05-MAY-2008
5 May
Happy Cinco de mayo!
Coming home to this bee in our shrub was a spirit lifter. At lunch, I drove around looking for bugs & flowers and found none.
This won't go into my favorites anytime soon, I broke a few rules (handholding my 100mm, harsher flash, shot in evening in the shadows) but it's the first bee macro of the season. It is my favorite colors for bees, I like the amount of contrast between the bee's yellow & black and the flower's magenta.
Cutting this short as I have some bills to pay...
04-MAY-2008
4 May
Still haven't changed the date on my watch yet ;-)
Feeling uninspired tonight, I spent the better part of the last hour & half taking pictures of marbles against a white background. I didn't realize how much of me would come through in the reflection off the glass. That would have been perfect as an SP, but I was getting so much glare and couldn't get anything too sharp (to my liking).
I was using my Yashica-D as a weight for the white card stock, I decided to take a few shots of it, then broke out the Rolleicord. I moved into the next room and set up, trying to get a shot of my eye looking through the taking lens (with the 40D pointed into the lens & me looking through the Rollei's viewfinder). That didn't work one bit.
I started taking shots of the Rollei and stumbled on this one. I realized that the shutter speed on the Rollei was pretty close to the shutter speed of the 40D, so I just matched the two so that I had my Exif info as the subject of the photo. Opened up the Apeture and it made for a nice shot. My 'cord has seen better days, there is some minor corrision just above the taking lens. Converting this image to a greyscale helped to minimize that ugly patch.
03-MAY-2008
3 May
I still haven't adjusted the date on my watch. Apparently the only time I check the date on my watch is when I post my PaD (so I know the name of the title). While I am on this tangent, this is a hold over (setting the title to the day) from my old PaDs. This year's PaD is using the Photo Blog template and already adds a date to the photo. I've actually known about this for about 3 months, but decided to stick with the date naming thing.
So we have some dominoes (not the pizza). My family has gotten used to me pulling out the camera gear, taking over a section of the house for a period of time, and focusing on rather odd items. The domino idea started this morning (while sitting in the cold rain watching my daughter's Softball game). I realized there was no way I was going to do any kind of outdoor shot and needed some idea for an indoor theme. I thought we had dominoes (the black ones) readily available. After about a 1/2 hour of searching, I found a bag of dominoes, 5 of the 'standard' sized (as seen in the photo) and about 30 of these micro dominoes. I didn't want to do a macro shot, so I made due with the 5 'white' dominoes. I'd already grabbed the white card stock for a background and set up the area so I stuck with the white on white. I love Lightroom, once I selected the photo, I created a bunch of virtual copies and applied a bunch of different presets, then went into survey mode and settled on the High Key preset (I realize it isn't exactly a "High Key" per se...)
02-MAY-2008
2 May
OK, I'm confused, it's really supposed to be the 2nd of May, but my watch still says the 1st. I apparently forgot to update the date on this thing yesterday. Amazing that I have an analog watch in my digital world.
At lunch I headed out for the field I traversed earlier in the week. Google maps let me know that there was a lot more to this field then a bunch of grass. How I missed the old road that bisected it and lead off to a pretty nature-rich swamp is beyond me.
Just as you approach the swamp, there is this big drain that apparently helps move the water under the road that is no longer in use. Its kind of odd, you stand in view of an office building on the other side of the swamp (through some trees), the road noise from 95 is quite loud, and there are animals all over the place throwing a party. I startled something large and saw the splash out of the corner of my eye. I realized it was a beaver shortly after and took chase along the mucky shore. I got a few manic shots through the barren branches, but nothing worth posting. He had enough of me after three shots and disappeared into what I think was his mud home on the shore.
I continued walking around the area for some time, on the way back, near the beaver's area, I saw these fuzzy budding flower things. They looked pretty interesting in person and even better through the lens. I can imagine that they would look even better catching some of the yellowish/reddish hues from a setting or rising sun. From the looks of the bud, I'd only have a few days (if that) to find out.
01-MAY-2008
1 May
I can't believe it is May already. . .
The funny thing about this shot is that I set out for the Great Bay refuge to get some kind of animal shot. I did the 1.5 mile trail (I don't think it is actually 1.5 miles, it feels like a 1/2 mile) I walked along the edge of the pond, I looked in every swampy section, I found a spot where there was a hornet or a bee, but it left as soon as I arrived. There were plenty of little bugs, but nothing large enough to shoot with either the 70-200 or the 100mm Macro. The temps have dropped so the wildlife has subsided.
So the wildlife expedition was bust, actually I did see two wild turkeys crossing the road right in front of me on the way, by the time I stopped and got the camera ready, they'd scattered. Interesting enough, on my ride home from work (in a different state) traffic came to a halt while a wild turkey crossed the state road. So a massive accident almost occurred so that someone could save an animal that we could freely get at the supermarket.
Back to the afternoon, having left the wildlife area with no photos, I decided to ride close to the old flight line to check out some of the older buildings. We actually had clouds at that time, something to provide a nice dramatic backdrop. I rode past this building about 3 times, trying to figure out what it would look like as a photo, then realized it really didn't matter as the clouds were really the main point of interest anyway. There was a guy in the field beside this building playing with his dog, he must have thought I was a bit odd to finally pull up the building and come out wielding a camera, only to take photos of the corner of an old building. Taking a photo of the dog never really occurred to me.
So anyway, I finally get a nice dramatic shot of clouds with attitude.
30-APR-2008
30 Apr
For my last April photo, I present a bug macro!
