Day #63 - Mmmmmmm, Siki Thomas Rolls!

A lazy shot today. Time got away from me and I'm super tired so I am posting a picture I shot with my new Top Secret Sprint phone with a built-in 5MP Camera at dinner tonight. We went to my absolutely favorite restaurant, Siki, in Lee's Summit. They are a Japanese Sushi Bar with all the grilled stuff too (including Dionne and Cameron's favorite ingredient - yellow sauce). Anyway, I go there for the Thomas Roll (shown here) which is flippin' awesome! They also have a great Spicy Crab Salad! Give them a try sometime!

Shot spex: JPEG Image, Top Secret Sprint Phone being Beta tested, no other details available.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels and adjusted Brightness/Contrast, added a cooling filter to get rid of the yellow cast.

Tunes listened to while editing: U2 - Achtung Baby Album. First 4 songs. Forgot how good this one was!

Day #62 - The North London Mill

I am exhausted! We have been in the midst of a move at work and I am so tired of packing and moving boxes. It's almost as bad as moving to a new house. Anyway, as a result of all this moving I've either been working pretty late, or I am super tired when I get home and haven't felt like pulling the camera out of the bag. Tonight I plan to make this my last night of editing a Colorado trip image for a while and plan to start shooting again tomorrow.

In the meantime, here is the North London Mill. It was an impressive structure in its day and still a decent amount of it stands. Cameron loved it and wanted to stay there for quite a while. Several smaller cabins still remain around it as well.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 100, 18mm, f4.5, 1/125 sec., no flash, circular polarizer filter used.

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

Tunes listened to while editing: Nothing tonight. Was too tired to get up and get my iPod.

Day #61 - Shop WIndow In St. Elmo

While my son spent several hours feeding chipmunks in St. Elmo I wandered around the old buildings in the town. The old General Store across the street (which is currently an active tourist store) had some neat collections of old bottles in the front window. I shot a few pictures before I realized that I was catching a ton of reflections. I then put on my trusty Circular Polarizer Filter and a twist and the reflections were gone.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 90mm, f5.6, 1/180 sec., no flash, circular polarizer filter used.

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

Tunes listened to while editing: Anberlin - Cities (the first 5 songs)

Day #60 - Buena Vista (Literally)

For a couple of days while in Colorado, we stayed in a town called Buena Vista (which translates to "Good View" from Spanish to English). The town itself although quaint in its own small town way has a different "good view". From there you look all around you and see the Rocky Mountains. This "good view" is from the top of Mt. Antero (or almost the top). I believe we were at about 13,900 feet above sea level. Anyway, somewhere out there was the town of Buena Vista and we were treated to a view that was even better than "good". What's the Spanish word for "absafreakingcredible"?.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 18mm, f22, 1/750 sec., no flash, circular polarizer filter used.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels, created about 4 separate layers to adjust the levels and brightness of varying area's in the photo in different ways, adjusted Brightness/Contrast and cropped to adjust for the tilt I had from shooting very quickly so I could get back in the Jeep to avoid the cold and lightning bolts.

Tunes listened to while editing: Weezer - The Red Album (the first 7 songs)

Day #59 - Old WIndow In Como, Colorado

A few more days of posting pictures from my recent Colorado trip and then I will get back to shooting a new shot each day. I shot so many pictures and if I don't post some here, I'm afraid they will go unused for years on my hard drive!

Anyway, we happened to be in Como, Colorado last week and it's a very neat little mountain town. There is a small population of people that live there year round and some of the cabin's are well taken care of despite the years they've been there. Other cabins look like total dumps. I spotted this window on one of the nicer cabins in town and loved the combination of the red/white paint, the lace curtains and the bottles on the sill.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 100, 200mm, f6.3, 1/125 sec., no flash.

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

Day #58 - Quite A Collection Of Old Plates

If you make it to Colorado you should try to plan to visit the old town of St. Elmo. It was a lot to offer, from tons of antiques for sale, lots of old buildings, a neat old general store with drinks and trinkets for sale and you can feed chipmunks right from your bare hands.

