08-OCT-2009
Day 281 - The Pets
I came home late with no PaD and no idea for one. Then I notice my animals arranged as such while I had my camera and my flash ready. My dog has gotten a lot older lately. He spends a lot of time just standing around looking sad. Right now, he is doing a good job with the sad thing. I played with this in LR, making it into a Quad-Tone. I'm pretty impressed for a photo that was spur of the moment this evening. Now I have to rush off to pick up my daughters in two different places.
07-OCT-2009
Day 280 - Got the Cast
My son got his real cast today. He'd originally wanted to go with Orange and Black for Halloween, but changed his mind at the last moment today and went with Green to match his Incredible Hulk costume. The cast will actually be coming off just after Halloween, so this is good timing. He went through an entire modeling session, posing with his new cast. I now see the need for a better backdrop and a better backdrop hanging mechanism. Hanging a white sheet over some cabinet doors is getting old.3
06-OCT-2009
Day 279 - Homework
I got home late again, this time to find my 11 year old finishing (doing?) her homework. She is not a night owl so this must be important. She is interested in anything science, lava flow, certainly fits in that category. I only hope that she isn't going to construct a volcano this evening.
05-OCT-2009
Day 278 - Cookie
I came home late this evening, the Sales Weenies are in town & I went out to eat with them. Everyone was in bed by the time I got home, which is not all that unusual as I arrive home after most of the fam has gone to bed, I do this a lot. There was a cookie left out for me on the kitchen island (along with a load of dirty dishes that needed to get loaded into the dishwasher. So, after the dishwasher was loaded, I eyed the cookie and broke out the camera gear. From a macro level, this could be a tarry surface. In fact, I am not all that hungry anymore. I think this guy is going into a ziploc bag and getting preserved for tomorrow. Come to think of it, on the tarry substance subject, it looks a lot like the stuff that I cleaned out of my front sprocket cover on the bike this weekend.
04-OCT-2009
Day 277 - My Weekend
In the cracks, this was my weekend project. I replaced my chain and my sprockets on the bike this weekend. I've never changed a chain before, my other bikes were shaft-driven, save for my Harley Sportster, but I didn't own it long enough to even do any chain maintenance on it. The previous chain had about 17k to 18k miles on it. It was a stock size (525) with stock front (17T) and stock rear (42T) sprockets. I went with SV parts and now have 530 chain (wider), stock front (17T) and an extra tooth in the rear (43T). Now that I am looking at this, I should have taken a shot of my master link, except the bike is on the kickstand and about the last thing I want to do is move it around (in my slippers) to try to line up the master link. The previous chain was a clip style master link, the new one is a rivet. This should make a huge difference, not necessarily the wider chain, or even the extra tooth in the rear, but for the fact that I cleaned out the Front Sprocket housing (which was a mess) and I have a new chain that is properly lubed. After cutting off the old chain, I was shocked at how stiff it really was. I kept it, it is still in a box, I need to break it out this week and see how many links I can deal out and not have a link bend (kind of like the trick you do with a tape measure).
03-OCT-2009
Day 276 - Lot going on here
I took this shot with my iPhone this evening of the Lawrence High School Marching Band (From Fairfield, Maine) at the Maine Band Directors Association Competition held at the Biddeford High School. Normally the competition is held outdoors on the football field and the Marching Band is, well, marching. We had bad rain storms (even worse driving through them on the way back) so the competition was held indoors instead.
My wife & kids were at the house, I jetted out to watch our band, Marshwood perform. They performed about two hours earlier and most of the Marshwood Band members are scattered in the bleachers across the way in the background. I didn't bring any of my other cameras this evening, I figured with it being indoors, the lighting wouldn't be so hot (it wasn't).
I have no stills of the Marshwood team because I took videos with my iPhone which I promptly posted out to
Youtube.
So back to this photo. I took this because the band was so small I could fit all of them in a single shot on the iPhone & then email it to my wife. Looks can be deceiving though, the band may look small, but they sound much bigger than they are. If you closed your eyes, you'd be shocked if you opened them after listening to them play.
