Ladee's Travels

Kalen suggested that we go out for a unstructured night with the " Arizona Night Photographers " Meetup group to shoot the First Friday events.  The group is led by Beth Ruggiero-York, a night photography instructor from the Arizona Highways Photo Workshops . Kalen and I bought a new 50 mm lens with f1.8 and set off to learn how to use our new tool.  Here are some of my results. The group was to meet at Hotel San Carlos , so we left the car at the Central and Camelback parking lot and took the Metro Light Rail down town to 1st Avenue and Van Buren.  We walked over to Central Avenue and south to the Hotel San Carlos.  Interesting place and I will need to stop by again to see what the "Bonjour Vietnam" corner pub has to offer. ( Click here to view the video about the historic San Carlos.   It is very interesting.)  Next time I need to photograph the Italian Renaissance Revival style and the detail work on the building, and maybe ask for a quick view of...

Saturday night I went with Mike and Beth (of www.methephotographer.com ) to Lost Dutchman State Park to photograph the Milky Way.  Conditions were ideal, meaning that the moon set at about 11PM and we would be able to see the Milky Way.  Lost Dutchman State Park is about 40 minutes from my home, given that no one is on the freeway at that time of night and one can easily go the speed limit the entire way. What is the Milky Way? See what wikipedia has to say . Beth had already made her ideal photograph of the Milky Way.  You can read about it at her post  http://methephotographer.com/truth-milky-photos/ and I encourage you to do so now before you read about my experience.  It was with her ultimate photo in mind that I decided to join them on an 11PM-4AM photo session at the park.  Yes, 11PM-4AM.  I can't remember the last time that I willingly kept those hours.  I had to nap... Up front, I want to tell you that I learned a lot in this se...