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2011 was an amazing year for me. I had three trip opportunities arise and rather than worry that I didn’t have the money or that I could use the money for other things, like paying off bills sooner, I seized the opportunities. This year “tomorrow isn’t promised” really hit home when several people I knew passed away and my father had a heart attack (he is doing great now). I decided that I wasn’t going to make excuses anymore and I was going to make the effort to actually go on a trip when the opportunity comes up in the future.
In March, I traveled to The Southwest with fellow outdoor photographers Jeff Swanson and Lonnie Shull. We visited Zion national Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Upper Antelope Slot Canyon and Horseshoe Bend.
Several months later, Jeff Swanson invited me along on an epic trip he had planned. I packed my suitcase with some clothes, a sleeping bag, a tent and I caught a plane to Oakland, CA. We drove from Oakland to as far north as Mt. St. Helens in Washington. We spent the majority of our time in the Columbia River Gorge, but also made overnight stops at Crater Lake, Sparks Lake, Proxy Falls, and a few others. All in all we put on approximately 2400 miles.
My last trip brought me to Rhode Island in the fall for NewSchoolOfPhotography.com‘s NSOPgiving annual party. I spend a fair amount of time on NSOP’s online photo forum and have come to know many of the people on that site pretty well. I stayed with Ben Jacobsen (the owner of NSOP) and his family. I got an awesome tour of Rhode Island, was able to photograph a couple sunrises on the Atlantic ocean with Ben Jacobsen, Jeff Swanson, David Simms, Will Strauss, and Josh Sweeney. I ate amazing food and drank some terrific beers while meeting and talking to a lot of talented photographers and Ken Gilbert (he’s a real hack… 
All in all, this year was pretty epic photographically for me. I managed to get photos all over the U.S. and I even captured some of my best work on lake Superior.
Here are a bunch of my favorite photos from this past year.

I hope you all have a wonderful year in 2012, take lots of photos and seize the moment whenever you get a chance.

Thanks for reading this post, looking at my photos and your overall support,
- Shawn

Often I am asked “What gear do you use?”
I thought I would compile a list with links here on my blog for others to use as a reference.

If you have any questions, please let me know!

Canon 5D Mark II

Canon 17-40mm F/4  Ultra Wide Angle Lens

Canon 70-200mm F/4 Telephoto Lens

Canon 85mm F/1.8 EF USM Prime lens

Bogen/Manfrotto 190xprob Tripod Legs

Bogen/Manfrotto 488rc4 Ballhead

Converted to Arca Swiss Mount to accommodate a Kirk L Bracket

Follow this LINK to read up and see examples of the filters listed below.

HiTech 3 stop 4×5 Hard Edge Graduated Neutral Density Filter

HiTech 3 stop 4×5 Soft Edge Graduated Neutral Density Filter

HiTech 2 stop 4×5 Hard Edge graduated Neutral Density Filter

HiTech 2 Stop 4×5 Soft Edge Graduated Neutral Density Filter

B+W #110 77mm 10 Stop Solid Neutral Density Filter

Adorama Slinger 4×5 Filter Pouch

Hoya 77mm 3 stop Solid Neutral Density Filter

Sigma 77mm EX DG Slim Multi-Coated Circular Polarizing Filter

Canon Shutter Release Cable

Lowepro Flipside 300 Backpack

ThinkTank Streetwalker Backpack

3M Micro Fiber Towels for Lens Cleaning

Small LED Flashlight

Sandisk Compact Flash Cards

Transcend Flash Cards

Sunrise/Set App for iPhone

**disclaimer – I do have an affiliate program setup and will receive a small percentage of any purchase made through these links. All links point to the TOP, Most reliable retailers in the industry. All of the gear listed above is the gear that I use on a daily basis. If you choose to click through and make your purchase, I thank you. If you would rather not, I completely understand and want to thank you for looking at my list.

The other day I took a short hike behind my house up Kingsbury Creek to I-35 and back down. The water flow was really low so I decided to look for some detail shots and abstract images. Here are a couple shots I came home with.

I went through and picked out my favorite images from 2010 and put them into one post so you could see them all at a quick glance.
I hope you enjoy looking at these images and may you have an amazing year in 2011.

