Family Pictures (Tis' the season!)

Today I had the privilege of shooting family pictures of our neighbors across the street with their grandsons. I thought it would be nice to post the best one from that shoot here. It is fun and challenging when little ones are involved. This shot is actually 3 images blended into one. Tip: when shooting group shots, use a tripod and shoot several on the same pose. Anyway, just a little reminder, I do this often and am very reasonable - and I have some camera gear I want to buy!

Enjoy!

Scenes from South Dakota

I know it's been some time since I posted here, but that doesn't mean my camera is gathering dust. Far from it! Recently we had the great fortune to travel to South Dakota with a friend over Thanksgiving Weekend. We met some great people, and made new friends. It is some beautiful contry up there and I managed to shoot a ton of pictures while there. I will be posting some more of the scenic images and maybe some of the family shots I did in the next day or so, but right now I wanted to post up the imaged I gathered from the last day we were there. I literally shot from sunrise to sunset that day. Enjoy!

Picture #107 - Shooting In The Rain

Well, as I said yesterday, we planned to do 2 family shoots today at Legler Barn in Lenexa. We knew there was a chance of rain, but decided to try for it anyways. We managed to get in Dionne's family despite the rain, but had to cancel our other shoot. I think in spite of the rain we still managed to get some good shots.

This shot is a location I have worked many times before, and I think all the past experience helped me to achieve more this time than in the past.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 68mm, f11, 1/90sec., flash dialed to 1/16th.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always) a little, adjusted Levels and Contrast just a little bit. The bridge is very green so I created a second layer and desaturated that layer and added a Sepia filter to it. Then I blended the color layer with it.

Tunes listened to while editing: This was a 2 album day! I listened to Anberlin - Lost Songs and Diffuser - Injury Loves Melody. Great picture editing music!

Picture #106 - A Walk In The Park

I know it has been a couple weeks (or longer) since I last posted. To be quite honest, I never fully appreciated how hard it would be to shoot, edit and post a new picture every single day. I found myself doing all three aspects of this project at midnight most nights and this really was counter productive to the goal of the project. Well, enough of that. I will change the title to something else, and plan to post at minimum, several times a week, but doubt I will go back to a picture every day. Now to get on to what we did today.

I have been helping my Dad with a digital Photography class and next Saturday we have a field trip planned. We were planning to sit the fall leave just right. My Dad compared current conditions to last year and fears that the fall leaves may not be as good next weekend as they are right now. To that end, he sent out an e-mail to the class encouraging everyone to get out and do some shooting before next weekend (at least if they wanted nice fall leaves in their images). Well, I decided to heed his advice. Additionally we have two family shoots tomorrow (if the rain holds off) and I wanted to get some practice in while scouting the location. I felt pretty good about the end results enough that I wanted to share them. If you are on Facebook (I'm open to the entire world!), feel free to view my album for the entire shoot. Otherwise enjoy what I've shared above. Additionally, if you want to take full advantage of the beautiful fall color out there, go shooting tomorrow! Just don't get in my way! I got work to do!

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 200, 118mm, f11, 1/90sec., flash dialed to 1/16th.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always) a little, adjusted Levels and Contrast just a little bit.

Tunes listened to while editing: Dovetail Joint - E.P. for the Underclass. All 5 tracks. Great disc! Too bad they broke up!

Day #105 - I See You

Today I played with my camera during soccer practice. As a continuation of my Filter project, I found a filter that has little cut out shapes you put over the lens. Some are heart shapes, some are key-holes and a few are binocular shaped. I decided to play with the binocular shaped one today. After a few boring shots I noticed that it was getting dark and I needed more exposure time. I decided it would be fun to do the "long-exposure-twist-the-zoom-lens" trick. I didn't know I caught a soccer ball in the right corner. I think it was not moving but the trick applied makes it look like it's moving. I thought it was a fun shot.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 55mm, f22, 0.7sec., no flash. Cokin Binocular Cut Out Filter used.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always) a little, and adjusted Brightness (a lot to the negative side) and Contrast (a lot to the positive side). Desaturated a bit.

Tunes listened to while editing: Webb Wilder - Doo Dad. Tracks 2 - 8. Good ol' rockabilly/rock n' roll.

Day #104 - Seeing Green

The Filter for the day is the "Green Spot" filter. Talk about a hard filter to find a use for. This effect can of course be done in PhotoShop, but I rarely (never) use the color green for it. This was kind of a lackluster shot, but it some small way it is growing on me.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 24mm, f4.0, 1/45 sec., flash aimed at ceiling. Cokin Cokin Green Spot Filter used.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always) a little, and adjusted Brightness (a lot to the negative side) and Contrast (a lot to the positive side). Cropped a little bit.

