F-Stop Muse

Photo Safari: Jan 27^th to 29^th, 2012.

The weather report for the weekend was mediocre at best. Friday and Saturday will not be very cold and much colder on Sunday.  My SUV was packed full of food, clothing and camera gear belonging to myself and three other students, Deb, Bill and Josh.  All arrangements were set, so we were not in a rush to get to the townhouse we rented.

The skies were cloudy and grey as we headed north. I commented that how nice it would be if it snowed when we arrive at Jay Cooke State Park, giving the landscape a fresh look.  Sure enough as we were pulling out the cameras and putting on warm jackets, large flakes began to come down.

After a couple of hours of shooting, we headed north again and met up with Esther and Mark at a restaurant in Two Harbors. There were many beautiful photos on the walls of the restaurant (I am sure they were photographed by John Gregor of Cold Snap Photography), of things along the North Shore, giving my students motivation for the weekend. Got to our rented townhouse after sunset and waited for the rest of the group to arrive.

We had decided to photograph Saturday morning sunrise at the mouth of Gooseberry river. Unfortunately the clouds were thick overhead and especially at the horizon, thus no sunrise to photograph. We made the best of it by photographing other things. I was pleasantly surprised by the creativeness of the students. They had questions on creating the silky look of the water and waves, using depth of field to isolate their subject matter, shooting from different perspectives of one subject and many other areas I had lectured on in classes. They were LISTENENING!!!!

We finished of the morning shoot at Split Rock Lighthouse State Park, capturing Ellingson Island, more waves, ice covered rocks….. lets just say, their CF and SD cards were more than full. After a late breakfast/lunch we decided to head back to the townhome to download the images onto the laptops.  I had asked them to give me their 15 to 20 best images of the day for a slide show in the evening. 

Food and drink were plentiful. While we ate, I started a show and tell and a critique and discussion. There were lots of constructive and encouraging words and statements. After the session, I put the images into iPhoto and created a slide show. The consensus was that the images were very well done, but now armed with the recent comments and critiques, tomorrow they promised to do better.

They did!! We went to Artist Point for the sunrise. It was much colder than the previous day, but we had more colors at sunrise even though it was a bit muted. After a few hours we decided to head inside for a late breakfast. We had burnt off many calories out in the cold and the breakfast was definitely one of the best tasting. To view some of the students images, visit this link: www.captureminnesota.com. Do a search for Deb Lee Carson, Andy Bell and Bill Kuhn and you will see their amazing images.

This was a very fun and productive Photo Safari and I will conduct another in late February. Please email me with questions on how to sign up for my Photo Safari Workshops.

I have been asked many times if I have a coffee table book of my images on golf courses and other subjects.  Finally I am able to say that I do.  With the availability of online publishing, I am able to design books on golf courses, the North Shore of Lake Superior and other subjects that may be requested.  The cost of these books will depend on the book size, number of pages and type of finish.  It can be personalized to fit the occasions in your life.  Please contact me to talk about a book done for you.

The other thing I have been asked about are greeting cards.  I have found a local custom card maker.  She designed the look of the cards to fit my images and then packages them in a series of eight per package.  The card measure 4 1/4" by 5 1/2" folded.  Please contact me for your collection of cards.

Images of the books and cards can be viewed at this link:

I was at the Buzz Coffee Shop, 411 Burnsville Parkway, hanging my framed prints of the NOrth Shore of Lake Superior.  It took three and a half hours and they look fabulous!!  There are nine framed prints at this eclectic coffee shop the serves wonderful coffees, teas and chai and their specialty, waffles.  There are literally 2 full pages of different waffle items to choose from.

These prints are of landscapes and things at or near this great lake and will make wonderful Christmas presents.  These framed print will look great at your homes and offices.  I would have loved to hang more prints but the space is limited, therefore if you need to see more please click on this link that will direct you to my web gallery:  http://gallery.me.com/peterwongphotography#gallery

The prints will be at the Buzz for the month of December, please stop by, grab a cup of joe and a waffle, settle down at the couches and take in these images!!!

Thank you.

