Photographically speaking, July 4th was a great day!

 

***MK PHOTOGRAPHY HAS A NEW WEBSITE***

http://monixkap.wix.com/mkaplerphotography

While I will still continue to chronicle some of my personal adventures in photography on this blog, please see the above website for my portrait business!

*************

 

 

I spent Independence Day in northern Iowa this year with my family. We started the day with a trip to West Bend, IA to visit the Grotto of the Redemption. The artist of this amazing place was a priest named Father Paul Dobberstein. As a young seminarian he was very sick with pneumonia and prayed to the Virgin Mary to intercede for the grace of his health, promising to build a shrine in her honor if he lived. He did live, and in 1912 began constructing the Grotto. The materials are all kinds of rocks, precious stones, shells, and petrified wood from all 50 states and all over the world.

 

 

 

This was the original shrine that Fr. Dobberstein built, and he expanded the Grotto from there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The swans were in the pond on the grounds of the Grotto. I got some great shots with my 100-400mm lens that I last posted about. I can now cross "good swan pictures" off my photography bucket list. :)

 

 

 

 

 

It wouldn't have been Independence Day without my brother lighting off a bag of fireworks! I love the shots of his bottle rockets lifting off with the flame and sparks behind them.

 

 

And finally, I crossed another item off my photography bucket list: "good fireworks pictures".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I added the text in photoshop and made some awesome prints of this bottom one!!

 

 

Thanks for visiting and a special thank you to all men and women who serve and have served our country in the military! Thank you for defending freedom, including my freedom to pursue my passion for photography!