Day #32 - Best Place To See A Sunset

Well, this is one of the places to see a great sunset.

At work there is a dry erase board with the question, "Best place to see a sunset". I was asked to add my thoughts to the question and I answered, Siesta Key, Florida.

Today I never pulled the camera out of the bag. Just too tired to do it, and we had dinner over at my in-laws house to welcome home my brother-in-law Matt who lives near Siesta Key, Florida. In fact, over Spring Break we flew out to hang out with Matt for a week and this picture was shot on the first night there. We still long to be there especially on hectic days. We start a 6 day "Staycation" and won't see anything so nice as this location, but hopefully the feeling of being there on that beach at sunset will somehow filter into our plans this week.

Shot spex: JPEG Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 400, 24mm, f6.7, 1/500 sec., no flash.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), and adjusted the Contrast and Saturation just a little bit. Cropped a tad bit.

Day #31 - Moon Over Easy

Anyone who has ever shot a picture of the moon will know that it's not as easy as one might think. It took me a while to dial in the right exposure as I was leaning toward a long exposure (started at 20 seconds) and in reality, the exposure time was quite short (1/4 second). This is kind of a lazy shot, but I wanted to see how well my camera did on this type of shot with my limited range (18-200mm lens). I've been noticing the moon the past few nights and decided I'd give it a go tonight (in part because I waited too long to start shooting and couldn't think of anything indoors that sounded interesting).

Gotta get to shooting before night fall tomorrow!

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 100, 200mm, f22, 1/4 sec., no flash, tripod (of course).

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), and adjusted the Contrast barely.

Day #30 - He Keeps Her Shiny, Shiny

The other day I was out in the front yard with all my camera gear set up and was trying to do a self portrait of me with my Jeep. I hated the pictures and ended up using something else that day. My neighbor across the street must have seen me because she asked me today if I was selling my Jeep. I of course blurted out, "no way"! I then asked her why. She mentioned she had seen me shooting pictures of the Jeep and thought that I was shooting images to use for the ad. I explained my project and then she proceeded to ask if I would mind shooting pictures of her husbands car that he wanted to sell. I remember seeing this beautiful car a few times as Ed (my neighbor's husband) would take it out for a spin. I was excited to see it up close! So today after the chores were done I grabbed all of my gear and Ed pulled his 1958 Austin-Healey out of the garage.

I shot about 30 pictures for his ad and of course worked in a few creative ones for my pic-a-day project. This car is really sweet! Wish I had the $$$ to buy it! Watch Craigs List soon for it!

BTW - the title of today's post is a reference to a song by one of my favorite bands, The Rainmakers.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 400, 33mm, f11, 1/60 sec., flash.

PhotoShop spex: Adjusted Levels just a little, Smart Sharpened (as always), and adjusted the Contrast up +39 for the effect, added a layer and used it to blur the upper right corner to get rid of unwanted elements, then decided to BW that portion of the picture. Added some lens flare effects for fun.

Day #29 - Dog Days Of Summer

I don't know when the Dog Days of Summer officially start, but we started celebrating today - by staying indoors in the AC while being very lazy.

I saw Chewey finally settling down and was wishing I had my camera handy for a few shots. Dionne said she thought he'd stay calm as long as I carefully left the room to get the camera. So I walked very quietly to my office and grabbed the camera and flash.

I made it back to the living room where Chewey was still being very calm and quiet. I was able to snap these without rousing him too much.

Shot spex (top picture): RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 200mm, f6.3, 1/30 sec., flash.

PhotoShop spex (top picture): Cropped to a square, adjusted Levels, Smart Sharpened (as always), and adjusted the Contrast a tiny bit.

Shot spex (bottom picture): RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 90mm, f5.6, 1/45 sec., flash.

PhotoShop spex (bottom picture): Cropped to a square, adjusted Levels, Smart Sharpened (as always), and adjusted the Contrast a tiny bit.

Day #28 - Oh to be a kid again...

