Change Lives Campaign

Kinda strayed away from some photo catch up in the past day or so to get a logo finished up for MN FFA and their campaign to promote agricultural education as a career. They are putting together some things leading up to the MN State Convention in a few weeks, so I have had the opportunity to work with them on some of their design and photography.

I really struggled with the juggling of elements in this one. I was moving things around a lot and changing colors frequently. Being in my high school graphic design classes each day it is nice to bounce ideas off them occasionally. It's good real world experience for them too.

There is a similar campaign going on nationally and Minnesota wanted a similar look, but bringing a little more local flair into it. I am not sure how crazy I am about it, but they were pretty excited so I guess I will leave it at that.

My First State Tournament

I spent most of the day yesterday with daddy at the Target Center for the State Basketball Tournament. Mommy had some meetings and joined us later in the afternoon, but I got to watch three straight games with daddy. It was great! There were lots of things to look at and listen to like the game, bands, cheerleaders, bright lights, banners and lots of people!! We sat for most of the day with our buddies Scott Axtell and Mark Kieffer. They are both guys that daddy coached with at Mayo High School. Mayo played and unfortunately lost to Henry Sibley in a good game. I had a pretzel, chicken sandwich and some fries for lunch! Daddy has been at the state tournament since he was my age and told lots of people that he visited with that he never thought he'd be pushing a stroller around the tournament. I'm glad he did though because I was having a great time.

This photo isn't related to the tournament, but was me at Gma Deb's the other day. Funky glasses!!!

One Big Senior Photo Session

Sometimes when you shoot a senior photo session you have a couple friends together for some shots. Sometimes even a small group. Today I did a group of 70...

I shot the Kenyon-Wanamingo High School Senior Class in two locations. We set up two off camera strobes and one on camera Canon 580EX. I also supplemented the group with some stage light. Probably should have had a tungsten filter, but knew I was going to shoot RAW and do some photoshopping anyway. We got by. They wanted one shot for the yearbook and then one "poster type" feeling one. Here are the results.I ran the group outside and shot about 25 exposures. EXPOSURE being the operative word. You see it's Minnesota hanging onto winter here...25 degrees and brutal windchill today. It was about 10:15AM so it certainly hadn't warmed up much for any of us.

A couple small groups asked for some shots afterwards which we nailed in a few short minutes. Got some great photographs from those.

Photoblog Commitment

After being on spring break this last week and basically feeling like I fell farther behind than I already was, I got back to work today to an overwhelming number of things to catch up on. And like usually happens, my digital ADD got me in trouble. I got off on a million tangents and never really got anywhere...anywhere but inspired to do a better job of blogging. So much so that I got all my students on board with both Bloglines and our virtual school I set up at Ning.

I finally got going with Bloglines a while back to save some of the overwhelming feeling of all the info I wanted to peruse each day. Now it organizes my feeds and RSS so I can scan and sort a lot better. After teaching photography and photoshop for 12 years I can now say that I have learned more in the past year than I have in the 11 previous years combined. Much of this is due to the time I spend learning from others.

The cool site of the day today is Jason D. Moore's photograpy blogroll.It is a great meeting place for, as Jason says, "Pixel Jockeys and Light Writers". I plan on spending some significant time there each day. It links to several other great sites within the community and thus, leads me back to the ADD thing.

Easter Weekend

Well I had a great weekend. Mommy, daddy and I went down to Winona to see Gma Rosemary. Great Aunt Cally stopped over too. We had a nice visit and had pizza too! Gma gave me my bottle and it was just great!

I got my easter basket at Gma and Gpa Addington's too. It had some colored eggs (which left my mouth blue) and lots of yellow grass. I got a great new tractor book too (grrrrrr). That's one of my favorite things to talk about!! I watched the bobcat plow snow outside the other day for quite a while and made my tractor noises the whole time. Mommy thought she was going to have to teach me those "boy" things, but she now realizes that they are inborn.

We went to chuch (another one of my new words) and then off to Aunt Sue's house in Zumbrota. It was great to see everyone there and we had a great time. I got some other cool little basket gift again too! One new backhoe tractor, a Twins shirt and some sunglasses!

