31-DEC-2009
Day 365 - Spreading Too Much Cheer?
How could I NOT stop for this? I have no idea what it is that Santa is supposed to 'Stop' doing, but apparently it is important enough to alert all South Bound Traffic on Rte 236. While I was out in the [used car] 'lot' with my gear, I saw a few employees eying me as they were moving cars around. On my ride back home from work, I noticed the sign hadn't changed. What a way to end my second full PaD year. Tomorrow I start a new PaD.
30-DEC-2009
Day 364 - Rusty Morning Stuff
This morning on the way into work, I noticed this old car body on a trailer, beside a commercial building. I was in the car (it was like 10F this morning) and drove right past it, processed the image in my mind, then started looking for a place to turn around. In my confusion, I actually drove by it again (there are a series of three of these commercial buildings in a row and they all look alike). I was so happy out there snapping away and completely focused on the different compositions, that I never actually tried to identify the car. I am thinking this is a Karmann Ghia. It certainly looks like it has seen better days. It was just sitting out there on a trailer, no idea how long this has been here, I will be looking for it now in the morning though. I'm wondering if there is a restoration shop in one of the stalls (there are about twenty to thirty garage 'offices' in each building.
29-DEC-2009
Day 363 - Another Photo?
I am balancing on a thread with my wife and photos. Today's FGR,
Bubble Thoughts, sums up her feelings. Technically she said this and didn't think it, I was going for a more subtle approach. This was also my first day back to work after being off for the past week & half. It started out slow but picked up. I was able to make that transition from "Really loving the couch potato life" to "Type A personality".
28-DEC-2009
Day 362 - Being Silly
Shot for today's FGR Theme,
Finding Home. Home is where you can be silly. I was trying to get a shot of my son and my wife both looking in the same direction, but my son started shaking his head. I am going to regret showing him the long exposure head shake trick. A few days back we were doing some kind of shot somewhere (I don't remember where right now) requiring a relatively long exposure, I showed my son how he could shake his head and cause it to blur in the photo while the other people would be in focus. Now he believes this is the way to NOT get his photo taken. Of course, he doesn't understand that this only works with slow shutter speeds without flash.
27-DEC-2009
Be Serious
My wife can't seem to keep a straight face when trying to take our
52 of Us shot for the week. No use of the Sekonic for this one, basically had the flash mounted to the camera and bounced off the ceiling.
26-DEC-2009
Day 361 - Sk8tr Boi
My son had a "Skateboard Xmas" yesterday, he got a Rip Stik from his aunt, a Skateboard (that he picked out earlier) from Santa, and a Tony Hawk Skateboard kit for the Wii. I took him to Red Alert this morning, an indoor skateboard park/shop that ironically enough is located in an old factory that was my family's back in the 60's - early 80's. This was his first time at a skate park, so he took it real easy on the ramps. He had a complete blast. It looks like we will be spending a lot of Saturday mornings there which means I will have to shift our Den Meetings around ;-) Great Photo oppurtunities in this area. The Sekonic reported f/2.8 at ISO 100 & 1/60 in the long half-pipe area under some flourescents ;-)
25-DEC-2009
Day 360 - Sekonic
One of the items on my wish list was the Sekonic L358 Light Meter. I gots it! It was a busy day today and I only got a few minutes to play around with it. I took on this SP this evening before watching Fargo on our new Blu Ray player (I've seen it many times, not in HD though ;-) For this shot, there is virtually no ambient lighting, I believe the flash ratio was 100%. It was pretty helpful as I was able to zero in on the exposure before shooting. I'd originally had the flash power SWAG'd to 1/32 which was too low. Strobist Info: Canon 580EX2 1/4 Power, camera left. Shot into a homebrew reflector. Triggered with Cybersyncs. I can't wait to spend more time with this light meter, it will help to shed a little light on my exposures ;-)
24-DEC-2009
Day 359 - Happy Cheesemas
Today is my day for FGR. It also happens to coincide with Cheesemas, the day we celebrate Cheese (according to the
Flickr Group ;-). We were out riding around today doing some last minute shopping with all the kids and dragged them into the Grocery Store, along with my 40D to take a photo of cheese. You would be surprised at some of the looks I got taking photos of cheese! Not only from my teenager (who tried to make like I didn't exist) to the shoppers and the workers. Someone asked me if I said "Say Cheese" before I took the shot. This particular shot represents enough cheese to stop up even the most regular person for about a year.
23-DEC-2009
Day 358 - Train just left
Another train theme. I'm not sure what the attraction is lately. We were late to my daughter's gymnastic lesson, in fact, we actually got held up by the train (Downeaster) on the other side of town for it to pass, then got held up while it was sitting in the station. The Southbound train parks too close to the train signals and causes the gates to remain in the closed position while passengers come and go. I was thinking of heading in a different direction after dropping her off for my photo, but there was something about this scene. It fits nicely for today's FGR,
Winter 2009-10. We've not really had all that much snow yet, have to wait until January or February for the snowbanks to rise. I like the tones in this shot, I got there just before sunset with the sun getting a little obsured in the clouds. I'm working on another composition as an HDR, but there are 7 images, it takes forever to blend them, and I basically suck at HDR.
22-DEC-2009
Day 357 - Crossing
On my way back from yet another day of "Last minute stuff" I had one of those "Hey, that would make a great photo" moments when I crossed some RR tracks in Somersworth, NH. Instead of doubling back, I waited until I hit the crossing in our town in Maine (different set of tracks). I shot the Downeaster passing by a few weeks ago (possibly even last week, I'm not good with time) at this crossing. If I remember correctly, it was just starting to snow out when I was shooting the train. We've now got snow cover, but not deep enough to warrant the wearing of Snow Boots (I'm still in my LL Bean low tops). Just about every car that crossed the tracks stopped to figure out what the heck I was doing.
21-DEC-2009
Day 356 - Snow Cone
The title pretty much sums it up. I was out driving around doing some last minute shopping (with the camera gear in the back seat of course) when I came across a blustery scene that I felt required capturing. The blustery scene is actually the snow blowing off the building, but I realized after trying to capture said scene, that 1) It was pretty freakin cold out and B) I am not qualified to capture a blustery scene (OK, I am qualified, but it pretty much sucked). Off the ends of the buildings (mini warehouses) are these bollards to keep people from running into the buildings with their vehicles. Anyway, the snow coming off the roof of each building was piling up on top of the bollards and forming a cone shape. This is pretty cool. This, of course, leads me to believe that the ancient Egyptians are the original designers of rockets, at least the nose cones. I'm thinking that sand in the desert would behave much in the same way as the snow does here (I have been in the desert, but not on a horse, with or without a name). You'd have to believe that there were some random columns at the end of Egyptian buildings involved in sand storms...
20-DEC-2009
Day 355 - The Move
Playing chess with Kala this evening. She is very logical and will be a good player in time. Yesterday, I stumbled upon firmware updates for the LX3. Apparently the latest is 2.1, I was on 1.0. There were a lot of changes, one of which is an aspect ratio of 1:1. This is literally SOOC.
19-DEC-2009
Day 354 - Tree Dancing
We finally have ornaments on the tree. It has been 'falling' now for a week ;-) I am recovering from a 'thing' and wasn't about to really do much of anything today. The last thing I was supposed to do was sit in a chair all day and that is pretty much what I did. I got caught up on bills and Xmas shopping, then had to do a little research for work. Strobist info: Canon 580EX2 camera right and slightly behind the ballerina ornament, 1/8 Power, fired with Cybersyncs.
18-DEC-2009
Day 353 - Meteor
I was messing around with my Lensbabies 3G and the Star Aperture and the Xmas tree. While walking (hobbling) back to the computer, I decided to try capturing my daughter writing something (I believe it is a scavenger hunt for her brother). Our kitchen light looks a lot like some kind of meteor from this angle.
17-DEC-2009
Day 352 - Heyyyy
When I saw what the
FGR Challenge was this morning, I knew I had the cheese to pull this off. I had this kind of shot in mind, the "Fonzi theme" was something I came up with while shooting (I can be so crafty like that). We just got back from the Polar Express. It is about 1 1/2 hours north of here. For some reason, every time we go, the wind chill is in the negative teens. We've had this warmer than normal winter so far, then Bam! out of no where comes this arctic cold the day we do this. I took my 70's shots before we left, but there wasn't enough time to process them.
16-DEC-2009
Day 350 - Take a chance
Interesting FGR Challenge today,
Dice. We have all kinds of odd dies floating around somewhere, I bought a bunch for my kids last camping season to play with. They are most likely still in our camper. I am doing nothing special here, no flash, camera on tripod with a slightly slow shutter. The real trick is trying to time and aim the dice to the 2 second timer and the small field of view for the 100mm Macro. I stole the dice from our Yahtzee game. I'd better go put them back, otherwise I risk getting in deep trouble.
15-DEC-2009
Day 349 - Xmas Lights
Here I was upset that we didn't have anything on our tree and wouldn't be able to take a photo of anything Xmasy. I forgot about our front bushes. I've got my camera on the tripod to take this Out Of Focus (OOF) shot of the lights when I realized two things:
1) My Cullman Tripod Head is shot, it no longer locks. I tried to save a few $$ and paid the price.
2) The EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro has some flare. Though you can't see it, in the center of the photo is an odd flare. It was much more pronounced in some of the other shots that I canned.
Either way, I got the shot I was looking for and realized that I can break out my Lensbabies 3G with a custom Aperture for a shot perhaps tomorrow.
