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Tag Archives: Wisconsin
Fond du Lac Lighthouse
This is another image of the Fond du Lac lighthouse, located at the Southern end of Lake Winnebago, at the entrance to the Fond du Lac Yacht Club.
This summer I’ve set dates aside to head back up to “Fondy” and shoot some more images of the area, including the iconic lighthouse.
October 2009. (2941)
Busy Bee
I’m not sure spring can get here any faster.
This image was taken at my dad’s farm near Viola, Wisconsin. On this photography blog, I’ve posted a number of pictures taken on his property. While I normally do big, expansive wide shots, it’s always nice to watch nature do it’s thing on a much smaller scale.
August 2011. (8402)
Driftless Pond
In the Southwest corner of Wisconsin is an area where the glaciers missed.
Instead of slowly grinding along and leveling everything in it’s path, this area was bypassed and, as a result, has a lot of rolling meadows and the famous midwest range of the Ohcooch Mountains.
June 2009. (3674)
Casey
I like to tell the story of my first visit to my parent’s farm after they picked up their new golden retriever, Casey.
Some time back I was scheduled to work a Chicago Bulls game on a Friday evening. Additionally, I received a phone call to work a softball game in Iowa City the morning after said Bulls game and, mathematically, the hours in the car would make it a long drive with minimal sleep. So, I turned the job down.
A day or two later, the phone rang again. “I really need you for softball,” said my contact. So I agreed.
As the weekend grew closer, I found myself dreading my decision more and more. However, I had made my bed so I must sleep in it, so to speak. On Friday night after the Bulls game (about 11PM), I jumped in the car and made the four-hour trip to Iowa City. After arriving at the hotel in the wee hours of the morning, I jumped into bed for a quick two hour nap before heading to work.
Work was work, but after we were finished, severe thunderstorms were going to be rolling in, with a strong potential for tornadoes. Not being a fan of tornadoes, I decided I’d rather spend my final night alive at my parent’s house then die in a hotel room in Iowa City. Therefore, on two hours of sleep, I made the decision to head to my parent’s farm, which was about three hours away.
I pulled into the driveway exhausted and was greeted by the smallest, most adorable puppy I’d ever laid eyes on. His name was Casey and as he ran up to me with his high-pitched bark, his ears where so big that he proceeded to trip over them. Again and again, as a matter of fact.
Casey was so young that he didn’t know how his body worked, and promptly tripped and stumbled over his own paws, or more adorably, his own ears. We played in the yard for a long time, before I finally fell asleep for an extremely long time. It happened to be Easter weekend, so while finishing touches were being made on a fantastic brunch, I played with the puppy some more.
That dog is one of the luckiest dogs in the world as he has nearly 50 acres to run around and call his own. He’ll chase birds, cars, thrown balls and sticks, or just fall asleep at your feet while you watch the sun set.
In the above picture, Casey buried himself down in the shrubs and waited for my dad to throw a stick into the river. Leaping off the banks of the river and swimming out to get sticks is one of Casey’s favorite activities.
July 2007. (0571)
Changing Leaves
Autumn seems to have come and gone very quickly this year. For being my favorite time of year, I didn’t get as much photography in as I would have liked.
Like any fan of the Chicago Cubs, “there’s always next year.”
October 2009. (3063)
California Navel Oranges
My step-father opened a grocery store just outside of Madison, Wisconsin in the town of DeForest. I’ve used the store as an opportunity to try different types of photography. I have those grungy photos from when we were in the store jack-hammering, welding, sweeping, building and cleaning. I have some images from the store getting stocked, with boxes upon boxes getting loaded onto shelves. Then there are these pictures, when the store is open for business.
It’s nice to wander around in the store with the camera, because most places won’t let anybody with a “real” camera anywhere near their place of business. In this case, though, I “know a guy,” so I get free reign.
As the sign (and subject of this post) states, these are California Naval Oranges, part of the end-cap display in the produce department.