One of the items I found in St. Elmo last week was this huge collection of old license plates attached to the wall of an old building. I thought it was even more appealing that some old wheels/tires were arranged below the plates along the wall. I couldn't have staged a better shot had I tried.

It was quite a large collection!

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 18mm, f22, 1/45 sec., no flash.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels, made multiple layers so I could adjust Brightness/Contrast for the plates and everything else separately, desaturated the image a bit.

Day #57 - The London Mine

This is a shot from the top of the London Mine. I saw this from below and knew I had to get on top to get a picture. I really loved the view from up here and am happy to share it with everyone. I felt like it was truly a breath-taking view (especially as I was quite winded after walking up to the top of the mine in the high altitude!).

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 24mm, f19, 1/125 sec., no flash, Circular Polarizer Filter used.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always) and adjusted Levels.

Day #56 - The Setting Sun

I shot this on the first day of my trip to Colorado last week. I was so disappointed when I couldn't open the files so that I could share this one last week. I knew it looked pretty good from the camera LCD but WOW was I happy with it once I opened it tonight!

I shot 40 pictures that night of the setting sun and actually had several I liked, but this one just stood out.

My inspiration for this image came from one of my all time favorite songs called "The Setting Sun", which happens to be by one of my favorite artists. Anyone know what the name of the artist is? Bonus points to the first correct guess. Like in the show "Whose Line It It Anyway" the points are useless, except you can brag about winning.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 100, 78mm, f9.5, 1/500 sec., no flash.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always) and adjusted Levels.

Day #55 - Back In Kansas!

Today was a day full of driving. I didn't think anyone wanted to see a boring shot of Kansas farmland taken from my PDA phone so I am posting something I finally got to edit now that I am back home working on my wonderful computer! I hate editing pictures on my laptop! I also shot about 350 pictures on my trip and so I might give myself some freedom over the next week or so to edit and post images from the trip to share here. I hate to let these images go to waste.

We were exploring an old boarding house right below the Mary Murphy Mine and I noticed this hinge and just really liked the possibilities it offered photographically. So enjoy!

BTW - If you'd like to view what I thought were some of my better shots from the trip feel free to check them out. These are the unedited images so they might show some roughness, but some might want to look at them anyways. Here is the link:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=2027360&id=1463117912&ref=mf

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 200mm, f6.3, 1/60 sec., no flash.

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

Day #54 - Cascade Falls

Today was our last day in the mountains. We had passed these falls on the way to and from St. Elmo each day and today decided to stop for some shots. I had to use tripod of course as I was doing a longer exposure to blur the water. In order to force the camera to allow me to do a long exposure I had to crank the f-stop up as high as possible and crank the ISO as low as possible.

BTW - I got things working again so at least I could do a little editing tonight! Tomorrow back to my normal workspace.

Shot spex: JPEG Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 100, 110mm, f38, 1/8 sec., tripod.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always).

Day #53 - A First Time For Everything

My laptop charger went belly up on the trip so believe it or not I'm doing this posting via my PDA phone from Sprint. The bummer is I cannot do any post processing, but at least I can post something. So here goes nothing!

Day #52 - Up The Mountain

First off, I am beat. Today we did the drive up to Mt. Antero which is one rough son-of-a-gun! It was 4+ hours of non-stop bumpiness. Well, we made it to the top (almost 14,000 feet) and the view was breathtaking so I'd say the effort was well worth it.

Day #51 - I Heart Everything Harry Potter

As mentioned yesterday, we (my Dad, Cameron and myself) are in Colorado. Today we left Golden and headed into the mountains. Our goal was to go over Mosquito Pass to reach Leadville. The signs all said the pass was closed, but we wanted to go as far as we could as there were some structures (the London Mine and Mill) that we wanted to try to see. Well, we were doubly blessed (at least) as we not only made it to the mine and mill, but we also were able to go over the pass to reach Leadville. This was great on so many levels as the alternative would have meant a very long ride around the long way to Leadville.

In the meantime, Cameron has taken to watching every Harry Potter movie we had while traveling and then of course there is the Harry Potter game he has for the PSP... So when I picked his clothes out this morning I decided the Harry Potter shirt was perfect.

