Frame Eleven

This is part of Iowa's capital city, Des Moines. I was born here and have lived here (West Des Moines) my whole life. With the surrounding suburbs the population is roughly 500,000 with Des Moines proper being roughly 200,000 of that. It has a lot of big city activities, just on a smaller scale, which is fine with me. The tall building on the left is 801 Grand and is the tallest building in Iowa at 45 stories. On the top floor is a restaurant where I have on occasion tuned their piano. It's quite a view on a clear day.

Canon 20d - Sigma 70-300 APO DG 4~5.6 - 100mm - 1/250 - f/8 - 100iso

Frame Nine

OK, so the warm weather didn't last long. We got hit with a nice combination of ice and snow over the last 24 hours. I decided to brave the streets and take a drive while the snow was still fresh. There were a lot of downed power lines and many a tree had lost some branches. You can see a few branches laying under the large tree to the right/center of this shot.

While driving along I came over a hill and was greeted by a bunch of "road closed" signs as there were downed power lines laying across the street. I decided to take a detour through this rather scenic cemetary called Resthaven. That's where this shot was taken. Near a pond that in warmer weather is populated by Swans and Ducks.

Canon 20d - Tamron 17-50 2.8 - 24mm - f/8 - 1/250 - 200iso

Frame Eight

After a few weeks of very cold weather, we got into the 50's today. I took a drive and ended up at a park north of Des Moines called Jester Park. It has access roads to Des Moines River which is where I came upon these dead trees sticking out of the ice. I thought they were pretty cool looking so here's my shot for this week.

This part of the river and park is part of the Saylorville Reservoir Recreation area. This shot doesn't hint to it, but, it's quite large. In warmer weather this is where you'll find people enjoying a day boating, fishing or laying out on the "beach". Well, Iowa's version of a beach. Not this day, though. While WAY warmer than it has been, today all I found of interest were these trees.

This is also a first experiment using Adobe Lightroom. I must say I'm impressed, especially with b&w conversion. It's like channel mixing on steroids. I'm using the 30 day trial while trying to convince myself to make a purchase before the $100 off "new product" special is over in a few days. I'm almost convinced.

Canon 20d - Tamron 28-75 2.8 - 67mm - f/8 - 1/640 - 200iso

Frame Three

Picture, if you will, an average guy or gal sitting here, holding a piece of white board with a message written on it. What would it say? Something like this... "It's too damn cold to be sitting here having my photograph taken!" ...and they'd be right.

This shot was taken at a park in Des Moines called Water Works. It's along the Raccoon River and is where the Des Moines water treatment plant is located. On a nice day there probably would have been someone sitting here reading a book or just taking in the sun. Not this day, though. When I shot this the temperature was hovering at about 0 degrees (fahrenheit) with a wind chill of about -22 and I was the only fool, errr, person in sight. After a fairly mild December, we're finally having a bit of "normal" Iowa winter weather. I don't normally mind the cold, unless the wind is blowing and the wind chill is at -22 degrees. Then it sucketh, royally. :)

Canon 20D - Sigma 70-300 APO DG - 100iso - shot at 100mm - 1/400th @ f/8