Another reason for taking this shot, look to the lower left and see what you can see. If you are a Canon fan-boy you'll understand immediately. I spent a bit of time drooling over this guy's setup, a Pro Body (EOS-1xx) with a EF 70-200 f/2.8L IS on the front. Just the kind of lens you'd want at an indoor (or even outdoor evening) event like this. I have the 70-200 F4L with no IS and really want the f/2.8L IS. Someday, perhaps after I win the lottery this evening since I swung by the store on the way back and actually played the Powerball (I play it two times a year).
02-OCT-2009
Day 275 - Whole Rest
Tonight was the homecoming game. I left work late again and yet somehow managed to make it to the game in time to see the band, literally in time, they started about 1 minute after I sat down. This fact did not go unnoticed by the other Booster's parents, some wanted to know my secret. Had this not been the homecoming game, there would not have been some kind of presentation to the 1989(?) Team at half-time. As I was walking up to the field I could hear the presentation and felt a lot better about not missing the band. I love the tuba, there are two tuba's in the Marshwood Hawks Marching Band, the other is played by Louie who is also a football player and isn't in the stands during the game (he's on the field). I'm not sure if I like the tuba because it is so large and really stands out, or because I keep wondering what a shot of it would look like with my flash (on the cybersync trigger) buried inside of it and pointing out, illuminating someone's face looking in.
01-OCT-2009
Day 274 - Chess
My son had his surgery this morning (I had him there at 6am). You would never know that the nurses were a little worried about him when he came out of the OR this morning. He was just plain groggy and temperamental (to be expected). After he had been home for a few hours and had soaked in enough SpyKids, AND his sisters came home from school, he was more himself. Here he is playing chess with his sister. I was trying to get just the hands and chess pieces in this shot, to include his sling. They were playing on the old couch (cat/dog hair) which is not the most photographic fore or background. . .
30-SEP-2009
Day 273 - Sling Boy
My son posing this evening in his sling. Tomorrow morning, we wake up bright and early (~5AM) to head to the hospital so he can have surgery on his arm to put some pins in it to correct the broken bone. I'm not sure if tomorrow's photo will consist of said pins.
29-SEP-2009
Day 272 - PYO
My wife took the kids to an apple orchard on Monday to pick apples (Pick Your Own). This is some sort of annual event for them (I opted out). PYO's are a sham, they wind up selling more apples to families because the kids have no restraint. They fill bag after bag. Had they gone straight to the storehouse, they'd have only bought one bushel. As it was, my wife told me that my son filled a bag rather fast (he has one arm in a sling) and then after she took the bag from him and told him to stop, he filled up his sling with small apples, he couldn't stop. Addiction starts young apparently. Though I have to admit, I am much happier to have them passionate about apples that they will eat versus bags of candy that will rot their teeth and make them fat. So, these are two of the apples from two separate bags. I used the Diffused Oat Snoot again today, I would take a shot, move the lighting, take another. Had I stitched the photo session together to make a video, it would have looked like a spinning planet orbiting the sun. Strobist info: Canon 580EX2 Diffused through Oat Snoot 100% power, camera right, slightly behind subject.
28-SEP-2009
Day 271 - Happy Duck
This is the same rubber duck that I rescued on the lake in my kayak back in mid August. He has been riding on the back of my motorcycle ever since. I believe he's going for a biathalon, he's got the water part worked out and I believe he has about 3,500 miles on him so far on the bike. Strobist info: Flash (Canon 580EX-2) is camera right, above the subject, pointing down with a diffused oat snoot (thanks to "The Goat Whisperer" for that one), 1/32 power.
27-SEP-2009
Day 270 - Resting
My wife has been working pretty much every day for the past month. She has a few more days of this crazy schedule left, of course, she does have to work through the next weekend before a reprise. We took a little time this afternoon to catch up. I had the flash set up earlier for what I thought would be today's "52 of us" shot. I came out of the shower to find her resting on the bed with her sexy legs outstretched and the lights off. This shot is at ISO 800 and a long exposure to make use of the natural (very diffused due to overcast/raining) lighting. I was using the built in 10 second camera timer, I think we actually could have fallen asleep if it were any longer of a wait.