Had the most wonderful Thanksgiving ever. My wife, my mom and I went up to Lake Nebagamon for our annual visit to the Heisel-Burtzel home to celebrate Thanksgiving, Linda and Len, with Katie and Will. Instead of the usual roasting the turkey in the oven, it will be deep-fried!!!  Thoughts of the home up in flames, spending time in the ER, immediately flooded my mind. As you can see in the photos, it came out brilliantly and what a great way to have turkey. The meal was the usual, with mashed potatoes, yams, pomegranate/blueberry/melon salad, cranberry, relish tray and side of vegetables. A lot to be thankful for, with friends and family and I did not over eat, even after dessert and wine...

The weather was awesomely warm, in the mid 40s. Took walks with my mom, me with a bright orange hat, and mom with the orange sweat shirt (deer hunting started in Wisconsin). I managed to capture some fun images of the Wisconsin north woods. All in all a great few days.

It was a warm, sunny and beautiful day when I picked up Forrest (friend and photographer) at 7:30 am to begin the November Photography Workshop. As I was meandering through rush hour traffic, Forrest was giving me a commentary on the sunrise. Wished we were up at Lake Superior to capture it. Soon we arrived at Hinckley to meet up with a couple of my students, Andy and Victor. The next destination was Banning State Park. The ranger was really helpful, pointing out the rapids and trails. We spent an hour, then headed for Jay Cooke State Park via MN 23. The St. Louis River was down a bit but it still was beautiful with the water gushing up and over the rocks. I made a bad mistake not having my heavier tripod with me to capture silky looking water using my heavy long zoom lens. The minor shake by the mirror caused double/blurred images. Should have walked back to the car for the tripod. 

Dondrea, having a later start joined us and we stop for lunch at Grandma's in Duluth. I brought the group out to Park Point to show them the beauty of the sandy beaches, pointing out to them that the landscape will change drastically in a month or so. We made another stop at Stoney Point, catching the waves, the fishing hut and other things. As the sun headed down to the horizon, we got to the resort. Checked into our condo/townhome.  The last two students, Jennifer and Luis arrived around 8pm. 

Thankfully sunrise is a bit later than in the height of summer. We drove to Gooseberry Falls State Park, towards the mouth of the Gooseberry river, and waited for the sun to rise. We were the only people at this spot. I reminded my students on the finer points on capturing a sunrise image that stands out from an ordinary one. The light was just fabulous after the sunrise. Waves, rocks, splashes, bare birch trees, more rock formations were being recorded onto our SD and CF cards. Finally after 4 hours we felt that we had exhausted the area and decided to head to Split Rock State Park, specifically Ellingson Island. I went around to make sure they were capturing the shots that they saw, helping and reminding them of what they have learned. Forrest also was a great help with my students giving them hints and tips on how to shoot. The biggest thing this weekend with the students was the ND (neutral density), and polarizing filters. These 2 filters allowed them to have "silky" water in the waterfalls and waves. Something clicked in them and they got some fabulous images.

After a couple more hours we had to leave because we were hungry. We download our images onto the laptops during lunch. There were three or more hours before sunset, some of us rested, some worked on their laptops and Jennifer and Luis went up further east or north to buy some maple syrup. 

Gooseberry Falls was the meeting place at 4 pm. Some have not seen it before. It was perfect lighting to photograph the waterfalls. It was in shadows and the light was fading. There were not many other tourist as in the summer time. The shots were very good from there. We then heading to the same beach as in the morning to catch the sunset glow.... The weather did not cooperate, a large bank of grey clouds came over the horizon blocking what might have been a great sunset.

We headed back to the condo to prepare the meal and the slideshow. The two main dishes were lasagna and ravioli by Dondrea, wonderful home made wines by Forrest, salad and bread by Jennifer and Luis, snacks by Andy and Victor and 3 buck chuck wines by me. We lost Forrest and Andy for about 45 minutes and when they returned, they showed us some great images that they shot before driving back. Everyone had about 10 to 20 images for the slide show and I quickly put it together on iPhoto. I need a better slide show software!!!

The weathermen had predicted a partly sunny day on Sunday but it turned out to be completely overcast. We packed up and headed for home, but with ideas of stopping at different spots to shoot on our own. 

It was a great feeling to see that these students of mine were so proud of their images. The slideshow was played at least three or four times over. I am trying hard to transfer it to iMovie, so that they have a moment of the weekend. 

I hope you are enjoying my new website.  Once the dust settles I look forward to posting information and examples from my latest projects here.  Please stop by again soon!

Best regards,

Peter Wong