I discovered this image that I originally captured in 2006 and never processed until this year.

I shot this image in 2008 and originally processed it in Black and White and in 2010 I re-processed it for color.

This image was originally captured and processed in 2007 and I re-processed it in 2010 using the techniques I have learned over the past few years.

Last night I was going through old images and came across an old favorite of mine. An image named “Shattered” that I captured on the St. Louis river in Billings Park, Superior, Wi on 11-25-2007
This shot stands out for me because it is one of the first images I took that I think was a Keeper, a printable image. It was also the first time “exposing to the right” clicked in my head.

I used the processing techniques I have learned since 2007 and used them to re-process this shot from the original RAW file.

Adjusting White balance, tweaking curves, pumping clarity into the ice and contrast adjustments really made this stand out over the old processing in my opinion. I may have to go over some of my other images from years past and see if they can be improved as well.

Here is the image, old and new.

Click the image below to see the clear,  higher resolution image.

You can buy a print of the newly processed image here.
Shattered

BUY A PRINT

8×10 – Print Only $30.00 8×10 – Matted and Mounted Print $55.00 8×12 – Print Only $40.00 8×12 – Matted and Mounted Print $65.00 12×18- Print Only $70.00 12×18- Matted and Mounted Print $95.00 16×24 – Print Only $120.00 16×24 – Matted and Mounted Print $155.00 20×30 – Print Only $175.00 20×30 – Matted and Mounted Print $225.00

I finally got back to Bentleyville when the whole park was lit up on December 4th 2010.

You can see my previous shot here:

http://shawnthompsonphotography.com/2010/uncategorized/bentleyville-2010-preview/

BUY A PRINT

8×10 – Print Only $30.00 8×10 – Matted and Mounted Print $55.00 8×12 – Print Only $40.00 8×12 – Matted and Mounted Print $65.00 12×18- Print Only $70.00 12×18- Matted and Mounted Print $95.00 16×24 – Print Only $120.00 16×24 – Matted and Mounted Print $155.00 20×30 – Print Only $175.00 20×30 – Matted and Mounted Print $225.00

Nathan Bentley, an Esko resident and Christmas fanatic has put on a free to the public, Christmas lights show for the past 10 years. During the first year in 2001, he estimated 7-8000 people walked through his yard to see his light show. Over the course of ten years, the amount of people grew, the light show got bigger and His electricity bill was through the roof.
In the second year, they bused over 70K people to his house. 8 years later, he has teamed up with the city of Duluth. The amazing light show is now hosted at Bayfront Park where it is still free to see, aside for parking fees collected by the city. Donations are accepted as well. Prior to the event taking place last year, they anticipated over 200,000 people would go through the display.

I set out to shoot the lit display last night, but they never lit the big pavilion or the huge tree (looks like a big cone). The tree is supposed to be the tallest or second tallest artificial tree in the U.S. from what I hear and is new to this year’s display.

I will be back to shoot it once it is in full swing but thought this one was worth sharing. I tried shooting from about 5 different vantage points all at different elevations and distance from the display and found this to be the most interesting.

For an in depth article by people who know how to write, read here and here.

It all started September 2004 when I got my first camera. It was a Casio QV-3EX 3mp “pocketable” digital camera that shot video. I believe it cost me around $400. I got it because I wanted to capture memories while hanging out with friends and snap pics while on vacation.
Unfortunately I do not have any images saved from this camera.

I used that camera pretty sparingly until 2005 when I upgraded to a 4mp Sony DSC-P73. I wanted a camera that would take better pictures and this camera had a 3x optical zoom, was much smaller than the Casio and took AA batteries. I put that camera in Flower Mode (aka macro mode) and went to town shooting flowers and close-ups of anything else around the yard. I couldn’t believe the pictures that camera could take. I loved it.