February 2010. (1703)
Gourds
Every year around this time I try to visit my parents. My work schedule doesn’t allow a couple of days off regularly, until the calendar gets to October.
The journey to their place involves passing several roadside stands selling fruits and veggies. This particular year I stopped and bought a few apples and such, but decided to load up on some other things. I had my camera gear with me and I was curious if I could pay around with some Fall fruits and vegetables.
The result was what you see above. I like close-up shots of things, and the gourds provided a good opportunity for just that. My step-mom and I took turns taking pictures and trying new things. She later turned one of her images into a water color, which, to this day, is still her single best-selling painting.
October 2007. (1088)
Foggy Wisconsin Barn
My dad lives near Viola, Wisconsin, so I get up to their neck of the woods quite a bit to visit.
Whenever I do, I bring my camera. Some days it sits in my bag on the floor the entire stay, but most of the time I get it out and go wander. Some days I get up to watch the sun rise, other days I stay out to watch the sun set. Sometimes I do both.
The last time I was up there I found this old abandoned farm. (The farmhouse sits across the gravel road from it, but I’m not entirely sure the house is abandoned.) I like places like this barn, and I’ll continue to stop and check on it when I visit. It takes on an entirely different view when it’s fogged in or a bright sunshine-filled day.
September 2011. (8735)
Fond du Lac Lighthouse at Sunset
Growing up, I would often visit my grandparents in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. The bedroom I would sleep in was upstairs and faced the Fond du Lac Lighthouse. During the winter, the city of Fond du Lac will decorate Lakeside Park with a plethora of holiday lights and the marquee decoration seems to be a cut-out of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on the top of the lighthouse. Rudolph’s nose would be the lighthouse’s blinking red beacon.
For a kid, it was the coolest thing ever: after climbing into bed, I would watch Rudolph’s nose blink on the top of the lighthouse until I drifted off to sleep.
I’m fairly certain that’s why, even now, I have a weak spot in my heart for lighthouses.
October 2009. (3101)
Windmill
Patriotic colors adorn a windmill in rural Viola, Wisconsin.
July 2010. (2389)
Kickapoo River
The last couple of days I’ve been exploring Vernon County, Wisconsin.
Southwest Wisconsin is known as the “driftless area” because the glaciers missed this region. That extremely flat midwest appearance doesn’t apply here, so there are countless rolling hills throughout this stretch of land. One of the rivers that flows throughout the landscape is the Kickapoo River.
Named for the Kickapoo Indians, who occupied most of the land before settlers, the Kickapoo River is a fantastic river. Where it originates to where it empties into the Wisconsin River is only 60-miles as the crow flies. However, because the Kickapoo River is so crooked, and often-times doubles back onto itself, it’s actually about 130-miles long.
Driving any distance throughout the area and it seems like you’ve crossed the Kickapoo nearly a dozen times. It’s great because you can put a canoe in at your neighbor’s house, and three hours later pull out at your own property. The river’s current is pretty decent, so floating down the river is a great way to spend a lazy, hot, summer afternoon.
August 2011. (8364)
Fond du Lac Lighthouse at Sunrise
This is the Fond du Lac lighthouse, located at the Southern end of Lake Winnebago, at the entrance to the Yacht Club.
I was up visiting my mom for a day or two and wanted to get up one morning to take pictures of our nearby lighthouse at sunrise. So, at 6AM my alarm goes off and as I’m getting ready to head out my mom said she’d like to come along. I warn her it’ll be boring and cold, but sure!
So, my mom and I sat in the car waiting for whatever Mother Nature would present. Eventually, there was about twenty seconds of sunshine peaking through the clouds before the sunlight went away for the rest of the morning and, keeping with tradition of my friend Danny and I, my mom and I went for breakfast. I do love me some breakfast after an early morning photo shoot!
October 2009. (2949)
Milwaukee Art Museum
This is another one of the pictures taken in Milwaukee, Wisconsin the weekend I was up there with an awful hotel room. The Milwaukee Art Museum is a fantastic venue, both inside and out. It was designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava and the bird-like “wings” open and close twice a day.