14-DEC-2009
Day 348 - Holiday Clown
I searched around today and couldn't find a Red Clown nose for today's FGR Challenge:
Peace, Love and Red Noses. This was something that I came up with on short notice. There all all these balloons in our family room from Birthday Parties (2 weeks ago). We were out and about this evening so we've not started decorating the tree, we have another full evening tomorrow so this is the amount of decorations for the next few days (I will see if the kids notice tomorrow). After this, I get to investigate yet another problem with our Washing Machine. I believe the Tub Bearings are shot. It's squeeking and making a hell of a racket. Apparently you can't just replace the bearings, you have to replace the entire back of the tub. There goes my Thursday (provided I can find a rear tub in stock at a reasonable price).
13-DEC-2009
Day 347 - Too much giving
You can tell it's the holiday season by how many bags of stuff are sitting outside of the Salvation Army bins at the Transfer Station. For today's FGR Challenge,
I bring my camera everywhere, I was able to show that I literally bring my camera everywhere. Sunday morning is my Trash day, the transfer station is just around the corner, but I normally bring my gear with me. Usually I take a bit of an extended ride home and find something to shoot, today I decided to find things to shoot at the Transfer Station itself. I had a few other shots that I'd planned on going with until I saw the Salvation Army bins at the gate on my way out. I pulled out and around and parked the Tahoe to walk back and grab a few shots of the bins. After Xmas, these bins will be full again and there will be bag after bag of stuff beside them. I did the selective coloring in LR again, the trick is to paint the entire photo with negative saturation, then selectively remove (erase) the selection of the areas that you want the color to remain. It helped that this is red on white so I could afford to be a little sloppy and it wouldn't matter. It gets tough when you have two colors that border, then you have to be very careful.
12-DEC-2009
Day 346 - Xmas Spirit
Fox was simply all agog about posing for today's FGR Challenge
The Santa Hat Project. I had a much easier time of convincing him to pose with this festive hat on than I did of my wife. It took a few tries, Fox shook the hat off at first. He's not one to really sit around and put up with this crap, I'm pretty impressed. I might have to Photoshop in a red nose ;-)
11-DEC-2009
Day 345 - Square Dude
I sort of had the day off, I spent most of my morning and most of last evening working though. I did get to do a lot of running around, finally getting to start Xmas shopping. OK, technically I started a while back, I've been collecting stuff for a little bit, but not getting the big things. I've gotten a few of the big things now.
So the FGR Challenge today is
Hip to Be Square, a Square Format (Cropped) portrait. I didn't break out any my TLRs, this is just a simple square crop. For some odd reason, I decided to use the UWA, so I am a little out of proportion (at least the nose is). I had a slightly different composition in mind, but went with this approach. The background was just too busy, so I lowered the flash power and used a foamie snoot (just a sheet of black foam wrapped around the flash head). The 580EX-2 is camera left at 1/32 power, about 3' away.
10-DEC-2009
Day 344 - Faces by Night Ranger
Nope, this isn't an ad for constipation, it's for today's FGR Challenge,
Air Guitar. It's a late entry, I had a busy day, took work home with me. Yes, that is my Washburn DD-60 behind me. A closer look at it would reveal an obsessive amount of dust, I fear I spend more time playing air guitar than it. In this photo, I am obviously playing something by Night Ranger, either "Eddie's Coming Out Tonight" or most likely "Faces". Should someone ever steal my iPod or iPhone and take a look at music collection, they'd go to great lengths to give it back to me ;-)
09-DEC-2009
Day 343 - Patiently I wait, but not long
With a big storm happening in the Northeast today and the
"Six Word Story" FGR challenge on the docket, one would think it was a match made in heaven. I actually drove into work today, it has been some 5 months since I've driven a 4-wheeled vehicle into work. I threw in my tripod and camera bag (not that I don't usually do this on the bike). Today's story, however, was more like "My Canon is NOT going outside". That isn't completely true, I was so busy at work that I never really got to have a chance to go outside (but you wouldn't have known that). On my way out of the building, I noticed that they'd just cleaned the rest rooms and there was a photo op of maximum proportions! I took the chance. I can only imagine the story I would have to come up with had someone walked in on me.
08-DEC-2009
Day 342 - You Spin Me
In keeping with
Today's FGR Theme, I am spinning around, trying not to get sick. Dragging the shutter too long created an extremely "un-spin-like" effect. Not to mention the fact that it really got me dizzy. This is most likely how I will look tomorrow morning when I wake up and find that I am unable to ride into work due to weather. It will be the first weather-related disruption to my motorcycle commute since March. My first non-ride into work since July when I sprained my ankle. I am Sooo not ready for a four wheel commute.
07-DEC-2009
Day 341 - New Maine Tag
The other side of the Key Sign was covered in snow. I was able to get in about four hours of riding today. It was pretty cold, but my gear worked wonders. This was actually my new Maine Tag today, I've been out of the game for quite a few months. It was pretty wild riding around the lakes and ponds without any ice, yet the ground is covered in snow. I have my new rear Conti Trail Attack on today for this ride, it wasn't the best way to break in a tire, there wasn't a lot of twisties that I really leaned into, but the tire is scrubbed in now.
06-DEC-2009
Day 340 - Odd Couple
My son helped me today for the FGR Challenge,
Dumbed Down. I figure this was our best attempt at a lame shot ;-)
05-DEC-2009
Day 339 - The Downeaster
Today's FGR is
Public Transportation. Out here in the stix, there's not much for public transportation, with the exception of the Downeaster that passes through the edge of town. This is the Northbound run, it came up from Boston and is heading to Portland, Maine. We've taken the Downeaster into Boston a bunch of times. This particular train just left the Dover NH train station about 5 mins [tops] prior to me taking this photo. It is heading to the Wells ME train station. I've never actually ridden on the train on this segment, we always get on the Southbound train in Dover. It started snowing out just as I was taking this photo. It is now snowing pretty steady, though the ground isn't frozen and tomorrow the temps are going to climb into the 40s. It better not stick, I'm jumping on the bike tomorrow.
04-DEC-2009
Day 338 - Rolling
OK, so this is a Self Portrait. I forgot to bring my timer/interval remote with me, so I had to rely on the "Focus on something close to where I will be" & 10 second timer approach.
Today's FGR Challenge is
Butt Up, this was my original idea all along, to do something on the bike. It was a vacation day for me, but I had to run into work for a meeting. I loaded up my camera & tripod and had this spot in mind for my ride home. I am actually at the park at Dover Point, the boat launch is right behind the camera. The bike is up on the centerstand, I'm not moving at all. I did a kind of bang up job applying motion and radial blur to the scene and the wheels after the fact in CS4. I'm not all that impressed with the motion blur, I want the blur to be directional from left to right, when it actually is applied in a horizontal fashion back and forth so there is blur in front of the bike and behind it. If you look closely enough, you'd think I was oscillating on the thing instead of riding.
03-DEC-2009
Day 337 - Looking Up, Looking Down
I'd wanted to get a shot of the moon this evening for today's FGR Challenge but the clouds weren't cooperating with me when I got home. I took a nice long ride this evening to make good use of the temps. It got into the 70's today (though I didn't get to go outside during the actual daylight hours ;) I left work at around 6:30 and decided to take my long route. When I got to the exit for Route 125, I decided to keep going a bit further and take Route 43. When I got to Route 43, I decided to go to I-93 then shoot back East when I hit Concord. When I got to Concord, I decided to keep going North until it "felt right" to start heading back. After a while I saw a sign for Laconia (Think "Bike Week") in 20 miles. I figured that would be a good place to turn. I was hungry, so I stopped at the Tilton Diner and had a BLT. I happened to look up and noticed the mirrored ceiling and whipped out the iPhone. My riding gear is just out of the bottom of the frame. The air vent is in the way. Had I thought about it, I would have moved all the gear to get it in the shot. I am still wearing my liner in this shot, though it never got plugged in on the ride, it was too warm. The BLT was great, just enough to satisfy my hunger. The service was quick, I was back on the road in about 10 to 15 minutes.
02-DEC-2009
Day 336 - Royal
My new
Russell Day Long arrived yesterday at work. I've put a grand total of 51 miles on it. The break in period is 500 - 1000 miles. I sit much higher up now. It will take a little while to get used to that. The biggest issue (literally) is that I am on my tippy toes at stops right now. I will either send the seat back or put on some lowering links to get me back into flat-footing land.
01-DEC-2009
Day 335 - So Blue
My first thought after looking at today's FGR Challenge, was "well, I guess I have to find something else to shoot". I was in our family room propping up some pillows when I noticed an abundance of balloons left over from the kid's birthday parties over the weekend (two of our children had birthday sleep overs). I found a blue balloon and got this absolutely zany idea of putting it in front of my flash to see what would happen. There is what appears to be some posterization in the photo, on the balloon and on my forehead, but it isn't behaving like posterization, I certainly didn't overprocess anything here.
30-NOV-2009
Day 334 - Single Malt
My take on today's
FGR challenge. I just picked up this bottle of Speyburn and it is both Fierce and Fabulous. I'm not a big drinker, but I could make a an exception for this ;-)
29-NOV-2009
Day 333 - Salmon Falls
My first shot of my shoot today behind the mills in downtown Somersworth, NH. This is a stretch of the Salmon Falls river just below the dam near the bridge into Maine. I stumbled upon the access to this stretch last winter when I was riding about looking for something to shoot. I think this might be the first time I went here without any snow on the ground. It is easier to shoot these rapids in the late fall in the afternoon as the sun is much lower on the horizon and the mill to my back completely blocks any direct sunlight on the water. Even in the shade, though I have to use an ND 1.8 filter to get the long shutter speed and creamy water.
