One cool way to wrap up your Christmas evening

Posted on December 26, 2011 by Clint

With a night ride, of course! The last time I got to do this was in 2006. It was a beautiful evening, aside from my visor fogging up, but I kept the ride short so I could get some things done at home. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Christmas Lights Map: it’s back (Now with the link included!)

Posted on December 23, 2011 by Clint

Sorry, I forgot to include the link to the map on Google Maps when I wrote this post at oh-dark-hundred this morning! This is hardly comprehensive, but it’ll get you going. I’ve resurrected last year’s Google Map of Bismarck-Mandan Christmas Lights for this year, with an addition or two and, sadly, a few subtractions. Highlights include:

– My friend Jerry’s “Peanuts” display on Calgary & Montreal;
– Chmielewski’s Christmas Corner on Kennedy & 23rd Street;
– Northview Lane;
– Acres of musical lights with a Light-O-Rama show on Chestnut Lane;
– Dykshoorn Park in Mandan;
– Christmas in the Park in Bismarck;
– and a wooden cartoon menagerie on west Avenue C.

Notably absent are displays on 4th and Divide, Ridgeview lane, West View Place. I’m sorry to see those places dark, since they had such wonderful Christmas displays in the past.

The link is easy to remember:
www.tinyurl.com/bismarck-mandanchristmaslights.

It’s been an extremely busy Christmas season, with multiple live shows and lots of other videos on my plate. I haven’t had much time to go out searching for lights this year. As a result, I merely updated last year’s list the best I could. If you have any other additions that don’t appear on my map, please submit them using the “Contact Me” link on the top of the right-hand panel, or leave a comment.

I was getting really bored with being able to feel my fingers, so…

Posted on December 22, 2011 by Clint

I decided to hike up to the top of Fort Lincoln with a friend for some shots of the decorated blockhouse! The fort to the east had been equipped with Christmas lights, acting as a beacon to those traveling south on Highway 1806 or across the river in the Fox Island area.

I have a pass for the park, but not a key for the padlock on the gate at the bottom of the hill…so it was time to walk. The walk up the hill was exhilarating, with the brisk winter air and the workout of trudging through the shallow snow most of the way. I was amazed at how clear the sky was and how crisp and bright the stars appeared as a result! Once we got up top, the breeze picked up and the temperatures seemed to drop. We had time for a few quick shots before deciding to work our way back down to the truck.

Of course, I had to stop for one other shot on the way back: the constellation Orion over the southwestern blockhouse. You can spot the constellation most easily by locating the “belt” of the hunter, which is formed by three very bright stars right in a row. This constellation doesn’t appear in the North Dakota skies until fall, peaking right around now, and will disappear slowly over the southern horizon as we approach summer. I used my mammoth MagLite, the model fueled by six D-cell batteries, to paint the blockhouse with light.

Now I’m back at home, snug and warm, and had a couple of satisfying photos as a result. Now it’s time to snarf some Pizza Rolls in honor of Jeno Paulucci and go to bed. As I will say every day until Monday, Merry Christmas!

Broken connections

Posted on December 21, 2011 by Clint

I spotted this dilapidated pole north of Mandan on the gravel portion of Highway 1804 1806. My little boy PJ and I were headed to the site of an abandoned old truck so he could take some pictures of it. On the way back, as dusk set in, I spotted this pole beside the road. I had to hop out and add it to my collection. It’s number five in a series of old power or phone line poles, and I thought I’d share the others:

This one is north of Bismarck on 15th Street, taken at sunrise.

As you can probably surmise from the windmill, this one is near Regan.

This one’s actually on Centennial just north of the intersection with Century Avenue.

This is the same one as above, just taken as the sun sets behind me.

Thanks to the barren trees

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Clint

My friend Kyle posted a photo he took with his phone this weekend which inspired me to stop at the capitol near sunset yesterday and snap this quick shot. To the best of my knowledge I’ve never captured this perspective on the capitol; it’s totally obscured by foliage for much of the year.

My little boy told me this weekend that he likes the leafless, dead looking trees because “it means Christmas is coming.” I’ve learned that they also open opportunities to photographers as well!

