30-MAR-2008
30 Mar
Can't believe that March is almost over. Today was almost one of those days where I didn't have the energy left to submit a PaD. It was pretty busy, I didn't get any down time until a few mins ago and was lacking in the creative department. I am not sure what the hell I was thinking, but somehow I got this idea to shoot an SP through a chair. I originally had my 17-40 on and nixed that after the first two shots. I needed something with a little more reach.
I was able to use the timer remote's cord (wish I had about 2 extra feet of reach on that) to trip the shutter. I started without flash, realized a 4 second exposure just wasn't going to cut it, then turned some overheads. I was able to see that there were shadows from the rungs in the chair on my face. Bouncing the 580 off the ceiling (albeit cathedral and through beams at that) seemed to cure the shadow problem.
So, I start out thinking I have about 5 mins of "creative energy" left in me and wind up spending the better part of my 9pm hour working out my position relative to the camera AND the chair. It wasn't nearly as hard as I'd originally thought it would be.
This came out a bit grainy and you really can't make out the fact that it is a chair (I could be a criminal in jail, which I think my wife would probably think with my unruly hair and beard right now).
29-MAR-2008
29 Mar
Hopefully I am getting all my "Snow Shots" wrapped up in the next week. I was ready for spring earlier this week when we had 54 degree temps. This morning actually worked out rather well, I had to get up early to take my oldest to pitching practice (softball) and then head over to Home Depot for some supplies. I took the scenic route to Home Depot and was able to find a stone wall topped with snow. I wish I went back to the stone wall I saw yesterday, it would have made a great color shot, but that is in the other direction and we didn't have long enough to get our running around done.
28-MAR-2008
28 Mar
Wow, this was a hard photo to crop. We got what is hopefully the final snowstorm of the season this morning. Traffic was slow on my normal route, so I took a detour to get into work. On the way in, I kept passing these beautiful stone walls that were lightly covered in snow. I really wanted to get a nice close-up of one of them, however, there were no safe places to pull over (read: narrow country road and slick snow). As I was reaching the end of the "countryness" section of this road, I saw this tree covered in snow that was just incredible. I backed into this person's driveway to get off the road ran out and snapped a few shots.
Because I was trying to be fast, I handheld the camera which isn't the worst thing since I was using the 28-135 IS. The problem is that I didn't have time to really plan the whole thing. I could see when taking the photo that my Tahoe was going to be in frame, but I thought I had room to crop later. It turns out the Tahoe really screwed up the crop that wanted.
It was still snowing too, so there are flakes and subsequent flake trails due to the slower shutter speed. They appear as dust over the darker backgrounds. My *hope* was that I'd sneak out of work as soon as the snow stopped and snap a few shots of some stone walls. That never happened.
So anyway, I spent the last 15 mins screwing around with cropping. I finally settled on a bit wider shot, somehow living with the snowflakes that appear in the lower portion of the photo. This is a tree after all, and it really loses its context without its trunk.
OK, enough rambling on about a tree and snow. . .
27-MAR-2008
27 Mar
Went driving around the back side of the base/tradeport today at lunch. It was a gloomy day, there were some old guardrails that looked interesting. I think I will return to these in the summer when there will be a different background. I don't think I got the tonal separation I was looking [hoping] for.
26-MAR-2008
26 Mar
I've driven by this small dam a number of times on my PaD-Quest. Today, I decided to pull over and give it a try. While I was taking some long exposure photos, a lady walked over to talk. I was parked on her property (she was fine with that) and she actually came over to tell me that I need to come back in a few more weeks to catch some ducks and geese in this pond.
She also pointed out a trail to the bay that was on the other side of the road. I'd never had known about that. I plan to go back a few more times to take some photos of the bay.
Long exposures with my 28-135 IS (IS Turned off), not something I'd actually planned on doing. I'm pretty satisfied with the outcome though. It doesn't change my mind about searching for either a 24-70 F/2.8L or the EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 IS. . .
Loving the ND (3) filter!
25-MAR-2008
25 Mar
I was feeling a bit pressed for time at lunch, running around to pick up some groceries to save a few mins after work. I drove around the tradeport towards the flightline, looking for something interesting. There was an old loading dock near a supply building that was very interesting. Someone had stacked these rocks this way, I left them as they sat, I figured this would look good with a shallow DoF and a Black and White.
