Birthday in the River Market

Last year for my Birthday I gathered a few of my closest friends in the River Market area of Kansas City for dinner and an evening out in our old neighborhood. I decided to go down there a bit early and spend some time alone with my Olympus. As I write this almost a year later, I can't help but think about how badly I need to do this more often. Equipped with what I think is one of my favorite films, I shot the better part of a roll while slowly roaming. It was so nice, and so relaxing, which was one of the reasons I took up photography in the first place.

To be completely honest, I've been eagerly anticipating posting these photos for a while. I can't entirely explain why I waited this long, but I have a habit of sort of hoarding photos. It isn't that I want to keep them for myself, it's more that I'm just not very good about sharing sometimes. I love all of these photos so much though, that I have to share them all. Not only did I want to share them all, but I think they deserved to be shared together... And I don't blog enough. Really, I don't take enough pictures anymore. I need to fix that, and fast. I don't go on enough walks, instead I run. I need more creativity in my life, and these photos are a reminder to myself of this fact.

Sorry there's no humor in this post. I almost always try to keep it light and toss in a few jokes here and there (even if I'm maybe the only one who finds me funny sometimes). For some reason I just started writing tonight and this is where it went. And I'm OK with that; as long as I keep my promise to myself to start shooting more photos.

Farmers Market

I decided late last year that I needed to post all of the film from 2010 that I wanted to share, because why have such old film just sitting there? I took a number of pictures in 2010 in various farmers markets across the country; Hollywood, Portland, Kansas City, Wichita, to name a few.

I really like a good farmers market. I've mentioned before that I used to live in the River Market in Kansas City, which is where the City Market is located; Kansas City's biggest farmers market. Back then, I would just wander down to the market on a Saturday morning and people watch for a while.

I haven't always liked farmers markets though. I remember being dragged to farmers markets in St. Louis when I was younger. I didn't care much for them back then, but my aunt sure did. All I remember was it was hot and boring, and I just wanted to go to a baseball game, or another St. Louis area attraction with a little more pizazz than the farmers market. These days though, I'll go to a farmers market. And I'll take my camera.

Mixx it up

My ladyfriend recently introduced me to what is now one of my favorite restaurants in Kansas City. It’s a place called The Mixx, and they feature a lot of locally grown food, purchased from local businesses that specialize in that sort of thing. While that’s all well and good, the real reason I like it is because this Waldorf Chicken Salad Sandwich on a croissant is freaking good. While everything is prepared quickly, it’s all on the healthy side of the spectrum, and you can’t complain about that. Salads seem to be their bread and butter, if you will, but they have a pretty decent sized menu overall. My only complaint is the seating. The dining area is a huge open room with tables everywhere. It reminds me a little of a cafeteria at a ski resort, which give me endless amounts of anxiety. Luckily it’s not as crowded as a ski resort in this place, so finding a table hasn’t been too difficult. I’d definitely recommend this joint for a lighter dinner or lunch that will be tasty and healthy.

Oh, a quick note on the pictures. I shot them with this awesome Lomography Redscale XR 50-200 film. Although the tones rendered are normally awesome, they definitely do not recreate accurate skin tones.

new site!

Welcome to my new site. I felt like the old one was too stuffy. jeremyjewell Photography? What am I, a business? No, I'm just a guy with some cameras. Lots of cameras. Speaking of cameras.. I bought this freaking sweet Hasselblad a couple weeks ago. This is one hell of a camera. The first time I played with one in the camera shop in Irvine, I had no clue what I was doing. Luckily the fella behind the counter showed me how it worked a little bit. I almost bought a really janky one that day at an amazing price, but it had some mechanical issues, so I said no thanks. I finally found one at a good price and jumped on it. After I got it, I met this really nice lady named Rachel for lunch and she showed me the in's and out's of it. I'm sure this is all very boring, so I'm sorry, but I need to give credit where credit is due. So I'd also like to thank my friend hannah for first of all, making me do film photography, then urging me to get a Hassy, then introducing me to Rachel.

Sorry for the boringness, really. Here are some pictures I took with it. The first one was not at the lake, the rest were at the lake. Except for the last one; that one also was not at the lake.