What a life it is to be a kid. Playing outside all day long at summer camp, then coming home and wanting to play outside some more - in 100 degree weather! Then you and a friend pull all kinds of top grade building supplies out of your dad's garage - like card tables, card board, tarps, folding chairs and masking tape. You proceed to build a killer fort where the temperature inside is a nice steamy 120 degrees and you sit inside it blowing out sweet melodies on your trusty harmonica.

Sounds like fun, doesn't it? All I want to do it go inside and stay there. I can't remember when I ever really wanted to be outside that much. It was probably back when I was 8 years old - like a certain boy I happen to know and love.

I decided to post two pictures today. I just really liked them both and couldn't pass up the opportunity to share.

Enjoy!

Shot spex (top picture): RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 24mm, f8, 1/45 sec., flash.

PhotoShop spex (top picture): Adjusted levels, Smart Sharpened (as always), and adjusted the Contrast quite a bit for a creative look.

Shot spex (bottom picture): RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 40mm, f8, 1/45 sec., flash.

PhotoShop spex (bottom picture): Cropped way in to just get the feet, Adjusted levels, Smart Sharpened (as always), and adjusted the Contrast quite a bit for a creative look, Desaturated (not completely to BW) enough to create a unique look, added Fresco filter.

Day #27 - Music For All Time

So what a day! The King of Pop, Michael Jackson passes away at the way too young age of 50. I don't know if this inspired me to listen to a LOT of music tonight, but it might have had some subconscious affect.

I went over to my buddy Donovan's house tonight and we ended up just listening to tons of songs while loading up my iPod and trying to figure out the name of a specific Led Zeppelin song. It was kind of a nice time of tunes and chilling out. Upon reflection I thought it was kind of cool how we were listening to music fairly current and then spent a fair amount of time listening to music that was almost 40 years old. Good music really doesn't ever become irrelevant.

So I got home and was pondering what to shoot while fighting with my computer. I had to re-boot about 3 times, got a blue screen of death, and was just about to give up when it came back to life. I decided to set up a shot of some Cd's from my collection. To go a step further I made sure one of the disks that was showing was fairly current (anberlin - Blueprints For The Black Market) and one was more of a classic (The Police - Synchronicity). The I shot a few with flash and realized that unless I got real creative, the flash was just going to cause severe reflections off the jewel cases. I then went to long shutter speeds and worked until I had a good histogram.

Then I listened to one of my top 10 favorite albums while I edited away! Any guesses? Probably only Donovan and Dionne would know. Bonus points to anyone who can post up the answer! Not sure what the points are good for but...

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 33mm, f13, 2 sec., no flash.

PhotoShop spex: Adjusted levels, and darkened up the mid-tones a bit more than normal. Smart Sharpened (as always), and adjusted the Contrast quite a bit for a creative look.

Day #26 - Spare Some Change?

Well, I had planned to be somewhere to capture a nice sunset tonight, but Mother Nature had other plans! So I had to look to the indoors to find a subject.

I have this jar of change on the desk that I had this lofty goal of filling to the brim before we cashed it in. Sadly, it gets raided quite often and so it never has more than an inch of coins in the bottom. I decided to see what I could make of it.

I placed the jar on the floor and aimed the camera directly down into the mouth of the jar. I then proceeded to take some pictures and quickly realized that unless I had a ring light flash, I was going to get a hard shadow to one side of the jar. It was then that I decided to put the flash on my cord and I laid it on the ground next to the jar and shot through the side of it. I liked what I saw and after tweaking the exposure just a little bit I had a workable image.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 100, 50mm (prime lens), f2.0, 1/90 sec., flash used as outlined above.

PhotoShop spex: In PS I decided to get rid of the office carpet by creating a duplicate layer which I proceeded to apply a radial blur to. A little eraser work to bring out the part of the image I wanted back in focus and I was done. I Smart Sharpened (as always), and slightly adjusted the Contrast.