28-NOV-2009
Day 332 - Abandoned Factory
I'm not so sure about the construction, I didn't find any indications of construction going on in the first building. It was much cooler than I'd thought though, the building was burned out, with all kinds of charcoal wood pieces and rusted metal husks all over the place. I don't know the history of these factories, the land belongs to the GE Factory which is way behind these buildings. The GE Factory produces Meters, the kind that mount to the front of your house and report how much electricity you need to be charged for. I want to say that these buildings were a part of an old textile or possibly shoe factory that was built in the 19th century. It's just across the border in New Hampshire, out of frame is the Salmon Falls River just to the right of this photo. The other side of the river is Maine (Berwick, ME to be exact).
27-NOV-2009
Day 331 - Tiny Fighter
Today is my son's birthday. His big gift is the 25lb hanging punching bag that came with the boxing gloves he is wearing. Installing the ceiling mount for the bag was a PIA, trying to locate a joist is a problem as there is strapping strung up perpendicular to the joists for the sheet-rock. I wound up having to drill a whole bunch of small "Test holes" to locate a stud. I installed the bag while he was downstairs pinging off the walls. My wife wrapped the boxing gloves and we let him open them last along with all his other presents. When he put them on, I told him to go try them out by hitting his sisters (which he did). Then my wife sent him to his room for 5 minutes for hitting his sisters. He wasn't happy, but soon figured out why we sent him to his room.
26-NOV-2009
Day 330 - Daddy!
Today's
FGR theme is
Shocking Eyes. My oldest & I watched 4 episodes of the X-Files last night. One of them was steep in maggots so I have been trying to scare her with the maggots theme ever since. This is the look I get when I yell "maggots" while she is practicing her flute. This is slightly better than what I had intended on doing this morning. I'd wanted to go into her bedroom and pour some rice on her pillow (she is a teenager and sleeps in rather late). However, I outslept her this morning.
25-NOV-2009
Day 329 - Disturbed
Wow, the first time in CS4 to actually muck with an image in a very long time. Somehow I remembered how to do layer masks (to a certain point). I did all the initial WB adjustments in LR, selected my 3 images and did an "Edit In | Open as Layers in Photoshop". After all my image manip was done in CS4, I did the final processing (crop, preset, and vignette) back in LR.
24-NOV-2009
Day 328 - Processed
Another FGR day. This has been heavily post-processed, I hope it qualifies for today's group. It was another busy day and I am quite wiped. This turned out a little bit better than I had 'settled' on. I was expecting something a lot more lack-luster
23-NOV-2009
Day 327 - Yo-Yo Boy
My son got this "Really Cool YoMega" today at WOW. WOW is an after school children's program that does some kind of interesting activities. My son got to meet someone who was a "Professional Yo-Yo Guy for YoMega" (these are his words). He was doing pretty good this evening too. This, by the way, was taken with AI Servo. I am pretty happy with the AI Servo on the 40D, I get more keepers than not whenever I use it. I don't use it that often, I'm not a big action photographer, but when I do use it, it works.
22-NOV-2009
Day 326 - Jedi Shiba
Our dog Fox shortly after completing his Jedi Training. He can really throw down with Yoda. I saw him in our living room this afternoon, he was actually soaking up the sun, two seconds before and 3 seconds after this shot, he was completely bathed in sunlight and this shot would be pretty much impossible. He was able to stay in this position long enough for me to get my camera, take a few shots, then run back and grab my flash, and take a few more shots. This was his idea to pose with the Light Saber, anyone who has or knows about Shibas will understand that you cannot get them to do anything, they only do what they want to do. They are basically two year olds or teenagers.
21-NOV-2009
Day 325 - Living Dangerously
Across the street from my "Doors With Character" shot is this power station (the river and falls are behind this building). There are three or four very large turbines in this building that you can see through the glass windows (you can't see them in this shot though). It was the "Danger" sign that caught my eye, not the doors. The doors are pretty standard. I really like the signs and the brick, I added a bit of gritty processing to get this affect and am pretty happy with it. I might mess around with this shot in LR 3, the use of grain could add a bit to this shot.
20-NOV-2009
Day 324 - Wife
I had planned on calling this "Memory" or "Things that help jog my memory". Thank god for these Post-It Notes. I am able to label the important things in my life so that I don't forget them. I have to state though, it is extremely important to get the correct Post It Notes on the correct items. Case in point, you don't want to accidently place the Post It Note entitled "Girlfriend" on your wife, or vice-versa. Not unless you enjoy having your camera ripped out of your hands and smashed on the ground. I'm not saying that I have made that mistake, yet. I am only pointing this out.
19-NOV-2009
Day 323 - Tall Order
This is about half of this year's order for my son and two other boys in our den. My son sold over $700 worth of popcorn alone. Our pack stepped it up this year and made a big todo about selling popcorn, how it helps pay for the pack awards, the pinewood derby, and other things. The result was almost double the sales this year. Now comes the distribution end to this. Last weekend a group of volunteers picked up 4 pallets of popcorn for our pack. They then broke it up into the indivifual den's orders. It is up to each den to break it down into the boy's orders, then up to those boys to deliver it and collect the money. My son has been a great help at all steps. He did most of his own selling (it helped that he was in his uniform with a cast and sling ;-) He helped me unload the Tahoe this evening and stack it in the house. He will be helping with the delivery this weekend too.
18-NOV-2009
Day 322 - Twist
Today's
FGR is interesting. A photo of
hands (hand) doing something. I thought about shooting a bare hand on my throttle, but I am an ATGATT (All The Gear All The Time) believer and it wouldn't be indicative of how I roll. Instead of putting on my winter (electric) glove, I put on my Held summer weight (I had to fish it out of my motorcycle gear box in our pantry as the summer-weight season is long over). I would last about 5 miles, if that, in the current temps in this glove. In this position, I am rolling on the throttle rather heavy, something that I practice every day (you never know when you have to put those skillz to use ;-)
17-NOV-2009
Day 321 - Frost
Right to the point today. As I was getting the bike ready to go home this evening, I realized that frost had formed on the seat. Technically when shit kept sliding off, I was a bit perplexed, then realized what the problem was. Please note that up here in the Great White North, we do not identify Frost due to the Nomenclature etched into frosty surfaces. The word frost was something I added (freezing my finger in the process) for effect.
16-NOV-2009
Day 320 - Paranoia
"...Dr. Dr. help me please, I know you'll understand
There's a time device inside of me, I'm a self-destruction man
There's a red, under my bed
And there's a little green man in my head
And he said, you're not going crazy, you're just a bit sad
Cause there's a man in yah, gnawing yah, tearing yah into two.
Silly boy yah self-destroyer
Paranoia, the destroyer
"
Excerpt from Paranoia, by the Kinks.
(Like I had a choice with today's FGR ;-)
15-NOV-2009
Day 319 - TTV of Us
Based on the SP I took a few days ago Through The Viewfinder (TTV), I decided that our '52 of Us' shot this week would also be a TTV shot. We were a little pressed for time (like always) my wife had to head out to pick up my oldest so that they could get back in time to grab something to eat then head off to Fencing Lessons. So anyway, the first set was a little off. I completely forgot about the reversed nature of the TLR and I had myself pretty much out of frame. Once I realized it (and coaxed my wife back) I realized the flash was aimed too low, but there was nothing I could do at this point (she was frantic to get out the door). I left our reflection off the sighting mag lens on the top (it is in the retracted position). I thought it rather cool that both our faces (eyes) were in it.
Shot through the Viewfinder of my Rolleiflex 2.8.
14-NOV-2009
Day 318 - Guarding
Our cat is resting on my wife as she reads her book. My wife is reading the book, not the cat. She wouldn't read a cat, that is just plain silly. So anyway, our cat is also guarding my wife. Not sure from what, most likely from me.
13-NOV-2009
Day 317 - Me Through the Viewfinder
Lost for ideas tonight, this came out better than I'd expected. I might have to do a 52 of Us shot like this. Shooting through my 2.8 Rollei. A camera that pretty much acts as decoration even though I bought it to use. I think I still have some film in it too. I cropped it in LR and applied an 'Old' Preset, the scratches, however, are real and part of the viewfinder (not photoshopped in).
12-NOV-2009
Day 316 - Finger Party
In an effort to apply more of a "Loving Life" theme to the rest of my week, I have begun with a tiny step. My dog (or at least part of him) is investigating this incident. I had no idea who produced this piece of art until my 12-year-old confronted me while I was parading around with it on one hand and my Canon 40D perched precariously on the other (with flash). I think I have coughed enough to break part of my throat, at least that's what it feels like right now.
11-NOV-2009
Day 315 - Goodbye Beads
Possibly the last day that these bead will be on my bike. I got in on a group buy for a new seat and I have to ship this seat out tomorrow to make it in time. I picked up a loaner seat from a buddy with the same bike to help "get me through this period" while I wait for my seat to come back. I can't stop riding now, the weather is still nice ;-)
10-NOV-2009
Day 314 - A Drink
I was out sick from work yesterday and hating life. Today I went into work and hated life, then left early when it became apparent that I wouldn't make it into the evening. I came home, told the kids I would be upstairs sleeping, and basically passed out for an hour and a half. That nap has long since gone and I am ready for another. I had no ideas for my PaD today, had I seen the FGR theme earlier, I probably could have done something along the lines of Face Down Tuesday (I can think of many options in my state). I am drinking lots of water so this came to mind. It didn't take all that many photos to actually get the glass in frame either.