Tunes listened to while editing: Snow Patrol - Open Eyes. The first 5 songs. I wonder if their new album is any good. Anyone know?

Day #103 - Super Star

I decided to start my filter project with the "8 Point Star" Filter. I used my prime 50mm lens and lit some candles to use as the light source. I like how this turned out. I was going for something really subtle and think I pulled it off.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 400, 50mm, f2.0, 1/125 sec., no flash, tripod used. Cokin 8 Point Star Filter used.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always) a little, and adjusted Brightness/Contrast. I decided I liked this better as a sepia tone image so I applied that filter in PS.

Tunes listened to while editing: Weezer - The Red Album. The first 6 songs. Just felt like some Weezer today, what can I say?

Day #102 - Cameron and Chewey Post Op

Today our little dog Chewey had a little procedure done. As Gary Larsen from the Far Side once said in a cartoon of his, "Chewey went to the vet to get tutored". The ol' Snip and Clip!

Anyway, as a result he has to wear the cone which of course meant a picture. Cameron has been trying to be really gentle with him and it's cute to see him that way.

I know I planned to do the filter project starting today, but I just had to get this shot first.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 400, 130mm, f11, 1/90 sec., flash on Stroboframe, aimed straight at the subject (I tried to bounce off the ceiling but I was too far away).

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always) a little, and adjusted Brightness/Contrast. I then used the Golden Eye technique (on both Cameron and Chewey). I think I'm starting to get this little trick down.

Tunes listened to while editing: Eric Hurst - Goodbye, Welcome, Thank You. The first 6 songs. Track #6 (Kathleen) is really cool. I remember getting to see my buddy Donovan playing at Davey's Uptown with Eric Hurst years ago. It was awesome and Dono (who is an awesome guitarist) was playing the Keyboard parts on the guitar and it sounded freaking awesome! Then we played The Lord Of The Rings Trading Card Game over in the bar for a while. We got all kinds of people coming over asking what game we were playing. We've always been very confident in our geekiness!

Day #101 - Back In The Saddle Again - New Directions

What a week! Sorry for the hiatus, but I spent the last week coming down with the Flu and then getting over the Flu. I am not quite 100% yet (probably more like 90%) but I'm ready to get back in the saddle.

This picture is not exactly creative, but it is showing my plans for the next month or so on this project. Many years ago I bought a Pentax Super Program SLR from someone in Blue Springs and part of the package was a decent collection of Cokin Creative Filters. I got to thinking that it might be fun to try using these filters to see if any of them have uses beyond cluttering up a shelf in my closet. So for the most part I plan to use these filters in shots posted here for a while. This will force me to do some lens swapping. I have the smaller filters so they won't work with my 18-200mm Super Zoom. I will be using the lenses in the picture which are my 18-55mm Zoom and 50mm Prime lens. I think it will make for some good experiences and hopefully some interesting shots.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 400, 40mm, f11, 1/60 sec., flash on Stroboframe, extended all the way up and aimed almost straight down at the subject.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always) a lot, and adjusted Brightness/Contrast. Then I Posterized the image and liked what I saw so I stopped there. Well I didn't really stop there - I kept trying other things but nothing else really looked good to me!

Tunes listened to while editing: Jughead - Jughead. The first 7 songs. Another band I had forgot about till a couple of days ago. Their 1st track is called Halfway Home To Elvis and it is a fun song. The rest of the album is really good too.

Day #100 - Happy Anniversary and Happy Grandparents Day!

Hopefully you knew it was Grandparents Day today and did something special for the Grandparents in your life! We spent all day running around, but took a few minutes to visit with our parents and I took that opportunity to shoot a picture of the day. These are my parents, Ron and Vicki Morse and they are Super Grandparents to my son Cameron. Additionally they just celebrated their 43rd Wedding Anniversary this past Friday so I really wanted to honor them with a picture on my pic-a-day blog.

They are very happily married and have been great role models to my wife and I (as well as many others they interact with I'm sure). We are very blessed to have them in our lives! Here is to many more years together. Congratulations Mom and Dad! You deserve it!

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 40mm, f11, 1/60 sec., flash aimed at ceiling with Catch-Light Card out.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always) a lot, adjusted Levels and Brightness/Contrast. Used the Golden Eye Technique as well as some other trickery in the eye area. Adjusted Saturation just a tad and applied a Warming Filter.

Tunes listened to while editing: Prime STH - Beautiful Awakening. The first 5 songs. I forget about these guys but they are a great band!

Day #99 - You Spin Me Round

Sorry for the hiatus. I actually had some Internet difficulties Thursday and then I was just worn out so I took a little break.

Well, today I'm back and we spent the day at several locations that lended themselves to photographic opportunity. We went to Cameron's soccer game (they won! - yeah!!) and then we ended up at Old Settlers Day in Olathe.