Oh yeah, before the pictures I'd suggest you check out my Flickr from time to time. I probably won't post all my Flickr pictures on here. I will however give sneak peaks of pictures on here before they can be seen on Flickr, so there's your incentive to visit here. Plus you get to read my thoughts. No matter how boring they may be. Usually they'll be exciting and entertaining.. Entertaining at least. Also if you want to see these baby's bigger, just click on them! If it says you can't see it, it's just because it's one of the sneak preview ones, so wait a few days and come back to see it big.

Oh one more thing, my cousin told me the other week that my aunt didn't know I was doing a 365 project (where I take and share a picture every day for a year). Well, I am, and I post them ALL on my Flickr, so check that out already. There's always a link at the top of this site. There's also a nifty thing at the bottom that shows my last 9 uploads to Flickr.

Oh sorry, but one last thing, I imported all my old posts, so the archive is still alive and well. Sadly, the email notification feature will not be joining my new site. Unless there is overwhelming demand, in which case I can shoot you an email every time I post. If you want it, just email me, call me, or yell at me.




Josh was skipping some rocks on the water, so I was all "hey huck a big rock in there" so he did.








And of course, me!

Afterburnin

Finally; the last photo (for now) from last year's downtown KC Air Show.  This is what you might call the business end of the F/A-18 Hornet fighter jet.  Without these turbines it wouldn't be able to go Mach 1.8.  In fact, it wouldn't be able to go anywhere (count it!).  In any case, I think I'd like to fly in one of these.  If anyone knows how to make that happen, then lets get to it.

Exif information
Model	Canon EOS 20D
Original date	2009:08:26 12:03 PM
Exposure time	1/60 sec
Focal length	18mm
F-Stop	f/8
ISO speed	ISO-100
Exposure Bias	0

Hydra Rockets

This is what you might call the business end of an Apache helicopter; the M261 launcher, which houses Hydra rockets until they’re fired.  This is an essential part of the Apache helicopter if your primary mission is to fire rockets at people, which I can only assume is probably the primary mission at least some of the time.

This one is tied for favorite of the recently posted air show pictures from last year’s show.  I’ll put up the final in this series soon.  Then you can tell me which of them is your favorite.  And I’ll tell you if you’re right or wrong.

Exif information
Model	Canon EOS 20D
Original date	2009:08:23 11:17 AM
Exposure time	1/100 sec
Focal length	18mm
F-Stop	f/8
ISO speed	ISO-100
Exposure Bias	0

Apache Reflection

Before I was so rudely interrupted by a perfectly reasonable request to see more California pictures, I was going to post a few more from the Kansas City Air Show from last year.

This is probably my third favorite picture in a series of pictures from the Downtown Kansas City Air Show I’m going to post in the next few days or weeks (don’t worry, I’ll sprinkle them in between more California stuff).  This is what one might call the business end of an Apache Helicopter.  You might call it this because of what this device is used for.  It is on the front of the helicopter, and from what I’ve learned, it is essential to the operation of the machine.  If you’ll notice, you can see me a couple of times in this picture, including in the upper-middle portion of the frame.  This is the pilot’s night vision sensor, which is pretty essential if he wants to fly at night – without crashing that is.  A bit further down is another reflection of me, this time in what could be called the business end of the business end of the helicopter, the laser rangefinder and target designator device.  These devices track targets during the daytime.  The large thing to the left of my reflection is the gunner’s night vision sensor, which, strangely, is much larger and therefore probably much better, than the pilot’s night vision sensor.

Anyway, that’s an interesting bit of technology on the front of these helicopters.  I also enjoyed seeing myself in the picture.  Stay tuned for more awesomeness from the Air Show!

Exif information
Model	Canon EOS 20D
Original date	2009:08:23 11:15 AM
Exposure time	1/200 sec
Focal length	18mm
F-Stop	f/8
ISO speed	ISO-100
Exposure Bias	0

Downtown from 169

I think this will be my last downtown Kansas City picture for a while; I have processed all the ones I have taken that I like.  I feel this is a pretty unique angle of downtown.  It was taken from north of the city on Highway 169 as I was walking home from the Downtown Kansas City Airport Air Show.  I lived north of downtown, so this is similar to the view I got from my apartment. This is also pretty much the reverse view of my Highway 169 photograph.

