Sandhill Cranes in Nebraska's Central Flyway

I'm blessed to live just a couple hours away from one of the great spectacles of nature:  the migration of half a million Sandhill Cranes from their winter homes in Texas to their summer homes in Canada & Siberia.  En route, these 4-foot-tall birds stop over along central Nebraska's Platte River for 5-6 weeks each spring to bulk up for the journey ahead.  It's quite a sight, and one that people travel from all over the world to see.  My family has been driving out to see it every year for a while now.  Enjoying a profitable trip can be pretty hit & miss if you don't know what you're doing, so I wanted to give some pointers on getting the most from the experience.

Kenko 1.4x PRO 300 teleconverter DGX

Ever since I upgraded my Canon 70-300/4-5.6IS lens to the shorter, but faster, 70-200/2.8IS, I've missed the extra reach that the 300mm lens had.  A teleconverter has been on my wish list ever since.  With the Sandhill Crane and Bald Eagle photographing season approaching, I decided it was time to bite the bullet.  Despite the impending birding outings, a 1.4x teleconverter seemed to be a more useful multiplier than 2x, so I bought a Kenko 1.4x PRO 300 from Amazon.  I took a few test shots immediately after unboxing it, and wanted to share what I found.

Documenting 3D wall art

My dad is a pretty good artist.  His current medium of choice is acrylic-painted 3D wall art, and he's been amassing a healthy portfolio of work in preparation for a gallery show.  He had been taking photos of the pieces to display on his web site, HollingsworthArt.com, but his point & shoot camera was giving him lackluster results, so I volunteered to come photograph all of his recent work before he hauled it to the gallery for the show.  Photographing--or more specifically, lighting--large, semi-gloss objects of varying sizes can present some challenges, so I figured I'd share the process I used.

Disassembling a Canon point-and-shoot camera

I've had several Canon point & shoot cameras since we first made the digital leap in late 2001.  Because these tiny cameras were made to be carried around everywhere in your pocket, then tend to have a hard life in our family.  They inevitably end up with some physical defect that prompts me to completely tear them apart in an attempt to fix the problem.  Sometimes I'm successful, other times not.  The process has been very similar every time for 11 years, and I expect that it won't change a whole lot going forward, so I wanted to document it here for you.

A day in the life of an LBC concert

8:54pm - Performance

Several times each year, our church hosts concerts for A-list contemporary Christian musicians.  My wife heads up hospitality (food & green room) for these events, and I usually help her.  It takes scores of volunteers an entire day of work to put on a show that provides the attendees with 2-3 hours of entertainment, but most people have no clue what really happens behind the scenes to make a show like this happen.  After several years of watching this, I proposed to our head concert organizer that I shoot a personal project documenting a day in the life of one of our concerts.  He loved the idea, and thus began one of the busiest single days of photography that I'd done to date.

Organic patterns in window frost

Living in a 100+ year old house has some drawbacks.  One of them is that the original, single-pane windows leak heat like a sieve.  The silver lining is that when the warm, moist, indoor air leaks through the window and freezes on the outer storm window during really cold weather, the resulting frost forms the most amazing patterns.  Sometimes they resemble miniature forest scenes.  Other times, they look like vines, leaves, or feathers.  Combined with the right back light, this simple window frost can provide some beautiful images.

Most popular posts of 2012

Well, it's that time of year again--the time when most of the media outlets on the planet recap what they've done over the last twelve months.  Not wanting to be left behind, I present to you now the ten most popular posts from the Prairie Rim Images blog, based on page views accrued during 2012.  As expected, "Old Glass" and DIY fix-it articles make up the entire list.  If you're a recent reader, this is your chance to see what all the hype is about.