About

I have thought about blogging for quite some time now. I have often wondered though just what would I blog about that has not already been blogged about by countless others. Or how could I at least do it differently? We all have lots of things we could blog about, but should we really? And once you figure out what to blog about, then where do you start?

What should this blog be, or not?

I have read many blogs. I often find they are more about the blogger than what the blogger said they were going to write about. Naturally I will share interests, thoughts, and all that but this won’t be a blog about me. Thankfully for all of us, this About page is as close as I will come to writing about me here.

My wife and I love travel and I love photography. The two seem to go hand-in-hand.  Initially this blog will be about travel and photography, with the emphasis on travel.

What to expect from this blog

As I am new to blogging, I am not sure where this will go. Initially I will focus on create a series of post of some the places we have traveled to recently. After that, we will see where we end up. 

My Photography

I have loved photography as a hobby since my early teen years. I enjoy cityscape, landscape, macro, close-up, food, still life and night photography. As of late I find growing interest in candids and casual portraits. DSLRs and interchangeable lenses are wonderful, but often my compact or wife’s iPhone gets used.

Like many other photo hobbits/enthusiast, I am self-taught. I made the transition from film to digital in 2004. While digital has many advantages there are certain qualities of film that I do miss. 

While the DSLR bodies provide us with some specific technical capabilities, I find the real magic is in the lenses. I shoot RAW unless using the iPhone. All image adjustments are completed in Aperture on the Mac, with some occasional final processing done in Pixelmator, Revitalize and if need be PTLens for barrel distortion correction. 

Photography Gear

I happen to use a Nikon DSLR, with the D90 being my current model. I tend to prefer prime lenses and short-range, wider angle zoom lenses. For Nikon lenses, I prefer the AF-D lenses for their color and contrast characteristics. I also like Tokina lenses very well, which are also available in Canon mount. 

The DSLR is a bit bulky to always have with you so when small size and light weight are a a top priority, I will use the Canon S90 compact. 

At the end of the day, all of today's DSLRs and better compact yield magnificent results and a pleasant user experience, regardless of who the manufacturer is. The results between Nikon, Canon, Sony, Lumix and others are often indistinguishable so use which ever brand you develop a preference for. 

I addition to this blog, other public forums I post images are the Capture Minnesota and Capture Dakota sites.