Day #25 - Cameron's To Do List

My wife was telling me the other day about something that Cameron did that really tickled her. I guess she was talking to Cameron and JJ (my nephew) in the car while on the way to the swimming pool and was maybe telling them some rules of behavior at the pool. Somewhere the conversation went off track (as they often do with Cameron and JJ) and they ended up talking about money and bills and things of that nature. At some point in the conversation she mentioned how dangerous credit cards can be. I guess the point was made as later she found a "What To Do List" that Cameron had compiled. In case you can't read the list in the picture, it reads as follows:

What To Do List

- Not do the diving board for JJ (Cam can be a stinker)
- Poosh JJ to the side on the water slide (more proof of Cam's stinkerness)
- Jump on the Tramplen (trampoline)


- Don't get a credit card

When I was pondering what to shoot, Dionne showed me the list and I liked it so much I had to use it.

I wanted a very natural light so I used one of our lamps on an end table with a nice wood color. I didn't want to use a flash for fear of blowing out the words on the list. I made several exposures checking the Histogram to ensure a nice even exposure. I opted for an aperture of f13 to allow for good depth of field on the list, allowing focus to fall off at the top of the list. I really like the end result - I think it has a very natural feel to it. Of course I grabbed one of Cameron's many pencils from an earlier shot to help build the scene. About the only thing I forgot to do was drop the ISO down from 800 to something with less grain, but in the end I think the effect looks great.

Maybe I should share this story and picture with Dave Ramsey!!

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 50mm (prime lens), f13, 1/6 sec., no flash.

PhotoShop spex: I really didn't have to do much on this one. I left the white balance alone as I like it. I Smart Sharpened (as always), slightly adjusted the Contrast and slightly adjusted the yellow out of the image.

Day #24 - The Falls

I've been driving by this waterfall everyday for at least the last 2 years. It's at about 103rd and Metcalf and I've seen it in all kinds of seasons. It's really neat during winter when it's frozen solid. I'll be sure to shoot a picture this winter of that. In the meantime, as I drove by it today I thought I should shoot it once the day cooled off a bit. I headed back to shoot this picture at about 8:45pm. I forgot that taking a camera out that has been sitting in the air-conditioning all day is not the best thing to do. At the very least I had to sit for about 5-7 minutes while I waited for the "condensation" (Donovan might get this reference) to clear off the optics.

I played with a variety of exposures, knowing that I wanted the type of water that would result from a long exposure. I used my flash as well to give the rocks some more detail as it was starting to get a bit dark.

When I edited the image I started with a portrait shot that showed a bit more sky. As the sky was very boring and had almost no color I went to a shot I fired at the very end where I cocked the camera off kilter to crop out the boring sky. In this case I think it worked.

Shot spex: Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 24mm, f27, 3 sec., flash.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened, adjusted contrast and levels.

Day #23 - The Apple Of My Eye

So today was Fathers Day! I hope all my fellow fathers had a great one. We certainly did via a full celebration schedule.

I woke up to a wonderful note from Dionne and cards from Cameron and our pets along with one of Cameron's infamous present bags (a variety of toys and trinket's from all over the house).

Then we had lunch at my parents house with our favorite pizza from Minsky's. Then the kids had a fun time getting silly for us in the living room (my 20 month old nephew Wyatt was wresting with my son Cameron). It was cute to see Wyatt trying (successfully) to pull Cameron to the ground, and it was cute to see Cameron trying to be so careful with Wyatt while also helping him have fun. Then I majorly carb loaded with two pieces of pie (Strawberry and French Silk from Tippin's - mmmmmmmmm!). Then my dad helped me with creating my signature that you will now see on the pictures I post. Aren't dad's great? I know mine is! Thanks Pop!

Thennnnnn, we had my wife's family over to our house for burgers and brats off the grill with all the trimmings. We had a fun time visiting and watching the kids play on the trampoline as well as filling the living room with Nerf darts. Then I carb loaded again with frosted sugar cookies and brownies!

It was a fun day and thanks to everyone who made me feel so special!