I wanted to shoot something that conveyed motion, but that is hard to do when it is bright and sunny out as you can't slow down the shutter speed very easily. I had to crank down the ISO and really zoom in to the subject in order to get a very small aperture to allow for a longer shutter speed. Then there was the problem of a very boring white sky. So a little Replace Color work in PhotoShop and I changed the day to night. I bumped up the Hue to give the picture a more artistic look/feel too.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 100, 68mm, f38, 1/4 sec., no flash.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always) a lot, adjusted Levels and Brightness/Contrast. Replaced Color in sky areas, adjusted Hue/Saturation.

Tunes listened to while editing: Owl City - Ocean Eyes. The whole album. A new one I discovered from 96.5 The Buzz and actually purchased via iTunes. Pretty good album! Makes me feel artistic for some reason.

Day #98 - Breaking Bubbles

So my wife was the lucky recipient of a Palm Pre recently. I say lucky because the Palm Pre is a pretty nice phone, but she hasn't been exactly thrilled about it. Apparently her Palm Treo Centro was the "Bee's Knee's" and could do everything she ever wanted it to do. I was browsing the Application Store and found something that definitely helped improve her opinion of the Pre. She always loved Bubble Breaker back when she had a Motorola Q9c. Well, now there is a game available for the Pre called "Bubbles!" and it is basically the same game as Bubble Breaker! I overheard Dionne lovingly say "$#%& You for putting this game on my Pre!". I think she might finally like her Pre now!

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 400, 68mm, f6.7, 1/30 sec., flash aimed at ceiling.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always) a lot, adjusted Levels and Brightness/Contrast.

Tunes listened to while editing: Nothing tonight but the moaning and groaning of Cameron as he begged repeatedly for help building a new Pokemon deck. I win just ONE TIME and he decides his deck in no good anymore!

Day #97 - This Thread Is Useless Without Pictures!

I don't know how many times I've been browsing an ad on Craigslist or one of the many Jeep Forums I frequent only to find something I really want to buy, but there aren't any pictures! I HATE THAT!!! If you want to sell something, take the time to post a few pictures.

I have a few items to sell, and got to thinking that I could kill two birds with one stone (sorry for the pun - it just slipped right out). A camera is certainly many things to many people. I use one for the obvious creative outlet, but I also use one frequently as a tool. I shoot many pictures of cell phone parts and defects at work. I shoot pictures of the various things I want to sell and post up on eBay and Craigslist. And of course I capture family moments with my camera.

By the way, the Birdcage is up for sale on Craigslist. The curious cat however is not for sale. She was just drawn to the smell of the birdcage. Hmm, I wonder why?

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 18mm, f11, 1/30 sec., flash aimed at ceiling.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels and Brightness/Contrast. Cropped to remove useless background data.

Tunes listened to while editing: Anberlin - Cities. Truly one of the best albums ever!! If you've never listened to Anberlin you really owe it to yourself to try them out. If you want I'd be glad to give you a free listen.

Day #96 - Monkey Bizness

When you have 3 kids all revved up and rearin' to go and need to let them burn off some energy, I suggest Monkey Bizness at the Olathe Great Mall. We had a couple of boys spending the day with us along with Cameron and decided a trip to Monkey Bizness is what they (and we) needed.

Shooting in there can be a real challenge. The ceilings are about 30 feet high and the lighting is all fluorescent. So using available light means high ISO's and a green tint to everything. To use flash means you have to use direct flash as bouncing off of such high ceilings is not gonna work. But then you want to tone down your flash so as to avoid blowing out detail.

So in the end I used direct flash, and finally got something I liked!

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 200mm, f11, 1/90 sec., flash aimed at subject but dialed to -1.0.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels and Brightness/Contrast. Then I applied the Golden Eye Sharpening Technique.

Tunes listened to while editing: The Ramones - Ramones Mania. A little trip down memory lane. The Ramones for me go back about 25 years. What a great band! They had some great tunes!

Day #95 - Breakfast...errr... Dinner of Champions

Today we are watching a friends kids while she is out of town. I was trying to find a picture of the day (especially since I missed yesterday) and thankfully Rick here agreed to let me shoot some pictures of him. The first shot I took got him to giggling (not a good thing with a mouth full of milk and Lucky Charms!). Once he settled down I got a few nice shots of the little guy.

Shot spex (Top Shot): RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 400, 33mm, f8, 1/45 sec., flash aimed up at ceiling.

PhotoShop spex (Top Shot): Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels and Brightness/Contrast. Cropped. Had to work some layer adjustment magic to get rid of my reflection in the window behind Rick, d'oh! Then I applied the Golden Eye Sharpening Technique.

Shot spex (Bottom Shot): RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 400, 78mm, f8, 1/90 sec., flash aimed up at ceiling.