Woo hoo! Finally, I get a worthy bug. It's not up to par with what I want to be shooting, but it works for now.
I stepped out (it was sunny) at lunch with a predetermined location in mind. Around the corner from where I work is a fieldy-marshy area (or so I thought). I've been trying to find a replacement for the meadow that has been taken over by Secret Service Agents (or DEA?) in anticipation of a new Post Office. If I went hiking through that meadow now with my camera bag, I'd be swept up by a joint task force and would disappear from this earth.
So anyway, around the corner is what I thought was more of a marshy area, it turns out its actually a giant field on the edge of a marshy area, however, the marshy area isn't all that 'marshy' on its edges. I'd hoped to find a frog, but the lack of marsh and heat (it was only in the 40's or 50's) prevented that. As it was, I hiked into the field and back before I took a photo of this weed about 20 feet from where I parked.
Here's the shot that didn't make today's PaD:
29-APR-2008
29 Apr
Rainy Day Project - Strobist work.
How much simpler could it be than taking a picture of a basket ball?
Almost 2 hours later, I would think not as simple as I'd first thought, but then again, I learned that lesson years ago.
I tried a number of different angles, switched out lenses for a bit, and even substituted paint brushes for the ball, but I settled on this one. It was lacking something as a B&W so I added something to the highlights and shadows in LR.
28-APR-2008
28 Apr
Apparently my son was the first guinea pig for the cool lighting near our Fireplace. This is a rainy day photo. We are at the beginning of a much needed soaking AND it is happening on a weekday!
So, back to the photo. My son got this snake at the museum's gift shop yesterday. We don't usually get 'stuff' from gift shops, so he's digging this snake close by.
Keeping this one short as I picked up our reserved Mario Karts today and haven't even opened it yet. I just picked up my daughters from softball practice and they have homework to do so I might get a chance to play with the game!
27-APR-2008
27 Apr
The bushes in front of our house have begun to bloom. We finally have a flower that isn't yellow. Yesterday, before we left for our Museum trip, there was a rather happy bumblee claiming ownership of this bush. I'd hoped to return today to sunny skies and buzzing flies, but we got some [much needed] rain instead.
I tried a number of different shots of this bush before settling on this shot. I'd hoped to go a little more 'macro' but none of the macro shots did it for me. I'm also a bit tired after getting only 6 hrs of sleep on a leaky air mattress at the Boston Museum of Science last night. We had a blast. My son, the budding actor, was actually pulled out of the audience as a volunteer for a "Pirate Scientist" he was supposed to be "ascared of nuthin" but when the Pirate held a balloon with some water in it over his head, with a lighter beneath the balloon, he scattered.
My decision to NOT bring the DSLR with me on the trip was a good one (except that I have no decent shots of him on stage). It would have gotten in the way because I'd have to carry it with me everywhere.
26-APR-2008
26 Apr
Normally you don't see major appliances in the middle of the woods. This dryer, however, was clearly NOT doing its job as there is still standing water in this swampy area. I can only report what I see now, I would have a totally different opinion of this situation if, say a month ago, it was sitting beneath 4 feet of water.
So anyway, very interesting and needed to be photographed.
I'm feeling a bit rushed, we are still getting our things ready for the train trip to Boston for the Museum of Science sleep over. Time is running out...
I am still on the fence over which camera to bring. Right now it looks like my wife's SD800IS will get the nod. It is nice and compact.
25-APR-2008
25 Apr
Yet another long week. Absolutely NONE of my photos from this afternoon made it through my final cut. I broke out the macro lens and the monopod (flash, etc) and set off in search of bugs. Well I got the bugs out (literally). I had to move stuff around to get them to come out, but they scurried so fast that all the shots were blurry (that and from camera shake). There were no bees or other flying insects, I usually have much better luck with them. With the great weather we are having, I keep forgetting that it is still April. The trees have just begun to bud, we still have no leaves yet.
So, my evening was looking grim, I was out of photos, out of energy, and really felt like this wasn't going to happen. I was taking pictures of our toaster (yeah, that bad).
For some odd reason, I decided it would look interesting to have my hat and work gloves sit on our mitten tree. I left the flash on camera, just bounced behind me. In this section of our family room, the ceiling is dark stained pine, and there's that big honkin brick work behind the hat. I bounced the flash into the only relatively bright corner that I could. The lighting came out nice, I'm making a mental note to try this out on some of the family (if I can catch them).
This Red Sox cap was purchased during the 2004 season (yes, the season that will go down in history simply as "The Season"). It has faded quite a bit, so much so, that in Lightroom, when I was trying adjust the blue saturation with the mouse control, blue was not the color coming up. I mucked with the tint a bit to get the cap back to an acceptable Boston Blue.
I'll be wearing this hat tomorrow when my son & I head to the Boston Museum of Science with our Cub Scout pack for a sleep over. We actually get to spend a night at the museum. I've been debating weather or not to bring my camera and am still out on the fence. We are taking the train, so we will both have to backpack our gear in. I'd have to have my camera gear with me at all times, I can't see myself setting it down unattended. I might just bring the S3IS (and regret it later).
24-APR-2008
24 Apr
OK, this is a bit out of the norm for me, there wasn't really enough contrast (what was I thinking?) and the shadows don't do this justice (nor do the apparently blown out highlights).
It all looked and felt fine when I was shooting, just not so right now while post processing.
I think the hecticness (yeah, its a word now) of today may have contributed to my low appreciation of this photo. It certainly was a beautiful day (weather-wise)!