I thought it would be appropriate to have a picture today of Cameron - the apple of my eye and the one who has blessed me with the privilege of being a father. It is such a wild and fulfilling experience and I am so thankful God blessed me with this responsibility. I hope I don't let Cameron down (although I know we will have our moments). I hope he and I will be lucky enough to be as close as I am with my dad. I just want to enjoy the ride and hopefully help him get ready for the time in his life when he too will become a father (and me a grandfather!).

Shot spex: Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 55mm, f8, 1/60 sec., flash aimed up at ceiling.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened, adjusted contrast and levels, I didn't really like the background so I made a dupe layer and then tried this cool trick with the Extrude filter on the background layer. I think it turned out kinda cool. I then flattened the image and added the signature.

Day #22 - Another One From Colorado

I felt like putting up another one today from that same trip a couple of years ago. It's crazy. I must have just gotten my K10D before that trip because I was bracketing like crazy. Way too many versions of the same image. I guess the upside is that now that I'm getting around to looking at these, there is always a pretty good one of each image to start from.

I really liked this stone wall and really tried to enhance the picture in such a way as to really make the detail of the wall pop. I did some work to the sky to make it more visually enjoyable as well.

With tomorrow being fathers day, I'm fairly certain I will be shooting pictures again so look for a return to current images. In the meantime I hope those who follow this project have enjoyed some fresh scenery. Now in a few weeks I will be in Colorado and will be shooting and posting things from that trip daily. I can't wait!

Shot spex: Pentax K10D, ISO 100, 48mm, f11, 1/125 sec., Exposure Compensation -1(I was bracketing), no flash.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened, adjusted contrast and levels, some layer enhancements to bring up the wall and sky.

Day #21 - Getting Around To Images Shot 2 Years Ago

Well, today I decided to pull out something I shot like 2 years ago that I never got around to doing anything with. I figure once in a while I might not feel like shooting a picture on a certain day, and that's a perfect time to work on something I've neglected.

About 2 years ago, we went to Colorado to shoot a wedding for a family friend. Since we were going to our favorite place on earth, we managed to head up to the mountains for some 4-wheeling and photography. Right after shooting pictures in the mountains, we shot 2,500 wedding related pictures. I was up to my ear-lobes in wedding picture editing for 9 months and therefore never got around to doing anything with all my pictures shot in the mountains.

This was a really neat door knob on an old cabin we came across. While nowadays we can spend some serious money on door hardware, I'd submit that the new stuff lacks the class and character of some of the items used back in the old days. Sometimes attention to detail on the small things can really be the sign of a craftsman. Kinda like the work photographers do to their images. The average Joe has no idea how much craft is involved in creating a special image. We don't generally make money on these types of shots. We do it for the love of the art. Enjoy the photograph and I will probably pull a few more of these out of mothballs from time to time in the course of this project.

Shot spex: Pentax K10D, ISO 100, 130mm, f11, 1/30 sec., Exposure Compensation -1(I was bracketing), no flash.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened, adjusted contrast and levels, adjusted the red to bring the wood color up to where I liked it.

Day #20 - With All This Memory...

How is it I keep forgetting things?

It's pretty sad how many External USB Hard Drives, USB Flash Drives, SD Memory Cards and Micro SD Memory Cards I have. And yet I feel the need to collect even more memory. In the picture I have 1 terabyte drive, 1 250 gigabyte drive, 1 100 gigabyte drive, 1 40 gigabyte drive, 2 USB flash drives providing 9 gigabytes of storage and who knows how many gigabytes of SD and Micro SD Cards. It's crazy how much we depend on storage space, and yet I forget things all the time! Whatcha gonna do? I'll probably keep collecting storage, especially now that I shoot RAW!

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 400, 18mm, f4.5, 1/60 sec., flash aimed at ceiling with LumiQuest Softbox attached.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened, adjusted contrast and levels a tad bit, applied a slight cooling filter (10%), adjusted Levels and applied the Poster Edges filter.

