Day 41 of 365

Day 40 was a closeup of this lantern. This was a 20 second exposure and while the shutter was open I flashed an off camera flash diffused with some cloth for a little fill light. I've been sick the last four days but feel better tonight so expect to head back to work tomorrow and will have boots in mind for tomorrows photo.

Day 40 of 365

ISO 100, f/5, 1/4 sec

Can't seem to shake this cold so stayed home again today. Decided to play with candle light today. My wife enjoys doing decoupage and we have several very nice things around the house she's done over the years. This is a macro of part of a storm lantern cover lit from below by a small candle.

Day 39 of 365

ISO 100, f/5, 190mm, 1/6 sec, -1 EV

Uninspired mostly due to a second day of having a cold. Abalone shell on crumpled up black fabric so the shell sits up at an angle instead of flat. Shot at a slight angle to get more of the curve. Now that I look at it I think a bit less DoF would have been better so the back has a little more definition.

Day 38 of 365

ISO 100, 190mm, f/11, 1/15 sec

Had grand plans to get out and shot outside today. It's been raining the last couple of days so was expecting to get out and get a little wet and dirty but woke up with a sore throat and runny nose. Apparently it's time for my yearly two day cold so didn't get out. Grabbed a bunch of dried leaves my wife has in a basket in the living room and worked on my studio lighting in the lightbox.

Day 37 of 365

Today was a dreary day so I thought I'd try using the camera monochrome picture style for effect. Unknown to me Adobe Camera Raw doesn't acknowledge the Canon picture style information in the metadata so I had to recreate in Adobe Camera Raw. Kind of deflated me and while it would be nice to use the picture styles I'll probably not do so again...no reason too if I just have to recreate it in Photoshop.

Day 36 of 365

The boots were hungry this morning so we headed to the Dining Facility only to find it all boarded up. Oh how we miss the fine dining to be had at the typical Army mess hall.



I had a couple campus police officers approach me this morning while I was taking my photos. I had been expecting this to happen eventually but I knew I didn't have any problems and they were going to just make sure I wasn't up to no good. We have a problem with people stealing copper and other metals from the old buildings so they just wanted to make sure I wasn't a thief. Since I work on campus I introduced myself and showed my employee ID when they asked. Very friendly and in the course of the conversation mentioned to just let them know if I go into the buildings. Wait what? I can enter the buildings? Sure...just stop by and sign a liability release and tell us when and what buildings you want to enter and you'll be all set. Sweet...the boots may just be exploring some old barracks here in the very near future. They want to demolish all the old Army buildings soon so being able to document some of the artwork on the walls will be cool. Now I just need to figure out what do to with lighting. The outer rooms will have light from outside but the hallways and inner rooms will be pretty dark. Stay tuned...

Day 35 of 365

I spent some time in the garage tonight after class playing with lighting. I used the same flowers I took my photo of the other day but wanted to work with a single flower and only a portion of that. I took several photos and really had a hard time picking just one so tonight is a bonus night. I'd go into great detail about how I got the lighting the way I did if I remembered exactly. I hand held a small canister light and moved it around the flower trying to just highlight certain areas of the petals and pressing my shutter release. I was surprised with the completely dark background on the three seen here. I believe I was holding the light straight down on the flower and with my exposure compensation set at -2 with a relatively fast shutter release I achieved this. I guess I need to document this better so I remember how I did it. Lesson learned.

Day 34 of 365 - Getting my geek on

I was chatting with a few people on Twitter earlier and my level of geekiness was tested (in jest) so to help show just how much of a geek I am I give you just one of many miniatures I painted when I played Dungeons & Dragons. I spent about an hour this evening digging everything out and deciding what to use. Because I had a hard time I think my next couple of days of photos will be playing with lighting and photographing some of my old miniatures. I would spend hours painting these things and still have several unpainted or in various stages of completion. I miss playing and haven't played since moving from Seattle about 8 years ago. Hard to find a good group of people who are washed, have jobs and don't live in their parents basement.

Day 33 of 365

Today is the first day of the semester for me. I'm taking a Photoshop class that is more about using it for painting and creation instead of manipulating photographs, which I'm fairly component at. I'm also taking American Sign Language with my wife. We both are in school and need to fulfill out language requirements and we've both been interested in ASL. I think taking ASL is coming at the right time for me. I've really been pushing myself to become more creative and I think learning something that requires my hands and that part of the brain will help my process. Now that I'm starting my second month of this project I'm going to see about getting a little more creative. Why take a picture of the whole flower when just part may look good, or maybe shooting at an angle that seems unusual, I may even get some knee pads and spend an entire shoot just crawling around on the ground. Part of my process is to figure out just what my photography "calling" is. Most people have one area they specialize in, not that I feel I need to specialize, but I think I'd like to figure out if there's a particular area that interests me the most. Just like with my massage practice...I give a kickass swedish style massage but my real enjoyment comes from working with athletes and others with specific injuries.

Enough of my musings...here's my, "oh my it's already 10pm and I haven't taken my daily photo yet" photo. Flowers I bought my wife at the farmers market yesterday in my lightbox playing around with different lighting. I was going to just shoot a couple and ended up with 41...not that most are any good since I was playing with lighting and how long to hold the shutter open.

Day 32 of 365

I took almost 100 photos today and had a hard time finding one I liked. I'm not even really sure I like this one but it's in focus, unlike a bunch of others I took, and it is what I intended. I wanted to frame the crane but I'm not sure if I should have tried to get the foreground foliage to be in focus instead of out of focus. I also really wanted to get that dang duck out of the shot it seems every time I pressed the shutter release it decided to dive underwater leaving it butt sticking up. It looks like it tilted a little as well...not sure if it's just the shadow creating the effect or not. I need to focus a little more on horizon lines...I get caught up on the subject and forget to make sure I'm looking at it level. So what do you think? Would the shot be better with in focus foreground or is the subject strong enough to pull it off as is?