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passion for science and art to create breathtaking
photographs of weather and nature.
And see this is the kind of picture that I do like,
because very few people crawl around on the lawn
in the morning. (laughs)
But the truth is that it is surprising what
one can learn.
My name is Sylke Boyd, I'm a scientist, (laughs)
I am definitely a scientist.
I have a vivid interest in atmosphere and weather and
one of the ways to really get into a subject matter
is to take pictures, is to paint,
is to observe daily.
I did weather reports for the Star Tribune for
a while, neighborhood weather reports which
required a picture of weather and that basically
challenged me to capture in a picture conditions
that a person who isn't here cannot experience.
And that was actually kind of fun.
So after this program with the newspaper sort of
ended, I kept on doing that.
So I'm taking a daily picture of weather,
but it has expanded way beyond weather cause I
like the challenge.
I never know what it's going to be in the morning
and I cannot really look for it.
It surprises me every day.
Oh, wow, I missed it!
I almost got that bee!
That might've been my surprise shot today!
When you pay attention to where the shadow goes,
you can get a nice backlighting on the,
on the flower which in a macro shot can show some
really nice structure.
And so I try to use perspectives
that are unusual.
Zooming in, using macro photography and these
kinds of things to make it interesting,
to make it memorable.
Right there for example.
And really, anybody could do this and then you
observe this dewdrop.
Sometimes you have to play a little bit with the
angle because there are angles in which the
dewdrop will appear brilliant and others in
which it just refracts light away.
And how to take a good photograph?
It's actually strange.
I have photos that I've
basically shot out of the hip.
They turned out very, very nice.
And I have photos that I've waited for for
several minutes to get just the right light and
the right angle so it, it really depends.
But I've noticed that if I actually actively
seek a motive, I'm less successful
than if I just shoot.
Hey Burksey!
And then there are challenges like dogs who
think they must be in every picture.
When I take my pictures, I cannot say I'm going
actually out to take pictures.
My life is pretty busy, but I always
have a camera with me.
I like to take my children,
in particular my daughter and my dog out for longer
walks outside.
Simply it increases the chance that I see a view
that I like that could be my daily picture.
One of my favorite ones was actually this
"Tree Lady," it's a children's song.
"Once there was a dandy lady,"
"who loved to dance they say."
"She had beautiful hair of gold,"
"and loved to dance all day."
"As time passed by and she grew old,"
"her hair all turned to grey."
"Now when the dandy lady dances,"
"her hair all blows away."
"The after dinner sprint to the playground shelter was"
"compensated by this breathtaking display of"
"supernumerary rainbows or stagger rainbows."
"The five to six weaker inner color bands are"
"generated by interference in"
"a very homogenous rain field."
"A rare sight and one that was important in"
"understanding the wave nature of light."
"A physicists delight, in other words."
Science and art are two ways to look at the world.
Science comes more from a measurable standpoint.
Observation with a conscious plan,
while art would perhaps try to understand the
world more from a emotional point of view.
I'm obsessed!
Yes ask my family, they will say,
they will tell you that I'm obsessed.
Because it is actually amazing how often we don't
pay attention, and what the photos have done for
me is they have sharpened my eye for phenomena that
we sometimes might not even see like halos or
light pillars or auroras so when I post these
pictures and I say, "Hey, did you see these sun
pillars this morning in the blowing snow?"
And people are always amazed,
"Wow, this was great!"
and, "I saw it too!"
So that makes me kind of happy.
I live in the prairie, it is the environment that's
around me and as such,
that's where I find my motives.
Therefore I'm a prairie artist,
I'm in the prairie.
I actually, the idea to submit something to the
exhibition was coming from friends.
So friends saying to me,
"Your pictures are really great!
"You should submit to this exhibition,"
and so I did submit a few pictures that I thought
would follow the prairie theme and I was lucky
enough to be accepted with two pictures.
So oftentimes it also helps to just experiment.
I am asked where I even find the time for that.
The truth is, maybe I'll use five minutes a day to
do that, but it's sort of an escape.
It's something completely different from the normal
running around, teaching, trying to get everything
done type of thing.
And it doesn't take that long
to take a couple pictures.
[music]
NARRATOR: Do you have an idea for the Postcards team?