We had a good time. Cameron loved looking around the old buildings and collecting rocks. He was getting a little tired of the bouncy ride by the end. He kept saying that the Mountains were following him.

A few times he was a good sport and posed for me. I thought this one turned out the best.

Enjoy!

Day #50 - On The Road Again

Today we drove from Kansas City to Denver. It was an uneventful drive (thankfully) and we made it safely. Things were crazy yesterday and I had anticipated having some down time tonight to shoot and post some pictures. I did get to shoot some nice sunset shots, and when I came back to the hotel room to edit them, I realized that the one thing I forgot to pack (or do before I came) was to load software on my laptop that would allow me to view Pentax Raw files. Oooooops!!!

So after looking for on-line downloads for a while I gave up and have taken to using a picture I shot with my PDA Cell Phone.

Starting tomorrow I will be shooting RAW+JPEG!

P.S. - if anyone knows of a free downloadable utility that will allow me to view and open Pentax RAW files in PhotoShop CS2, please let me know!

Day #49 - Don't Forget To Look Up!

Today I am rushing around like crazy, packing for my trip, and wrapping up a lot of loose ends. I actually have totally packed all my camera gear so I felt like I needed to take a pass on shooting today. I plan to more than make up for it over the next week on my trip.

In the meantime, I shot this earlier this year when we went to Florida. I often forget that there are other perspectives that can be interesting. In this case I happened to look up and saw this shot and had to take it. I hope to remember to look for other unique perspectives in the next week or so.

Day #48 - Happy Birthday Surprise

Today is going to be crazy so I am going to post up a few pictures of the surprise that awaited me as I came in to work this morning.

Last night my wife and brother-in-law came up to work and decorated my cube for my 41st birthday (which happens to be tomorrow). Man, they did a good job. If it's at all possible, my cube is even messier than it was before!

Oh, well. I feel very loved.

Thanks for making me feel special on my (day before) birthday!

I love you guys!

Day #47 - Lazy Day

Today was crazy and lazy. This evening we had a birthday party to attend and Cameron and I had tickets for the latest Harry Potter movie so I just did a quick snap of sorts. Enjoy!

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 100, 68mm, f11, 1/90 sec., flash.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), used the Smudge Stick filter (kinda liked it!) and adjusted Levels, adjusted Brightness/Contrast, then I cropped until I found something I liked.

Day #46 - My Creative Workspace

My friend Jeff who inspired me to start this project did something kinda like this shot a while back. Here is the link to that post: http://jeffgoldenphoto.com/2009/05/day-145-of-365-feeling-flickry.html (you can copy/paste the link to your address bar - I can't figure out how to make this link clickable)

Anyway, in my shot I wanted to capture the essence of my workspace that I am in every evening. I like to edit in the dark in order to see the images better.

This shot is actually two exposures layered together. First I created the exposure for the computer monitor. I wanted it to be clear and not too bright. Then I jumped in the image and posed (the exposure of myself had to be a bit longer, 1 second). I then adjusted each image in PhotoShop to reach the effects I wanted. Then I blended them taking the best effects from each image. I had a blast doing this one!

BTW - Jeff's Link is to the right side. If you want to see more great "Picture A Day" shots, check his out too! Also my Dads' link is up there. He's been at this forever and has great shots!

Shot spex: 2 RAW Images, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 33mm, f4, one exposure 1/6 sec. and one exposure at 1 sec., no flash, tripod for sure!

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Brightness/Contrast, then I cropped until I found something I liked.

Day #45 - Cam And His New Bam

Having a birthday 3 days after Christmas can be really hard. I'm lucky as my birthday is in July and of course Christmas being when it is means every 6 months or so I get some gifts. On the other hand, Cameron's birthday is on December 28th and in the last few years we've taken to the practice of letting him spend some of his birthday money (about 1/2 of it) in the summer on something special so it makes the long wait easier. Well, he's been wanting a new skateboard. He of course loves Bam (some modern pro-skater) and so today we went shopping for a new board. Specifically it had to be an Element brand board and the double bonus would be if it was a Bam board. Thank the Lord that the skate shop only had one Element board and it was a Bam model! Decision making never was easier! His new board is really cool with an electric guitar design on it.

