ILEAS Training

Last week my brother had mentioned having me come up to Belvidere today to shoot their Illinois Law Enforcement Alarm System (ILEAS) training. ILEAS is basically a bunch of different officers from local police departments that specialize in emergency response for riots, terrorism and other similar situations.

I arrived at the park that the training was taking place at approximately 9am. They were already in formation, and they were launching smoke. So, unfortunately I missed the shots of the smoke. But was still fun to watch! :)

The day consisted of them running drills, so they could practice their formations, and then a tour of the mobile command post and then the PD Helicopter showed up. They took their commander up (I believe that was his title - maybe chief - either way...), so that he could see the formations from the air, and see just what kind of vantage point the helicopter crews have. They mainly stayed above 500 feet or so, so no real close fly-by's. Just on landing and take-off.

All in all, it was pretty interesting to see that side of things, and get to chat with a few of the guys. Maybe they'll give me a break if they pull me over now... ;)

So w/out further ado - here's a few pictures from the day!

The rest of the photos (well the ones I felt fitting to post) are available on my Flickr site. :)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ashbell79/sets/72157622032176692/

Meteor Shower

So tonight there was supposed to be a meteor shower. I took the time to go outside of town and sit in a spot I know that light polution is a minimum. Unfortunately, the moon was out in full force (not a full moon, but still, quite bright), and that detracted from any shooting of the stars that I could possibly do. Then of course, I'm to the point I definitely need to upgrade to an FX camera, since my camera has a max bulb time of 30 minutes. Also, my sensor heats up after about 5 minutes of collecting light, and gets burn marks on the corners of the image, so not quite what you'd want when shooting stars.

The meteor shower turned out to be quite weak, I maybe only saw 10-15. So instead I took the opportunity to do a little more testing with "painting" light on the scenery. Meaning, I would open the shutter and stand off to the side and flash spots I wanted to highlight, and then "paint" items with an LED flashlight to give off a blue effect. Not quite to the point of my liking, but I'm progressing with this technique, and its still something I'm exploring and hoping to get better at.

So below are a few of the shots from tonight for you to check out. Post your comments/critiques. I'm welcome to suggestions as always!

Another Picture

Well for some reason, today I decided to check DefenseImagery.mil and do a search for my images. To my surprise, they posted the third picture that I submitted! Now, I'm not sure if this is normal, or if I just got lucky, and they liked all three of them. But anyway, here it is, as well as my caption. :)

U.S. Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Robert Blanchar, left, and Tech. Sgt. Andrew Lustgraaf, members of the 115th Fighter Wing, Wisconsin Air National Guard, take part in a chemical warfare training exercise June 27, 2009, in Madison, Wis. Chemical warfare training prepares Airmen for possible biological hazards and conditions that they might face in a deployed location. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Ashley Bell/Released)