I've also mounted the 28-135 IS on the camera, its been neglected recently. I am trying to decide if I will sell this and replace it with the 24-70 F/2.8L (yeah, I know why am I even asking myself this question? I should have just done it!)
24-MAR-2008
24 Mar
Though this may appear to be a pretty boring photo (out of context, it is), there are reasons to rejoice here. . .
1) I can see my driveway (Black tar in foreground)
2) I can see my lawn (or what has survived the attack of the snowblower)
3) The snow is receding.
The default joke at this point is that the snow is melting to reveal the lawn so the skunks can come and rip it apart looking for grubs. That is, should I fail to lay down some grub killer when the snow has melted and the ground has thawed.
The best part of a very snowy winter is that, once we start to see the green of our lawns, it won't be long until spring. For this winter, we've seen nothing but white since the first week of December (ironically a few days after we returned from our Florida vacation, RV in tow). The winters that have little or no snow seem to go on and on because we see the browns and greens of our lawns and shrubs the whole time, we are tricked into thinking Spring is on its way (in January).
23-MAR-2008
23 Mar
I drove around this afternoon in search of some water to photograph. I had my 10-year-old with me, she thought I was just going to the transfer station and back home. After giving up on the water scene, I stopped at a historical momument that I've passed many times before but never actually investigated.
This place is called the "Trafton Grove and Riverside Preserve". It is more of a forest and the river is somewhere in the woods, just not visible. I will most likely pop back out there in the near future, its a short jaunt from our house and it looks like a good place to investigate further.
This beech tree had some beautiful leaves, just hanging out until the spring.
22-MAR-2008
22 Mar
Went back to the flowers today. I didn't look at the flowers on the back part of the arrangement last night. This morning I noticed these and realized I had to get a photo of them. I have no idea what kind of flower this is, it just looks nice. . .
Also, I broke out the big gun for this shot. A bit of overkill, but I also wanted to get a little experience with the 70-200 on the tripod in a non-wind situation. It is quite stable indoors, as the snow melts I will find out how this combination behaves outdoors.
21-MAR-2008
21 Mar
A good end to a tough week. My wife was gracious enough to let me borrow this for photographic exploration this evening...
Here's the photo that didn't make the PaD:
20-MAR-2008
20 Mar
We had one of those sunsets this evening that was quite beautiful (yeah, and I go an shoot a black and white). Feeling uninspired after a much better day than yesterday AND not having anything to shoot (I sent my wife flowers today because of her bad day yesterday - and so that I'd have something to shoot tonight - but she left them at work) I took a different way home. Very glad I did, there are more interesting things to shoot on the 'different' way home.
This is a statue inside one of the umpteen cemeteries I pass by. This statue sat inside a much larger granite frame. I could see the sunset behind the statue from the road and decided this would work well for my shot.
The RRS QR system came in handy. I used the L-Bracket to mount the camera on the tripod in portrait mode. This is so much easier (and better) than angling the ballhead 90 degrees and farting around with it trying to get it level.
19-MAR-2008
19 Mar
Today was a day for the records (though most of it transpired on my wife's watch):
My wife usually goes in early so she can hit the gym (like 4:30 - 5:00 am early).
On her morning ride she hit a deer. It glanced off the car, no damage to deer, car, or wife.
She realized after her shower at the gym that she forgot an important undergarment and wound up going "comando" for the day.
I dropped off our Tahoe for a simple Oil Change, the initial price about tripled after they found some 'issues'.
My 13-year-old called me at work today, begging to read a book that arrived today. I told her to wait until I came home. She hung up.
About a 1/2 hour later, she called my wife in a frenzy, apparently our dog had gotten his paw stuck in his collar some time during the day (she hadn't noticed when she called me) and there was a trail of blood in our family room all the way to our upstairs landing. She was hysterical, it took a neighbor to free his paw. He's OK, it was from his mouth, he's actually done this before, without the drama of the blood.
After my wife got home, she had to run to the corner store (~1.5 miles through the neighborhood). On her way back, she was hit by a teenager. She's OK, our relatively new Civic will be needing a new driver and passenger door along with some more body work (not on our dime, she wasn't at fault).
I just finished cleaning the carpets (~ 3 hours) thank god for the steam cleaner!!
My Really Right Stuff package came in. I was able to mount all the QR Clamps and test them out. Today's photo was from the tripod (of course, 4 second exposure. . .) with the whole "She-Bang".
I've been kicking around this ghosting theme for a while, this was only a quick test. About all I have time for after today's strange chain of events.