39/52 - Isaac David Roberts

Friday morning, 10/21/11 @ 10:03am, my life changed forever. 

My son, Isaac David Roberts, was born. 

6lb 9oz and 19 3/4 inches. 

He is perfect.

Thank you Lord for this unbelievable gift.

Let me know what you think.

T.

38/52 - Fall DOF

Fall is finally under way in North Carolina.  Bringing cold weather and beautiful leaves.  Between Illinois and North Carolina, I will take NC Fall every day.  The weather is beautiful and there are more trees, more mountains and better foliage this time of year.  It's a great place to spend the fall.

Since the leaves just started falling, I wanted to capture a very simple image of fall...one single leaf laying on the deck rail.  I really just wanted to focus on the leaf and nothing else, so I knew my 50mm f/1.8 lens would be perfect for the task.

Since I didn't really have any leaves sitting on the railing, I grabbed one from the yard, and placed it on the railing.  I knew I wanted a lot of railing left over in the background, in order to have some leading lines and have more of the scene out of focus. 

It was really a pretty simple photo...I had to snap the picture fairly quickly because if you move the camera much at f/1.8, you will quickly lose focus on your subject, so as soon as I locked it in, I needed to shoot.

Some slight tweaks in PS later (mostly just making the color more vibrant and adding a little contrast) and I had my picture.

It's pretty simple, but I like it.

Let me know what you think.

T.

37/52 - Baby Name

So, here's another maternity picture...a recurring theme in my photos.  We're getting really close to the baby showing up, so we're both really excited about it. 

Technically, we've got 9 days left, but he could really show up about any time now.  I've had this picture in mind for a little while.  Shortly after finding out Paige was pregnant, I did a few searches on-line for maternity pictures and this was one of the first ones I saw that I really liked.  I saved the picture in a file of 'maternity pictures to take' and stored it away until Paige was pregnant enough to actually ge it.

Finally, her belly was big enough to get the picture I had in mind, so we set up the other night and went about trying to capture it.  It was really a pretty simple picture to take.  We used her 'Moby' wrap as the cloth wrapped around her.  While the wrap is designed to hold a baby, it works pretty well as a body wrap too.

The set up for this picture is pretty similar to many of the other ones I've done.  After capturing the image, I brought it into Photoshop, adjusted it a bit, then extended the background to make it look like she's standing in a much larger room than she actually was.

We've decided on a name for our little guy and I wanted to incorporate it into the image.  Isaac is my middle name, which I've always really liked and have always wanted to name my child.  David is a pretty regular name between both of our families and I thought that it flowed really well with Isaac.  I like the way the two names sound together and can't wait to actually use it to him in person.

Let me know what you think:

Update:

I found a couple flaws with the photo above and tweaked it a little more.  I cropped in a bit, centered the text properly, brightened Paige and edited out a white line in the top middle of the photo.  Also added a signature.  I like this version better.

T.

36/52 - Belly Sunset

I saw a picture like this the other day on-line and really wanted to try to emulate it.  The picture I saw was a little different because it was a guy (cowboy) who was the subject and had a split rail fence in the middle of a field, but I thought I could get something close to it with the fence around my pool and my pregnant wife in stead.

So, the other night after dinner, I had Paige put on a shirt that her belly would stick out of (the same shirt from the "Belly Shirt" picture) and head out to the pool.  Our pool is shaded in the afternoons / evenings and the sun actually sets behind Paige, so I had to re-create the sunset light.  To do this, I put a 1/4 CTO (color temperature orange) gel on my flash and shot it through an umbrella to soften the light and 'warm' it up a bit to mimic a sunset.  I could have put a 1/2 CTO gel on it, but I think with how bright the ambient was, it would have looked a little fake.

After getting the lighting dialed in, by using myself as a test subject, I had Paige come out, snapped 5-6 pictures and called it a night!  I got a couple that I liked out of the bunch.  I really liked this one of Paige the most.  I got one of the both of us together, which I liked as well, then I got one of just myself, which Paige really liked. 

Let me know what you think.

T.

35/52 - Pose

I know I've posted a few pictures of the puppy before, but when you only have a wife and a dog to act as models, the subject of the pictures can get a bit repetitive.
So, here's another picture of the dog.

When we were in Arizona a couple of months ago, we visited some friends.  They have a big canvas black and white print of their dog hanging in their bedroom and both Paige and I thought it was a pretty cool picture.  We both liked the idea of getting a nice shot of the dog and potentially printing one out.  So, over the last few weeks I've been thinking of a shot I wanted to get of our dog and putting it in B&W. 

The other night, just before sun-down, I decided to take the puppy outside and have her sit for me.  I didn't just want a head shot of her and I didn't really want a full body shot either, so I decided to go 3/4 length.  I brought out a couple of treats with me and, like she always does, she will sit extremely still for me while I'm holding it.  So, I put the treat over the lens of the camera, told her to stay, and started snapping away. 

I like this shot a lot.  I like her expression, how she looks strong and lean and at attention.  You can really see the terrier in her in this picture more so than the boxer.

If I were to print this, I would need to lighten it up a bit...bring more detail in her eyes and just brighten the picture overall, but I think it's a good starting place.  Maybe I'll try a few more before we print one, but this one is definitely a keeper.

Let me know what you think.

T.