Memorial Day: Photo Walk At The Idaho Veteran's Cemetery

For Memorial Day I thought it would be a great idea to head out to the Idaho Veterans Cemetery. I'd never been there before. I'm told that Idaho was the last state to establish an official, contemporary veterans cemetery and this place was completed in 2004. There was a big ceremony that day but I decided that I wanted to arrive afterwards. It was my intention to photograph the place, not the crowds. I parked down the street from the cemetery since there was still plenty of people still there, many in uniform. I was in the navy back in the 80s and for a moment the feelings of the people, the mood of the environment and the sentiment the people were there to express did bring more than a tear to my eyes. But then I set to work to take pictures of the grounds, the monuments and of course the people who wished to express their thanks and remembrances of those who risked their all for our country.












Towards the back of the cemetery the bluff rises up and they've built a wall and a plaza on the top. The road the winds up to the top was a bit longer than I first guessed before I hiked up there with my big camera bag and carrying my tripod.



The view of the main cemetery below the bluff.


The Scatter Garden.







The view of another cemetery below the bluff.





When I got done shooting at the top, I started back down the road back to the main cemetery. Of course that's when the downpour began and I had to stuff my camera underneath my jacket. Some very nice people stopped and offered me a ride down. We had a nice chat and as if by magic, the rain stopped as we reached the bottom of the hill.

Shooting at the Idaho Veterans Cemetery on Memorial Day was a wonderful experience and I'm glad I did it. For a closing image, here is the main gate to the cemetery.

Tilt Shift Photography By Faking It

I think the tilt-shift photography is pretty cool. It involves taking pictures with a special lens that makes one are of your photograph in sharp focus while the rest gradually drifts off into a blur. The result is that the real life sized things and people suddenly look like miniatur models. I've seen some stop motion video done in tilt-shift that was just amazing. However I"m not inclined to put out the bucks right now for such a specialized lens that I wouldn't use very often. But I've recently learned how to get the same effect in Photoshop using graduated lens blurs. I sorted through a bunch of old photos I had laying around and came up with some fun results. Next time I want to use this technique on some pictures that I've deliberately taken for this purpose. I think I'll have some really awesome.

Progress at Stage Coach Theater

They asked me to take some pictures of the progress they are making in building up the new space for Stage Coach Theater. They got approval to use the space for the June production. Then the theater will go dark again so that construction can continue, building walls for the dressing rooms and things like that.

To get a feel of what standing in the space is like, I took some panorama shots. In an effort to get as much detail and perspective in the shot, I compiled many more shots than usual to create the final images. You get to see what it's like to stand in one spot and look around.

Be sure to click on the images so that you can see them close up.