Rural Churches

Harding County, near Cave Hills

Maybe because I grew up in a small town church, I am drawn to prairie and rural churches.  Sadly many are now shuttered and quiet.  This weekend I managed to catch a couple of new ones in Harding County and last night I returned for an evening shoot of the Dane Church in rural Lawrence County. 

St. Agnes Catholic Church, Cox, SD in Harding County

The Dane Church near St. Onge at evening

Sunflowers

Sunflowers-Orton_1509, originally uploaded by Sue Gannaway.

I love this time of year when the fields ripen and the sunflowers show their bright "sunny" faces! On our return trip Sunday from North Dakota, we passed this beautiful sunflower field north of Bowman. The play of the clouds, shadows, and contrasting colors of the fields begged me to stop. I played around in post production creating an Orton effect (or slightly blurring and lighting the scene in several layers) to give it a softer feel. The only downside was the 25 mph North Dakota wind, which made keeping the sunflowers sharp a little tougher, but using several high speed bursts I managed to "freeze" the front ones long enough.

Sunsets and Clouds

A summer sunset and storm clouds painted the skies over Spearfish last night.  Today's posting are a couple of those photographs taken from outside my front door.  I am so blessed to live in one of the most beautiful cities in South Dakota (and perhaps the world)!  I hope you agree.

Sunset over Spearfish, August 9, 2010

North over Spearfish, storm clouds are painted by the evening light

 

 

The setting sun colors Look Out Mountain

Night skies

Over Bridal Veil Falls.  f3.5, 100 ISO, 20 min.

Last night a clear, starry night and a new remote shutter release prompted me to try shooting star trails.  I have been fascinated by this technique for some time, but have not had all of the equipment to attempt it.  Since the evening was so clear and not very cold, I decided it was a good time to try it.  The only drawback in my timing is that the Sturgis Rally is in the Hills, so even at 11:30 at night, Spearfish Canyon's peace and quite was still broken by a fairly steady stream of motorcycle traffic.  I wasn't sure either how the headlights would affect my exposures.   Over all though, I was fairly pleased with the results and look forward to doing more of this against different backgrounds.

Looking NW at midnight.  f3.5, 100 ISO, 23 min.

Morning walk

On one of my last mornings here in Pierre, the weather was just right at 6:30.  My daughters home is just above Hilger's Gulch.  A small marsh runs through the Gulch and I had fun with some closeups of floral and fauna.  

Marsh flowers

 

 

Dragon fly on cattail

Cattail and flowers

Full Moon over Pierre

It was a busy weekend with the new grand daughter being born early Friday morning.  Baby pictures have occupied most of my photography this weekend.  But I could not resist these couple of shots of the full moon rising over the State Capital in Pierre Saturday.  Luckly my daughter only lives a couple of blocks from the Capitol building.  The first was the scene as we got out of our car at her house.  It shows the moon rising over the elevator building on the east edge of Pierre.  The second shot I quick ran to the capitol complex and caught the moon over the top of the capitol building as well as the color of the setting sun in the western windows.

New Grand Baby

Jul232010_1134, originally uploaded by Sue Gannaway.

My post today is all about my new grand daugher. Josie Rose Bowman made her way into the world this morning at 4:43 a.m. She is beautiful! Pictured above is my daughter Deb with Josie and son-in-law Corey Bowman.  Baby Josie weighed in at 10 lbs 5 oz!  So a little rough for Mom, but all are doing well!

You will find more photos of Josie at flickr.com/photos/dakotaimpressions