National Wreaths Across America Day - Van Meter, Iowa

On December 10, 2011, I attended the National Wreaths Across America Day at the Iowa Veterans Cemetery in Van Meter, Iowa. On a crisp cold windy morning, families, friends and the great men and women that serve our country, layed wreaths next to the loved ones that have been lost.

With a dusting of snow on the ground back dropping the tombstones and bright colored wreaths, it was truly a special site to be seen. I can only imagine what Arlington National Cemetery would look like on the same day.

 In 1992, a man named Morill Worchester found himself with a surplus of Christmas wreaths and drew on a childhood memory of a visit to Arlington National Cemetery. He wanted to honor those that call Arlington National Cemetery their final resting place so he send the surplus of wreaths to Arlington to be layed on the graves. He did this quietly until 2005, when a photo of Arlington was circulated on the internet. The emotion that this photo brought to others, the Worchester family, veterans and other groups soon formed Wreaths Across America. Now Wreaths Across America lays over 220,000 wreaths across the entire United States.

The images below were taking at Iowa Veterans Cemetery with the D90 and 18-105mm. I shot in RAW along with aperture priority mode to allow control over final post processing and depth of field. Once on the computer in ViewNX, I changed the white balance to daylight and the picture control to the custom landscape-nature control.  The shadow adjustment slider was used if necessary. In PSE8, I used layer masks and VirtualPhotographer plug-in to create the special black and white treatment on some these images.

For more information about Wreaths Across America, please visit www.wreathsacrossamerica.org

Thank You to the veterans and their families that have served this great nation to preserve our freedom in the United States of America.

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Ducks Unlimited Waterfowl 360 Photo Contest Finalist

Please take time to follow the link below to vote for my photograph that was selected one of the top 5 finalist for this contest.

I snapped this photograph with the D90 and 18-105mm lense in late November while out in a field underneath hundreds and hundreds of ducks tornadoing into our decoys. It was a sight to not only see but to hear their whistling wings.

Thanks to everyone who entered the Waterfowl 360 Photo Contest!  Voting will close at 11:59 PM Central on December 23. The winner will be announced in the January DU newsletter.

Click HERE to go to DU's webpage to vote.

F5 Tornado:

2012 Lake Panorama National Golf Course Calender

Michael Kleinwolterink’s Photography has created a calendar that is sure to be a favorite for golfers of Lake Panorama National. Over the years, I’ve been able to capture the breathtaking beauty of the golf course and would like to share these images in a calendar.

Below are the images that will be used on the LPN Calendar. To make this calendar even more geared towards golfers of LPN, important tournament dates for Lake Panorama members along with the Masters, US Open, British Open and PGA Championship dates are printed on the calendar.

This center fold 11” x 8.5” calendar is professional printed and will make a great Christmas gift for any golfer. The calendar will sale for $25.

Please go under Contact Me to send me an email to place an order.

Front Cover

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

2012 Iowa's Countryside Calender

With my enjoyment of the outdoors no matter what type of activity I’m doing, I’ve been able to capture beautiful images of Iowa’s countryside and have put them together in a 2012 calendar. From cold winter days shooting alongside Lake Panorama to spring flowers to chilly autumn sunsets with harvest in full swing, the calendar is sure to capture what Iowa has to offer.

Below are the images used on this Iowa’s Countryside Calendar. National holidays and other holidays are also printed on the calendar.

This center fold 11” x 8.5” calendar is professional printed and will make a great Christmas gift for any person that enjoys the outdoors. The calendar will sale for $25.

Please go under Contact Me to send me an email to place an order.

Front Cover

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Autumn at Lake Panorama National GC

With chilly north winds blowing over Lake Panorama National Golf Course, fall approached this golfing season changing the golf course from green hues to rich autumn hues. These images were taken at two different shoots and unfortunately, with the strong winds this fall, the leaves did not stick around like I had hoped.

I drove around the course with the D90 in hand equipped with the 18-105mm or 12-24mm lense. Surprisingly, this was the first time I had the 12-24mm on the golf course and it offered a new wide angle perspective on some of the beautiful holes. The camera was set to RAW to capture the golf holes in full color. The aperture of f9 to f14 was used along with the auto bracketing feature on the D90. This allowed me to get different exposed images at rapid pace. With plenty of light, the ISO was kept at 200.

Once on the computer, ViewNX was used to change the RAW files by adjusting the white balance to direct sunlight and the picture control to landscape-nature. The highlight and shadow protection sliders were used at a minimum on these images. The final step was changing the RAW files to Tiff’s to export into PSE8.

In PSE8, I used the cloning tool to clone out hazard stakes and other items that I didn’t want in the images. Adjustment layers and masks were used in combination with hue/saturation, brightness/contrast and smart paint brush to further enhance the images. The ability to stack layers and masks on top of each other is one of the biggest processing powers of Photoshop.

The golf course will soon be covered in snow but the beauty of Lake Panorama National GC will be back in the spring to greet golfers once again.

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Harvesting Golden Moments

These past few weeks is the favorite time of year for me as the weather starts to turn, the harvest is in full swing and hunting season begins. With all this going on, having the Nikon with me at all times is a must. While riding the gravel roads and helping the family on the farm, I had the opportunity to capture the moments that matter most.

For these images, I used the D90 that was fitted with either the 18-105mm or 12-24mm lense since I was capturing landscape scenes. The camera was set to RAW to allow post processing of the files on the computer. I ranged the aperture from f9 to f11 and the ISO from 200 all the way up to 3200.  ISO 3200 was needed to capture the shots in the dark but next time I need to remember to change a few settings in camera to help with noise reduction. To capture the bright colors of the sunset, I used either exposure compensation or bracketing to help darken the sky. Since I was shooting on the go, my tripods were not used at any time.

Using ViewNX, I changed the white balance to either cloudy or shade to get the right colors I wanted for these fall scenes along with a picture control of landscape-nature that I use so often. The highlight and shadow protection sliders were also used if needed to get the right balance between the sky and farm equipment.

After the files were changed to tiff’s, I opened them up in PSE8 to do the final adjustments. A little cloning was done to get rid of unwanted objects. To improve the sky even more, I used a levels adjustment along with a layer mask to finalize the beauty that fall sunsets offer.

My favorite image of the batch is with the combine unloading corn into the grain cart blowing corn dust towards me with the sun setting behind the combine. This image was taken standing on top of the tractor tire while it was parked and is #19.

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