Pretty impressive for Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
September 2009. (2690)
Pink Fountain
This is another picture taken on my work adventure in Milwaukee a couple of years ago. This time, it was the Milwaukee Art Museum before work. Beautiful clouds in the sky and random pink dye in the fountain!
(2643) 0909.
Yellow Flower and Bee
On my desktop are a boatload of flower pictures that I need to decide what to do with: upload them to Facebook, put them on this blog, dump them to Flickr, etc. This spring I feel like I have been obsessed with flower photography, moreso I feel like I’m obsessed with getting shots of bees pollinating flowers.
It’s a basic principle of life we learned about in grade school. The flower creates pollen, and bees carry that pollen from one flower to another, thus allowing the flower to reproduce itself. When I bought my macro lens, I saw — for the first time with my own eyes — pollen on the legs of a fly about to be carried to another flower. There was something about that small world that I was intrigued by.
Last weekend I was up visiting my mom and staked out some nearby flowers. On the sunny day of my visit, the flowers had opened to the sunshine and bees were working their magic. This particular bee doesn’t have as much pollen on its body, but I still like all of the detail visible in the little guy.
(9358) 0511.
Miller Park
I worked my first baseball game of the year this past weekend. It was a spring training game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Chicago White Sox, in Glendale, Arizona. At my hotel in the morning were a handful of Dodger tryouts taking the bus to the ballpark in an attempt to play their way onto the team. They were a good group of young guys that had clearly bonded through the first couple of weeks of training. We all hung out in the lobby prior to them piling on the bus in an attempt to chase down every kids dream.
(2947) 0409.
Hyde’s Mill
Hyde’s Mill is in the unincorporated township of, wait for it, Hyde, Wisconsin. It’s about an hour west of Madison, Wisconsin and ten minutes off of a main road. It’s very peaceful there. I’ve stopped several times at all sorts of hours and occasionally someone will drive up, get out to take a picture, and be back on their way. For the most part, however, it’s such a rural area that no one really stops by.
(3895) 0609.
Lake Winnebago, on the Rocks
For years, I had grown up on Lake Winnebago and, aside from playing around our “neighborhood,” I never explored the parks around us. In Fall of 2009, my mom and I went for a hike along the shores at one of the county’s parks. It was a beautiful day, and being a weekday, we had the park to ourselves. My mom was patient as I played with a variety of filters and settings to experiment with different ideas. For all the years I had lived there, I never realized how pretty some of the public areas where.
(3019) 1009.
Wind Point Lighthouse
I think I took this picture the same week I bought my first D-SLR camera.
Back in the Summer of 2005 I had to go to Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin for work, so Alisha and I drove up along the shores of Lake Michigan together stopping to be tourists along the way. Of course, I brought my new toy along. Proving sometimes pictures take themselves, at the time, I knew nothing about what I was doing and the camera was on “full-auto” for picture. Now days I use tripods, filters, processing programs and plan out photo safaris based on upcoming weather patterns.
I’m a dork.
(0044) 0806.
Politics
It is safe to say the political system in our country is currently broken, and spinning wildly out of control. Whether you’re a Democrat or Republican, the hip and cool thing to do right now is hate the other side with no greater passion. It does not matter if your colleagues lie, cheat or steal, because if they are a fellow party member you will support them with unwavering solidarity.
And that’s wrong.
Politicians need to all stop yelling, sit down and listen to the words of their kindergarten teachers and “play nice,” because we’re all in this together. People have differences in opinions and that’s why our country is great, however one person disagreeing with another is not a reason to shout louder.
Somewhere along the way we, as a country, lost sight of where we were going. The 24-hour news networks would rather spend more time covering Charlie Sheen’s meltdown rather then figure out how to fix our political debacle.
I’m not sure what it will take to get our country back on track. It has been said that “time heels all wounds” and that terrifies me. I’m not sure how much more of this I can take.
(8419) 0311.
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