Dec 14 2008

2 for 1 Sale

Here you have it; a pattern seems to be forming. For whatever reason, I can’t seem to take and post my daily photos on the weekend. So I’m going to blog about both photos in one post.

December 13, 2008

No real trick to this one. “Hey, Rece … stand here in this dark room and spin this lit lighter in a spiraling circle.” In all honesty, I had spent most of the afternoon and all night playing Lord of the Rings Online and hadn’t taken a picture all day. This one was rushed so I could get it in under the wire. It’s still an interesting photo, regardless.

December 14, 2008

Here’s me editing the above photo. I set up the camera on self-timer and sat down to start editing the photo. This is pretty much what it looks like: me at my computer, sitting in my jammies, tweaking the photo until I think it looks right. No magic to it, really.

This entry thinks it was too lazy this weekend.


Dec 12 2008

Puppies

The concept isn’t new to me. In fact I told my friend Karen about it awhile back. She actually tried it and turned out taking a couple of really cool shots. So it was my turn to actually try one of my suggestions.

December 12, 2008 - Puppies

This is something I’ve thought about doing for awhile, but didn’t have the camera to do it. My current camera allows for this to happen and I’ve had it for long enough to be comfortable trying something different. The sign was chosen the evening before when we ate at the burger joint next door. So at around 10:30 pm Rece and I stopped and I snapped a few shots. This actually turned out to be easier to do than I thought, although I couldn’t imagine trying to do it without a tripod without some serious blur and shake.

This entry thinks the sign is staring at it.


Dec 11 2008

Sunset Skater

Rece’s doctor appointment was canceled at the last minute (with us sitting in the waiting room!) so we had some time to spare before picking up Sam for dinner. My first thoughts were to capture the sunset as a reflection off some buildings, but I couldn’t find a building or the right angle to pull it off. We headed down to the same park I took the previous sunset photo to see what we could find.

 Sunset Skater

When we arrived Rece spotted some of his friends from school skating around the park. We asked them if it would be OK for me to snap some pictures of them doing some tricks and they agreed. I have to say that shooting photos in low light situations and trying to capture action is no easy task. I liked the action and framing of this shot, though there were a couple that would have been perfect had I been to the left or right a bit more.

Afterward, we picked up Sam and ate at Johnny’s Burger Joint, a new place not far from where Sam and Christine live. Good burgers and cold (29.7° F) beer really hit the spot.

This entry wishes it could perform a kick flip.


Dec 10 2008

Evil Lego

Feeling rather demented, I opted for something both silly and sick in the head as a scene for today’s photo.

 December 10, 2008

It took a little time to sort through what’s left of Rece’s Lego collection and find enough pieces to set this up. Then I sucked a little ketchup (catsup?!) into a straw and blew it out, splattering it right where I wanted – and looking better (worse?!) than anticipated. Rece got home not too long after and inquired as to why his Legos were in the drying rack …

This entry doesn’t understand the point.


Dec 9 2008

Bees

There’s a beehive under a water valve cover in the parking lot at work. I noticed them more when it was warmer and had almost forgotten about them until today. It must have been because it was warmer today that the bees were abuzz with activity. I just so happened to park next to their hive and saw it as an opportunity to take some pictures. After shooting a dozen or so pictures and previewing them I realized that I had again forgotten about the camera settings and everything was completely overexposed – and not in a fun, artsy way either. I snapped another dozen and came up with a few decent shots.

December 9, 2008

The fact that I was in my work clothes and, well, they’re bees, I didn’t get close enough to make a nice large sized photo. So instead, I had to settle for cropping it and living with a smaller image.

This entry was happy that it wasn’t covered in bees!


Dec 8 2008

Dog is my copilot

Sometimes I forget to turn the autofocus back on.

 December 8, 2008

This was cute and quick. I stopped by the store and saw this dog sitting in the passenger seat of a car. It was a handicapped spot, so either the dog drove the person to the store or the handicap is that the driver is a dog. I’m not sure which.

I pulled my camera out of my car to snap this so quickly that I forgot to turn the autofocus back on and I wasn’t paying much attention to what I saw in the view finder, so I didn’t think to manually focus either. This was the best focus out of all the shots.

This entry forgot to finish this entry.


Dec 8 2008

Late

I think I’m going to amend my saying that I’ll take and post a picture every day this month to be more like I’ll take a picture everyday, but it may take a day to actually post it. That being said, I’ll still do my best to post it on the same day that I take it.

December 7, 2008

I went to the store to pick up a couple of things and when I got out there was this vivid sunset starting to form. I hurried to my car and drove to the nearest spot I knew of where I might capture it. What I like best about this shot (aside from the fact it was a beautiful sunset) is the row of palm trees in silhouette.

The park I went to take this turned out to be a place where quite a few people were gathering to enjoy the view. Couples holding hands, a woman walking a dog, an older fellow doing the same as I was – taking pictures – were all there taking in the beauty of a Southern California sunset with the uncommon addition of a cloudy sky to give the light something to play with.

This entry never gets tired of sunset.


Dec 6 2008

Technically speaking

I was helping my friend Rana with her computer; she’s a graphic artist and enjoys photography as well. While sitting around waiting for a malware scan to finish, I spotted one of the old components we took out her computer and thought it would make for a good subject for a photo. We discussed how it might best photograph and experimented with a few angles and focal points. This was the result.

December 6, 2008

This is an AGP video card. The big part you see here is the heatsink for the GPU. Either this video card or the memory stick in her computer was bad and causing some errors and/or random restarts. I swapped them both out with some spare parts I had laying about and her computer was back to behaving as it should.

This entry loves macro shots.


Dec 6 2008

Last minute guitar

Time just wasn’t on my side today. So I ended up having to do another photo at home. I can’t say this is bad or good, but it was an attempt at something different.

December 5, 2008

My dad was in town so we went out for dinner to catch up on what’s going on with one another. The picture is of his guitar. He’s had the thing forever and it always reminds me of when he used to play and sing for us as kids. One of my favorites was one we called “Jungle Boy”. I’ve tried finding the lyrics to the song, but I never can. There was a part of the song where he’d do this jungle bird call type of sound that would make us all giggle and laugh. My dad’s love of music is something that seems to have stuck with me. It’s no wonder that his children have made it big a part of their lives, too.

This entry remembers furious strumming and a “brrdddddddd – KAH KAH KAH!”


Dec 4 2008

Just hold perfectly still

Today I decided that I didn’t take enough photos of people. I also don’t take photos of people at night … well, ever. I recruited my own personal teenage model (Rece) for an attempt to do long exposure night shots against a brick wall. He was willing, but definitely didn’t understand the concept of holding perfectly still! Anyhow, 2 of the shots out of 14 weren’t blurred, so I can’t complain too much.

December 4, 2008 - darker

The idea for this moody shot came earlier in the day when I went home for lunch. For some reason the brick wall just caught my attention and I thought it could only look good if shot at night. Then I went through all manner of ideas of what to put in front of the brick wall … a chair? a plant? a vacuum? I couldn’t decide at first, but then it came to me – a person … but who? Rece, of course! But how would I shoot it at night with an extended exposure – people move. That’s the beauty of digital photography, I could just shoot until I got one that wasn’t blurry. Lucky for me it only took 14 shots to get 2 and one of those was good enough to apply some effects that would capture my idea.

This entry likes it dark and moody.