So we came home and put it all together (using some of the parts of his older board) and now he's a happy camper. Of course that meant he owed me a picture or two!

My wife had the bright idea of using the golden light, which turned out great! She requested that I somehow convert everything to Black and White (because of Cameron's mis-matched colors), and I tried that but then I lost the golden effect so I had to go back to color. I figure this way I've captured Cameron as he is. He's an 8 year old who has his own sense of style. Soon enough he'll have to worry about matching colors and all the crud that goes along with looking the way everyone else wants him to look. I did some extra PS trickery including blurring the background layer more than it was and toning down the saturation there too.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 400, 48mm, f4.5, 1/60 sec., no flash.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels, adjusted Brightness/Contrast, then I cropped until I found something I liked.

Day #44 - A Rainbow Of Feet

Today was great! I didn't wake up wondering where in the world I was going to shoot my picture of the day. Not that this is becoming a chore; far from it. I truly look forward to my pic-a-day project every single day. I think it is truly refining my skills and fine-tuning my photographic style in ways I didn't really expect. But sometimes it can be a challenge to find something that I think is really "photo" worthy. Well, today I knew that I was going to shoot family pictures for my buddy Donovan and his wife Brandi's side of the family. I was like 90% sure that my picture today would come from that shoot. It was a great shoot and everyone was great to work with. All of the family members coordinated nicely with white tops and dresses. There were 7 kids total and I was amazed at how easy they all were to work with. I have mentioned before the fun of trying to get kids to pose for pictures, but I didn't experience those problems today. Any way, the kids were all allowed to wear whatever they wanted to on their feet and the variety was really fun. Somewhere around the end of the shoot someone suggested a picture of the kids' feet and so we set it up. Enjoy this rainbow of feet!

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 400, 24mm, f8, 1/90 sec., flash with LumiQuest Softbox attached.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels, adjusted Brightness/Contrast, then I cropped until I found something I liked.

Day #43 - A Dog And His Boys

Boys and dogs are an incredible combination.

Anymore it seems that the boys don't want me to take their pictures anymore, but if you throw a dog in the mix, they suddenly WANT to have a million pictures taken!

I saw Cameron and JJ sitting on our bench in the front yard a little bit ago and they were holding Chewey and I suddenly realized that they were being still and knew I could get a few pictures. I panicked though when I went outside and my lens fogged over. I was worried that they wouldn't stay still for much longer, but thankfully they played along and my lens cleared.

I shot a bunch of pictures, but things looked forced until I just encouraged them to go back to playing with Chewey. Then I had the natural pose I wanted!

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 400, 68mm, f8, 1/90 sec., flash with LumiQuest Softbox attached.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels, adjusted Brightness/Contrast, then I cropped until I found something I liked.

Day #42 - Something Cymbolic

I started off just shooting this because I really didn't know what else to shoot, but then I got to thinking about cymbals and symbolism. Maybe this picture is symbolic for the way I think I am cracking up? Maybe not, but it sounded clever to change the spelling of "symbolic" to "cymbolic", right? Anyway, these 20 year old cymbals have seen better days as they are definitely cracking up!

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 28mm, f8, 1/8 sec., flash with LumiQuest Softbox attached and aimed up at ceiling.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels, adjusted Brightness/Contrast, then I cropped until I found something I liked. I had a lot of yellow in the picture so I adjusted the color to tone that down a bit and then I applied a Cooling Filter for the same reason.

Day #41 - Take That Katrina!

I found out that my boss Katrina deprived me of cookies from Blue Chip Cookie Company today! I know she meant well, me being a diabetic and all, but we are talking about Blue Chip Cookies here! So in honor of the wonderful thing we call the cookie, I decided to treat myself to a few Oreo's with milk.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 200, 40mm, f4.5, 1/15 sec., flash with LumiQuest Softbox attached.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels, adjusted Brightness/Contrast, then I adjusted Hue and saturation a little bit. Oh yeah, I then ate 3 of the Oreo's (I put the other one's back - I promise!) which means 160 calories consumed along with 25 carbs!!

