6/52 - Scrounging for pictures

OK, so I'm not going to lie...I didn't get a picture for this week.

I traveled all last week, spending 20+ hours traveling via airplanes (when I could have driven in 16 or less), then got home and decided to remodel the kitchen. I had Friday off, so thought I'd try to get a lot of work done around the house with the long weekend. I did get a lot of work done, but it literally took me the entire weekend. I spent more than 30 hours between installing new counter tops, cutting and laying quarter-round on the baseboards and installing and grouting a new tile back-splash.

The good news is that it looks like we have a brand new, modern, warm kitchen versus what we had before. Check out the before / after picture.

Kitchen Before/After -

The bad news is that I had no time to do any shooting this last week. So, I don't really have any new pictures to put up. I've got one that I took a few weeks ago that I'll include.

When looking for a new picture to take, I saw a lot of self-portraits head shots that people have taken of themselves and I thought they looked cool. I wanted a picture that was just of my head and face and pretty much cut everything else out. I also really liked the B&W processing that I did on my pictures of Paige, so I decided to apply that to this image as well. I just wanted it to be a very basic image. I really like the specular highlights that a lot of people get in these images (the light reflected in the eye or something like that), usually either from a flash or window, so I wanted to try to capture the same kind of thing. Since I don't have an external flash, I had to try to capture one using daylight and a window.

So, I headed down to our big front bay window and started snapping away. Trying to get the correct focus at f/1.8, shooting a picture of yourself is pretty tricky, so it took me several shots to get my left eye as the focal point and get the image I was looking for, but I was really pleased with how it came out in the end.



P.S. I'm sure some of you will be happy to know that I've since shaved off the grungy beard...I was several days past a trim / haircut when I shot the picture, so it looks extra dirt-baggish.

Let me know what you think.


T

5/52 - Love is hard work

Since it was just Valentine's Day this last week, I think that a picture of our wedding rings works out pretty well.

I was trying to think of a good title having to do with love or wedding rings or something sappy and I came across this quote, which I liked a lot.

"People usually talk about wedding rings being a perfect circle, with no beginning and no end. But, in reality, these rings do have a beginning. Diamonds are dug up from the earth, silver and gold are liquefied in a furnace at a thousand degrees. Hot metal is poured into a mold, cooled, then painstakingly polished. Something beautiful is made from raw elements.
Love is like that. It's hot dirty work. It comes from humble beginnings and is made by imperfect beings. It's a process of making something beautiful where there was once nothing at all."

I came up with the idea for this shot from a picture I found on-line where a wedding photographer took a very simple photo of the wedding rings on a glass. He had the bride's ring upside down, resting on the diamond and the groom's ring was square, so it stood on its own, next to the engagement ring, pretty easily. I didn't like the idea of the bride's ring being upside down and not being able to see the diamond, so I tried to change it up a bit. Since Paige has 2 wedding bands, they worked out really well to hold my ring up (since it's not square or flat), then I could put her engagement ring in the middle where you'd be able to see the diamond. And for the stand, it's just a wine glass flipped upside down. I like how it kind of looks like a glass pedestal. I held up a white plastic cutting board behind the rings and aimed a flashlight at them to give them a little sparkle.

In the end, I really like the way that it came out.



Let me know what you guys think.

T.

4/52 - D.O.F.

I'm a full week late on getting this picture posted, but, to my credit, I actually took it last week, but didn't get it uploaded until today. I've been traveling for work and just didn't get a chance to upload it before I left last week.

I wanted to try to get a picture this week with a very limited Depth of Field. I wanted to have a repeating pattern or structure in the picture to really show off just how shallow it was. I really wanted to be able to isolate one object within the whole picture.

I shot this with my 50mm f/1.8 (nifty fifty), which, with the very wide aperture, really helps you achieve the limited focal area.

I set this shot up at night, so all of the light that is illuminating the railings is from the moon coming in our big front window. I tried it a few times, using the house lights, but just couldn't get a very interesting look. I really like how the light is all coming from the side, giving a really nice contrast to the opposite side. With a quick conversion to black and white, I was all done.

I think that it turned out pretty well!



Let me know what you think.

T

3/52 - Floating Lillies

Well, I'm late again this week getting a picture posted. This picture is kind of weak sauce, but I figured I'd post it anyway. I tried shooting these flowers about 30 times and didn't get a picture that I really liked. I just couldn't get the light to work and my white background wasn't coming off as white and I was just having all kinds of problems. So, I stopped for a while, came back to it a while later and shot a few more frames.