PhotoShop spex (Bottom Shot): Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels and Brightness/Contrast. Cropped. Then I applied the Golden Eye Sharpening Technique.

Tunes listened to while editing: Ivory Line - There Came A Lion. The first 8 tracks. I saw these guys live at Main Street Cafe last year. I'm thinking I need to go see them again the next time they are in town. They have a pretty good sound.

Day #94 - Would You Like Heartburn WIth Your Order?

Taco Bell after Midnight is a whole different place from the daytime hours. First of all there is the clientele - mostly teenagers and college students, some drunk, others just hyper, all looking to find some cheap food to round out the evening. I found myself there this evening when I was driving home from work (went up to pick up my laptop and wrap up a few loose ends). My wife texted me with the words, "I'm thinking Taco Bell". I called her to get her order and then waited in line for quite a while to receive our order. Upon getting home we realized they messed it up (of course). Anyway, as I had procrastinated yet again on my pic-a-day project I proceeded to set up camera gear. My wife thinks I am totally wacko for shooting a picture of my Ranchero Chicken Soft Taco, but in reality we are both nut-jobs for eating this stuff this late. I better wrap this up and go take an antacid pill before bed!

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 400, 200mm, f6.3, 1/90 sec., flash aimed up at ceiling.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels and Brightness/Contrast. Added a warming filter to make the food look slightly more attractive.

Tunes listened to while editing: Seven Glory - Atmosphere. The first 6 tracks. I didn't even know I had this group. I was talking to Donovan about the fact that I have music I've never even heard of on my iPod that he gave me. I'm assuming this is one of those bands. It's was actually pretty good. I'll have to give the rest of the album a listen.

Day #93 - This Old Tree

Today was crazy! After leaving work at 5pm I had to race and pick up Cameron from school. Then we had to run home and grab his soccer gear and then race to practice, grabbing a quick dinner at Arby's on the way. In the meantime my wife had a bag full of errands to run and then she had to get to Cameron's school for "Meet the Teacher" night. Thankfully I remembered to grab my camera (and the memory card). Once we got to practice I was able to snarf down my food and then I managed to find some time to wander around shooting pictures. I came across this odd tree and shot it from mostly this perspective. At the base was a clump of mushrooms, and I shot several pictures of that as well, but those images turned out pretty bland (and I HATE mushrooms anyways!!).

I got to playing with this one and ended up with this "duo-tone" image (part BW, part color).

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 1600, 18mm, f4.5, 1/45 sec., no flash.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels and Brightness/Contrast. I then added a dupe layer and desaturated it. I erased out the leaves (making the color show back up) and then applied the Fresco Filter to the layer with the trunk.

Tunes listened to while editing: Waltham - Waltham. The first 10 tracks. I forgot about this band and just re-discovered them today. These guys really get your toe tapping! They are kinda like Rick Springfield on steroids. You gotta give them a shot sometime!

Day #92 - Old Toys And New Toys

My friend Jeff gave me some new toys to play with today. They are are wireless flash triggers. I've not yet played with them and before I can put them to use I am going to have to either spend some money on expensive batteries (CR2-3V) or I have to spend less money but more time doing a mod that allows me to use AA batteries. So Donovan - if you are reading this keep an eye out for cheap CR2-3V batteries at the Largo! Otherwise I'll pull the solder gun out of Mothballs and get to it!

The old toys in the image are a couple of flashes I have had around for some time. I'm hoping to give them new life by using these triggers.

I kind of got off the reservation creatively speaking as a picture of equipment is pretty boring. So I decided to experiment. I used the Neon Filter in PhotoShop and also toned down the Saturation to almost BW.

Now I got to get to watching the Strobist DVD's Jeff loaned me too!

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 28mm, f11, 1/45 sec., built-in flash (I know - sad!).

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels and Brightness/Contrast. Cropped and tried to adjust color a bit. Then employed the Neon Filter as described above.

Tunes listened to while editing: Weezer - The Blue Album. The first 7 tracks. What the heck is the Sweater Song really about?!?!?!? Is there a deeper meaning that just some guys sweater coming apart? I'm usually pretty good at figuring out this stuff but this song baffles me.

Day #91 - Reflections

I did something today that I've never done before. I went to a professional football stadium. I was in Dallas and my coworker really wanted to go tour the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium. I've never yet even been to a professional football game much less been to a professional stadium. Not that I haven't wanted to go, but tickets for free are hard to come by!

Anyway, we had a little time before we had to catch our flight back to Kansas City so we headed to the stadium to catch a tour. Let me tell you, this place is massive and incredible! The tour guide said that the stadium would hold 110,000 fans as full capacity and had 800 concession stands! I believe there were something like 6,000 toilets too.