I’m not sure what the name of the apartment complex is, but if you notice on the left side of this picture, there is a large parking garage somewhat visible.  It doesn’t look bad in this picture, but in real life, that parking garage and the associated apartment buildings look terrible.  Pretty much all of the other buildings in the River Market area of downtown are old brick buildings.  Many have been renovated and are very nice on the inside, but the historic exterior remains unchanged.  Anyway, these new apartment buildings are architecturally completely different from the rest of the River Market.  They’re poorly constructed, much like many of the suburban apartments in Overland Park (all wood construction, cheap materials, build quickly), and look generally like a suburban apartment complex.  Because these apartments were built surrounding my old gym, I got to see construction progress every day, so I feel that I’m pretty much an expert on the subject.  What I’m really trying to say here is that these apartments are ruining the River Market, and I’m glad I moved away when I did.  I always hoped during construction that the building would ‘accidentally’ burn down and the project would be scrapped.  If you ever get the opportunity, please stop by their office, and tell them to go to hell for me.

Getting back on point, this was taken during my HDR period, so it’s a 5 shot handheld HDR.  Check out the EXIF info below for a little more information.

Exif information
Model	Canon EOS 20D
Original date	2009:08:23 12:34
Exposure time	1/1000 sec
Focal length	18mm
F-Stop	f/8
ISO speed	ISO-100
Exposure	5 Photo HDR

Corporate Fountain

Here’s an old one that I had intended to re-shoot after I got my wide angle lens.  I never got around to reshooting it before they turned off the fountains for the winter, so I decided to just go with this one for now, because I like it.  It isn’t as wide as I’d like, and now that I have a new filter that will allow me to shoot long exposures during the daylight, I believe I can greatly improve this image with a reshoot, but that probably won’t happen for a while.  I know you’re all disappointed, but that’s very insulting since I gave you this perfectly good picture to hold you over.

Anyway, this is a 5 shot HDR I took at the same time as Quick Turnaround, located in this corporate office park in Overland Park, Kansas called Corporate Woods.

Exif information
Model	Canon EOS 20D
Original date	2009:05:23 19:59
Exposure time	1/500 sec
Focal length	18mm
F-Stop	f/22
ISO speed	ISO-100
Exposure	5 Photo HDR

Back in Kansas City

No, I’m not back in Kansas City, but I am starting to miss the place.  I took this the last full weekend I lived there.  I had actually gone to that area to take a specific picture I had in mind, but that didn’t turn out well because I didn’t like how it looked with the cloudy sky.  I did like this one though, and a few others from that day.  For those of you not from the area, that is downtown Kansas City’s skyline, with the back lawn of the Liberty Memorial in the foreground.

I’ve been steering away from the HDR photos recently, but I took this one at the beginning of my journey towards primarily single shot photos.  There is something about a cloudy sky though that makes an HDR work very well.  As long as it’s not overdone, I think it’s alright.  This is a 5 shot HDR.  I strengthened some of the more subtle colors in the sky during post-processing, and of course combined the 5 images for the original HDR.


I've got a number of pictures I really like lined up for you all, and many more just waiting for post-processing.  I'm also out and about in southern California pretty much every weekend shooting, so stay tuned for a lot of posts in 2010!

Exif information
Model	Canon EOS 20D
Original date	2009:10:10 14:26
Exposure time	1/100 sec
F-Stop	10mm
Focal number	f/16
ISO speed	ISO-100
Exposure	5 Photo HDR

I Didn’t Even Know What a Nuclear Panner Plant Was

No, this isn’t a nuclear power plant, but that is a really funny line from the classic The Simpsons episode “Homer’s Enemy” featuring Frank ‘Grimey’ Grimes.  What this photograph actually depicts is a power plant located in the River Market District of downtown Kansas City where I used to live.  I was never exactly sure what this plant was, what kind of fuel it burned (I guess I knew it burned coal, since there’s a huge coal pile attached to the facility), and what exactly it powered.  There was no way I was just going to go around all willy-nilly posting pictures featuring buildings I didn’t fully understand.