I ended up getting this picture and liked it more than the other ones I shot. I'm still not crazy about it, but it'll do for now.

To get this shot, I used two pieces of white poster board for the background and a white piece of plexiglass for the base. I took two pieces of white wire hangers and cut them to make little stands for the flower, to get it up off of the ground and look like it was floating in the air. Later, I removed the stands in Photoshop.

I had the flower in front of a window, which I thought would give it pretty good light, but since the window isn't big enough, it was casting shadows on the white background and making it uneven. So, I put the whole set up in the middle of the kitchen counters and just shot with a long exposure to blow out the white background and make it look a little more uniform.

So, that's about it. Nothing too exciting.

Let me know what you think.

T

2/52 - B&W Model

Well, it's only week #2 and I'm already running late on posting, so this isn't looking promising!

Actually, I got these pictures done really early in the week, just didn't get them posted until today.

I've seen this style of pictures a lot lately and I really like the way that they look. I like the bleached out skin against the black background. It kind of gives a kick to the typical black and white picture.

These were both just shot in the bedroom against a black sheet for a background. The lighting set up was far less than professional as I was using a utility work light that has two lights on it facing right at her in front of the camera. But, I really like the way that they turned out.

It's nice having someone that is willing to pose for me whenever I feel like "trying something new".

So, thanks to Paige for indulging me and letting me experiment on her!





Let me know what you think.

T

52 Week Challenge

OK, well, I've seen these challenges around on-line and thought that I might try to do one this year. Who knows if it will actually happen, but I'll try to do it as much as I can.

The goal of this challenge is to post a new picture every week for the year. I'll try as hard as I can get get a new picture shot every week, edited and posted on the site. I tried to start off the year well, but only got 1 post up, which was the sunset post below. So, I'll try to be better going forward.

So, I guess I'll start this off with this picture.

This is a barn that's about 2 miles from my house. It's pretty neat looking, has a nice field and pond right next to it and just sticks out compared to the houses around it.

I got this picture the day after one of our big snow falls down here and I thought that the red of the barn really stood out against the white of the snow and the clouds. It was a fun day to be out shooting, since everything was covered with snow, so anything that had color, really stood out.

Anyway, I hope you like my first picture of the new challenge. Hopefully, I can find new things to shoot every week and get them all posted in time.

Let me know what you think.

T

Winter Sunset

Well,
This last week(end) Paige's family was out here to visit. We were able to celebrate Christmas with her family and grandparents on the 28th, then her grandparents took off the next morning, but her parents and brother stayed to help us ring in the new year.
It was a great week and a lot of relaxing, but one day, we felt that we needed to get some exercise. So, Dave and I ran 5 miles (Chad ran 7), then we headed up to Hanging Rock State Park to do some hiking. They hadn't ever been there and I thought it would be a lot of fun to get out and do some winter hiking. It was a beautiful day, mid-40's, when we hit the road and it only got better once we got to the mountain. We started off with an easy 5.5 mile trail that took us to the highest point of the range. It's a trail Paige and I have done before and I've got a picture of it in one of the earlier posts of the foggy hand railing.
When we got to the fire tower, which marks the highest point of the range, we decided to stop, enjoy the scenery and get a picture. I was pretty pooped by this point. The fire tower is 3.5 miles into the hike, so I'm already 8.5 miles into my day and completely worn out.
We hung out there for a few minutes (the wind was blowing and it was pretty cold up there) and decided to head on back to the car.
Once back at the car, since they didn't have a chance to see the actual "hanging rock", we thought it would be a good idea to hike out to that as well...what's another 2.5 miles when you've already done 10.5.
So, we hit the trail again, Chad leading the way, because Dave and I were so tired, we could barely make it.
Once we got out to the rock, it proved to be completely worth it. The skies cleared up and we got to be a part of a magnificent sunset. Of course, I was snapping away with the camera, but I think that I got some pretty cool pictures of it.
My two favorite are the vertical sunset picture and the silhouette of Chad against the sunset.
I put a slightly different frame around these pictures. I decided to use a drop shadow to frame the picture rather than a fake mat...I think that they came out pretty well.
Anyway, it was a great few days with them and Dave, Chad and I had a blast out on the trails...even though I almost had to roll down the trail to get back to the parking lot because my legs were too tired.

- Half way through the first hike at the top of the Sauratown mountain range.

- A panoramic of the sunset.

- Horizontal picture of the sunset...it was really neat.

- Vertical sunset.

- Chad silhouetted against the sunset and clouds.

Let me know what you think.

T.