Day #19 - Drum Roll Please

I am a man of many hobbies. While photography is the main one that I invest time, energy and money in, I also love Jeeps, music, reading and playing the drums. Tonight I thought I would combine 2 hobbies for the picture of the day. Partly because I waited until 10:30 at night to shoot the picture and partly because it was wicked hot outside today so I knew I didn't want to trek outside with all my gear.

Anyway, I have been playing the drums for about 28 years now. I've had this drum set since I graduated high school and the drum head has a nice bit of use on it. It's a fun way to exercise and also can be therapeutic. I know my parents used to wonder if I was thinking about them when I was playing back when I still lived with them. To tell the truth, when I play I kind of slip into a nice relaxed mental space. It's all about the music and letting my creative self kinda create the beat that feels right. Seems in some ways it is similar to photography. I'd love to play more often to hone my skills. Maybe I should start a "play the drums every day" project. I think I better just focus on my "Pic-A-Day" project for now.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 400, 50mm (prime lens), f11, 1/60 sec., flash aimed at ceiling with LumiQuest Softbox attached (set to -1.0).

Day #18 - My Stupid Back Yard

OK, I know the title seems a bit extreme. I like parts of my back yard like this part in the photo. What I don't like if is the bed of weeds and poison oak 20 feet to the right of this plant I shot pictures of. And as neither my wife nor I have the desire, nor the skills, nor the money to make something nice out of the nasty weedy patch I have to go in and weed whack the living crap out of the area and by the end of that I am covered head to toe in weedy guts and other nastiness!

Oh, well, at least I have this nice plant to shoot some pictures of. Right now it has these stalks with pretty flowers coming up out of it. I started off in color on this but quickly realized that the texture of the image might make a really nice black and white image.

So enjoy this image while I go and sneeze my head off (allergies!).

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 400, 40mm, f13, 1/60 sec., flash, tripod used.

Day #17 - Hollis

Okay, so I am sort of cheating today. I did actually shoot some pictures today, but I really didn't like anything I shot and yesterday I went to the Battle Of The Bands where my friends band Hollis was competing. I have shot several concerts in the last couple of years but this was the first time I shot in RAW and I wanted to see how things went. I won't cheat often, but after shooting nearly 150 pictures last night I figure I am keeping with the spirit of the project. And besides, as my Dad said in the photo class he was teaching Saturday, the digital darkroom makes up at least 50% of the creative work involved in creating great pictures and I did all the PhotoShop work today sooooo.....

I don't know if you've ever shot concerts, but it's not easy. In fact it's really hard. Generally the rules don't allow flash photography and quite honestly the flash just makes things look really un-natural anyways. You have to shoot a lot of exposures at a high ISO with the aperture as wide open as possible.

The band put on a great show and I think I got some pretty decent shots. Here is one I liked that showed all the band members.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 1600, 18mm, f3.5, 1/15 sec., no flash.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened, adjusted contrast and levels a tad bit, cropped to my liking.

Picture #16 - Chewey, Chewey, Chewey

I was shooting pictures of the family in the front yard today and was really trying to get a good shot of Chewey (our recent addition to the family - a 12 week old, 1/2 Chihuahua 1/2 Mini Pincher). Chewey is full of energy and is hard to get a shot of as he is never sitting still. I liked this one and the color was about dead on.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 130mm, f8, 1/500 sec., no flash.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened, adjusted contrast and levels a tad bit, cropped to my liking.

Day #15 - Pondering Pokemon

My son recently got me into Pokemon and we played 4 games today. I really am enjoying it. I'm kind of a nerd and have liked Trading Card Games for some time now thanks to my buddy Donovan. Donovan got me into the Lord Of The Rings TCG. Anyways now that Cameron reads so well it is fun to play Pokemon with the actual rules. Of course when Cameron cheats.... Well, hopefully I've cured him of that now.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 31mm, f4, 1/30 sec., flash aimed at ceiling with LumiQuest Softbox attached.

