2020 has certainly been a wild year. From Feb 2018 until Feb 2020 I lived a largely nomadic lifestyle, traveling around the world taking photos. With the onset of covid, I hunkered down in Iowa with family. When I wasn't working on Artists Sunday, I was out shooting. And so, here are my top 47 Iowa shots from this year.

It’s been a good long time since my last blog post and a lot has happened. In February 2018 I shut down my Austin-based photography business and my game developer conference business, turned in the keys to my rented condo and put all my belongings in storage to travel the world and take photos. That all came to a screeching halt in February 2020 with the onset of the coronavirus.  Fast forward to today. The first annual Artists Sunday is days away and we have more than 400 communities, including city, county and state art agencies participating in this nationwide art-shopping movement. More than 3,000 individual artists, photographers, and makers are also participating. But…

This is something I’ve been wanting to attempt for a while but the skies have not be clear enough to do so. Iowa skies in fact have been almost constantly cloudy of late – or a least when one wants to shoot the moon. This is Saturday night’s (4/25/2020) crescent moon shot in HDR (high dynamic range), showing the 8.6% crescent, lit by the sun, and the remaining moon, lit only by sunlight reflecting off of the earth’s surface – earthshine. I consider it an experiment, having never attempted it before. It is 9 photos, shot back-to-back, each at various exposures, combined to showcase the entire moon, without the sunlit…

An aerial view of downtown Austin from 2nd St. to the Capitol. The first photo was taken by the Jordan Company sometime in the 1920s. The second photo was taken September 16, 2018, by myself, Christopher V. Sherman. The earlier photo is a part of the Chalberg Collection of Prints and Negatives and was provided by Austin History Center, Austin Public Library to The Portal to Texas History, a digital repository hosted by the UNT Libraries. See previous time machine photo time lapses below: UT Tower 1936 and 2016 (80 years) Austin Skyline 1900-2018 Time Lapse from South Congress Over Austin: 100 Years at 6th and Congress

This was a fun find, a photo of the UT Tower under construction taken in January 31, 1936. The second photo in this series was taken January 30, 2016. The third photo was taken March 27, 2016. 307-foot tall UT Austin Tower was completed in 1937, according to the University web site. The photos don’t line up exactly, but it’s best I could do with what I’ve got. But, with the growth of the trees over 80 years, not as much would be seen with lower elevation shots in 2016. The 2016 photos were shot by myself, Christopher V. Sherman. The 1936 photo is part of the collection entitled: part…

The two photos in this video were shot from the same spot, roughly 110 to 120 years apart. The older shot was taken sometime between 1900 and 1909 (exact date unknown), according to the University of North Texas Libraries. The photographer is also not known. The more recent photo was taken by myself, Christopher V. Sherman, on September 22, 2018 with a drone. As with the Congress and 6th Street photo time lapse I shared yesterday, it was pure chance that both shots in this video were taken at the same location at roughly the same altitude. Even the trees covering South Congress seem to be similarly positioned. About the…

These two photos were shot in the same spot, 100 years apart. Call this a 100-years time lapse. Both are aerial views of Austin, Texas looking north, toward the Texas Capitol from the Scarbrough Building at 6th and Congress Avenue. (see also my South Congress skyline 120 year time lapse) The recent one was taken by myself, Christopher V Sherman, on June 4, 2016 with a drone. The earlier photo was taken between 1911-1919 (exact date unknown) and the photographer is unknown. It was likely shot from the roof top. It was pure chance that both shots were taken at the same location at roughly the same altitude, roughly 100…

I’ve been fascinated with the idea of incorporating the moon into photos whenever possible. And so, with the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11’s moon landing on July 20th, I was excited by the possibility to shoot something special for the occasion: Putting a man on the moon. The man here is Ty Johnson, a paramotor pilot, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. As NASA will tell you, getting a man to the moon is harder than it looks. This is how we did it. I spotted Ty’s paramotor – a powered-parachute – in the air when I was shooting Iowa’s amazing, magical fireflies. I chased him down as he landed with a…

After several years of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, I was finally able to be in eastern Iowa during “firefly season” – early late June/early July. That is when the fireflies are out just after sunset and they twinkle like holiday lights. There are millions – billions of them really – in the corn and soybean fields and they are truly a magical sight to behold. Hundreds of square miles of lightning bugs, in fact. And to make things extra special we had a number of summer storms pass through the region (these were all shot near Cedar Rapids, Iowa). But when I say region, I…

Today is Pack Day. I pack my camera bag (also known as my car) for the first US roadtrip this year, starting tomorrow. It’s nice to not have to pack for the restrictions of an airplane (see previous trips this year). This trip itinerary takes me 2 days from base camp Iowa to NYC then Connecticut, then Boston then up the coast into Maine and into Canada where hit Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick then down through Quebec City, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and Niagara Falls. At least that’s the plan. Let me know if you have any itinerary suggestions. I’m taking the Mavic 2 Pro drone and…