Tomorrow, I leave for Cooperstown and Gettysburg. As part of my final preparations, I logged onto the Gettysburg Reenactment website to order my tickets for the event. My assumption was that I would purchase and print my tickets. I was surprised to learn that my only option is to order the tickets and pick them up at Will Call in Gettysburg.

At most events, dealing with Will Call isn't a big problem. However, I anticipate the probability of a major hassle for this event. First, the event is expected to draw tens of thousands of spectators. It's likely that the lines will be very long and disorganized. Next, I'll be with my 12U baseball team in Cooperstown on July 4th--over 300 miles from Gettysburg. I plan to stop in Harrisburg to photograph the Pennsylvania Capitol building on my way to Gettysburg. But, Will Call closes at 6 PM on July 4th. This forces me to accelerate my plans and to skip the Harrisburg portion of my trip.

Literally minutes before placing my order for tickets, I received the following message from a fellow member of a photography internet forum (the Fred Miranda Forums) who I have never met:

"As it turns out, I will not be able to attend this year's Gettysburg Reenactment, so if you have any use for some tickets or know someone who might use them, I'll send them over. I have General Admission 4th through the 7th and Grandstand for the 5th and 6th am and pm on both. I'm in Chicago this week Tuesday through Thursday so I'm sure we could connect easy. Let me know if you can use them, free of course."

I replied immediately as securing these tickets in advance allows me to avoid the whole Will Call situation and also gives me more time on July 4th in Cooperstown and Harrisburg. Given that the Fred Miranda Forum members live all over the country, and the world for that matter, it is highly coincidental that this Wisconsin resident would happen to be arriving in Chicago for business on the day before I am leaving for the trip!

We then determined where to meet to exchange the tickets. I assumed that I would be driving downtown, dealing with heavy traffic, parking in some expensive lot and meeting this individual in some office building--which would have all been worth it! Instead, he is spending the day at the Original Rainbow Cone--one of the oldest ice cream parlors located on the south side of Chicago. Coincidentally, this is a place that our family visited quite often when I was a kid--and a convenient place to meet.

Original Rainbow Cone

My Cooperstown/Gettysburg photography trip is off to a great start!

This morning, my "Great Horned Owl" won Imaging Resource's "Photo of the Day".

This photograph was captured at the Howell Nature Center in Howell, Michigan on January 13, 2013 during one of Steve Gettle's "Bird of Prey" photography workshops at that location.

CLICK HERE to view a blog posting of mine regarding this particular photo that I posted a few months ago.

Great Horned Owl

This marks the eighth consecutive month that one of my photographs was recognized by Imaging Resource as its "Photo of the Day".

Earlier this year, I visited the Reptile Fest in Chicago. The event was held in the UIC Pavilion. The facility is not well lit.

Thankfully, I brought my tripod and a Nikon SB-900 flash unit with me. This enabled me to shoot at relatively slow shutter speeds--which in turn allowed me to lower my ISO setting for higher image quality. The slow shutter speeds were also made possible by the subject matter. The reptiles in these images remained almost perfectly still during the exposure.

This photograph of a Nile crocodile was captured at 1/8th of second, f/11, ISO 160

Nile crocodile

This image of an African spurred tortoise was captured at 1/40th of a second, f/9, ISO 500

African spurred tortoise

In my opinion, a tripod is one of my most important pieces of equipment. It enables sharper images and higher image quality. The tripod also allows me to make more precise decisions about compositions.

Once the youth baseball season ends later this summer, I plan to take a long photography trip to the Pacific Northwest. This will be another Prius camping trip, so I'll have a lot of flexibility to revise my itinerary along the way. Sometimes, I'll spend more time than expected at a location. Other times, I'll move along to the next destination or even add a new destination with little notice. In any event, here's my preliminary itinerary (revised as of July 22, 2013):

Day 1: Mitchell, SD

Day 2: South Dakota Capitol and Badlands National Park, SD

Day 3: Devils Tower, WY

Day 4: Yellowstone National Park, WY

Day 5: Yellowstone National Park, WY

Day 6: Yellowstone National Park, WY

Day 7: Boise, ID

Day 8: Boise, ID (Capitol and Old Idaho Penitentiary)

Day 9: Seattle, WA

Day 10: Seattle, WA

Day 11: Olympia, WA

Day 12: Olympic National Park, WA

Day 13: Olympic National Park, WA

Day 14: Olympic National Park, WA

Day 15: Cannon Beach, OR

Day 16: Cannon Beach, OR

Day 17: Salem, OR -- Oregon Capitol

Day 18: Eugene, OR -- Dinner with relatives

Day 19: Bandon, OR

Day 20: Crater Lake National Park, OR

Day 21: Crater Lake National Park, OR

Day 22: Crater Lake National Park, OR

Day 23: Salt Lake City, UT

Day 24: Salt Lake City, UT -- Utah Capitol

Day 25: North Platte, NE

Day 26: Lincoln, NE

Day 27: Des Moines, IA

Day 28: Orland Park, IL

Although I live just 25 miles away, I rarely visit downtown Chicago. Whenever I do visit, I wonder why I don't go more often. The city has an unlimited number of incredible photo opportunities.

