More from Sidney Fun Days (late July)

More photos now up from the festival in Sidney Illinois in late July.

Sidney Fun Days Festival - Parade Photos

Every summer the small town of Sidney Illinois, population <1200 puts on a two day festival rightfully dubbed "Sidney Summer Fun Days". The main event takes place on Saturday afternoon and kicks off with an Auto Show, and a parade that snakes it's way through the small town. I decided to spend the hot afternoon downtown to shoot the parade festivities. I've only had a chance to go through about half of the photos that I shot, but here is a small sample from the afternoon.

Western Kansas Tornado

Here are a few photos from the storm chase in western Kansas on May 22 2008. We observed 4 tornadoes over the course of the evening.

Late Night Moon Fun

Was bored tonight so I wound up deciding I wanted to go for a drive. I didn't get more than a few blocks before I decided that I wanted to play around with the railroad crossing here in Sidney. I was originally pretty upset about the high level clouds that kept wanting to move through the area, but with their fast motions I decided I could use them to play with the moon.

I spent about an hour walking around the tracks trying to get different angles on the railroad junk under the quickly moving clouds back lit by the almost full moon.

April 25 2008 Storm Chase - Central Illinois

A line of severe storms crossed the state of Illinois on Friday April 25th bringing a swatch of strong to severe winds along with it. I went as far west as the Havana/Jacksonville area and followed the storms back east home to Champaign stopping periodically ahead of the line to shoot some lightning along with the gust front of the storms. Unfortunately most of the lightning was embedded inside the precipitation so capturing bolts was pretty rare. Here are a few of the better shots from the night.

Moonlight Fun

Another great day outside, and the first in a long time with clear skies so I wanted to make good use of it again. At first I was upset about the nearly full moon being so high in the sky, but then I decided I wanted to use it to create some fun shadows, and an almost daylight appearance with stars in the sky. It certainly creates some interesting combinations.

I headed out not long after sunset and as I often do, just picked a direction and started driving. I'm not even sure which road I was on as I'm not as familiar with areas in southwest Champaign County as I am others, but I managed to pick up a two lane divided road and took that west for several miles. By several I mean, likely 15 or so. Then I hit a small farm road and headed south, where I took the first two photos.



I took this at the first stop. The lights in the background are from Champaign. I took a good amount using that shed in the background and the row of trees, but didn't like any for whatever reason. They all had some little thing wrong that kept me from uploading them. Maybe I'll head back to that spot another time. The moon is up and to the right in this photo.


I had to throw myself in there. I have a ghostly appearance because I was not in the frame for the entire time. This is mostly because I'm an idiot and for whatever reason forgot about the timer function, so I was starting the photo and then running into the frame. Later on in the night I accidentally set the timer and had an "oh duh" moment.


This is east of where the first photos are taken. I headed south on that first road and then took a left on the road you see in the left side of the photo. I think this is my favorite from the night. I'm going to misspell it, but you can see my favorite constellation, the seven sisters, or Pleides between the two trees. It's the really tight cluster.


Same spot, just vertical. I like that there are more stars visible, but something about it bothers me. I think maybe I should have had a little more sky, and a little less field. Maybe closer to the old 2/3rd's rule, rather than the 1/2 I have here.

I was surprised, it actually felt like it got warmer through the night. It was not a cold day, but it was certainly brisk at times. I was worried that once the sun went away and I got out in the open it would really get cold but I found myself to be pretty warm and not even having to bother with gloves.

Night Photography Run

Spring temperatures finally returned to the area, and even though the sun had set, I wasn't ready to be done enjoying the outdoors. So, I did the only logical thing, and grabbed the camera and went for a drive. Gas had just jumped up to $3.39/gallon so I wasn't looking to go terribly far so I just started heading east down Highway 150 through St. Joseph. I wound up making a loop across the eastern half of Champaign County and spent maybe 3 hours out there. I didn't take a ton of photos, but really just spent time enjoying the fact that I was able to be out enjoying the nighttime again without having to take a break to warm up every 5 minutes.

Below are a few of my favorites from the night. (March 12 2008)