23-APR-2009
Day 113 - See no evil
This is the church that is across the street from my kid's gymnastics class(es). On my way in to drop off my daughter and pick up my son, I noticed this incredible scene. There was direct sun coming in from camera left and these dark clouds serving as a backdrop to the steeple. On my way back, with my son in the car (complaining that he had to wait for Dad to take another picture) I snagged this shot. I exposed more for the clouds than the steeple itself and then selectively bumped up the exposure in Lightroom. I used the healing tool to remove some power lines in the lower left hand corner. Luckily I had irregular clouds behind the power lines so I didn't have to be super careful.
22-APR-2009
Day 112 - Disjointed
While this shot, to me, is pretty interesting, there is a sort of disjointed and possibly morbid tone to it. I really wanted to capture my son's expression via a reflection in a puddle, which I was able to get. The cut off legs at the top with the continuation of his top, upside down at the bottom of the image is hard to process (something just isn't right). Still a cool image though.
21-APR-2009
Day 111 - I see a red barn
I have no desire to paint it black. It was a drizzly, overcast morning. Nothing in Dover excited me, I kind of had this in mind as a fallback. I love this barn, but never drive by it at the right time to capture it. I need to pop by some evening at dusk and position myself a lot more to the left here so that I can get the barn and the field in the background in frame.
20-APR-2009
Day 110 - Urban art
Just outside of the gymnastics center that I dropped my son off to this morning is this textbook example of Urban Art. What I'd wanted to shoot was a Utility truck driving down the railroad tracks behind this panel. The truck passed right by the train station, I'd hoped to catch some of the waiting passenger's expressions, but I wasn't able to grab my camera in time and there was a fence in the way that would have prevented me from getting the angle I wanted. This gym thing is a week long event since there is no school this week. I am holding out for a decent shot of something train related.
19-APR-2009
Day 109 - Cool Gadgets
I am trying to showcase the GPS and not the fact that I am on a dirt road. After a Cub Scout Leader's meeting this evening, I shot on over to a co-worker's home lot (there is a concrete pad on which a temporary house shall be sitting in a few more weeks) to check on the status of his road before the rains hit (something like 2" coming), to test out the new GPS mount on the bike, to get his coordinates into the GPS, and to just plain get out and ride a little (very little). You will notice that the Odometer is showing 0 mph. I am not about to attempt to take a photo while riding on this dirt road (or any road yet). Though they do make a mount for the camera (hmmm, good idea).
18-APR-2009
Day 108 - Struggle
From now on when I set out on a "photo mission" I am only going to arm myself with a "vision" and not a "plan". We had a pretty busy day today, I found it getting towards dusk and still no PaD. I grabbed the gear (including the tridpod) and walked down to the river (our association has a common area on the river) to take some shots of the river. I had these elaborate river/water shots in mind with trees and various aquatic, aviary, and topiary subjects. Nothing was really working, as I was walking around to get a better view of a branch across the river, I noticed this bobber in the tree (which could belong to one of my children) and tried capturing it. The light was failing, I was on a tripod and shooting ISO 100, so I had a rather slow shutter speed. There was a bit of a wind and so I wound up with quite a few throw away shots. This one slipped in just before I bumped the ISO up to 800 to get a slightly faster shutter speed. The higher ISO shots just didn't do it for me, this one did though. A simple view of this image totally desaturated gave me the idea for selective coloring. I used Lightroom 2.x with a selective adjustment. Pretty much the entire image is desaturated, save for the red in the bobber. Should some very affluent curator of fine arts wish to spend gobs of money on this, I can do a much better job at the selective coloring in Photoshop. Since I don't see that happening, this works just fine.
17-APR-2009
Day 107 - Floral Theme
Since yesterday's shot was a floral theme and I more than established the fact that I have zero botanical genes in my system, I figured what better way to prove this then to take yet another photo of a flower. It had nothing to do with running out of time for a PaD shot today (and oh what a beautiful day it was). I will count this session as a bit of a learning session, especially during Post Processing as the image I was about to post wasn't quite the same as the image that is seen here. Since the subject was nearby and movable, I decided to grab it and compare it to the monitor. The color was pretty far off. It was this sick blue color, nothing like the purple that the flower actually is. I assure you that the image you see here (should you have a semi-calibrated monitor) is a correct rendition of the actual flower. I cannot, however, tell you what kind of flower it is, other than one that is in a vase. My daughter received this yesterday for participating in a rendition of "Treasure Island". She was in the chorus and played the bongos between each scene.
16-APR-2009
Day 106 - Sign of Spring
Give us a few nice days and we start catching glimpses of a potential spring around here. These are some kind of flower that grows every year in our back yard. Yes, you've guessed it, I have no clue what kind of flower this is. I know it is yellow and it comes out every spring even though I don't actually do anything to make this so. It is a nice thing to see every spring though. (If I had to guess, I would say this is a Jon-Quil or perhaps a Lily).
I stand corrected, apparently this is some form of Daffodil. They are so popular, there is an entire society established for the education of such floral illiterates like myself. The
American Daffodil Society has provided illustrious chapters of propaganda related to this flower. I now consider myself edu-ma-cated.
15-APR-2009
Day 105 - The taxman commeth
The dollar bills represent what we are left with this year after paying the bill. I am dedicating today's PaD to the IRS. Now if only I could find a way to deduct this. . .
14-APR-2009
Day 104 - Not many left
Struggled for today's PaD. This is what I get by waiting til the last minute. There aren't very many of these cookies left now. They went fast AND I didn't let my kids know that I made some (must have been the cat who ate them).
13-APR-2009
Day 103 - Reboot required
I love this barn, at least I love its character. I've been here before, recently too:
From the angle of my previous shot , you couldn't see the true condition of this barn. It is quite evident here that there is no hope for it, it is only a matter of time before it succumbs completely to the elements. While I was outside shooting this, a person who owns a similar barn (but in better condition) stopped and started talking to me. Turns out the silo is made of tile. I was wondering how it was so shiny and provided such a great target for manually focusing in live view. This shot has a similar Post Processing treatment as yesterday's Nubble Light shot, only I left the greens desaturated this time (not that there is any green out here yet).
12-APR-2009
Day 102 - Rough seascape
I had to take my bike out for a 30 minute ride to finalize the 'baking' of the ceramic coating I sprayed onto the header. It took me 31 minutes to reach Nubble. I took an extended trip to get there, it should have only taken me about 15 minutes if I went direct. I was the only Photo Biker there. Technically, I was the only biker there. I had my tripod strapped to my rear seat, it came in handy for some other shots that I quickly deleted when I got back (they didn't make the cut). It was a good thing I was in my gear for this shot. I was wedged into this crack with my back pressed up against the rock (the armor pad came in handy today). I wanted a different composition for Nubble as it is the most photographed lighthouse in either the US or the world, everyone has seen the stock "Full Frontal" version, I usually try to walk around a bit and find a different angle. You can't really tell that Nubble is on an island from this angle.
I captured a seagull who was leaving while was there also:
