22-JUN-2009
Day 173 - Tritone Leaf
Raining again. There was a bit of a lull this evening when I got home. I noticed our bush in the back (right off our deck) looked interesting so I grabbed the gear and took a few shots. This is actually rim lit with my 580EX-2 off camera. I am shooting into my home-made diffuser, giving me some relatively soft light. I had the camera on the monopod and I was holding the flash in my left hand. This is an act of balance and a little luck. I was ready to go with the color version, but I liked the contrasty patterns when I went with a Black & White version. I added some green highlights in Lightroom as well.4
21-JUN-2009
Day 172 - Feats of Strength
Here I am lifting my wife for my evening exercise! We had a whole bunch of these jumping shots. Lots with the both of us synchronized, but this idea came to me towards the end and here we are. We went upstairs to the bedroom for this and actually locked the door. We showed the kids this shot afterward. This little session has a few benefits because the kids will now think that we are "jumping around" upstairs when the door is closed ;-)
20-JUN-2009
Day 171 - Go ahead, Make my Day!
We finished the baseball season today. I am actually in the process of ripping photo CD's for the team. Since I was the coach, I couldn't wield any of my cameras (which kills me each season) so I asked for a "Team Photographer" volunteer. While I burn a CD, my son & I would play with these Nerf Longshots that we got replaced the week after Christmas. They have been in the box ever since. This one was opened up today, there is one more still boxed. We took a bunch of photos indoors and then I moved us outside because of the distracting backgrounds inside. I was using my homemade diffuser for a little fill and it worked well here. It sits so high above the flash that it almost acts as a hair light. The flash is on the camera for this shot, with the diffuser, the light source is actually about 18 - 20" above the lens. I did BW (OK, quad tone) processing first, after I saw this I gave color a try, but with color, the barrel is orange and there is blue and yellow that seriously detract from the "Bad Ass" look that he is sportin!
19-JUN-2009
Day 170 - OOOOOOOOHHH
My 3GS arrived at work today. The FedEx guy was about a 1/2 hour late, I image a few other people were added to his stop today. I am/was an iPhone Virgin, today this is no longer true. I went with the 32GB model, my reasoning was that the extra 16GB is needed to replace my 60GB iPod. I am in the process of syncing 24 GB of music right now. I have a gunmetal incase plus an anti-glare sheet protecting the face. Without the anti-glare sheet, you'd be able to see the awesome "Sync in Progress" message along with the Battery charging indicator. This was my "Birthday/Father's Day present" from the wife (of course I did the ordering ;-) While the new 3MP camera with the "Point to Focus" interface is pretty cool, shooting with a Canon 40D equipped with an excellent set of glass is still no competition. I'm not sure that the iPhone would even edge out my Panasonic LX3 "Motorcycle cam" either.
18-JUN-2009
Day 169 - Rolleiflex (f/2.8)
This doesn't do the Rollei any justice, but I was able to capture the name and the big honkin lens (albeit the viewing lens).
17-JUN-2009
Day 168 - Me
I started out with returning to the "Through the Looking Glass" concept. These take a little while to get right. I'm not sure if this is just right, but it fits the concept. I did a few shots off the tripod downstairs, checked them on the computer, then went upstairs to the bedroom to check on the light. My wife popped in and distracted me so I never returned to this concept. This concept is pretty simple, hold a drinking glass out in front of the lens with the top up so that you pick up the distorted imagery around the subject. I need to head back outside in the sunlight to get some more of these going.
16-JUN-2009
Day 167 - Light
So I jumped on the bike at lunch and took a little ride in search of something to shoot for today. I went back to my old haunt (NH Tree Park?) from last spring and summer, hoping to find a bird's nest. I found what was left of the Blue Jay's nest from last year, but nothing new. There is an old private cemetery on the property and one of the markers is this very large granite tower. I leaned over a wrought iron metal fence and held out the camera to see what kind of shot I could get. The first shot was interesting, so I continued, trying to get the angle just right. I believe I had 34 shots of this single marker before I'd finished. This is the next to the last shot I took.
15-JUN-2009
Day 166 - One Small Step
I will call this my "Surprise Entry". I am finally living up to my screen name on a bunch of motorcycle forums "PhotoBiker". I got a set of saddlebags for my birthday that allowed me to put my day to day stuff into, freeing up my "big honking top case" to hold my camera gear. So I was at the boat launch in Eliot (Maine) walking around in my motorcycle gear when I noticed my boot tracks in the soft sand. I was actually heading back to the bike when I decided to try an up close shot of one of them (there is another leading up to the water middle left). In all my gear, it was impossible for me to focus, I did the "point and pray" technique (lots of shots). I'm glad I gave this a try.
14-JUN-2009
Day 165 - Shelving
My afternoon pretty much went into making this shelving to store our seasonal stuff. We put our winter stuff up there in the summer and our summer stuff up there in the winter. Before the new garage door, this was a cargo net that was suspended from the ceiling with the help of some rope. In addition to some scrap wood that I had in the basement, I spent all of $20 at The Home Depot today for some lag bolts and strapping. It is a great use of otherwise wasted space. I think I might put in another one of these on the other side of the double-wide garage door.
13-JUN-2009
Day 164 - Fox
My dog Fox Mulder. He's made it into a few PaD photos over the years. Today is/was my Birthday, I spent a lot of time riding the motorcycle, coaching, and going out with the family to celebrate my day. We wound up at the Texas Roadhouse where my children decided that payback is a bitch. They made sure the waitress knew it was my birthday and what my age is now. I got to ride the saddle. It wasn't nearly as embarrassing for me as my kids had hoped ;-) So I found myself towards the end of the evening without an acceptable PaD. While my wife & kids were getting the presents ready, they kicked me out & I hung out with the dog. I couldn't believe that I had to bump up the ISO all the way to even capture this.
12-JUN-2009
Day 163 - Evening reflection
We had some odd weather today, last night it rained out well into the morning. It was a a cold wet ride into work (I didn't ride straight into work, I took a bit of a detour). Just after noon, around 1ish, the skies parted, the sun came out, and it warmed up. We finished off the day with some very beautiful skies. Our practice ran late and I took a different route home to try to make use of the clouds and colors. On my way to some fields, I came across this pond with a reflection of the farm house. I wanted to get the sky above and its reflection in the lake, but the highlights were too blown out. Just way too much dynamic range and I'm not going to tackle an HDR tonight. I salvaged what I could, giving priority to the beautiful sunset tones and trying to recover as much as the farmhouse as possible. The result is a rather noisy farm scene.
11-JUN-2009
Day 162 - Needs replacing
I had to head home to catch a paving expert to give us a quote on replacing our driveway today. Since I had pavement on the mind, I grabbed the camera and set it on the driveway and tried to line it up on a crack. There's no shortage of cracks in our driveway.