This shot was taken in an area where you could stand and watch the game. I liked the concrete as it was smooth and looked like the surface of water. The reflections it cast intrigued me and I knew I could get a silhouette effect with the right settings on the camera.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 18mm, f11, 1/1500 sec., no flash.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels and Brightness/Contrast. Cropped and tried to adjust color a bit.

Tunes listened to while editing: Bleu - Redhead. The first 7 tracks.

Day #90 - X Marks The Spot....

Today, I found myself in Dallas with a few hours to spare for some site seeing. One thing I wanted to see was the place where the Kennedy assassination took place. Not out of morbid curiosity but more because I have always had an interest in history. And with Teddy Kennedy's passing this week, it seemed fitting to see where one of his brothers passed many years before his time.

I found it interesting that there is an actual "X" right on the street where the second shot hit JFK. Actually there was a fainter one just up the street a few feet where the first shot made impact. It's kind of gruesome I guess, but we humans are drawn to things like this. So much so that there were street vendors hounding us to buy memorial guides and picture books and all kinds of other "souvenirs".

I had to wait for a break in traffic to hop into the street for this shot. It was kinda crazy and got my heart pumping pretty good. Of course this shot has more than the "X". In the background is the Texas School Book Depository Building. The window where Oswald shot from is the second one down from the top right of the building.

If you get a chance to see this site I recommend it, but beware the street vendors and other street people hustling the tourists for money. It can be overwhelming!

I decided to convert the image to BW to heighten the impact of the shot and to convey a sense of history.

Day #89 - Above The Clouds

Today I jumped on a plane and headed for Dallas for a business trip. I brought along my DSLR, but it was pretty hard to get out of the bag as the flight was FULL!

So I grabbed my trusty PDA/Mobile Phone and set it to Flight Mode and then snapped a few shots. I love the look of the clouds from this perspective. Hopefully I'll get a chance tomorrow evening to use the DSLR for some shots.

Day #88 - Game On!

Today was the first official soccer game of the season for us. Cameron has been practicing for the past month and the boys were ready to go this morning!

Joey is one of Cameron's best friends and this kid puts everything into his soccer playing! It was a fun day to shoot, and I foresee more soccer shots in the next 6 weeks. I need to brush up on sports shooting techniques. Anyway, I like this shot as it shows just how much energy Joey brings to the game.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 55mm, f11, 1/500 sec., no flash.

PhotoShop spex: Adjusted levels, Smart Sharpened (as always), and adjusted the Contrast quite a bit for a creative look. Cropped out some boring dead space.

Tunes listened to while editing: Nothing tonight. Just listened to Cameron as he watched the movie "The Santa Claus". Cameron's laugh is great and Tim Allen is awesome!

Day #87 - Putting It In Park

Some days things just get crazy. This was one of those days. Don't worry, I'll be shooting tomorrow. Soccer season starts officially so I'll have something to shoot for sure.

Day #86 - Let's Skate!

Sorry for the hiatus yesterday. As I stated the day before, I was in a slump. I'm hoping the slump is over for now. Thanks to a good conversation with Jeff during lunch today I got excited about getting back to shooting tonight. He's at day #239 of his project and I guess I needed to know that he has off days too. Thanks for the encouragement today Jeff.

In the meantime, I had ample items to shoot tonight. Cameron had a Skate Party after school and then there was soccer practice. To top it all off Cameron lost another tooth (see my Facebook page for that story and the picture of the note he left for the Tooth Fairy!).

I was shooting at the skate party which is a real challenge. My own self imposed rule on this project is that I must use Manual Control on my images for the Pic-a-day shot. This was really fun with the skating rink lighting. The lights are really low, and then they flash off and on a lot. My meter was going crazy. In the end I had to do a lot of guessing. Anyway, I've learned that images showing movement can be really interesting. The first image shows movement during a skating rink game. I threw in a second shot that I really liked. I wanted to shoot a picture of the disco ball and other colored lights. I realized that the shot I was getting of these items were really boring. That is when I switched to Manual Focus and intentionally shot out of focus. I loved the effect.

I decided to post up the original image from which the top image came from. I think it's kinda neat to show how much I worked this image over to get where I got to! Words sometimes just don't seem to cut it.



Shot spex (top picture): RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 200, 18mm, f3.5, 1.5 sec., no flash.

PhotoShop spex (top picture): Adjusted levels, Smart Sharpened (as always), and adjusted the Contrast. Adjusted the snot out of the Saturation and Hue. Applied the Poster Edges filter. Cropped out a ton of crap. In general I PhotoShopped the HECK out of this one!

Shot spex (bottom picture): RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 200, 130mm, f6.3, 1/8 sec., no flash.

PhotoShop spex (bottom picture): Adjusted levels, Smart Sharpened (as always), and adjusted the Contrast quite a bit for a creative look. Cropped out some boring dead space.