At the beginning of 2006 I decided I wanted a real camera, a Digital SLR. I wanted to be able to change lenses and I really wanted a camera that would take better pictures. I didn’t want to spend much money so I researched all available options under $1000. I looked at Canon, Nikon, Pentax, etc… I found out that Pentax was compatible with nearly every Pentax lens ever made and some of their glass was quite sharp and very affordable. Their entry level camera with 18-55mm kit lens was $500. I think I almost passed out when I clicked “Submit Order” and put it on my credit card.
I received the camera a few days later. Man was it sexy, it had an interchangeable lens, it made a shutter noise and it had a lens hood! I didn’t know what a lens hood was, but damn, it looked cool. I really thought I would be getting much better pictures with this camera, I mean after all it is a DSLR, not some measly point and shoot. I couldn’t have been more wrong. This camera was the most frustrating investment I ever made. I am not one to read manuals, so I started playing with it, shooting in auto mode. Shortly after I started using the camera, I heard that using auto mode defeated the purpose of owning an SLR camera. “You should be shooting in manual if you want to get the most out of your images” is what I kept hearing. So, I started shooting in manual mode. In the viewfinder,I saw a lot of blinking numbers and some weird meter bar thing that kept flashing and either moving to the far left or far right. Sometimes my camera would fire, sometimes it wouldn’t. I didn’t know why. I put the camera on my desk and it sat there most of the remainder of 2006. Some days I would pick it up and shoot a few things, only to become more frustrated than I was before.

This is when I joined an online forum and started posting my crappy images and asking for critique. At first I was hurt by what people were saying about my images. I almost sold my camera several times. Finally I decided to buck up and set my ego aside and really take in what these people were telling me. I would store those critiques and suggestions in my head and try them out the next time I shot. I started asking questions, started reading more about exposure, particularly Bryan Peterson’s “Understanding Exposure” book. Things kind of started to come together. The more I posted my images, the more critique I received, the more critique I received, the more I learned, the more I learned, the more I could apply to my photography. I started becoming less frustrated and more excited about photography. I was making better images, but still not sure, exactly how I was doing it.

Still, a couple years went by, I upgraded to a couple newer Pentax camera bodies and things really started to click in my head when I shot. I started understanding how to really nail exposures in the camera rather than trying to fix them in photoshop. I also, finally realized that the camera had nothing to do with taking good photos. I found out that it is the photographer that takes the good images. It’s the photographer’s learned skills and creative eye that make the images.

I still remember the day I shot this image. I finally figured out what exposing to the right was.

This image is where I learned about shooting just after sunset to bring out rich colors the eye can’t see.

I also started working on portraiture during my Pentax days.

My first lit shot, the day I got my wireless triggers.

My first time shooting another person. I was nervous as hell.

My second time shooting another person, still super nervous.

A little over a year ago I sold all of my Pentax Gear and switched to Canon. I wanted a full frame camera and Pentax didn’t look to have one in their future. I purchased a Canon 5D, which was first produced around 5 years ago. It had an amazing reputation as a Landscape and Portrait camera. I had heard nothing but great things about it and it was in my price range, so I went for it. I bought a Canon 17-40mm F/4 lens for Landscape shooting. I use a Pentax 70-210 F/4 that has been adapted to fit Canon EOS cameras as my mid-range telephoto. I have a Tamron 28-75mm F/2.8 as my all purpose lens and a Sigma 50mm F/1.4 as my portrait/shallow depth of field lens.

Here’s where I am today, getting the exposures right in the camera and making creative choices.

Shot of my Dad on white seamless

My Friend Amber.

Looking back over the past 6 years, I have realized a few things.

1. Photography is frustrating at times, it can be difficult and you never stop learning.
2. Although frustrating at times, when things start to click and you make your first successful image, the feeling you get is very rewarding , you realize all of the frustrating times in the past were well worth it.
3. Upgrading cameras every year is foolish and a waste of money. The camera does not take good pictures, you do. I know feel that you shouldn’t upgrade camera equipment unless you know that you have exceeded it’s limitation.
4. Stick with it, get frustrated, shoot, shoot, shoot, ask questions, embrace the feedback whether good or bad, keep learning, keep shooting and one day you will feel the rewards of the years and years of work and frustrations. Trust me, it’s well worth it.
5. I still get nervous before every portrait shoot. Once I get into the shoot, the nerves go away and I have a blast. I think if I ever stop feeling this way, I should hang it up.
6. Finally I have learned that I still have a long way to go and I am ok with that. The day I stop learning and stop pushing myself to create better images is the day I will sell my gear.

#5