Day #40 - Moon Shots! Part Deux

Tonight I decided to revisit the moon. But this time I decided to not focus so much on the moon but the surrounding elements in the image. I did get a few nice shots of the moon showing the craters, but it seemed kinda boring. That's when I decided to try a different approach.

I had to do some PhotoShop trickery to get rid of a power line, and of course had to do something about the super white oval that showed up where the moon was supposed to be (long exposure = oval moon instead of round moon).

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 200, 200mm, f13, 30 sec., no flash, on tripod.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels, adjusted Brightness/Contrast, then I desaturated the image a little bit and applied a Movie Prime Lens Flare Filter.

Day #39 - Just Say No...

Today I was really stumped as to what to shoot a picture of. Thanks to a simple suggestion from my buddy Donovan, that problem was solved. (Thanks Dono!)

I recently had to start a round of Prednisone to aid in the treatment of Poison Oak. I know some of you have taken this stuff, and you will know what an awful experience taking this stuff is. To the rest of you, avoid the need for this stuff at all costs! It tastes terrible, it makes you all jittery and moody, and it gives you a nasty case of insomnia. Last night I didn't fall asleep... till this morning at 5am!

Well on to the picture. It started off pretty boring and I was about to scrap the picture and edit something previously shot. Then I remembered that I had found this neat tool in PhotoShop called the CutOut Filter. I desaturated the image (converted it to BW) and then applied the filter and am actually really happy with the end result.

Enjoy the picture while I go off and find something to do; since sleeping is unlikely for a couple of hours!

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 103mm, f5.6, 1/15 sec., flash with LumiQuest Softbox attached.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels, adjusted Brightness/Contrast, then I desaturated the image and applied the CutOut Filter.

Day #38 - Late Bloomer

Today a break from people and pet images. I was outside watching these ominous clouds rolling in and was pondering how I might be able to make a nice shot with them. The problem with my house is that I am surrounded by huge trees so except for occasional glimpses of sky through the branches of trees, I can't get a nice sunset shot unless I drive somewhere. So I was walking around the yard when I noticed this plant of Dee Dee's with one lone open flower amongst the many closed buds. I thought it looked odd and so picture worthy all at once. I could have cropped in tighter but I really wanted to show all the buds that were closed.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 40mm, f5.6, 1/8 sec., flash.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels, adjusted Exposure, adjusted Brightness/Contrast and tweaked the colors just a bit.

Day #37 - Our Little Firecracker

Today Cameron and I were supposed to be at Bear Camp, but instead I managed to somehow get into Poison Ivy and I'm now covered all over with this stuff! So no camp for us so I opted to shoot pictures of Chewey. We bought this t-shirt for Chewey, but he was boarded over the weekend so I didn't get the chance to shoot him in his little t-shirt till today.

Pets have to be even harder than kids to pose and shoot pictures of. Chewey never stops moving!!! I shot about 30 pictures trying to get one where you could read the text "Little Firecracker" on the t-shirt and also see his face.

At one point we had two shots back to back where it looks like Chewey is going from looking at the camera to winking at the camera. I set these two images up in a Slide show below just for giggles.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 24mm, f4.5, 1/30 sec., flash aimed up at ceiling.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), adjusted Levels, adjusted Exposure, adjusted Brightness/Contrast just a bit and applied a Warming Filter.

Day #36 - Happy Birthday America

I have to imagine that most people doing picture-a-day projects had to be shooting fireworks pictures tonight. Sorry to be so trite and follow suit, but it's not everyday that you have a surefire pre-planned photo opportunity so I had to take it.

Fireworks pictures are fun to do. It takes a few shots to dial in the exposure and then once you have it you fire away. Typically the exposures are long giving you time for several bursts to fill the frame.

So happy birthday America!

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 100, 78mm, f11, 10 sec., no flash, tripod was a must!

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), and adjusted the Hue a smidge and the Saturation a bit more than normal for the effect.

Day #35 - Family Fun In The Phonebooth

Today I am posting from a remote location. The fun part is I am using a laptop vs. my desktop so everything is different. So forgive me if things just don't look as good today.

