I few weeks ago I went up to Minnesota with my friend Mikey W for a week in the woods of uninterrupted, extreme relaxing. The goal was to get some work done, which happened to a lesser extent than desired, but we also trekked through the Minnesota State Fair, accomplished a whole lot of drinking beer, made some fires much too large for the tiny little fire pit we had, fished for tiny little guys not worth eating, and rocked the hell out of the Indian Casino in Walker, MN. Not bad at all. And, of course, I made a bunch of photos. I have some thoughts on the development of these afterward.

Here are a handful of my very favorites.

Check out the whole gallery here:

The North Country, Minnesota Gallery – 9/12/2009

On this set of photos I really spent a lot time making local adjustments within Lightroom. The light during the week was very difficult with lots of hard shadows, reflections, areas of wide dynamic range. It made getting good exposures right off the cuff fairly difficult. Add severe haze to the mix for the few days we were at Lake Superior just north of Duluth and you’ll understand the conditions. While shooting I aimed to get a balanced exposure, not too hot in the highlights, not to dark in the shadow, so that I could extract as much detail as possible back at the computer. I think I did a pretty good job on these, especially at making my local adjustments fairly seamless. What do you think? Is there anything glaring here that you notice? Do you notice at all? Thoughts?