Busy Boy

The end of daddy's spring break week is coming to a close. We had a great time playing with toys, watching NCAA basketball and walking around on anything I can get my hands on.

As you can see in the photo, I get to be really busy on my little projects. You have seen the corks make a blog appearance before. I love playing with them and spreading them all over. I am really into placing things into other things. I have recently liked to play by the sliding door and take the steel weights out of the blinds. I line them up, place then with the corks and move them around constantly. All the while, I am babbling on and on about my project to whoever will listen!!

Mommy and daddy put up a gate by the stairs now. They're really no fun! I fell down about three steps the other day and banged my head pretty good and I guess that was the deciding factor. I hit my head five times in one day at Gma's house on the coffee table too! I am a tough guy though and it didn't bother me too much.

I also got a little video of my visit in the barn at Gma and Gpa Schliep's. Of course, my favorite animal...cuh-cuh-cows were there!! Check it out here!!

03.20.08 SARA & COLLIN

What an awesome time we had today!! Sara and Collin were just awesome to spend a couple hours with in Rochester, MN. It was the last day of winter (thankfully) and they endured the dipping temperature, increasing winds, awful mix of snow, water and mud and even a ackward pile of well....I will just leave it at that!! These guys got engaged in August and I can't wait to shoot their wedding coming up in June. I have said it before, but it's such a blessing to be trusted by people that are in love to capture their time together. I really felt that way again today. These two are pretty crazy about each other and it was just fun to spend time with them.

Now all that said, I feel like we got some great images! This time of year in MN is pretty drab for light and color, but we nailed some great ones. I was especially jacked about our shots after stopping at a parked (though the engine was running) train near downtown. They aren't your typical "engagement" shots, but have an urban, grungy feel that I really like. It was just that early evening time and the ambient light around those railcars was pretty sweet.
I can't wait to keep working with Sara and Collin again in the coming months. Here's a few...

Up the Stairs

It seems there are all kinds of new milestones for me and I am changing a whole bunch each day! Daddy is on spring break this week and stayed home with me all day yesterday until mommy got home from bells last night. We played, slept, ate, repeat! We went for a couple rides in the truck to the grocery store and to Home Depot. I got to ride around in the cart and play with bolts and things that daddy handed me.

Some of my new things:

I am clearly going up all the stairs on my own...and quickly, I might add.

I am adding parts of words to my vocabulary each day. Last night's new one...chuh-chuh-chuh-chers. That's CHEERIOS for those of you who weren't following me clearly.

I help to put my toys away in their boxes with some help.

I am trying to stand pretty much the whole time I am awake.

I am drinking pretty well from my sippy cups now.

I love to arrange and organize things. I put things into others and take them out over and over.

I love to help with the dishwasher...loading and unloading is right at my height!

Telling Jokes

"So did you hear the one about what the cow said to the bartender?"

I thought my cousin Wyatt would think that my jokes were more funny?? Oh well, we got some cute photos taken together. Both of us were kinda hungry though so the photo session didn't last too long! The rest of the photos are HERE.

Sorry I haven't been on the blog much lately. We have been staying at our friends the Marings house in Sogn Valley the past couple weeks and I am too busy watching the cuh-cuh-cuh-cows and duh-duh-duh-deer out the window. I even get out to help with chores a little bit now that it's warming up. We love staying here and hope that we can move down here soon so that I can grow up here.

And speaking of growing up here, I am looking forward to BEING A BIG BROTHER!!!! That's right, we are adding another one to family in mid-October. I am really excited about that as are mommy and daddy!!

03.02.08 THE HANSEN KIDS

What a great session with these cuties! Sometimes with children, time couldn't go any slower and kids don't want to smile/look at the camera/not cry...THESE GUYS WERE THE BEST!! The session flew by, they smiled, they acted, they posed...it was great!! And I think that we got some great shots of these little darlings. Grace just turned two and and Jacob is 9 months so we primarily shot those two, but Caden jumped in for a couple towards the end of the session.

Little 9mo old Jacob was a real character. He loved being in front of the camera! Barely able to stand, he was still putting the hand on the hip!