09-NOV-2009
Day 313 - Swingers
On my way back from my docotor's appointment, on the outskirts of town was this really cool scarecrow. They looked so real on my way to the doctor's, I figured that I had to pull over on the way back. They did a good job posing for the camera, I like their expressions.
08-NOV-2009
Day 312 - Paused
Coming back from picking up a bunch of frames for photos that I have finally printed through mPix (and getting a hair cut), I came across the bridge over the train yard to see this engine just sitting there all alone. I was able to take a bunch of photos of this guy. The sun is actually behind the engine, I had tried for some wider shots, but the flare from the 17-55 is just too much. Even tightening up to this required a lot of work on the highlights to the left. I prefer this composition over the tightest shot where I blocked out all sky.
07-NOV-2009
Day 311 - Reach the Sky
There is some construction going on just outside our development. It's been going on for about the past month, they are going to replace the bridge on the State Route and instead of closing down the road and causing mass confusion through Detours, they are either putting in a temporary bridge (or a new one) on the West side of the existing one. There are two homes pretty close to this bridge, one got a new driveway on a sideroad (in our development) as the construction crews parked a huge trailer in their main driveway. Anyway, this crane has been moving back and forth for the past few weeks placing steel bars and driving them into the ground. I can' t walk around while there are construction workers present, but there was no one there this afternoon so walked around with the camera. This photo doesn't really show how big the crane really is. It must be 50' tall.
06-NOV-2009
Day 310 - W's and V's
I saw a 'W' first then a buch of 'V's. This is the building that is attached to my daughter's Gymnastics Studio (it isn't her studio, she takes lessons there). The same studio that my son broke his arm at (so basically, we could very well own part of this building with the medical $$ that have been spent). It is an old train maintenance building, this piece was a factory, then part of it was for train maintenance and offices. It was a factory again, then became a bunch of shops and office space.
05-NOV-2009
Day 309 - Stay Warm
I broke down and finally got a heated liner this week. I've worn it the past few days and am still getting used to it. Right now, I have both the liner and my gloves on the same circuit. The jacket is much to warm for this arrangement. While I thought I needed to pick up another controller so that I can control the jacket and the gloves separately, I think I will try to throw a resistor inline to the jacket to allow me to run a higher heat setting to the gloves and not fry myself in the process. During the day, the jacket is warm and I am oblivious to the current draw. At night, my headlights actually pulse as the controller is PWM (Pulse Width Modulated) so the full current is drawn at an interval set by the controller.
04-NOV-2009
Day 308 - Talkin to Grandma
My son grabbed the phone this evening when he heard it was grandma (my mom). He was on the phone with her for about 10 minutes. Long enough for me to start up the MBP, eject my CF Card, grab my camera, find the 100mm f/2.8 Macro, mount it, grab my flash, mount that, and take a few shots. I was striving for an up close and tight shot. I wasn't striving for that annoying air on his face just off his fingertips. It looks like it is on my monitor, I have tried to remove it from my monitor three times already.
03-NOV-2009
Day 307 - Cast Off
My son got his cast removed today. I came home to see it on our kitchen table with no son attached to it. He was upstairs taking a shower and getting the "Smelly Arm" cleaned. The cast was cut in half and someone at the Dr's office must have taped it back together for him (I am sure the tape occupies a line item on the bill too). I was thinking of putting my flash inside the cast and have it firing out, however, this cast is tiny. There is no way I can get my 580EX-2 inside of it.
02-NOV-2009
Day 306 - Cali-Mi-Bration
OK, got my new monitor today! Technically it arrived Friday evening, but was shipped FedEx. I have NEVER had FedEx get anything to me when they were supposed to. No one was here (Duh!) so I get a silly looking call tag. They don't deliver on weekends, so I have to wait until today. So, I digress. I got the Dell 2209WA, a Budget Photography (IPS) monitor. Got it warmed up, then stuck the Spyder on it and got it all Cali-Mi-Brated. I am focusing on the Spyder 3 text only, not the screen (thus the OOF monitor). The monitor is nice and crisp. I will know more in a few weeks. It is a 1680 x 1050, replacing a 1600 x 1200. I am already missing that 150 dots on the bottom, but my old monitor was dying and I will take a working IPS over a failing TFT any day.
01-NOV-2009
Day 305 - On the Bike
This week's "52 of Us" photo is pulling double duty. I need to provide a series of shots in order to purchase a "Russell Day Long Seat". I had to provide a couple of other shots of just me with my feet on the ground and up on the pegs. Since I ride two up, they require a shot with the rider and passenger to see how we sit now so they can get the seat just right. I'm ordering the thing tomorrow and will be lucky to see it by February or March of next year.
31-OCT-2009
Day 304 - Band Competition Finals
Today was the Finals for Marching Band Competition (MBDA). Our School (Marshwood) hosted the finals. My feet are still killing me and I've been home for almost 4 hours now. My volunteer job was to be a photographer. I can't consider it work though, it was just way too much fun (don't let anyone know that ;-) Actually the 'work' aspect is just beginning. I took 661 photos. I imported them all into a separate Lightroom Catalog, backed up all the original Compact Flash Cards onto 3 DVDs (just in case) and have almost made my first culling pass through them. I believe I have only culled out 60 or so photos. I usually cut a little deeper on my first pass, but I am taking my time on this one. So anyway, here's my daughter posing for a photo. As it turns out, this is the first photo of her in the batch. She had a blast, she is still on her MacBook chatting with friends on FaceBook and basically caught up in a Euphoria. Marshwood earned a Silver. She now has two silver medals.
30-OCT-2009
Day 303 - Gambling Away
The crew pulled out the number strip from the Game of Life along with the spinner and started gambling off unwanted candy. You win whatever is on the number that you spin and you have to put more candy on the strip. The candy is lined up on the strip, you have to take my word. I realized the stakes weren't high enough so I added a new dimension to their game (photo in a bit here).
29-OCT-2009
Day 302 - Strange Spider
Today's FGR is pretty simple for me at least. A Spider theme. For the past few weeks, my wife has been distributing various spiders throughout our house. I believe it is a Halloween-related event versus some kind of obscure pagan ritual. This huge spider has been pretty static for the past few weeks, the other more mobile guys are strewn throughout the house.
28-OCT-2009
Day 301 - Cross Eye
Today's
FGR involved
Cross Processing. I had to Google that one. It is basically a film thing, using the wrong chemicals during developing. This is something I've done during my film days, but I called that a mistake ;-) Anywhoo, this is the Digital Age and the effects have to be simulated. I initially found a howTo for Photoshop and was prepared to go the CS4 route. While I was uploading my shots, however, I decided to look for a Lightroom Preset and found one. This is the results of
"Matt's Cross Process 1". I dropped the exposure a bit and did a little Post Crop Vignette, I am kicking around the idea of trying this in the LR3 Beta as well, just to use the newer Post Crop Tools. Oh yeah, I did a little Iris enhancements to my Iris.
27-OCT-2009
Day 300 - Bad Something
My lame attempt at today's FGR "Bad Wig" theme. I don't own a wig, my wife does, she wore it once to surprise me in a bar, but that is another story...
I'm not about to go out and either buy or make a wig this evening. This guy has been staring at me for years, waiting to have his fifteen seconds of fame, well today is that day! (OK, technically he was the subject for a high ISO test the evening that I got my 40D, back when the 40D was real, real new and there were only a handful in circulation. He got some fame back then, but that was over two years ago and he feels neglected. Today's PaD shot should suffice until the 60D or the 5D Mk3 comes out and I need another High ISO test subject.
26-OCT-2009
Day 299 - Pumpkin Guts
My son is helping me with today's FGR choice. Who can resist "
Pumpkin Porn"? Of course, when I saw the title, this wasn't what I had in mind. I had a slightly different concept that I have tastefully decided not to follow up on (at least for now). My kids are actually going through all the trouble of sorting out the pumpkin guts. Each year they separate the pumpkin seeds out. They then take the time to clean the seeds and bake them, adding salt and other spices as necessary. That is about as far as they get until they realize that they don't like the taste of pumpkin seeds.
25-OCT-2009
Day 298 - Family Photos
Of the 160-some-odd photos that I took of the family this afternoon at the Hamilton House, only three were decent. With a family of five, it is very tough to get a shot with everyone looking at the camera and smiling, at the same time. This was more of an outtake shot that we really liked. I had all the gear setup for today. Strobist info: Canon 580EX2 Full Power Shoot Through [white] umbrella camera left (technically a little too camera front as some of the light from the flash bounced back into the lens). I actually had my other umbrella setup on a stand to camera right without a flash to block the sun poking through the trees. The Canon EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 IS is a great lens, but suffers front flare. The temps soared last night into today, I believe it was in the mid to upper 60's. All the outdoor spots were packed.