Our family is staying up at a hotel near Zona Rosa and so after dinner we decided to walk around. The weather really was nice for an evening stroll. I can't believe this is July. The temperature is so nice!

Anyway, this phone booth looks a lot like the one used in the Harry Potter movie and so Cameron wanted his picture taken in it. Next thing I know I have more photo models than I know what to do with!

So I got to shooting and I think what I got turned out pretty good.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 200, 48mm, f13, 1/30 sec., flash.

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), and adjusted the Brightness and Contrast just a tad bit, I had a nice glare on the glass pane above everyone so I had to use some clone stamp work to remove the glare.

Day #34 - Ron Morse, Version 1.0

Today was nice. I spent quite a bit of time shooting pictures this evening with my Dad. He of course started me on this hobby many years ago and it's always fun spending time with him shooting pictures, or talking shop (PhotoShop that is), or looking at pictures, or discussing the latest in the photography world. I know my wife marvels at how we can just talk and talk and talk about photography. I liken it to the way that my wife and I can talk and talk and talk about our son, Cameron. She and I share Cameron as our primary common denominator, Dad and I share photography, and my buddy Donovan and I share music. The commonalities between us is the glue that bonds our friendships.

Anyway, we started off at Shawnee Mission Park looking for deer to shoot pictures of. And we found plenty of them. Then we drove around for a while. I shot several pictures of Dad while he was shooting pictures of the deer. I shot a few self-portraits of myself via the side rear view mirror (see the second picture). We shot sailboats and flowers. If you ever need a guide for Shawnee Mission Park my dad is your man. We went back to the house and Dad asked me to shoot some pictures of him working on some models he's been working on for his train layout.

Upon looking at the results of all this photography today, I chose to use one from the pictures shot while Dad was working on the model. I was going to crop in tighter during post processing, but realized that so much of what was in the picture helped to describe my dad. He is such an artist and I wanted to include the models in the upper left of the image to show some of his completed work. He is so articulate and has a tool for every thing so I wanted to make sure all of the tools and bottles of glue and paint were shown as well. And of course his attention to detail as he was carefully working on his model was important to me as a primary element of the image.

BTW - I am a Junior so Dad is Ron Morse Version 1.0.

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 200, 18mm, f4, 1/30 sec., flash aimed at ceiling with LumiQuest Softbox attached.

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

Day #33 - Self Portrait Attempt #1

Today I am putting myself out there - literally.

My plan is to do as many shots of people this month as I can. There is a method to my madness. My Dad and I are co-teaching a photo class at his church this fall and I will have a session to lead that will deal with shooting pictures of people. I guess I have some background in this as I have shot quite a few weddings in recent years as well as doing several family sittings. Probably about 10 years ago I got the bug for shooting "people" pictures and found that I have a love for this type of photography. So as part of the effort to prepare myself for this session (including shooting images for PowerPoint presentations) I am "focusing" (pun intended) on shooting people pictures. I know I will get tired of shooting pictures of myself (as everyone else will tire of looking at them) so if you have a desire or need for a few individual or group portraits, please let me know. I am looking for models this month.

So on to this shot of myself. I hate being in pictures. It's probably one of the reasons I shoot pictures - if I'm the one behind the camera, then I'm less likely to be captured in a picture. I'd probably say that the self portrait is probably one of the greatest challenges I face in portraits. If I can create an image I like of myself then that will be something special. Did I accomplish that today? Not in my mind. This is a place to start. I can see a lot of room for improvement and I hope to finish the month of July with another self portrait. We'll see if I think I've learned anything.

Please feel free to comment and offer all positive, negative and constructive feedback. I really want to learn from this process and need the feedback that only others can offer. I've got fairly thick skin and can handle it! I think critique is probably one of the most valuable ways to grow in photography (or any other skill).

Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 130mm, f11, 1/30 sec., flash set at -2.0, tripod (of course).

PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), and adjusted the Contrast barely, converted to BW (to mask the goofy red t-shirt I was wearing), adjusted the Shadow and Highlights a bit to bring in detail on my hair.