Category Archives: published images

One room schoolhouse

Flint Hills schoolhouse

Busy days lately but I took a day off to go shoot with my K4/Photodudes buddies on Friday. The sky was mostly dreary but opened up once or twice like it did here at a one room schoolhouse in the Flint Hills near the ghost town of Volland. Hardly a lost day, though, as it was really more about hanging with other photographers than getting marketable shots. Looking forward to the next trip, guys — let’s make it soon.

One more week until I’m on the road again headed for Albuquerque. Still lots of Egypt shots to share so I’ll try and get a few online before I go.

Winter

frozen pond

If anyone suffered retinal damage from the two previous, intensely-colorful posts, I’ll offer a couple of soothing, nearly-colorless images today. We’ve been getting some snow lately and yesterday morning there was also a light fog so I thought it might be a good time to get out and do some testing of the new equipment. The shot above was made with the full-frame Nikon D700 and the Nikkor 17-35 at 35mm. I’ll try not to keep saying this but it is soooo nice to have that lens back as it was intended. The cropped factor of the previous Nikon bodies reduced the 17mm end to the equivalent of a 25 — not nearly as fun and a real loss when it came to interior work.

trees in snow

This shot is from the D300 with the 24-120 kit lens that came with the 700. This will be my first lens with vibration reduction so it will be interesting to see how it fares. The image above was made at the long end of the zoom at 120mm, roughly equivalent to 180mm since it was on the cropped-sensor body. I’m looking forward to having a full-frame and cropped-sensor body as it really expands the range of the lenses I carry. I imagine I’ll keep a wide on the D700 most of the time and take advantage of the crop factor on the D300 to get that extra telephoto reach.

For sale

exterior

For the last week or two, my daily routine has started around 3:00 am with office work, a 30 minute drive to the old house after sunrise, and painting and scrubbing the place until dark. Drive home, check emails, put out any fires that flared up during the day, and collapse into a coma-like state under a cat or two. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Yesterday we met with our realtor and signed the papers to officially put the house on the market. This was our first house, one that we’ve owned for more than 20 years. We’ve done a lot to it in that time. When we first saw it, it was carpeted in green shag and covered in shiny panelling with pink-painted trim. Acoustical tile was tacked to every ceiling — and some walls.

It’s been a great house for us but it’s time to move on. Now it’s some other family’s turn to make it their own. The house is 110 years old now and I feel we’ve left it with a good chance at 100 more.

parlor

entry

tin ceiling

mantle

Nicodemus, Kansas

Nicodemus

Saturday once again found me photographing the Nicodemus, Kansas Homecoming, an annual event usually set on the hottest day of the year, it seems. It wasn’t SO hot this year — maybe upper 90s — and we were rewarded for braving the sun in the mid-afternoon by a downpour that left us cold and shivering. Talk about contrasts.

Tomorrow morning I’ll be on the road again. See you in Kentucky…