While visiting my sister for Thanksgiving I took a break from all the turkey to have some “camera fun time.”

I had a couple of goals in mind while shooting. My first goal was to get some photos that my sister and her husband would want to hang on their walls. I tackled this by getting some shots of their new house and his old trucks, some old barbed wire for the rustic western look they are going for in their decor, and some shots of their kids and horses. My second goal was to get better at capturing clouds and good sky details in my photos while still getting good foreground exposure. My approach for that was to set my exposure to 1.5 stops under-exposed and bump up the foreground when I processed the photos on my computer afterwards.

Enough talk. Here some of my favorites and the slideshow.

The barbed wire shots.

My favorite of the barbed wire shots:

My brother-in-law’s truck (classic Dodge Power Wagon):

A couple of the scenic shots and my niece:

One of the “nice things” (frrm a photo standpoint) about the part of North Dakota where they live is the air pollution from the coal burning power plants and the effect that has on the sunsets. The one below is not at all uncommon. I loved it.

I love doing photography that presents some type of unique challenge and offers spots to take risks.

When I do photography for a wedding I don’t really have a chance to take many risky shots, as I have to make sure I am getting the couple a set number of perfect photos, and there is only one chance to photograph a wedding. Portrait photography and some events offer me more of a chance to take some risks.

A relative asked for senior photos, and she wanted something that would standout. I knew exactly what I wanted to do: night shots in Minneapolis. I have done some of these in the past a band and loved the unique look they had.

We did the shots from about 8:15 pm to about 9:30, working well into and past dust. I used my two Canon 580EX flashes to provide the main lighting and exposure for Maddie (the senior getting photos), and set the camera to expose for the background. I love this setup because it offers nice off-camera, dimensional lighting with simple yet powerful controls.

I started with this shot to give her something with a different look, but yet not something as extreme as the night shots.

I love this shot. It was one of my favorites of the shoot. Maddie is sitting on the edge of the Endless Bridge at the Guthrie Theater, about 60 feet above the ground. The lights of downtown the bridge in the background really make this shot for me, however, they are not so overpowering that you forget about Maddie in the photo.

In this shot Maddie is sitting in one of the windows of the Guthrie. You can see the Gold Medal Flour sign reflected in the metal work by her feet.

Here is the slideshow from the shot.