Recently, I decided to visit the Holy Name Cathedral. The church is located just a short walk west of Chicago's Magnificent Mile. My first challenge was finding parking. I had erroneously assumed that the church would have a parking lot, but that was not the case. So, I located an open spot on a curb a few blocks away. The parking meter was $4 per hour and parking was limited to two hours.

The interior of the church is beautiful. I was anxious to start shooting as soon as I entered the church. But, for some reason there was a man on his knees in the center aisle. He would scoot on his knees a few feet and the stop, spread his arms wide open and look up to the ceiling. Then, he would scoot another few feet and repeat the process. I decided to patiently wait for him to work his way out of the frame. After all, I had little choice in the matter if I wanted any photos of the interior of the church. But, after 15 minutes or so, about 60 or 70 other people entered the church. A mass was about to start!

I observed the mass and communion--which lasted about 45 minutes. Once the service ended, nearly all of the visitors left the church. But, there was one older woman remaining. Like the man I saw earlier, she was on her knees in the center aisle! Her routine was different than his. She would face towards the left pews, go down to her knees and pray for 30 seconds. Then, she would slowly rise, walk down the aisle three rows of pews and repeat the process. Eventually, she worked her way nearly all the way to the back of the church and was on the floor just three or four feet from my tripod. Then, she started working her way back toward the front of the church! To my surprise, the security guard noticed what was happening and asked me if I wanted him to take care of the situation. I told him that I would wait a while longer as I didn't wish to disturb her. I suspect that the security guard thought I was visiting the church on official business. About ten minutes later, the woman left the church.

At this point, I had just 30 minutes left in the church before I needed to get back to my car. I captured the following photographs:

Holy Name Cathedral Stained glass Holy Name Cathedral

Stained glass reflections on marble column

A few months ago, I submitted ten entries into the prestigious Nikon International Photo Contest. "The Nikon Photo Contest International has been held by Nikon since 1969 to provide an opportunity for photographers from around the world to communicate and to enrich photographic culture for professionals and amateurs alike."

​On April 2, 2013, the judges narrowed all of the international entries down to 97,974 photographs in the First Round of the competition:

I was pleased that all ten of my entries made it through the First Round of the competition:

On June 7, 2013, Nikon narrowed the field to the top 3,159 photographs (eliminating nearly 97% of the First Round photographs). Fortunately, one of my photographs, "Whimsical Staircase" survived the cut:

The Second Round voting will conclude on June 27, 2013. For now, I'm still alive!

I visited a local park, Centennial Park, in hopes of capturing some interesting Winter photographs. Unfortunately, I saw very few images that day as I walked back to my car. Then, I noticed the tire tracks through the snow in the parking lot. I realize that this type of image doesn't appeal to everyone, but I like the simplicity of it. It's just a simple curve with few distractions. And, the image is practically a natural black & white!

This photograph symbolizes much of what I enjoy about photography. Without photography, I would have walked right by the scene without noticing the tracks. Quite possibly, I wouldn't have even gone outside on a cold, Winter afternoon in the first place! With photography, I enjoyed viewing several of these tracks from various perspectives--and ended up creating a whole series of images from a small area of the parking lot. I'm sure it looked to strange to people who were driving into that parking lot to see me laying on the ground with a camera and tripod taking photographs of who knows what!

To my surprise, I submitted this image to a few photo stock agencies. It was accepted and is one of my best selling photographs!

Tire tracks

Nikon D700, 1/60th @ f/11, ISO 200

Every year, I break out the studio strobes and capture portraits of the baseball players who I coach. This year, one of the team's other coaches brought a chroma green screen to the photo shoot:

By using this green screen as the background, it makes it much easier later during post processing to select the subject and replace the background. If we had used white or black seamless paper, as in past years, it is far more challenging to isolate the subject in Photoshop since the players all have shades of white or black throughout their uniforms, hair and skin. Fortunately, our team doesn't have green uniforms. And, none of our players have green skin!

Ian Welgat (4x5) It helps to keep the green screen smooth. Otherwise the selections become more complicated as shades of black enter the background in the creases of the screen. However, after a little practice, I was able to isolate the players from the background within a few seconds while using Photoshop.

Once the player is selected, it is easy enough to move him to another background image. During this process, I applied a few different backgrounds. First, I applied a plain gray background:

Ian Welgat (4x5) Then, I applied an image of a blue, cloudy sky:

Ian Welgat (4x5) Finally, I used the following image that I captured a few years ago while visiting Tropicana Field in Florida:

Stadium seats I combined the photograph of the stadium seats with the picture of the player. Then, I converted the image to black and white (sepia tone) using Silver Efex Pro2 software to create the following composite photograph:

Ian Welgat (2x3) I am by no means an expert in creating composites, but this final image was the most popular picture from the day. Since then, other parents have been asking for composites. I've created some others using a tunnel at Wrigley Field as the background:

Connor Baker (2x3)