait, purple, Rambler, recreation, red, river, saint paul, scene, scenery, scraper, scrapers, sculpture, shade, sigma, sky, skyline, skyscrapers, st paul, state, statue, stp, t4i, tamron, tc, telephoto, trail, transparent, tree, trees, tug, tug boat, twin cities, twincities, two cities, urban, vantage, view, walk, walking, wander, wild roses, wings | Leave a comment
July 5, 2014 | Categories: Photography | Tags: 2014, 4th, 4thofjuly, american, andor, andor 2000, andor2000, bang, blowing up, blur, boom, building, burst, canon, capitol, celebration, color, colors, crop, cropped, display, explodes, exploding, explosion, explosions, fire works, fireworks, flash, flashing, foreground, fourth, friends, frogtown, holiday, holidays, hps, i94, july, launch, launching, light trail, light trails, lights, long exposure, merica, middle america, midway, minn, minnesota, mn, mortar, parking lot, people, photo, photograph, photographs, photography, photos, pic, pics, picture, pictures, ramsey county, rondo, saint paul, scenery, shots, sigma 30mm, st paul, st.p, stp, street, t4i, tamron 17-50mm, view, xsi, zoom | Leave a comment
June 23, 2014 | Categories: Photography | Tags: 17-50mm, 2014, 70-200mm, air, airport, andor, awesome, beams, beautiful, blue, canon, cemetary, cloud, clouds, color, colorful, colors, condensation, cumulus, dusk, evening, falling, fore ground, foreground, formation, light, lighting, lights, magenta, middle america, midwest, minnesota, natural, nature, orange, photo, photography, photos, pics, pictures, pink, pinks, precipitation, pretty, purple, rain, raincloud, rainclouds, raining, rays, river valley, sheeting, sky, solstice, summer, sun, sunset, t4i, telephoto, the heavens, the sky, trees, view, zoom | Leave a comment