Thursday Night at the Velodrome

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Every Thursday night they bike race at the velodrome at the National Sports Center and I was thinking of going a second time tonight but since it’s so dark and gloomy I thought I’d revisit what I had shot the last time.

I hadn’t ever been to a velodrome before but its rather fun shooting in new situations. I most likely could have acquired access to the infield but since this was my first time shooting this type of bike racing I thought I’d stick to the outside of the track and get a feel for what was going on.

To see a music video from the race featuring one of the racers, Mike Smith, go to Dan McMahon Photography facebook page.

Split Rock Lighthouse

Split Rock Lighthouse

Any photographer from Minnesota has to have a shot of Split Rock Lighthouse, right? This is one of the few images that doesn’t have much of a story. This is the Split Rock Lighthouse on Minnesota’s north shore. I had been camping at Gooseberry falls and was hiking and shooting some of the waterfalls all along the north shore. We toured the lighthouse and later hiked down the steps below the lighthouse just to see what was down there. This image was from the shore at the bottom of steps.

Usually when I think of light house images I think of a shot taken at night or early morning or late evening or at least when the water is riled and smashing against the rocks. That type of setting would give the lighthouse more of a sense of purpose. Having said that, I really like this image. I enjoy all the colors, from the ones in the cliff to the deep blue sky and white fluffy clouds to the color of the lighthouse itself. It just seems to exemplify a great summer day on the north shore of Lake Superior.

Surfing at sunset

We had driven down the California coast to Monterey during the day and I was trying to make it back up north, possibly to Half Moon Bay, so I could catch the boats docked with the sun setting behind them. As we drove along I could see we weren’t going to make it when I spotted some surfers trying to get a few last rides backlit by the setting sun. We ran down to the shore and waited about ten minutes until the sun was just about to dip into the water. I was able to pull off a few shots before the sun sunk into the ocean. My first thought was to remove the bird right at the water line at the bottom but somehow it seems so much better with that little bit of added detail.

Kettle River Kayaking

A week ago we had  a lot of cold rainy days and most of the sporting events I wanted to shoot were being cancelled. So, on Sunday I decided to head up to the Kettle River and shoot the Rapids Riders working the Banning Rapids. Due to the rain the water level had increased dramatically from the day before and although four kayaks and two canoes entered the water only two kayakers took turns playing in the hole. The water was a bit too wild for some of the less experienced members.

I was on the opposite bank from where they were working  and shot with a 70-200mm with a 1.4 extender. I braced myself by laying across a boulder. Even wearing my lightweight nordic ski racing gloves my fingers were freezing. I didn’t want to take any time to warm them up though since there were only two kayakers and I didn’t have any idea how long they would last in the water.

On this image I loved how his helmet, jacket and lifejacket give him an almost military look as he battles the river facing upstream.

As he rolls and spins all that was visible were his hands and paddle. A perfect statement on the violence of the river that day.

I was determined to shoot slow enough to blur the motion of the water but I needed to time the shot at a peak moment to freeze the kayak. I balanced the lens itself on the boulder  but had to pivot the lens with the motion of the kayaker as he surged forward and back in the hole and popped in and out of the water. This was captured at 1/20 of a second.

Grand Canyon

Grand Canyon

It was my first trip to the Grand Canyon. We had an interesting sunrise, however it occurred before we got to the canyon. I was blown away by the shear size and scope of the canyon. Although the light kept shifting and changing with the clouds and light snow at one end of the park and the sun on the other end, I couldn’t seem to really capture anything that excited me in my camera. I think the scope was just too big. I tried including people in certain areas to add perspective and it helped some. I also tried playing around with foreground and background and depth of field but still nothing really hit me. Only later back at the studio when I started to play around in Lightroom and I got a little crazy with some settings did it hit me. The Grand Canyon had seemed so unreal to me. The sense I had of the place was that it was unreal and the image had to reflect that. I greatly increased the recovery and added fill light but dropped the overall exposure. I then increased the contrast and upped the clarity to 100 while decreasing saturation. To me, this was the Grand Canyon.

Some time to relax.

Some time to sit.

Like most weddings the wedding party (read Bride) was a bit late getting started. This meant we didn’t get as much done before the service as I would have liked. Immediately after the service we concentrated on group portraits with the wedding party and family so they could get to the reception. The ones being shorted on portraits were Bonnie and Dave. Fortunately the bride and groom eat first so they get done first. While the guests finished eating we snuck outside for about 10 minutes to capture some portraits of just the two of them. It was nice both for them and for me to have a few relaxing minutes without all the hustle and distractions of other people. I liked the way the B&W eliminates the distracting colors in the background and the contrast of his dark tux brings your eye right to them. This image appears as a double page spread in their wedding album.

Forget the sunset.

MIchael Kiley has a great sunset on his wall that he did in the Sedona, Arizona area. On a recent trip I wanted to capture a similar shot. Each evening we positioned ourselves to have an interesting horizon and waited for the sun to set. However the skies were perfectly clear and so the sun sank down without giving us any real color to work with. I did notice that the afterglow once the sun set was great. On one of our last evenings I changed tactics. I positioned myself so the scene I wanted was to my east not to capture the sunset but rather to take advantage of the color of the afterglow. The color on the rocks is the reflection of the light just before the sun had dipped below some hills to our west.

In Lightroom I  boosted the clarity and vibrance and decreased the contrast. I also increased the blacks and added fill light. In photoshop I removed the top edge of some fence posts I had caught at the bottom of the image.

19K on the Birkebeiner ski trail

The first post. Where to start? Upon entering my house this image is one of the first things you see, so it would seem a logical beginning to my blog too. When I travel I like to try and capture one image that to me defines the location. This was taken during a trip to Norway for the Birkebeiner ski race. It was the thursday before the race 19 kilometers from the finish. I love the curve of the perfectly cut track and the piles of snow on the trees.

It embodies everything I love about cross-country skiing: the beauty of the world in winter, the smooth undulating track and snow, the solitude of the lone skier and yet the friendship of the four skiers.

I had waited about 5 minutes for the lone skier to appear. A couple of small groups of two or three had come along but they seemed to throw everything out of balance and yet with no skier in the track it didn’t seem exactly right either. My worry was that the group would break up and head out on their different ways. After converting the image to black and white I applied a Lucias filter to sharpen the edges on the darker areas and clothing and give it a bit of a chiseled look.

Upon the first hanging on the wall I found I had made the same mistake a lot of my clients make: I had printed it too small! It had lost all real impact and the grandeur of the scene. I reprinted it to a width of 40 inches and it remains one of my most commented on images.