2025-10: Madison

I visited a friend in Madison for a nice little weekend trip! It’s a lovely little town, I had a blast going to the botanical gardens & touring the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, and of course hanging out with a bunch of friends from college whom I hadn’t seen in a while.

I took a bunch of photos of and with them, which I shared with the group. These are the more “artsy” ones I took while there:

Petals

A close-up of white-pink flower petals. They look very soft.
Canon EOS Rebel T5i, 1/600 @ ISO 100, 55mm, handheld

Needles

A close-up of blue-green pine needles. They overlap and disappear into shadow.
Canon EOS Rebel T5i, 1/80 @ ISO 125, 55mm @ f10, handheld

Wet Leaves

The focus is on a bunch of yellow leaves on bushes/small trees that should be far past the falling-off point. The whole scene is a bit dreary.
Canon EOS Rebel T5i, 1/100 @ ISO 640, 55mm @ f10, handheld

Temple Reflection

Water lilies and pink reeds are reflected in an unnaturally still pond in front of a golden temple. The only indications that this is a reflection are the fact that it's upside down, a small circular ripple off to the right obscuring part of the temple, and the unnaturally purple hue of the sky.
Canon EOS Rebel T5i, 1/60 @ ISO 640, 44mm @ f10, handheld

Balls

The photographer is partially reflected in the larger part of a reflective ball sculpture floating in the middle of a small man-made pond. The myriad balls of different sizes reflect each other through a thin layer of dust that diffuses their highlights.
Canon EOS Rebel T5i, 1/125 @ ISO 100, 55mm @ f10, handheld. I'm in this one!

Looking At Art

A person stands a respectful distance away from a painting, looking intently. There are no other paintings on the walls in this upscale stairwell. Fall trees blow in the wind outside the windows.
Canon EOS Rebel T5i, 1/60 @ ISO 320, 32mm @ f8, handheld. My aforementioned friend is in this one!

Architecture

A corner of a building is made entirely out of extra large panels of glass and steel beam wedges. Even the stairway is made of just these two materials, leading to some interesting reflections. The camera is looking up from directly in the middle of the wedge, and the whole scene has a dark-blue tint.
Canon EOS Rebel T5i, 1/125 @ ISO 100, 34mm @ f8, handheld.

This was my first time using the Canon EOS Rebel T5i, which I picked up at a stoop sale lol. I had mostly been doing iPhone photography ever since giving the Canon EOS 5DS back to my dad. While it was nice to have a DSLR again, and pretty cute one at that, I wasn’t completely satisfied with the images I could get out of it. Fortunately, Dad has a new camera now, so I can have the 5DS back! Expect to see more from it… next year!