09-AUG-2008
Bar Harbor Camping Day 1
(Catching Up)
Site C-8
Day one of our Bar Harbor week. We try to spend a week each year up here. Been doing this for the past 15 years (whew, time flies). This is our third year at this campground,
Hadley's Point Campground after our favorite campground was sold and became a KOA (was Spruce Valley Campground, have no idea what the new name is, we avoid KOA's for vacations).
This is our 8th RV. We've averaged 2 years between each RV, it is like a hobby ;-)
Technically, we have two RV's right now as we haven't sold our popup yet (anyone in New England looking for a great popup?)
08-AUG-2008
Kala's Back
My youngest daughter is back from Girl Scout camp. A week in a tent, in the rain. One night at home and we leave tomorrow morning for our one week vacation to Mt Desert Island (AKA "Acadia National Park" or "Bar Harbor").
I was testing out my new CF cards, arrived just in the nick of time for the trip. I got a pair of Ultra II 4GB's. The label looks a little cheesy on these, they look nothing like my previous three Ultra II's. I bought them off Amazon, they should be legit, but I wanted to make sure they at least worked by taking a bunch of shots tonight.
I got my wife to stand still and my daughter to pose for about 6 shots (a 30 second engagement, it was pure torture for the both of them). A bit of a sepia treatment and localized negative clarity to my daughter's face (though she doesn't need it).
07-AUG-2008
Green shirt
I took a quick trip into downtown Portsmouth today (not something that is wise to do in the summer when the weather is bad). As luck would have it, I found a parking space and there was 23 mins left on the meter! I needed to hit a toy shop for some tin soldiers for a game I am trying to make for the kids for next week. Two toy shops and an oddity shop later, I was no where closer to getting those toy soldiers. Luckily I'd grabbed the 40D and toted it with me while walking around the streets.
This shot looked interesting when I was taking it, then looked boring when I saw it in Lightroom, then looked interesting again after a tighter crop. It brought out what I saw on the street.
06-AUG-2008
Hydrant
Got another hydrant to add to my hydrant fetish collection.
This wasn't what I'd intended to shoot (I can safely insert that opening statement into all my PaD photos). I'd planned on playing with my gels for my strobe (which I did). I actually planned on getting something with some blue gels, however, nothing shot with the blue gel really worked for me (even with the dark overcast skies as a background).
For this shot, I put on a red gel and set the strobe on a metal water shutoff cover aimed at the hydrant. I had to wade through a puddle and cut a small swath through a bunch of wet weeds to get a shot of the hydrant (I know, sounds like a bit of insanity on my part).
To bump the exposure up with only one strobe (and a very little ambient light, it was dark) so I kind of blew out the highlights a tad.
05-AUG-2008
onalds
Been spending too much damn time at this here onald's lately.
Getting out of work too late, or just getting too busy has its toll.
This was another one of those "hey, neat lighting, neat colors, nice contrast" I snapped this from the car while in line to pay at the drive-through. They were running just slow enough that I didn't piss anyone off behind me.
(Getting a little urban/corporate theme going here too)
04-AUG-2008
Regal
Most of my lunchbreak was spent shooting bugs, I'd expected to post either a Butterfly or Bee macro in my PaD today. While running around getting things ready for our camping trip next week, I saw this. This is the new Regal Cinema in Newington, with these vivid colors & the dark storm clouds in the background. By the time I was able to spin around, find a parking spot, and walk out to get this shot, the real dark clouds had moved out of frame. However, this didn't look so bad ;-)
I'm a bit upset with all the noise in the background, it could be the presets I was using that really punched it.
There were a bunch of photos today that didn't make my PaD, but made some other galleries:
Macros:
Almost PaD:
03-AUG-2008
Camp Girls
Dropped my 10 year old off at Girl Scout camp this afternoon. She went with a friend from school this time (normally it's "make a friend" camp). Her friend has the ultimate in mosquito netting (the tent). They are staying within a [canvas] tent with an actual roof.