24-OCT-2009
Day 297 - Kissing Under the Umbrella
Four-Fer tonight. Got my PaD, our 52 of Us, FGR & Umbrella shot tonight. Technically I could lump in a Strobist shot as well, but I'm not going to push it. I am actually firing two flashes in this. One is my 580 EX2 at 1/2 power fired directly into the silver lined umbrella. I realized after an initial set that I needed to bring in my Vivitar 285 into the mix set up behind the camera and bounced off the ceiling to bring in a little detail of the umbrella top. I have the Vivitar set at 1/2 power. It probably could have been used a little more selectively with perhaps the Oat Snoot and lower power to get the umbrella top. This was the second to last shot of the second set. After the next shot, my wife told me that this was enough. She wanted to read her book. I am supposed to do family shots tomorrow, I'd expect a little more compliance this evening to help me make sure the gear is working.
Links for the pbase (er: Non-Flickr) crowd:
23-OCT-2009
Day 296 - Ninja?
Had I thought about this a little sooner, I'd have found the time to visit a friend of mine who rides a Ninja. As it is, I got in pretty late and still had my riding gear on so this was the idea I came up with for the Ninja approach.
22-OCT-2009
Day 295 - What?
So, I didn't have a unicorn handy for today's FGR. I asked my daughter and she said she had one. She went to her room to go find the unicorn and this is what she brought back. She is pretty creative. This was our sad attempt at getting our dog to pose with the unicorn. I had a vision of him sniffing the unicorn's nose and me capturing this. Instead, I get a choice between this sad look or another shot of him looking like he is eating the foot as he goes for a dog snack that is hidden behind the horse (errr unicorn).
21-OCT-2009
Day 294 - Reflective
This shot was a lot harder than I thought it would be. My Motorcycle jacket is made from this neon-reflective stuff and it behaved a little differently with the flash. Also, I over-complicated the shot, I am actually sitting on my bike, in my gear (I got home late and still haven't gotten out of it). You can't tell that I am on a bike, I am using my 100mm f/2.8 Macro, the shot is a little tight. I opted to leave that lens on because the theme today is Orange, there was no sense in getting any more of me in the shot. Anyway, my jacket really IS orange, even though I had a hell of time correcting this image...
20-OCT-2009
Day 293 - Tilt
Not much in the way of imagination this evening. I got home pretty late and was able to reuse my setup from last night. I've gotten to the point of leaving my flash on it's stand with the Cybersyncs all set up on flash and camera. After trying unsuccessfully to get my eyes or eye in focus, I gave up. I like this better because it is more reflective of how I feel (OOF).
19-OCT-2009
Day 292 - Unknown
Fall is the time of year that I traditionally grow a beard. I usually have a very trim moustache & goattee year-round. There is something about the fall and winter that I like to let it grow out. At least I've been doing this since I got out of the military (10 years ago) and CAN grow a beard. Ten years ago, it was a lot different, my kids were much younger and less (my son wasn't even conceived). Reading "Little House On The Prairre" to my girls seemed to mean a little more when they could play with my beard as I read about "Pa's Beard". I cinched up my hoodie for this as it is all about the moustache/beard and not really the face. I appear to be hooked on
FGR.
18-OCT-2009
Day 291 - Shiny Things
Getting hooked on this FGR thing. I had to raid my wife's jewelry drawer though.
17-OCT-2009
Day 290 - Wizard
Again with the FGR Induced photo. I got a lot of stuff done today, paid bills, cleaned out my office a bit, got a section in the garage insulated & rocked. During my office cleaning, I came upon my son's wizard hat that has made an appearance in a previous
PaD shot. It was full of cat hair, it cleaned up nicely, I was able to get it back into "Wizard Shape". So the hat is about the only "Alice-like" thing I can think of. I dug deep into my camera closet and pulled out my Lensbabies 3.0 for this shot. I didn't even try to bring anything into focus, trying to achieve that surreal feel. I think it may have worked. At least until someone lets me know that there are no Wizards in Wonderland ;-)
16-OCT-2009
Day 289 - Nappin
Another
FGR induced PaD. One would be hard to believe the rushed nature of this cozy shot. I feel like I could or should go back up there and finish the job. Of course, my oldest would freak out when she called to get picked up and no one answered the phone.
15-OCT-2009
Day 288 - Seen
Pretty much the concept I was looking for. Until I saw today's
FGR, I was shooting a light switch. This is a close in tight shot using my Tokina UWA. I have a white sheet draped over myself, the camera, and the flash. The flash is camera mounted and pointed up into the sheet. In LR, I adjusted the exposure on my eye to bring it in. I meant to get the pupil too, but I stopped with the whites as it is much more dramatic.
14-OCT-2009
Day 287 - Many
The leaves have begun to fall. OK, they've been falling for the past week. We probably have another few weeks before we can start raking. I was going to hit the lawn over the weekend with the lawn mower and remove some of these guys, but it is too late now. We had our first frost last night, the car windows were frosted over. My son & I were discussing this on our way to his school. I saw a freezing warning for the area tonight. Temps are gonna drop into the 20's for the morning. It will be a cold ride in tomorrow, but I'm ready. On my ride home today, I passed some guy on the turnpike with a snow plow. I did a triple-take on that one. I hope he was just bringing it back home from somewhwere and not getting ready for anything!
08-MAY-2009
Day 286 - Games
Long day. I actually worked from home, was here all day and never got a chance to pick up the camera. That is usually the case, I am normally much more productive working from home as I can limit my distractions (this is true during the work week provided the kids are in school). Anyway, this evening my oldest is at Marching Band Practice and the younger ones are home with me. My daughter broke out this game "Katamino" which is pretty fun. It can be a single player or a two player game. There is a little separator bar that you put in the middle then you divvy up the pieces and try to solve your side of the puzzle. My daughter beat me every time.
12-OCT-2009
Day 285 - Workspace
It's all about workspace. I opted to not go with the '79 Beemer from yesterday's PaD. I have too many other projects that haven't been finished. I can kick myself in the head later this winter when I am caught up and need another project ;-)
Earlier this year, I had our back door in our garage moved over a couple of feet. You can kind of see where it was and where it is now. The foundation wall was filled in and has done a wonderful job of preventing water from flowing in. We used to get a steady stream of water from the back door, the front door, and the garage door all throughout the garage when it rained (and it rains here). I've given it a good 6 months to be sure that we are dry and will remain so. I made two trips today, one to pick up the Craftsman Rolling Tool Chest (the stickers are mine) from Craigslist and the other to Home Depot to get some R-19 Insulation and some Sheetrock to begin the buttoning up phase of the garage work. I bought just enough to finish off this little nook. This is going to be my motorcycle working area, there is just enough space for the bike, Tool Chest, and some shelves. I intend to spend some time out here this winter working on the bike since the garage will finally be insulated.
11-OCT-2009
Day 284 - Decisions Decisions
This is a 1979 BMW R65 that I looked at today. I'm in the market for a second bike, most likely a project bike. I would label this as a "Project Bike". I'm the 'No' side of the fence right now. It would be a lot of work just to get this bike home, it doesn't run right now which means trailering it and hefting it around. The R65 is also kind of a "Black Sheep" in Beemer land, I'd run the risk of having to put more into it than it would be worth. Would be fun though.
10-OCT-2009
Day 283 - Empty
My kids asked about this building today while were riding around running errands. It used to be a grocery store many, many years ago. I remember going in for some things way back when, it was run down then. That had to be in the 80's. After the area was basically reconstructed, it went out of business and became a restaurant. I believe the restaurant went out of business another took its place before going out of business and then basically remaining empty ever since. I am thinking this building has been empty for at least ten years, possibly longer. I can't imagine anything every occupying this building, it would probably cost too much to renovate. I imagine this building will be destroyed and something will go in its place eventually. Perhaps when the economy turns around.
09-OCT-2009
Day 282 - My Shoes
This sure isn't the shot I had in mind, but after two different attempts, I gave up. My wife leaves on a trip tomorrow morning (4am) and the suitcase was out, all packed and ready to go. It was sitting up against the wall and looked interesting. I actually moved some stuff out of the way, cleaned the floor (the first shots revealed a large concentration of dust-bunnies) and moved my flash around, but it wasn't going to happen. This was a last minute idea, the floor was relatively clean and my shoes were nearby. A little over-processing in LR and I have something interesting. These are LL Bean Gore-Tex hikers. I only wear LL Bean boots/shoes, they stand behind what they sell, and they are pretty much local for us. These guys are about 9 months old, they look a little under the weather, part of that is the post processing, part of it is the shoes. So enough about my shoes.
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.
26-SEP-2009
Day 269 - Hanging Out
Here's a pretty good shot of my son that I took of him in a stairwell outside the hospital parking garage today. The hospital is beautiful, the garage is beautiful, the stairwell looks like something out of the projects, I think because it is enclosed in glass and the humidity is probably pretty high throughout the year inside of this thing. We were at the hospital for a CATScan appointment for his left arm that he broke two days ago during gymnastics. We didn't realize he'd broken his arm until yesterday (Friday) when we had to take him to a clinic in a neighboring town. Amazing that now-a-days when you get x-rays, they can review them at the place they were taken, then forward them to an expert for evaluation. In our case, the expert at the actual hospital said something to the effect of "Seek an Orthopedic Surgeon ASAP". The Orthopedic Surgeon had us wait in their examining room for about two hours before telling us that they needed a CATScan first before they could proceed (I really think they did that so they could go home sooner as we found out that CATScans take all of 10 minutes at the hospital which is 5 minutes from the Orthopedic Clinic). So , today we went to have this CATScan. We don't find anything out until Monday. At the very least, he gets his elbow set and casted this Tuesday. He is doing fine though. In fact, we spent 3 hours walking around out neighborhood this afternoon in his Cub Scout uniform selling popcorn as a fundraiser. Hell of a salesman, my son, especially in a Cub Scout uniform AND a cast. . .
