It's Not Just Black and White

Every year at the Toledo Zoo they put out the Lights Before Christmas. They show up sometime before Thanksgiving and leave on the second of January. I went a few years ago, and my parents and I decided to venture down to visit them this past weekend.

No other Christmas lights can compare to the lights that the zoo puts on. From the trees dancing to music  to the lit up animals that move, there was something around every corner of the zoo to see.

A few pictures to enjoy:

Last week’s Chicago SMUG meet-up was a review of the video tool, animoto. Playing around with the website, I’ve found it so easy to create some awesome looking videos in a short period of time. Animoto does the hard work for you, it picks the transitions, it matches the changes up to the beat of the music, and it extends pictures that you view as important. It will even allow you to insert video clips in the middle of the pictures as well.

One of the biggest benefits is that animoto offers music thats already got the copyright covered. SmugMug and Animoto just announced on Thursday that there is integration in sending the videos back to your SmugMug account. The only downside is that it sends the web quality over, not the high resolution version.

Animoto is a great product and I think it is awesome for professional photographers. While I’m not a professional photographer by ANY means, here’s what I came up with from my pictures from my cousins wedding.

My cousin Sara married Jeremy on Saturday at Our Lady Queen of Peace in Grafton, OH. The photos are all from the ceremony. I shot a good number of pictures and here are some of my favorites.

The full run down of pictures can be found: http://www.kp-photos.com/Weddings/Sara-and-Jeremy/.

Congrats!

I haven’t really been a fan of this fall… for the most part it’s been cold and rainy… Yesterday happened to be a BEAUTIFUL fall day so I decided it was a good day to head over to Coffee Creek in Chesterton, IN for some pictures.

Bumped the shutter speed up to 800

Bumped the shutter speed up to 2000

Shutter speed at 5000

Shutter Speed at 800

Shutter speed at 60

The Full Gallery is Here: http://www.kp-photos.com/Street-Scenes/Coffee-Creek-Chesterton-IN/

My cousin Sara and Jeremy got married in a beautiful small Catholic church in Ohio. Here’s a sneak peek!

This past weekend, I had a new experience, watching a Marathon. I didn’t know what it would be like, so I brought my camera along to see what I could get. It was an amazing experience to be at the finish line where I was. We were about 100 yards from the finish line itself and watching all the different athletes come in was so much fun.

The first group of athletes coming in were the ones who were there to win, as more and more people came in, it was more of a celebration to those who finished the race! As boring as 26.2 miles sounds, I recommend hanging out at the finish line to anyone whose looking for a fun time.

The marathon isn’t just for the runners! She was having just as much fun cheering!

Sammy Wanjiru
by the way, he holds the Olympic record, and is the current Olympic Champion in the marathon, oh and he set a new course record for Chicago!

Liliya Shobukhova

So, he finished in under 3 hours… And probably got one of the biggest cheers from the crowd as he came in to the finish line!

Minnie Mouse Ran!

Mason, on his way to qualifying for Boston!

Nathalie, about to get boxed in, but still qualifying for Boston!!!!!!!

Who is ready for Boston?

The full gallery can be found: http://www.kp-photos.com/Sports/Chicago-Marathon-2009/

I traveled over to Chicago to watch my best friend from high school run the Chicago Marathon and qualify for Boston! I shot a great deal of pictures but here are two sneak peeks! Full album coming this week.