Tunes listened to while editing: The Rainmakers - The Good News And The Bad News. The whole album. This is a great album! Gotta love the Rainmakers!

Day #85 - Couch Potato

I'm in a slump. I'll admit it. I need to do something to get out of it. I think tonight I was trying to get creative but I really don't think I got anything good.

Oh well. My idea was to capture a self portrait of myself watching TV. The problem was that I had to take a shot, then I had to get up and go look at the camera to see what adjustments I had to make. After about 10 times of this I just flat out got tired. I came up to the computer to see if I could make anything good out of my best exposure. So I guess I just have to get up tomorrow and try harder.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 33mm, f4.0, 0.3 sec., flash with diffuser attached and aimed up at ceiling (dialed in to -3.0).

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels and Brightness/Contrast. Cropped and tried to adjust color a bit. Dropped Saturation a bit.

Tunes listened to while editing: The Afters - Never Going Back To OK. The first 6 tracks.

Day #84 - Polaroids Are Back!

What a crazy day! Mom had her knee replaced so I was up at the hospital at 6:45 this morning (which is 15 minutes earlier than I even wake up on a normal work day!), then it was meetings, meetings, meetings at work, then when I went to leave to go home, my Jeep broke down, then after my lovely wife rescued me, we had to race to Cameron's soccer practice (we were late!). Then my brother and his family called wanting to stop by so we met at the house after soccer practice, and he gave me this cool little water rocket (maybe the object of a future Pic-of-the-day post) and then he proceeded to tear into my Jeep (which meant a trip to Advance Auto Parts for a special tool) and we think we figured out how to fix it (thanks Bro!).

Anyway, at soccer practice I was playing with my latest top secret cell phone and found this little application called FX Camera. It was really neat. It uses the camera built in to the phone and gives you some nice creative options (Toy Camera, Warholizer, Fisheye and Polaroid). I shot a ton of images but I really liked this one that I posted using the Polaroid filter. I love the retro look and color tint the filter uses. I of course did some tweaking in PhotoShop.

Shot spex: No details to provide.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels and Brightness/Contrast.

Tunes listened to while editing: Nothing tonight.

Day #83 - Lazy Day

Today I was feeling lazy. It was actually more work to be lazy than it might have been to actually set up a shot! Anyway, we spent some time looking through pictures for a class project Cameron had to do, and I got to thinking I'd like to post something shot some time ago to compare to the current Cameron. I found this shot from a trip to a local skateboard park. It was a gray day, early in March of last year. Cameron had just started growing his hair out. Anyway, I converted the image to Black and White and bumped up the contrast.

Back to shooting pictures tomorrow!

Day #82 - Game Face

Well, I know this is a day late, but I was exhausted last night and just didn't have it in me to sit at the computer last night. So I figure better late than never and I will still shoot and post an image before the day ends today.

We went to watch my nephew Joshua play in a football scrimmage. He only got to play for a few minutes, but I managed to get a few pictures anyway. I employed what I now call the "Golden Eye Sharpening Technique" and really cropped in tight to put emphasis on the eyes.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 200, 33mm, f5.6, 1/1000 sec., no flash.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels and Brightness/Contrast. Cropped tight.

Tunes listened to while editing: Weezer - Make Believe, The first 4 tracks. Can anyone confirm that the word to Beverly Hills in the chorus are "Gimme, Gimme"?

Day #81 - Memory Loss

I will totally admit that this is a lazy shot.

My camera, without one of these is like a DeLorean Time Machine without Plutonium. It's just a hunk of metal, plastic and glass without one of these. My camera even has a clever little spot in the battery grip to store an extra one of these.

We had Cameron's "Back to School Bash" tonight so I figured it would be so easy to get a shot of the day. I grabbed my camera, leaving my camera bag behind, and headed to the school. I shot 3 or 4 pictures before I decided to check the histogram and that is when I realized I had no memory card inserted in the camera. Had I brought my camera bag I would have had about 20 more SD memory cards. So did I learn my lesson? Well, I did put a spare card in the special storage slot in the battery grip... I signed up to help with the school yearbook, so I better be more prepared at future school events!

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 200mm, f6.3, 1/15 sec., no flash.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels and Brightness/Contrast.

Tunes listened to while editing: The Foo Fighters - Echo's, Silence, Patience & Grace. The first 6 tracks - again.

Day #80 - Jenga!

Today I caught my wife and son as they were playing the game Jenga! It was fun to watch Cameron as he carefully planned which piece he would remove from the tower. Then often he would help steady the tower when Dionne pulled out her piece as he did not want the game to end too quickly. At first I wanted to capture the tower as it was falling down, and I did get some of those images. But then I realized the better images were the ones showing Cameron's facial expressions.