PhotoShop spex: I really didn't have to do much on this one. I adjusted the White Balance some. Then I Smart Sharpened, Cropped to my liking, and slightly adjusted the Contrast.

Day #14 - Fly Like An... er, Some Kind Of Bird

We were driving to dinner and noticed a classic car show at 91st and Metcalf. I saw the car show and knew my picture for the day would be shot there. It was at that point that I realized that I really need to be taking my camera everywhere. Thankfully I only live about 1 mile from the show location so I was easily about to run home after dinner to pick up my gear, but that might not always be the case. Cameron and I had fun looking at all the cars and trucks. I shot about 15 shots and came up with a few that I really liked. I love the old cars as they always have such neat little details. New cars just don't seem to have the same interesting features.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 50mm (prime lens), f11, 1/60 sec., no flash.

PhotoShop spex: I really didn't have to do much on this one. I adjusted the White Balance to Shade and really liked what I saw there. Then I just Smart Sharpened, Cropped to my liking, and slightly adjusted the Contrast.

I felt like adding a couple more shots from today. So it's 3 for the price of 1 today!

Day #13 - You Say Tomato, I Say Tasty!

We had a family get together at my parents house tonight and I was excited for the opportunity to shoot somewhere besides home today. It was getting towards the end of the evening and I hadn't even pulled the camera out of the bag. I was sitting at the kitchen table with Dad, Jesse, Melissa and Aunt Jan when I noticed that someone had placed 3 tomato's on the ledge to ripen. The blinds were in the way, but that was easily remedied. I realized I had a great still life subject in my view. I swapped back on the 50mm prime lens again (I'm really digging the f2 depth of field) and snapped about 6-7 variations while using my cousin Jesse as a leaning post/makeshift tripod (thanks Jesse). I got really creative in PhotoShop and here is the end result. Enjoy, or should I say Bon Appetit?

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 50mm (prime lens), f2, 1/60 sec., no flash.

PhotoShop spex: For such a simple subject I did tons of PhotoShop trickery. I'd be hard pressed to remember all the steps I did.

Day #12 - Happy 88th Birthday Dorothy!

It's not everyday that someone celebrates their 88th birthday. Today we did just that with a birthday dinner in honor of my wife's grandmother, Dorothy. For 88 she is in great health and still gets around pretty good. Hopefully we will get to celebrate more birthdays with her, and I was glad to shoot her picture as part of my project. I had a little side lighting coming in from some windows to the left of the picture and my diffused flash helped maintain the natural look I wanted for this image. Happy Birthday Dorothy!!!

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 50mm (prime lens), f2, 1/60 sec., flash aimed at ceiling with LumiQuest Softbox attached.

PhotoShop spex: Set White Balance to Daylight. Made a few minor tweaks to Tint and exposure. Cropped vertical (was shot in landscape mode).

Day #11 - For Matt

I have this jar of gum-balls on my desk at work. It has been almost completely emptied once now by a coworker friend Matt and so after I refilled it I realized it could make a nice picture. At work I have this Judge II light box sitting on my desk that is used for analyzing paint samples (of cell phone parts). In fact the jar of gum-balls sits right on top of it. It has several variations of light. I set the light source to day-light, and added a sheet of white copy paper behind the jar. I then used my work camera (so I couldn't shoot RAW) to capture this shot. I sued the on board flash, so I could get the little "catch-lights" in the gum balls. The flash was too strong so I made a quick diffuser using copy paper and tape.

Matt loves the gum, but every time I look at it my jaw gets sore!

Shot spex: Pentax *ist DS, ISO 800, 45mm, f4.5, 1/180 sec., built in flash with homemade diffuser.
PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened, adjusted contrast and levels a tad bit, cropped to my liking.