I set out on trying to figure out what this power plant was all about with a single name I had gotten from a sign hanging on the building.  It wasn’t easy, but I eventually tracked down the parent company and the official name of this generating station, and found an obscure article that made a reference to this power plant.  It’s called the Grand Boulevard Generating Station, and it turns out it burns both coal and natural gas to create super heated steam, which is piped under the city to various buildings downtown for heating.  I didn’t even know that was a thing until I read that article.

This is a hand held 5 shot HDR, with a some sweet post-processing work done after I did the HDR.

Sweet Plane, Man

Well life has been pretty hectic lately; hectic but exciting.  Some of you already know about this, but I’ll save the story for the rest of you until I have photographic evidence to back my story.  This excitement in my life may be good in general, but it hasn’t been good for my website since I’ve (obviously) been neglecting my updating duties.  Anyway, I seem to be in a writing mood tonight, so hang on, this could go anywhere (I’ll try to keep it on point).

For the second year in a row, I headed to the Downtown Kansas City Airport Air Show; this time though, I had some friends to go with!  Had I gone alone again, I probably would have just stood outside the show in the same location I stood last year.  I would have gotten some good shots, but I wouldn’t have gotten this shot because the airplanes weren’t sitting out on the freeway.

Now, you don’t need to know this, and it’s not at all important to anything, but as the words rolled off my fingers just then, they decided I was going to post a different picture than I was originally planning on posting.  See, I told you this could get crazy!  Hang on folks.

Like I was saying, my friends wanted to go into the air show and see things up close and personal.  I was happy to do this, because I too wanted to go in, and I’m glad I did.  There were all sorts of airplanes and helicopters sitting around on the tarmac, and you’d better believe I got lots of pictures of all the interesting ones.  
(Editor’s Note:  I went back and read my American Chopper post to see how much I talked about going back to the air show in that one, and I pretty much just wrote the same thing I wrote in that post in this post’s second paragraph and this paragraph.  Sorry about the duplication, but I’m not going to delete it, so I guess I’m not really that sorry.)

This airplane is a T-45 Goshawk; a Navy trainer aircraft.  This also happens to be my dream aircraft; you know, for when I buy a jet and learn how to fly it.  I originally wanted a T-38 Talon, which I first saw at the Kansas Cosmosphere (which is an awesome place; you should go there sometime).  The T-38 however is capable of reaching supersonic speeds, so really, that would probably be overkill; I mean, come on.

I gave this single exposure photo a good helping of some sweet post-processing, and I really enjoy the results.  Hopefully you do too!

Also, today happens to be Veterans Day, so thank you to all of you who have served!  I hadn't necessarily planned to post a military related photograph on Veterans Day, but things turned out quite nicely in those regards.

Green Graffiti

This is another bit of graffiti from the River Market, where I live in Kansas City.  This wall is across the street from my building, and the entire wall, which extends for about half a block, is covered in a huge mural of graffiti.  As opposed to the last piece of graffiti I posted, this graffiti is far more artistic in nature.  I took this photograph the afternoon that my new ultra-wide angle lens arrived.  It was a sunny day, and I felt the conditions were perfect to test my lens on this wall I had been waiting to photograph.

I’ve never been sure whether or not this mural was painted legally or not.  I am inclined to believe it was not painted at the request of the owner of the wall for a couple of reasons.  First of all, I witnessed this piece of art being created.  I was coming home late one Sunday night and the particular route I took home that night brought me past this wall.  I saw a couple of guys out on the sidewalk spray painting the wall, and although it was at night, they were not exactly covered by the darkness.  The street isn’t a main street for the area, but it gets a fair amount of local traffic.  These guys didn’t appear to care if anyone saw them, but then again, I wasn’t a police.  The next day I saw the extent of their work, and was blown away that they had spray painted the entire wall.

The second reason I would believe that the wall’s owner was not particularly amused at this piece of self-expression was that they eventually hung a large sign advertising their business, which is behind the wall.  Who do these jerks think they are?  Covering this possibly illegally painted piece of street art, just so they can advertise their business, which just happens to be located on the other side of that same wall?  Isn’t that what the yellow pages are for?

I’m getting off topic here, so going back to the photo; I really love this lens.  In post-processing I was able to get the colors to pop a little more than they did straight from the camera, and overall I like the results.