I'm lucky to be alive as both Cameron and Dionne were getting really tired of the flash going off. I actually flashed myself at point blank range (not my brightest moment - stupid pun I know). Then I could only see a blue rectangle for about 5 minutes.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 48mm, f8, 1/60 sec., flash aimed at ceiling.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels and Brightness/Contrast. Also cropped to change orientation from landscape to portrait.

Tunes listened to while editing: Between The Trees - The Story And The Song. The first 6 tracks. Seems like it is consistently taking about 6 tracks to go through all the post-processing steps.

Day #79 - Busted!

This picture today is part of a set of images I need to create for a class I will be helping my Dad with next month. I will be trying to walk people through some ways to take better pictures of people. I know this picture hardly looks like a good picture of someone. That was actually the point today. I wanted to start off with a true "mugshot" and then show how someone could employ some tips to go from "mugshot" to something more appealing to the eye. So enjoy the first image in this series.

A little sidenote - the booking number I used in the shot is not a random number. Lunch to the first person who can tell me who's booking number I used!

BTW - I carried my camera to work today and was able to do this shot during my lunch break. It was a lot less stressful coming home, knowing my image for the day was already shot!

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 400, 33mm, f8, 1/45 sec., flash aimed at ceiling.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels and Brightness/Contrast. Also cropped to change orientation to square. Also used Replace Color technique to get rid of bland background color of dry erase board.

Tunes listened to while editing: Boys Like Girls - Boys Like Girls. The first 6 tracks. Another band I picked up some time back and had never listened to. I'm really liking it so far.

Day #78 - Late Night Fuel

I obviously create most of these postings well after the rest of the house (and city for that matter) have gone to bed. I rely heavily on Diet Coke to get me through these late night photo shoots and today thought I would capture a picture of my late night fuel. It's kind of a lazy shot, I'll admit it. I had hoped to start carrying my camera daily to work (and everywhere else) and just have not started that habit. I will have my gear packed before bed tonight though and already have a shot for tomorrow planned. I need some pictures for a class I am helping my Dad with starting next month so I'll be putting in some time on that and it should give my project some "focus" (pun absolutely intended).

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 400, 50mm, f3.5, 1/90 sec., flash aimed at ceiling.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels and Brightness/Contrast. Also cropped to change orientation from landscape to portrait format.

Tunes listened to while editing: Echobrain - Echobrain. The first 6 tracks. Some music I got from Dono months ago and had never listened to yet. Not bad, but my iPod kept "skipping" which I thought was weird.

Day #77 - Sunset (or was it?)

I took Cameron to soccer practice tonight and knew I had 90 minutes of potential camera time on my hands. I shot about 50 pictures (everything from Cameron playing soccer, Chewey, shadows of the chain link fence and sky shots). As happens many times, I just knew the minute I pulled the trigger that I had the picture I wanted for the day in this shot. The shot pre-processing was actually pretty nice, but something came over me in PhotoShop and I decided to try to really dramatize the image. So I cranked up the contrast a ton (+48) and actually darkened it (-10). The shot was taken at almost 7:00pm so it wasn't really sunset yet. I think the tweaking I did made it look like that though. I'm pretty happy with it and I hope everyone else enjoys it!

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 400, 48mm, f13, 1/3000 sec., no flash.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels and Brightness/Contrast (as outlined above). Also cropped a smidge to get rid of an annoying tree branch.

Tunes listened to while editing: Creeper Lagoon - I Become Small And Go. The first 6 tracks. Good tunes to listen to while I was working on this type of image. Kind of chillin' music.

Day #76 - Computer Screen Blues

I know there are a few followers of this project and I apologize for the unannounced hiatus. I had every intention of continuing posting to this blog while vacationing with the family in Eureka Springs, Arkansas this weekend. We left right after work Thursday night and after we got to our hotel and got unpacked I set up my laptop (the one from work) to begin to edit some shots taken that day. That is when I saw the image I share with you today. Apparently the screen went belly up. I will be visiting the campus computer clinic in the morning to remedy the issue. It works when you use an external monitor, but I need my screen several times a week so I can't let it go to long. Anyway, I will post up some of the pictures from the trip and if you are interested feel free to wander over to my Facebook albums to check them out. In the meantime, I will get back on track in earnest this week. I think I will try to do as Jeff does and will start carrying my camera daily. It will be interesting to see what images I find during the day vs. waiting till 10pm every night!

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 68mm, f5.6, 1/8 sec., flash aimed up at ceiling.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels and Brightness/Contrast.

Tunes listened to while editing: Wavorly - Conquering The Fear Of Flight. The first 4 tracks.