I had visions of taking lots of photos of the area (I knew my kids wouldn't want to pose) but we had to leave because my other two were pretty hungry (my 10 year old had a lunch, the others didn't). So we left & took another 45 mins to find a place to eat, then went to the new Cabellas in Scarborough Maine. I've been to a few other Cabellas, I call them the "Walmart verison of LL. Bean". I wish we hadn't wasted our time at Cabellas and gone straight to Bean (only 20 mins North at that point), we couldn't find what we were looking for.
So back to the camp photo. I thought the photo looked a bit overexposed. It wasn't until I got back home (hours later) that I realized I'd set FEC to +1 stop for some other reason (no idea at the moment).
02-AUG-2008
Pinpoint lighting
Another Strobist shot. I've had all these cool materials sitting around for quite some time to make a 'snoot' (this black, metal foil and a ton of brown plastic straws). This evening I spent all of 2 minutes making a contraption that fit over my 580EX2 & would focus the flash into a very tight circle. I practiced on my daughter who wasn't actually posing for a portrait, she was playing a PS2 game (they've dusted off 'old' console). I got better expressions from her focused on the game than I ever had (almost). Unfortunately, I realized later, she'd (we'd) just had a good-sized BBQ meal. I was able to Heal some of it off her, the rest adds character.
I like the pinpoint lighting, she was in our [cluttered] family room & I was able to expose only her face, pretty much all the other distracting stuff is in the dark.
01-AUG-2008
Through the weeds
I was out in the meadow for lunch today, camped out by this flower, macro setup ready to go. I intended on posting a Bee macro today for my PaD, really I did. After a number of bees stopped by and I captured them, I put the 70-200 on and did a few odd shots. This one was of the flower (the Bee target) shot through some weeds to give it a softer look.
Cropped square & a hint of a vignette (post-crop) and I really like this image.
Here are a few Macros that didn't make the PaD:
31-JUL-2008
What is behind the green door?
I like old stuff like this. I actually broke out at lunch time and rode off, intending to reach some sandy place for some kind of photographic resurrection (in the spirit of
socalrailfan from his
Photography On the Net post).
I never made it to a sandy place, instead I found myself cruising the streets of Portsmouth. I stumbled upon this old garage door behind the municipal building.
30-JUL-2008
Strobist Gargoyle
My Roscoe gels came in this week and I'd yet to actually play with them. I set up two strobes for this, one with a red gel (#124 Red Cyc Silk) filling the background (a while posterboard) and a green gel (#122 Green Diffusion) camera lower left, illuminating most of the front of the gargoyle. With just the red flash, the background is entirely red (and a pretty menacing effect). With the green illuminating the gargoyle and spilling over onto the posterboard, it would cancel out the red wherever they met. This would leave a red background only in the shadows. A wider angle would reveal a relatively well-lit gargoyle with a red shadow.
I was originally attempting to shoot through the viewfinder of my Yashicamat so I switched to my 100mm macro to get closer in. When I abandoned that idea (I need a lot more light for that) I left the 100mm on when shooting the subject directly, resulting in a much tighter shot.
I also wanted to play around a bit with localized edits in LR2, so I punched the green to bring it out a lot more. I put a bit of a post crop vignette in, used a camera standard profile (new to LR2), and added some sharpening.
I left the strobes where they are, I might put the 17-55 back on and get a wider shot to show the red shadow. Actually, I might be able to put my whibal card in and remove the green entirely. Hmm, gonna give that one a try.
Anyway, tonight is a learning night. I've been wanting to play with color gels for a long time and now I have the ability to do so...
(Update, here's a wider shot)
29-JUL-2008
Lightroom 2.0 Playing Around
Nothing special here, I just installed Lightroom 2.0 and was playing around. I needed a quick PaD shot for today. Not an optimal shot for LR 2.0, but something to play with.
I was able to upgrade and import my existing LR 1.x catalog with no problems. I've found a bunch of extras and am in the process of downloading them (more toys).