It seems like so much that I shoot lately can’t be posted to this blog right away because I need to wait until the images have appeared in the magazines that assigned me. I have lots of fun stuff to show — it will just have to wait. Some should be opening up soon, however, so hold tight.

Last week was a fun assignment that wasn’t for a publication so I can talk a little about it. I spent three days shooting wind farms, turbine plants and holding yards for the Kansas Department of Commerce. These are the kinds of assignments that make me love my job. Being a photographer opens up worlds that you’d never know about otherwise. Seeing how these giant windmills are built, transported and erected was fascinating. The sheer size is hard to comprehend — even when seeing the finished turbine in a field. It’s when you walk around the various parts and components as they wait to be assembled that you realize just how massive they really are.

The shot above was taken at a new wind farm being built near Spearville, Kansas. The sky was deep enough blue that I thought I might be able to get a little blur on the blades by using my ND filter. At faster shutter speeds, the blades are crisp and you can’t tell whether they are turning or not. A little blur seemed important for showing the turbines in action and in speaking to the energy that they create. In the end, I stacked both my ND filter and my polarizer on my 17-35 in order to cut out enough light to lower the shutter speed down to 0.4 seconds. Just enough to do the trick.

I’ll have more from this shoot in the coming days.