Day #75 - Tangled

Kind of getting off the reservation tonight. No great ideas of what to shoot so I grabbed my camera and started snapping whatever I saw through the eyepiece. I settled on this tangled mess of cords and cables. This is on my desk at home but those who know me can attest that this could just as likely have been my desk at work. In the mess of wires there is an old cell phone, a PSP USB cable, a couple of cell phone ear buds, some cell phone chargers and just some random books and magazines. TO make the image interesting I Photo Shopped the heck out of it.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 200mm, f6.3, 1/15 sec., flash.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels and Brightness/Contrast. Desaturated the image, then applied the Neon Glow filter and then the Watercolor Filter.

Tunes listened to while editing: Remedy Drive - Daylight Is Coming. The first 7 tracks. Great band I recently discovered.

Day #74 - Mae ( A Favorite Shot I Reworked)

Today I did not get a chance to shoot a picture so I did the next best thing. I decided to play with a picture I shot some time ago (over a year ago) now that I've learned a few things.

This shot is of one of my favorite bands, Mae, taken while they played a show at The Bottleneck in Lawrence. I liked the shot before, but there were certain elements that I never bothered to fix before tonight.

Shooting concert pictures is really challenging. First off the lighting is usually very low so you are forced to either use a flash (which really makes the image look unnatural, and you loose the colored lighting that is usually present) or you have to bump up the ISO way high (which adds grain). I prefer to go for the grainy look in order to preserve the colors from the lighting. One way I have learned to enhance the grain is to use the Poster Edges filter.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 1600, 67mm, f4.5, 1/20 sec., no flash.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels and Brightness/Contrast. Applied the Poster Edges filter. Fixed some blemishes in the image using the clone stamp and the healing brush.

Tunes listened to while editing: Mae - Singularity (Duh!). Songs 8 - 13. For whatever reason I tend to skip to track 8 and finish out the album a lot. Nothing wrong with tracks 1 - 7, but I like 8 - 13!

Day #73 - Got Milk? Can I Have Some?

Today is an example how things don't always go as planned. I was on my way to the kitchen with the camera in hand looking to shoot a picture of the pot of boiling eggs on the stove (I Know - LAME!!). As I reached the top of the stairs I saw a great photo opportunity and I was actually ready for a change!

Cameron was enjoying his customary late night glass of milk, and his cat Bella was right there hoping for a taste.

I carefully and quietly slipped the lens cap off the camera, made a few quick adjustments, and snapped a few pictures. I shot one or two of Bella looking longingly at the glass of milk, then just as Cameron raised the glass to his mouth, right as I was pushing the shutter release, Bella reached right into his glass with her paw! It was a perfect photo moment!

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 78mm, f8.0, 1/90 sec., built-in flash.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels and Brightness/Contrast. Applied a warming filter and cropped to get rid of unwanted background elements.

Tunes listened to while editing: Michael W. Smith - The Big Picture. The first 6 songs. I loaded this on the iPod a while back and just got around to listening to it for the first time tonight. This one really brings back lots of fond memories. I think I saw MWS in concert at least 10 times back in the late 80's. My Mom and I went to many of the shows and we always had fun. She was (and still is) a cool Mom and she definitely fostered my love of music. She has always shared a love of music even if our tastes have drifted apart over the years. We went to a lot of Christian Rock Concerts together (MWS, Amy Grant, DC Talk and Geoff Moore to name a few). I wonder if I can talk her into going with me to see We Shot The Moon and Hollis at the Main Street Cafe in October? More on that show in the near future!

Day #72 - Here's Looking At Me (Again!)

As I mentioned yesterday, we went to a church carnival. I spent quite a bit of time there trying to do a self portrait using chrome car parts. I used some hub caps, bumpers and finally an air cleaner cover. I ended up liking the air cleaner cover the best and so I am sharing it with you today.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 200, 90mm, f6.7, 1/250 sec., no flash.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels and Brightness/Contrast.

Tunes listened to while editing: The Fold - Secrets Keep You Sick. The first 5 songs. Great album and a great band that really puts everything they have into putting on a great show!

Day #71 - Giddy Up!

Today we went to an outdoor carnival at the Olathe Bible Church. What a great place for picture shooting! They had horse rides, a car show, a military helicopter, several police and fire vehicles and an exotic bird show. I shot quite a few pictures (at least until my camera batteries pooped out!). The one I chose to edit and post today, is of my true dream car. Some guys crave Corvettes, or Hot Rods or some other exotic sports car. I've always craved a cherry, old school (1966-1977) Ford Bronco. This one even happened to be the right color as blue is my favorite color.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 200, 28mm, f5.6, 1/750 sec., no flash.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels and Brightness/Contrast. I then decided to desaturate the background to minimize the impact of the people in the background. I also added the Lens Flare as there was a hot spot on the left side of the windshield.

Tunes listened to while editing: We The Kings - We The Kings. The entire album.