glp // ground level photography

the photography of michael tangen

The continuation of the Photo-A-Day series, June 2007.

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glp > (June 01) Today marks the beginning of a three-day festival commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Saint Paul Cathedral here in Minnesota. While I don't plan on partaking in all the festivities (I'm not Catholic), I do hope to capture some of the happenings over the next few days. You can see more pictures of the Cathedral in my architecture gallery.

glp > (June 02) With the recent events concerning Colony Collapse Disorder, I have grown ever more appreciative and fond of the bees that come and pollinate our flowers, fruits and vegetables. After this morning's portrait session I took my camera over to Como Park in Saint Paul and took a few exposures there of their flower gardens.

glp > (June 03) This is my third official portrait session, one of a series of 45 pre-wedding/engagement photos. Tyler and Britni were an easy couple to work with and I hope and pray for a bright future for them as they go forward in life together.

On a technical note on this photo, I totally forgot to have my portable softbox mounted to my flash, so there are a few harsh shadows there, but I can live with that. At least I was using my stroboframe and had the flash mounted high above the camera.

glp > (June 04) As of this weekend I'm stepping into the great expanse known as the MAC world. My friend (and bum) gave me his Powerbook G4 to help persuade me away from the dark side of the force. As one can only imagine, I'm already having an amazing time using a MAC. Now I have to just get Photoshop on my new lappy. Lightroom's great (and I use it daily), but life without Photoshop is just not living. ;-)

Technical notes: mounted 580EX speedlite and slave 430ex facing the screen of the laptop to produce the screen glow effect.

glp > (June 05) Ah, summer fun! I had a fun evening with my wife as we babysat our friend's daughter, Sydney, and took some fun photos at the park. It's harder than you think, trying to shoot someone swinging on a tire swing—getting the focal length right, the shutter speed and aperture right, etc. But at least this one didn't slip through my sights. Nothing like a tire swing and missing two front teeth to illustrate the care-free joy of being a child as summer arrives.

glp > (June 06) It was a really busy day for me and I had no time to take any photos. So my cat Frankie became the subject for this evening, backlit with a Canon 430EX with softbox and subtle frontlighting with a 580EX with built-in diffuser.

glp > (June 07) Contrast between old and new.

It's amazing how distracting day jobs and mowing the lawn can be from my greater love: taking more and more exposures. We had a whirlwind of cloud and storm passing through the Twin Cities and offered a spectacle in the sky. One of those photos almost made my PAD, but when I converted this over to black and white and tweaked some of the settings in Lightroom, the photo suddenly took on a strange and mysterious mood to me.

You can see other shots over in the architecture gallery from this evening's endeavors.

glp > (June 08) John Wills solo acoustic performance.

I posted an ad out on craigslist for free portraitures and band shots, and he was one of the many that responded. This evening I shot his solo performance at the Triple Rock Social Club in Minneapolis. I'll have more photos of him tomorrow after I've had a good night's rest.

BTW, he's a great performer and well worth checking out and supporting. He's influenced by old delta blues, Dylan, Tom Waits, Muddy Waters, etc. An all around great performer. - http://www.myspace.com/johnwillsmusic

Technical notes: bounced my mounted 580ex off the white ceiling and had a slave 430ex fire near the base of his monitor with a portable flash bounce mounted to it.

glp > (June 11) A WWII vet being comforted by his wife, and sheltering him from the sun with her umbrella.

This will probably be my last feature photo from the WWII monument dedication. There are plenty more photos over in the WWII Monument Dedication gallery, nearly a hundred photos over there. Be sure to slow down and see the pictures, allowing them to tell their story.

glp > (June 09) Today at in Saint Paul at Minnesota's state capitol, they celebrated the opening of the long-overdue World War II Memorial. The capitol lawn was filled with thousands upon thousands of people coming to either to be paid tribute or to pay tribute to the those that helped protect our freedoms through the second world war.

The flag shown in this photo had to be the largest flag I had ever seen. It was suspended by two hook-and-ladder fire trucks extended at full length and hung in front and above the capitol. It was an amazing spectacle.

I literally have over 700 photos from the day, so I will be sharing my favorite highlights over the next few days in my PAD gallery.

glp > (June 10) Color Guard sneaking a glance.

In continuation of yesterdays' photo celebrating the new World War II Memorial in Saint Paul, the next couple days will feature some highlight photos from that event. I took nearly 750 exposures that day and came away with 97 photos that will go in my journalism gallery. I hope to have that gallery completely set up and labeled within the next day or two.

This photo stuck out to me because this member of the color guard seemed to be steeling a glance towards the camera. All the other photos she either had her eyes closed or up to the flag. I also really liked how the flags framed her in the shot, too.

This photo also gave me a chance to use Adobe Lightroom's spot healing tool on her face, removing a blemish that made the photo a little distracting. I've always done spot healing in Photoshop, but tried it for the first time in Lightroom and it worked REALLY SLICK!

glp > (June 12) A decisive moment.

Today was an all around rough day—I didn't want to be at work (at all), I was feeling a bit depressed about my future, and felt trapped in circumstances beyond my control. I almost didn't have a photo for today; and while that'd be just fine, I'd probably regret not taking the time to make at least one worthy exposure.

I took a few pictures that were focused around line and perspective studies, but they really lacked any sort of story or message. After all, they were just lines and lacked any sort of meaning for me. I drove a bit further down and saw this sign...ordinary, yes. But it represented a bit of my day, being at a cross-roads and needing to make some decisions about things—one of those decisions being to keep plugging along and not to give up.

I really want to be in the photography field someday and out of the boring routine of web design—it's really lost its appeal. After all, I've been doing it for 12 years and I've become pretty bored with it these days. But would I become bored with photography someday, too? What's to keep me interested and active with it? Probably a series of decisions like this photo...I can turn left and give up, moving onto something else; or I can take a right turn and keep at it.

I think I'll make a right turn for now.

On a technical note: this photo really was quite ordinary looking to begin with. But with a significant amount of post production and tweaks in Adobe Lightroom, it turned out to be something quite a bit out of the ordinary. I was surprised how the arrows seemed to glow and the gloomy sky and silhouetted trees seemed to help depict the mood I've been in today.

glp > (June 13) "Convergence"

After meeting with a client to do her headshots, I roamed around the U of M campus looking for a good shot of the day. I walked away with this cool convergence of lines (two different buildings) and a richly textured sky.

glp > (June 14) "Must you?"

I know that's running through Charlie's mind when I shot this photo. He's already developed a learned response for when my 580EX Speedlite is charging—he flees the scene and finds a place to hide. He's skittish like that.

But natural light is my friend and allows me to get serene moments like this with my boys. A little natural backlighting and sidelighting from the windows and the kind of "I'm ready for a nap" look that's simply contagious.

glp > (June 15) Put Down The Muffin

No really, that's the band's name. They're abundantly entertaining to watch, very skilled musicians, and are a blast to listen to.

Tonight I shot about 170 photos of their show at the Fallout Art Shelter in Minneapolis, Minnesota. View the full gallery.

(June 01) Today marks the beginning of a three-day festival commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Saint Paul Cathedral here in Minnesota. While I don't plan on partaking in all the festivities (I'm not Catholic), I do hope to capture some of the happenings over the next few days. You can see more pictures of the Cathedral in my architecture gallery.

Camera: Canon (Canon Eos Digital Rebel Xt) |

more details: exif |

original size: 3456px x 2304px |

Current: 600px x 400px |

Other sizes: S • Medium • L |

filename: _MG_6513 |

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