25-SEP-2009
Day 268- Strom Salute
I was riding around this morning with the intention of hitting mountain road (Dirt) and finding a nice rustic fall scene to shoot. I missed my turn (there was some construction and I got distracted) and wound up taking the wrong road which bypassed Mountain Road entirely. I got this great idea of heading back (make a big circle) and make the correct turn. On the way, I noticed this excavator blocking access to a cleared section of land. I doubled back and parked the Strom under the backhoe (which turns out, wasn't such a hot idea) and walked around the back side to snap a few shots. The shots came out OK, I am using the widest angle lens I have, trying to capture the whole scene. I something more dramatic in my mind than this shot. What you don't see is that I am off the hastily created dirt road, in a pile of mud, with my front tire resting on a patch of mud right in front of a ditch. I spent a good 5 minutes wrestling this bike out of it's predicament as I couldn't ride out of this. I eventually was able to ride out through the mud that is behind the Strom, which made for an interesting exit. Needless to say, I arrived to work today with pretty muddy boots.
24-SEP-2009
Day 267 - Portsmouth Fall Scene
(Catching up after yet another PBase meltdown)
This morning I decided to head out to the Rte 1 Bypass Bridge to shoot a large ship that I noticed yesterday. I was too late, the ship was gone. In fact, there were no ships in the harbor that I could see. Since I'd already gone a different route, I decided to continue onto the Memorial Bridge and cross into downtown Portsmouth. I pulled over more because of the open parking space than the scene, but once I started looking about, I noticed that I could get this one turning tree and the North Church Steeple as well, I can't do anyting about the freakin power lines, I'm not gonna Photoshop them out. Fall is coming, even though it was 72 degrees for my morning commute (which was warmer than it got all day a few days back). Today may have been the last of the warm days this year.
23-SEP-2009
Day 266 - Fall Colors and Shapes
More pumpkins. These are in York, Maine though (OK, technically the one's from last week are from York as well, these are more 'York' though ;-) I was out riding on a few back roads on my way into work. I got behind someone going pretty slow so I took a road I haven't taken in years (Frost Hill Road) and then took a left when I should have taken a right. I am not complaining, I can never complain about spending more time on the bike than planned. Anyway, I pull into town and see all these colors in front of the hardware store (a real hardware/garden store, not a Home Depot or Lowes) and pull in for some shots. An old timer pops up next to me and lets me know that this looks like a good scene. I thank him for not mistaking me for a pumpkin (I was still in my riding gear). Very warm ride/day too. Two days ago, I have my liner in, a sweatshirt, electric gloves, and thermal underwear on. Today, I am sweating with my summer 'getup' on and my summer weight riding gloves. This would be New England.
22-SEP-2009
Day 265 - Parts
Another try this evening. Something about yesterday's photo boosted my pbase hit count into quadruple digits. After looking at the thumbnail, I realize what people initially thought they saw. We are such base creatures. Anyway, I was playing with light today, most of this current effect is from a Polaroid Preset in LightRoom 2, my wife's leg wasn't this blown out in the original shot. Her feet are in the foreground completely out of focus as I am focusing on the hemline on her capris. Makes for an interesting abstract.
21-SEP-2009
Day 264 - Entwined
It should be pretty easy to tell what this/these is/are after a little staring. I've been back in the portrait mode since my wife has asked me to shoot our family photos this fall. I was testing on her and trying odd angles when I discovered this composition. It is not what you think. . .
20-SEP-2009
Day 263 - Not Used
Sometimes things shouldn't be saved. I bought this wine when I was on a TDY (Trip) to Germany (Bitburg) in the Air National Guard back in '93. I am quite sure this would taste like crap if we opened it today. We never kept it in a wine cellar, it has gotten warm and cold numerous times in the past umpteen years. I'm not sure why we save it, other than the fact that it looks good in our wine rack.
19-SEP-2009
Day 262 - Details
This is my left Highway Footpeg. My Highway pegs from Dan Vessel arrived yesterday (Friday) and I had them installed in the evening in about 15 minutes. Had a pretty busy day, I wound up with a ton of photographs from my daughter's First High School Marching Band Competition for the season. It will take a while for me to Process all those images, so while I was waiting for her to call to tell me the bus was getting closer and I could go pick her up, I set up the gear in the garage and took more bike shots. You can see my lighting setup in the reflection on the left side of the footpeg. That is the 'Details' aspect of this shot. Strobist info: 580Ex-2 1/4 Power, camera left above and slightly behind the footpeg, shooting into my homemade diffuser.
18-SEP-2009
Day 261 - End of the Rainbow
Here is why I have a "Bike Camera". My LX3 is always in my tank bag (the black bag that is on the tank behind the handlebars) and the tank bag is always with/on the bike. Today I decided to leave my "Heavy Duty" gear at home because I figured I would shoot something after I got home and went to the High School Football game to watch my daughter and the Marching Band. I am only wondering what this shot would have looked like with the 40D. This is on my way off of the Tradeport, there is this huge turn around for trucks, I practically slammed on the brakes on the wet pavement to pull in so I could make use of this incredible light. There was no rainbow when I started. in fact, I didn't even notice the rainbow until 5 shots into this, I saw something in the preview image on the camera. I was still in my riding gear with my helmet on, sunglasses, and face-shield. When I realized what was happening, I started shooting from various angles trying to get more or less of the rainbow in the photo. For some odd reason, I had actually lined up perfectly with the rainbow when I was shooting initially, I cannot imagine the odds, in fact, I need to go buy a lottery ticket!
17-SEP-2009
Day 260 - Land Locked
This is the photo of the sailboat I noticed yesterday on my morning travels. I did another AM photo run today. This shot could have used a bit of balanced lighting, I checked and I could have gotten this particular shot with the sky properly exposed had I taken the time to setup my flash. Problem is, I carry only one strobe, and I'd have needed two to light the whole boat (though now that I think of it, it could have given a dramatic feel to it if only the bow were lit). I would have required extra time to set all that up too, something I didn't have much of this morning.
16-SEP-2009
Day 259 - Morning Pumpkins
Did something a little different today, I sought out my PaD on the ride into work, knowing that there would be no time for a photo after work. Good thing too, there was no time after. I took Rte 91 into work, one of my alternate routes, it was the road I commuted for about 9 or 10 years before my company moved to Portsmouth, NH. As I came up on a farm stand, I noticed some pumpkins lined up on hay bales. Early pumpkins, not too many. I think they were supposed to be covered by a tarp that had blown off (it was a little windy). Anyway, I figured this would be today's shot. I'd like a "Sea of pumpkins" but I will take what I can get. On the rest of the route, I found a future PaD, possibly tomorrows as I am not sure how long it will be in place. Now that I look at this photo again, I don't like that the pumpkin on the left is slightly OOF, I focused on the one with the stem and shot at F4 at ISO 400, I had to hand-hold my 70-200 F4L, it was overcast and I didn't want to bump the ISO or slow up the shutter speed. I need to find a way to get my tripod on the bike...
15-SEP-2009
Day 258 - Dog Unpose
This is my dog trying to look all cool like and doing an 'unpose'. He was less than receptive to being my subject this evening, he really preferred that I gave him some kind of unhealthy, greasy snack (which I didn't do). I couldn't get him interested in the camera, he was interested for a short period of time in the lens cap though. Even though he wouldn't play ball here, the shot didn't come out so bad. One interesting point, it is now cooling down and he has begun to shed like a sheep. I don't get it, it is his winter coat that is shedding, though this kind of odd behavior has gone on with him for the past 10 years or so.
14-SEP-2009
Day 257 - Guardians
So I am riding up the turnpike, thinking only about getting into Dover so I can find a Pharmacy to get some kind of anti-inflammatory thing for my left hand. All the riding this weekend seems to have taken its toll, my right index finger is swollen and sore as all hell. Ibuprofen didn't work either. I'd already resigned myself to yet another "In the house PaD shot" when I noticed the Asia off the highway. This place is like a fixture, its been there forever. I've only been in probably two or three times in the past ten years. I pulled off the highway and then cruised into the pretty much empty parking lot. There was an officer of the law parked at the end nearest the side road, I parked nearest the highway since I wanted to get the angle that I saw from the highway. The policeman didn't seem to care about a middle aged guy in a very bright orange jacket taking photos in the parking lot. I moved around, looking for a better angle and settled on this. I like those dog statue things, I shot with the UWA, I should have gotten a little closer to allow the dog thing to take up more of the frame, but I was shooting on the ground on my bean bag, so this was about the closest I could get AND get enough of the front of the restaurant for context.
I did wind up getting Aleve which so far hasn't done anything yet. . .
13-SEP-2009
Day 256 - More Bike Parts
I got pressed into riding service this morning by my cousins. They showed up at the door on their bikes wanting to go our for another ride. I was eager to join them (luckily I'd gotten all my stuff done earlier). Did a real nice ride, made it up to North Conway where I had to turn back to get home to take the kids out shoe shopping so that I could make a Cub Scout Leader's meeting at 6pm. In all my excitement today, I never got my PaD shot, so I went back to the bike parts. . .
