Day 10 - To Sioux Falls, SD

Today we left the hotel around 7:00AM to head to Wall Drug for breakfast. Their breakfast was pretty good and reasonably priced for a tourist area. We lucked out and were standing by the correct door when they opened for breakfast so we were at the beginning of the line, and beat all the bus tours in. After breakfast we walked around Wall Drug briefly before heading to Badlands National Park.

We stopped at the sign to get some pictures of the sign and the buffalo that like to hang out there. Jim yelled at a stupid tourist who was going to attempt to cross the road and pet a buffalo. The person slinked back to their car and gave us dirty looks as we drove by them. We were only looking out for the person’s safety and plus we didn’t want to be witnesses for an accident report. We also informed the park ranger at the gate what happened so I think that car was going to get a talking to when it went through the gate. Our first stop in the park was Pinnacles Overlook, but since the sun was rather high in the sky already, the area looked washed out. Additionally, it was super windy (+30 MPH winds) and blowing up a ton of dust, so I only grabbed a couple pictures before getting in the car. We only stopped twice more once at Yellow Mound and once at the visitor center before leaving the park. It is ok we didn’t stop a lot, since both Jim and I have been to Badlands before.

About a mile after you exit the park there is a large prairie dog statue, in front of a parking lot for a prairie dog “ranch”. At this location you can spend a dollar for a small pack of unsalted whole peanuts to feed the prairie dogs. Jim had luck feeding them and got a couple to pick up the peanut tossed to them, most of the ones I tried just ignored the peanut or let it fall down their hole for later. This did allow me to get some good pictures of the prairie dogs. I think it was worth the stop and the dollar would do it again. After that we stopped briefly at the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, it was interesting. We had a brief conversation with one of the older volunteers about ensuring to remove the “remove before flight” tags especially from the ejection seat before a flight. He apparently used to be in the military and I’m guessing served in one of the wars. From there it was back on the road.

Jim feeding a prairie dog

Our next stop was at the Dignity Statue, which is at a rest stop. The rest stop also has a small free museum dedicated to Lewis and Clark. I liked the statue. I wish I could have photographed it at sunset or sunrise because I think the colors would look amazing being reflected off the statue. I recommend stopping if you ever have the chance, you can also see the Missouri River from that location. From that rest stop it was on to our hotel in Sioux Falls, SD.

Dignity Statue

Tomorrow we are bound for Davenport IA. I will also be switching to cell phone pictures only now for the rest of the trip, since we have no major stops planned.

Missouri River

The Pumpkin Barron

On October 12th, I had the pleasure of working with the marvelous SunnyRae . The general theme for the shoot was pumpkins but with coordination on outfits with SunnyRae theme evolved into official portraits of an 18 th century Pumpkin Baron. For this session, I used: Photography Equipment Props/Miscellaneous Cannon R6 24-105 mm Lens Transmitter/Trigger 2 Phottix Strobe 1 Westcott Strobe 1 rectangular soft box 1 strip box 1 6x6 silver reflector 2 C-stands 1 light stand Boom arm Color checker clamps Sandbags Backdrop stand Rough canvas backdrop Pumpkins Rough canvas drop cloth Flowers Old trunk Books Letters Wooden crate Fake leaves Chair Tri-level plant stand The set up I wanted to keep this set up a bit rustic yet give the feel of staged aristocratic painting of the time. I started with a plain rough canvas backdrop then placed an ol...

Night Queen

On September 28th, I did a session with May. This session’s theme was designed around a Halloween headpiece I made a couple of years ago but never got to shoot. The vibe of the overall shoot was dark queen. For this session, I used: Photography Equipment Props/Miscellaneous Cannon R6 24-105 mm Lens Transmitter/Trigger 2 Phottix Strobe 2 rectangular soft boxes grids 2 C-stands Sandbags Backdrop stand Fuzzy grey backdrop Spyder Color Checker Card A-clamps 2 trilevel plant stands Fake candles Goblets Fake flowers Black fabric Silver fabric Large Styrofoam block Dowel Rods Skulls Fake moss Dry ice The set up I tried to keep this setup simple in nature. I started with the base of a fuzzy grey backdrop to which I added a “throne” made from a large Styrofoam block, some dowel rods, and a piece of black fabric. To that I added two flower pot hol...

Belle Island with Central VA Cosplayers

On October 19 th I drove down to Richmond, VA to attend a Central VA Cosplay Photoshoot meetup on October 20 th at Belle Island. I wanted to go to this event because it was in an interesting location, and I wanted to meet some new cosplayers. For this session I used: Canon R6 2 Speed light Trigger 1 Light stands 24 - 105mm lens Gels Camera Settings: For this shoot, I was transitioning back and forth between being inside an old, dark, abandoned building to bright, sunny woods. Due to the transitions, my settings varied greatly. I mostly shot at ISO 100 except for when I accidently bumped the nob to “Auto” and didn’t notice, so I also took shots at ISO 2500, 3200, 4000, and 6400. The shots at the high ISO actually look fairly decent, and not as grainy as one would expect. My shutter varied between 1/100s to 1/250s with the most common shutter speed being 1/250s. My aperture varied between F5 to F11 with the most common ap...

The Munchkin's Notebook

Search This Blog