KAP: Russell Military Museum

In one of my most stressful Kite Aerial Photography sessions ever, I was able to walk away with images of the Russell Military Museum, which is on the border of Illinois & Wisconsin off of Interstate 94. I've driven past this a hundred times, and always thought it would be an interesting place to capture from the air, as it's a visual graveyard of military vehicles.

The wind was strong and somewhat gusty, and was able to loft 2 cameras into the air. Unfortunately, it was close to sunset on a cloudy day, and Wisconsin is still pretty brown with some green peaking through into spring. The wind was much strong once the kite was high int he air, and took a bit of effort to get the cameras and kites back to safety. Here are a few of my favorites from today's session.

To view the entire gallery of aerial images of the Russell Military Musuem, click here.

DIY LED Rope light to create light art orbs.

Some of my favorite images are of light art using flashlights and long exposures to create some interesting pictures at night. I've seen a few tutorials on the new on how to create a light rope using LED's, which then can be used to make glowing orbs in photos. I decided to get out the soldering gun, and try one for myself. I changed the designs I saw to encapsulate the batteries and power toggle switch inside a babies bottle for better grip, and RCA photo plugs to enable changing LED colors in the field to be able to use the same power source.

Here is my first test shot standing in my living room, twirling the rope light and walking in circles. I'll need to tweek my technique, but think that this will work great this summer at a few locations shooting at night.