Day #10 - Looking Back On The Day

Today was my first day back to work after a weeks vacation. It was also the first day that I had to work while also thinking about doing my pic-of-the-day project. I felt the stress of trying to work it in all day long. I think I might need to plan some time for lunch field trips to local parks or other photograph friendly locations so I don't have to sweat it at night. In the meantime, I was watching my son Cameron as he was struggling to journal what has been going on in his life over the past few days and thought maybe I could shoot a few pictures of him for today's assignment. Well, first of all he is at that age where he only does what he wants to do. Me shooting pictures of him was not his idea of fun at first. Of course he was kinda grumping about having to write in his journal so he was not in the best of moods and I'm sure that didn't help matters. I really wanted a natural picture, not something posed or forced. I think we went through a few stages before I could capture what I really wanted.

Stage 1 - grumpy stage - Cameron held his hand or journal in front of his face.
Stage 2 - warming up - Cameron started getting playful and wanted me to do some funny shots of him (making a muscle, funny grins, tongue sticking out).
Stage 3 - blending in - Cameron finally got tired of fighting me and went back to his task of journaling. In the future I'll have to remember to let him get his silly stuff out before I try to get something serious. Of course he'll probably just switch it all up to keep me guessing.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 40mm, f4.5, 1/10 sec., flash aimed at ceiling with LumiQuest Softbox attached.

PhotoShop spex: I'm really loving RAW - I was able to really tweak the White Balance to what I felt was a very close rendition of what I saw with my eyes. Smart Sharpened, Adjusted all the usual stuff, Cropped a little differently to rid the picture of unwanted details (I need to pay more attention to the background in the future).

Day #9 - The Way It Used To Be

Today I was watching some TV and was also wondering what I would shoot for my assignment today. That is when I noticed the old camera collection in my TV cabinet. I started thinking about how photography used to be done (something my Dad and I talk about from time to time). Then it dawned on me - why not shoot some pictures of the antique photography equipment with my fancy schmancy digital gear? So after the family went to bed, I went to work. Today I also decided it was time to switch to RAW. I have only used it a few times and really wasn't sure what I thought about it. My Dad switched 100% to RAW a while back and has raved about the control he has in the digital darkroom. I must say, "Pop, you were right"! I found that I had quite a bit of control that I hadn't had before. I don't know if anyone wants all the technical details, but as this was my first RAW experience I will record them this time anyway. I shot 7 images and then came up to the computer. Immediately I noticed that my focus was way off. I had everything else the way I liked it, but needed to adjust focus. So thankfully I hadn't moved anything (the benefit to using the tripod) and just ran downstairs and made the focus adjustment and shot one more frame.

Shot spex: Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 48mm, f11, 1.5 sec., flash at -1.5 exposure compensation, had LumiQuest Softbox attached and flash was at a downward angle, used tripod and stroboframe. (I included some pictures of the shot setup below - thought it might be interesting to some people.)





PhotoShop spex: I opened the image in PhotoShop CS and was greeted with the RAW adjustment screen. I changed the White Balance from 5400 to 5500, the Tint from -14 to +10, the Exposure from 0.00 to +0.50, the Contrast from +25 to +35 and the Saturation from 0 to -10. I then clicked Open and made the following adjustments; I Smart Sharpened, did some cropping, dropped the Saturation another -10 and then applied the Poster Edges filter. I am kinda getting hooked on that one. I need to remember not to over use it!. I dropped the Brightness by -10 and liked what I saw.

Day #8 - Poolside

Over the past 2 days we have been to the pool 3 times and I'm not really big into swimming! I swam a little bit, but really enjoyed spending the time relaxing next to Dionne while reading through my Popular Photography magazines. By the third trip to the pool I decided to take the camera along and skip the swimming. I was amazed by how many patterns there are at the pool. One of my favorites was all of the deck chairs. So after I signed the photography waiver at the pool I shot about 30 pictures of all manner of different textures and patterns. The very last shot was the one I liked the best today and it's the one I share with you all here.

Shot spex: Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 222mm, f6.3, 1/125 sec., no flash.
PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened, adjusted contrast a tad bit, added the Poster Edges filter and called it good.