12-SEP-2009
Day 255 - Overexposed
This is a complete mistake photo. I was fumbling with my Panasonic while riding and didn't notice the selection wheel was on "S" (Whatever that is) instead of "P". Luckily I caught a glimpse of the preview of one of the shots and switched the selector. I did take better shots, in the correct mode, but there is something about this shot that I really like. This is Straight Out Of the Camera even though it looks like some kind of funky Photoshop action was applied to it. I had a blast riding with my cousins today. We turned a 200 mile trip into a 300-and-some-odd mile trip by deciding to do the Kangamgus Highway in NH this afternoon. I felt bad for them because it started raining for the last two hours of the trip. My riding gear is waterproof, I don't have to stop to put on rain gear, I'm literally covered. They didn't have their rain gear. One of my cousins didn't even have a windscreen, he was on his '99 Fatboy with all of it in the wind (and rain). He is now considered Hard Core.
11-SEP-2009
Day 254 - Stopping Power
Long day at the office, I left late and had to change real fast to rush off to the High School Football game where my oldest was playing in the Marching Band. It was the first home game and thus the first Band Engagement of the season. It was raining out at work when I left and kind of sprinkling when I got up to the house. I brought the camera gear but left it in the Tahoe because I was concerned about getting stuck in the rain with all my gear. Turns out it didn't rain out (that I could tell) during the second half of the game that I got to see. Based on the success of yesterday's photos, I broke out the gear and shot more "Bike Stuff". These are my front rotors on the bike, the bike just turned over 30K miles and I have to believe these are the original Rotors (I bought it used last year with 18k on it and full maintenance records). Strobist info: 580EX2 at 1/4 power into my homegrown diffuser, above and behind the front tire.
10-SEP-2009
Day 253 - Rox Risers
I finally received my Rox Risers today. Installed them this evening. It makes quite a difference, at least in sitting on the bike on the center stand. I was able to get all the cables to fit without binding, though I will probably replace my brake & clutch lines with longer braided hose this winter to be safe (it's a 2002, the hoses could use replacing anyway). I am hoping this will help my wrists and back on longer rides. Weather permitting, my cousins & I are heading out for a nice long ride this Saturday (fingers crossed). After installing bike parts, the next thing to do is obviously take photos! Strobist info: Flash [580EX2] camera right, high, behind the handlebars, 1/8 Power. Shooting into my homemade diffuser.
09-SEP-2009
Day 252 - Joe's Garage
This garage is on one my shorter alternate routes home. I've ridden by it numerous times and thought it would make a decent enough subject. This evening I found myself chasing the sunset. I realized this was a chase I'd lose just about the time I passed by Joe's Garage. I saw enough of the scene to realize no one was there so it was safe for me to park out front and take a few shots. No use of the cybersyncs today, just a wholesome photo with some post processing. I turned it into a grey scale and applied a blue highlight, giving the sky it's blue look. Kind of a "cheating selective coloring" approach I guess.
08-SEP-2009
Day 251 - Soft
I am not all that happy with this shot or any of the shots I took this evening, but they are the only ones I have and the sun has set. In my preview window, these looked sharp enough, but I was a bit rushed again and when rushed, the shot looks as such. The tones are what I was looking for, even the lighting is pretty close to what I want, save for the blown out VStrom lettering. Oh yeah, had I waited just one more minute, I'd have a very large private jet at a 30 degree angle in the top right of the photo. After this shot, I packed up and headed straight home, or so I thought. As I was approaching the base exit, I saw these three guys on bikes pulled over at the entrance. There were two Stroms in the mix (I can tell those headlights anywhere). I pulled off and asked if they needed help. Turns out they were a group from Florida, up traveling through New England. They wanted to head into Maine to find a place to stay. I didn't understand what they were asking at first, but then I got it (they had been traveling a lot today). I rode with them, and even pulled off when they took the wrong exit, it was the correct road, just wrong state. It all worked out, the road (Route 1 Bypass) has a nice bridge leading right into Maine.
07-SEP-2009
Day 250 - Shoot thru me
I took about a hundred or so shots, even settled on one. Then took another 50 or so. I had a rim lighting effect type shot in mind. I even had a snoot set up, but it wasn't doing it for me. I then moved onto trying to do a rim light shot of my back, that didn't work either, though I did have a mistake shot that I almost posted, but couldn't get it right. I fell back to my favorite shot, draping a white sheet up between some cabinets and shooting my 580EX-2 into it at full power. I've had very good success with this technique in the past. If my wife were a little more awake, I'd have used her as my subject instead. I've done a few SP's like this before. So far, so good with the Cybersyncs. Haven't had a misfire yet. 3
06-SEP-2009
Day 250 - Relaxing
My wife took the kids to the pool and I found myself with some spare time. I'd just come back from a nice long walk/hike with the dog, we found a dirt road, a pond, and a snowmobile trail. I got back and was resting on my chair when I realized it would make a nice photo. So, I did what anyone else would have done while resting, I grabbed all my photo gear. I set up the shoot through umbrella to camera right, aiming down. My 580EX-2 is at full power. Good use of the cybersyncs here. I actually didn't get a chance to nod off after taking this shot. I believe someone popped in after I'd picked everything up and I never got my nap. The tent in the background actually housed my daughter and her friend for the weekend. I liked it for a background as it was a lot less busy than our RV.
05-SEP-2009
Day 249 - Sick Jump
After playing a round of golf with my family and friends today (that took up most of the day), I set up some camera gear and took some photos of the kids hitting a jump that they made in front of the campsite. Every year they make a jump and we suddenly find ourselves with a slew of children that we never knew existed. This is my son, we knew he existed. While it is not the best shot I took this afternoon, it is the photo that captures him going the highest in the air. The jump is the mound of dirt beneath his rear tire. He's learned how to pull back on the handlebars when the front tire hits the jump to get the most 'air'. Mitch is in the background armed with a shovel, he is keeping the jump in tip top shape. Our camper is actually in the background, though it is not actually visible.
04-SEP-2009
Day 248 - Some Clouds
First full day of Labor Day weekend. Just hanging out all day. It was very relaxing. It was also the first day I spent with my glasses on. Glasses I got about two, maybe three years ago to help me with seeing presentations. Yesterday I was on day 3 of a big headache and I decided to wear (and bring) these glasses to see if there was any help. I wore them all day today. I woke up with the headache still 'there' but it went away at some point in the late morning. I attributed it to the glasses. By the late afternoon, I began feeling bit of vertigo, something that I am guessing is related to wearing glasses at first. I started looking up and feeling a bit light-headed. I was also awestruck by the clouds this evening while I was watching the kids at the pool. So much so that I turned my attention to photographing them over the kids ;-)
03-SEP-2009
Day 247 - Tonight's Moon
I think this might be the first Full Moon during our Labor Day Weekend Camping weekend. I am so used to packing astronomy stuff (green laser pointer, binoculars, etc) that I am quite sure of it. With this full moon this weekend, there will be very little star gazing done. The largest tele in my arsenal is my 70-200 F4L. Moon shots really need something will a little more reach to make it appear a lot more daunting. I think I will pick up a 1200mm tele for just such an occasion.
02-SEP-2009
Day 246 - Grate
Since I met my "riding mileage goal" today, I was able to come straight home. This means that I didn't stop for any photos on the way. We are leaving for our Labor Day camping bash tomorrow right after work, I was able to get a bunch of stuff packed so that we aren't screwing around here tomorrow afternoon trying to race out of here. Well, we will still leave much later than we want, but at least a lot of the packing is now done. So anyway, I needed to find things to shoot in the house. I was taking photos of all kinds of thing, one of the kids left a microphone out and I took a few shots of it. I like the pattern through the macro lens. I have a set of Cybersyncs coming in tomorrow, just in time for our camping weekend. I intend to put them to use over the weekend. I can get back into the Strobist thing with a set of working triggers now. I might even bring my Cactus triggers and throw them in the fire!
01-SEP-2009
Day 245 - Alton Town Hall
This is what happens when you set out on a ride home and mistake the route. I did a real quick scan of maps.google.com and it looked like I was going to take Route 4 to Route 107 and then pick up Route 126 back into Rochester. Turns out, 126 doesn't intersect 107. If you stay on 107 long enough, you wind up pretty far out of the way. I did have the GPS (but not the route) so I took a bunch of side roads from Gilmington to find my way to 140 which takes you into Alton. I was completely distracted by the Alton Town hall due to this pretty cool scene.
I am supporting the camera on a winter Buff, a beanbag, and my helmet bag. I can't believe this didn't come out blurrier.
Though I shot this at ISO 100 on my 40D, with the announcement today by Canon of the new 7D, you have to wonder what this would have looked like at ISO 6400 or even 12800. OK, you don't actually have to wonder, but I do. This is a tricky shot with the 17-55, I had to clone out a ton of lens flare in the upper left hand corner.
31-AUG-2009
Day 244 - Diorama
This is actually an outtake that I didn't actually delete. I was trying to capture my bik and all of this school for the new Northern New England Tag-O-Rama (
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=495536). I set the camera down on my bean bag on the grass with the Tokina UWA loaded up. Since it is on the ground, I have no way of looking through the viewfinder. The lowest AF point was selected, thus the blades of grass in the foreground are in focus (kind of). The rest is a blur. When I got back and reviewed my shots, this once stood out because it made the whole scene look "Toylike". I get the feeling of looking in a diorama. I had a different shot that I used for the Tag and kept this one for my PaD for today.
