Steven Helmer Publications

After a long offseason with plenty of people talking about the Green Bay Packers and their transition from Aaron Rodgers to Jordan Love, we finally got to see the latter in action, on the road against the division rival Chicago Bears, a team that has been owned by Green Bay quarterbacks for three decades. Here are some thoughts from that 38-20 Packers win. The jury is still out on Jordan Love, but I liked what I saw. It was just the quarterback's second career start and there's a lot of season left as well as a long career left. However, while not flawless, I think he showed what the Packers saw in him when they alienated Aaron Rodgers by trading up to draft him. The play that stood out for me in particular was the fumbled snap in the second half. Rather than falling on the ball, he picked it up, maintained his composure and completed a pass downfield. That is a quarterback who is ready to play in the NFL. I wonder when the rest of the league will pay attention to what the Pack...

I had a somewhat short date night with my wife last night (there's surprisingly very little to do around here after 8 p.m.) and before dinner decided to go out by the lake with my camera for a sunset photoshoot. This was a bit of a challenge because taking photos without a lot of natural light has never been my strong suit (I struggle even on cloudy days). However, I think I did OK. Here are some of the photos. Model: Cynthia Helmer

 It was cloudy and a bit cool today, but I managed to get a quick walk in at lunch. Here are some photos:

I didn't get a lot of photos on my walk yesterday but managed this one of a butterfly resting its wings on a tree branch.

You've seen these photos taken with my camera a couple days ago, but I had some free time this morning and decided to re-edit them as though they were from a black-and-white movie.  Model: Cynthia Helmer

When we set up a trail camera outside our bedroom window and pointing toward our backyard, it was because we knew there was an opossum that would occasionally visit and help itself to the birdseed that fell to the ground under the feeder. We got plenty of photos of that: Along with a stray cat that likes to help itself to something in that seed too, as well as various other critters you would expect to see in town, like rabbits and squirrels. I viewed the footage from last night, however, and was not expecting to see this: I actually caught a photo of one of the raccoons a couple days ago, but it was just a tail and I thought it belonged to the stray cat. It's not the type of animal I would expect to see inside the city limits and had never noticed anything to indicate we had them nearby. I'm not even sure where they live during the day (though the same can be said about the opossum).  Anyway, I'm starting to understand why the cats are so obsessed with watching out the win...

We didn't have anything going on yesterday afternoon and, after dropping our oldest daughter off at work, decided to go out to the park with my camera and do another photoshoot session. My wife is working on her poses while I'm working on trying to get more full-body shots (I've been told I have a habit of cutting off body parts). Here are some of the results: Model: Cynthia Helmer