Day #7 - Walking The Dog

Ever since we acquired our new dog Chewey, we've been walking more. Well, today on our morning walk I remembered to grab the camera and managed to catch this shot. I had to lie on the ground to get this perspective (fun position to get into - and out of). I then had my nephew Joshua walk toward me slowly while I fired off about a dozen shots. In PhotoShop I employed some trickery (multiple layers, desaturated one layer, blurring one layer a tad, etc.). I like the final result and it was fun and good exercise at the same time!

Shot spex: Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 27mm, f3.5, 1/2000 sec., no flash.
PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened, added a 2nd layer, desaturated 2nd layer and blurred it slightly, erased the part of the 2nd layer I wanted to get rid of allowing the colored layer to come through, flattened the image into one layer and adjusted contrast a tad bit.

Day 6 - Kleptomaniac Should Start with "C"

This picture is of the many pencils we emptied out of Cameron's pencil boxes that he brought home at the end of the school year. The funny thing is, we sent him to school at the beginning of the year with 6 pencils. How that multiplied into 60 I'll never know. I do know that Cameron tends to be a bit of a Kleptomaniac so I fear that therein lies the explanation.

It took me 29 shots of this to get it the way I wanted it. Thankfully Dionne helped out a bit with her own advice and ideas (which were spot on). This is the first staged studio type shot I've tried. I really need to start reading the Strobist blog soon. I pulled almost all of my gear out of the bag this time. I used my tripod, stroboframe, remote trigger, my portable flash soft box and at one point my spare slave flash.

Shot spex: Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 135mm, f11, 1 sec., flash.
PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened, used the Poster Edges filter, and adjusted contrast a tad bit.

Day #5 - Chime In

Just something that caught my eye on the front porch today. I'm starting to notice things a little differently now. It seems like I am really starting to look for pictures vs. overlooking so many things that are just waiting to be noticed.

Shot spex: Pentax K10D, ISO 400, 72mm, f4.5, 1/125 sec., no flash.
PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened, Added Dupe Layer, Desaturated one layer and erased spots to bring through color in places, bumped up contrast, flattened image.

Day 4 - Teardrops

What a day! I found out today that a dear friend, Dwain Gleason, passed away yesterday at the very young age of 37. That news kind of set the tone for the day and in some way that seemed appropriate, the rain fell all day long. Dwain was a great friend and I am very sad for his wife and son who will feel the loss more than anyone else. As we were driving around today I watched the raindrops on the windows and thought that perhaps a picture showing them would be a fitting post to reflect on the loss of Dwain. The raindrops reminded me of the many teardrops that will have been shed for the loss of Dwain.

The picture was taken while I was sitting in the back of our mini-van in the driveway. It was the only window I could find with raindrops on it. The exposure was very long (30 seconds). I shot this at a variety of f-stops but liked the higher depth of field the best.

Dwain read this blog and it saddens me to know he will no longer see the pictures or offer compliments and comments. But I know that Dwain is in heaven, and everyone in heaven is feasting on his excellent BBQ (which was always too good for us here on earth)! Rest in peace and I look forward to seeing you again someday Dwain.

Shot spex: Pentax K10D, ISO 100, 72mm, f27, 30 sec., no flash, tripod used.
PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened, Desaturated, added Underwater photo filter, bumped up contrast.

Full House

Ok, so finding things to shoot will be a challenge (and I guess that's part of the exercise - learning to look at the world with the eye of a photographer). Today I was pretty much stuck with shooting around the house. I wandered through the yard and found myself looking at the rickety old bird house in our backyard. I keep thinking about pulling it down as it is in a state of disarray, but generally there is at least one bird living in it at all times. Well today I noticed that one of the units is occupied by a mommy bird with a nest full of babies. I guess I'll be leaving it alone for now. I used a little flash to give the shadows some detail and then did some adjusting with PhotoShop.

Shot spex: Pentax K10D, ISO 100, 72mm, f11, 1/90th sec., flash at 1/8 power.