Some people really like taking cold, wet risks

Posted on December 19, 2011 by Clint

These photos are from a while back when a friend and I ventured out on the ice at Lake Audubon. As you can see, the ice was very thick at the time…nearly three feet in places! The slab pressed upward by the pressure ridge in the photo above is around twelve feet tall. Ice that thick is easily capable of supporting a vehicle or ice house. What about the lake today?

This sort of ice hasn’t had the time or the cold to form yet, but I’m told there are plenty of guys heading out onto the ice with their big pickup trucks and fishing gear. A friend of mine drilled a test hole this weekend and found the ice to be twelve inches thick…essentially the bare minimum for that sort of thing. Then we had 50+ degree weather yesterday, which couldn’t have helped things much.

I wonder how long it’ll take for the ice to thicken, and whether or not someone’s going to “take the plunge” before that happens? As for me, I think I’ll stay on terra firmer for a while until the ice sheet gets a little more fortified.

Changing your mode of thinking…about color, that is

Posted on December 14, 2011 by Clint

The photo on the left is one I took a little while ago on the tracks for the Fort Lincoln Trolley. This year’s flooding has once again washed out the tracks in spectacular fashion. I didn’t really like the way I left the color last time, so I decided to use one of my favorite color correction techniques: working in the Lab color space.

By working in a different color space and applying curve adjustments to various channels, one can quickly and easily perform color manipulation and/or correction to areas of a photo without having to try to mask out certain areas. For instance, those dead trees would be a nightmare to “cut out” if I wanted to just adjust the sky around them.

By switching to Lab color I can adjust the various color balances smoothly using splined curves rather than having to mask areas of adjustment. That also allowed me to “push” the sky to more of a blue-violet while bringing out the reds and browns of the grass and rusted rails. Not only that: it’s fast and easy. The photo adjustment above took only one step and about thirty seconds.

I was inspired to share something Photoshop-related here and on our photo club website at www.bismanphoto.com after I got a surprise email tonight…I won third place in a contest that I’d forgotten that I’d entered and am going to receive some nice Adobe swag in the mail soon. Photoshop: the gift that keeps on giving!

By the way, if you like photography you need to join www.BisManPhoto.com. It doesn’t matter whether you are just starting or are a professional, or if you’re taking photos on a phone instead of an expensive camera. Everybody’s welcome, and we always have a blast. Tell ’em I sent ya!

Leanin’ a little bit more…

Posted on December 12, 2011 by Clint

This familiar “fallen farm” on County Road 138 southwest of Mandan is leaning a little more every time I see it. I wonder how long it’ll be until it collapses entirely? A few of the other leaning structures I found when first getting into my photography hobby have fallen completely. It’ll be sad if the one joins them anytime soon.

Just in case you thought we missed it…this year’s capitol Christmas tree

Posted on December 10, 2011 by Clint

While we weren’t able to attend the tree lighting ceremony at the capitol this year, my little fellas and I were able to make a visit to the capitol later in the week to see the big tree. They’re big fans of this tree, even though there are no presents beneath its boughs. After the tree came down last year, they kept asking about it for quite some time. I told them to be patient and another tree would arrive… now it was time to see it.

A couple of years ago, Mommy brought these little guys to the tree lighting ceremony. That imprinted them with a fond memory of the tree, so we’re making it a holiday tradition when possible. On that first visit, I was actually videotaping at the event for work…and was able to sneak a cameo of my little guys into the final sequence of the movie “Best Christmas Ever” as a result.

The tree itself is spectacular, decorated with ornaments donated by North Dakotans. You can visit it any time during the day when the capitol building is open, but I highly recommend seeing it in the late afternoon as the sun is setting. You have until 5:30…it’s worth the trip.

Whoa… I actually found something bacon CAN’T do

Posted on December 8, 2011 by Clint

It can’t make me eat crickets. I stopped at Roberts Floral on 8th Street tonight to pick up some flowers for my lovely wife – she earned ’em – and these flavor-coated little beasties were in a display next to the cash register. Yikes. Bonus: the young lady preparing my flowers said that they crunch like sunflower seeds!

There are other flavors, too. The only one that put me into a momentary moral crisis, of course, were the bacon and cheese variety. Not for long. So what if a female florist is more manly than I am when it comes to trying these things?

Bismarck-Mandan Blog

Photography , musings, and a love of North Dakota