Category: Photography

I look forward to my Friday evening commutes home.  Especially with the phenomenal weather this week … highs in the 60s and 70s, calm winds, clear or nearly clear skies.  Even though we experienced a blizzard a few days ago, now this!  I began to wish I’d brought my camera with me to work on Friday as we drove westward.  My cell phone can not do justice to the beauty my eye beheld:

In fact, after taking the photograph above (and sending it via SMS to Facebook and Twitpic), I called my hubby and told him I needed my SLR camera as soon as I got home.  I believed a great sunset was in the making.  True to my word, I rushed in the door, grabbed my SD card from Terry’s computer, snatched up the tripod, transferred the tipod adaptor from my videocamera to my SLR, inserted fresh batteries and raced to the Bonneville with only about ten minutes to spare before the sun touched the western horizon.

My first thought was to find a location, free of tall trees, tall houses and preferably on a hill.  I wound my way through the neighborhood behind my house finally reaching Lost 80 Park on East Mary Street in Lansing, only to discover the gates tightly chained and locked.  I continued east on Mary and took a left at K-5, winding my way past the prison, the Lansing water works and finally reaching Mount Muncie Cemetery with just moments to spare.  The entrance to the cemetery included a circle drive up and to the right of the main entrance, overlooking the small industrial park located behind the old Rusy Eck Ford dealership.  Nothing between me and the western horizon but a couple of small powerlines (in the foreground) and clear air.

I quickly setup the tripod, attached the camera, leaving the zoom lens attached, made some adjustments to it’s setup (AWB set to cloudy, two second shutter delay, shutter priority and manual focus) and began taking a series of shots, experimenting with different shutter speeds (beginning at 1/90th of a second and working my way down over the course of twenty minutes to as low as 1/8th of a second).  This album contains the entire series of forty-six shots.   But the shots below are a couple of my favorites from that series:

I returned home, even though I would have liked to wait for moon rise, which I knew would occur within an hour or so, since yesterday was a full moon.  But, most cemeteries prefer people to go home after dark, except for the residents of course.

Just as Terry and I began eating some pizza (and while his Chocolate Pecan Pie baked), my father arrived unexpectedly to return a DVD and a couple of portraits I had asked him to digitize for me.  He commented as he came through the front door that the moon and clouds looked spectacular.  As you can imagine, I grabbed the tripod and camera to snap a few more photos, with limited success.  I’ve got more research to do with respect to photographing the full moon.  This was a passable attempt:

I had hoped to awaken early, load up the equipment and journey eastward to Wynandotte County Lake Park to catch a reflective sunrise, but I stayed up to late watching Star Trek VI and overslept.  In way I’m glad I overslept, as I awoke to complete cloud cover and the threat of rain. So, rather than being a shutterbug today, I will crochet, clear off my DVR and maybe read a book or two.

Enjoy your weekend!