30-AUG-2009
Day 243 - Payloader
I set out this afternoon for Best Buy in Manchester, NH then off to the Apple store in Salem, NH. My goal was to upgrade my MacBook Pro to Snow Leopard today. I am now on Snow Leopard. Lightroom 2 seems much faster, the previews are rendered immediately now, before SL, I had to wait about 2 seconds or more per image for it to render. So, anyway, I am riding home and I notice some construction vehicles down in Eliot, they are parked in a place where a crane company parks their cranes. I ride by and get this idea, so I turn around and pull up in front of the payloader. I took a number of photos, this up tight shot does something for me. I did warm this up a little bit. I am also amazed at today's weather, yesterday we were hit by a Tropical Storm (Danny), less than a day later, the clouds have parted, the sun came out, and we had a very nice day. Salvaged the weekend. I was actually a little warm on the bike in the city(ies).
29-AUG-2009
Day 242 - Danny Boy
While the bulk of the rain seemed to miss us, the effects didn't. We were without power for about 4 hours, not a very long time in the grand scheme of things, but enough to ask WTF? It's only August. After 3 hours of no power, I went to The Home Depot to return some stuff I'd been meaning to return for quite some time. I checked out generators while I was there. My neighbors have generators, the power wasn't out for 15 minutes and I heard a couple fire up. I could live without the computer and TV, its the sump pump that we can't live without. We only lose power when it is raining and when we lose power, there is nothing to check the flow of water into our basement. So anyway, here is a shot of my wife's car outdoors since she left when we had power and came back after it had gone out. The garage door opener requires power. While there is a manual override, I was too lazy to open the door. I shot this off my tripod (Duh, right, .6 second shutter speed?) while standing in the garage.
28-AUG-2009
Day 241 - Familiar Icon
I had to head to Best Buy today after work to try to locate another MyBook drive. I am running out of room on my Mac Book Pro, I can free up 50 Gigs, by copying out a few months photos from 2007 to an external drive, however, my external drive is also running out of space. I want to get Snow Leopard as well, but I need some extra space on my MBP. Oh what a vicious circle! Well, Best Buy had the same crappy selection of MyBooks as Staples, which is to say that I haven't gotten another drive yet. I am a bit picky, I want another FireWire 800 drive so I can daisy chain it into my existing drive (lets keep it simple, right?). Problem is, I can't find a FireWire 800 locally, WTF? So I am pulling out of the mall area, thinking that the clouds would make a great background, when I pass by McDonald's. I was in the left lane, I did a "tourist right turn" cutting off a few people in the process (I am on my bike here also) and made it into the parking lot. I was still in my motorcycle gear, standing in front of McDonald's working on this shot. I provided plenty of entertainment for the patrons, I am sure. My son noticed the photo on his way to bed and shouted "McDonald's". This is a familiar icon, we all know it.
27-AUG-2009
Day 240 - Bridge of Fire
I took a different route home this evening, leaving late enough to do the "Dual Bridge Tour", something I would not attempt to do at rush hour. While riding across the bridge, I saw the silhouetted light posts against this beautiful sunset and decided to stop. Unfortunately, the parking as at the end of the bridge, right where the road curves in this photo. I had to walk back across the bridge, in my bike gear, to get to a suitable location for shooting. I'd already walked back about 100 yards to shoot this seagull, I realized that he added another element to the photo. I originally cropped out the road and the cars, but on a whim brought them back in and I kind of like it. I am on a roll now, I haven't had the bike in my last few day's worth of shots.
26-AUG-2009
Day 239 - Irving Gas Station
Here is why I prefer to carry my camera with me at all times. We headed out this evening to got to Staples to get the kids school supplies and get some gas. As we were leaving there were some massive, ugly storm clouds moving in. I packed the camera anyway, hoping for a break in the rain. It never actually rained, but the clouds did eventually pass and at the right time too, right at sunset. This worked out well, as I was literally on fumes (put 23.6 gallons into my 23 gallon tank). I was able to set the clip on the nozzle and walk away for this shot (yeah, I know leaving the Tahoe unattended, but this is shot with my UWA, I'm not but 20 feet away). Tonight's PaD was tough, there were three good shots. I chose this one because who would have thought a gas station could become a subject?
25-AUG-2009
Day 238 - Nighttime Diner
This photo is serving double duty today. It is my PaD photo AND it's the new Maine Tag. I am putting the beanbag to good use. I am kneeling down in the parking lot, over my camera, for this shot. I was worried that someone might pull in while I was shooting this. No one came out of the diner during this shot. I imagine they thought I was crazy, parking out front and walking around in my gear, including my helmet. In the preview screen on the DSLR, this looked really good. It wasn't until I was about 5 miles away, running the shot through my head, that I realized I was shooting in ISO 1600. The noise level is high, but for a web shot, it is acceptable. For a Maine Tag-o-Rama shot, it is better than acceptable. I am starving now, I should have gone in and ordered some pie. The sign in the front, that looks like it is sticking out of my front tire says "Bike Pads". Basically a boat load of small plywood squares that you put down on the ground and rest your kick stand on. Otherwise, you might come back to find you bike sinking into the pavement on hot days. I didn't need a bike stand for this shot. . .
24-AUG-2009
Day 237 - Last Day
We stayed at a Best Western in Ticonderoga, NY our last night. It was very hard to find, they were way off any major road and the sign was very, very small. With the GPS inop, it was a pain to find. The lady said that even with GPS, people had trouble finding them. It was the cleanest and Best, Best Western I've ever seen. When my daughter found out they had an indoor heated pool, it was all over. We got in late, just before a rain storm moved in. They let me park the bike under the overhang by the conference center entrance. That was very cool, I didn't have to wipe the bike down in the morning. I can't believe that we didn't take more photos on our last day. Plenty of iPhone photos along the way for all days, but very little 'quality' shots. I took this shot in the morning when I came out to put the top bag back on. The bike sat overnight stripped down each night. Since I always have the top bag (Trunk) on it, it looks very odd to me without any luggage whatsoever. It looks more "My Bike Like" in this shot.
23-AUG-2009
Day 236 - Watching the drawbridge
We were riding through the islands on Champlain and stopped at the little house on the other side of this shot (blocked by the bridge) to take some photos. We were there for a little bit, hoping to catch the bridge opening. We gave up and pulled out and heard the signal as we crossed. At the end of the bridge, I swung around and came back to watch. The bridge hadn't opened by the time we pulled up. I could tell this bridge would be open for a bit, so I immediately turned off the bike and we got off (this is the point where I forgot to click the "Stay On" button on the GPS - Fatal error here) to take some photos. The people behind us had the same idea, everyone had turned off their vehicles and gotten out of them to watch. My daughter was so excited that we turned around to watch the bridge open. While I did get a shot of her facing the camera, this is the shot I liked the best. This was a little past our 1/2 way point of the 3 day trip, were something like 450 miles into the trip at this point. right after taking the photos, I was all set to wait for the bridge to come back down and traffic resume so I could turn around on the other side. My daughter (the thinker) said "Dad, why don't you just turn around right now while there are no cars coming?". Smart kid!
22-AUG-2009
Day 235 - 2009 Northern New England Tour
My daughter and I on our first stop of our three day, 830 mile tour of Northern New England. We'd ridden for about an hour and a half at this point and pulled over into a grocery store parking lot in Bridgton, Maine. I found room for my DSLR, but no room for a tripod. I am using a beanbag that my oldest made for me last year. This thing came in handy. I am going to talk her into making another one, only larger. I just realized that I am wearing my Harley Davidson shirt that I got from their Milwaukee plant last year when I still had a Harley. I ride a Suzuki now, but there are no comfortable Suzuki shirts that I am aware of ;-)
21-AUG-2009
Day 234 - Reflections in Oil
We have our motorcycle trip planned for tomorrow through Monday, I realized this week that it had been a while since I'd changed the oil, 4,000 miles, in fact. I run Mobil 1 Synthetic, so that is not an inordinate amount of miles on this oil, but I prefer 3k between changes. So I am changing the oil tonight. I got the idea of shooting a reflection off the drain pan while I was on the floor watching the pan fill. I set up the camera on the tripod and gave it a whirl. It is kind of a cheap Filter (so to speak). There is still some oil dripping at a rate of once every 2 seconds or so, for this 5 second exposure, there were two drips. I planned this trip months ago, and we just came off two weeks of summer weather, as I type this, I am listening to the grand daddy of thunderstorms approaching. It is supposed to rain through into the morning and we are supposed to leave bright and early tomorrow. Once this clears up, we have the beginnings of Hurricane Bill to contend with. We're going though, there's no changing plans at this point. There is a 650 mile trip through 4 states on the plan. We have no firm plans though, no motels booked, we will play our stops by ear. I am introducing my 11 year old to getting out on the open road and riding. We've got the gear, we've got the time, oh yeah, I gotta go pack. Oh, and put some oil in the bike!
20-AUG-2009
Day 233 - Breaking the Law
I was well within the ten foot minimum when I took this. Of course, this old York County Jail has been closed for a number of years too. I went out riding this evening to capture the latest Maine Tag. After nabbing it, I came back to the jail and reset it. I found a path that led around the back and took the bike around back to check it out. There were a lot of cool things to shoot (I can imagine it's inhabitants thought the same thing). What was more impressive was the massive sand pit behind the jail. I didn't get any photos, I might have to head back some day and do a little off roading back there.
19-AUG-2009
Day 232 - Sunset Bridge
I didn't get a chance to do my riding this evening, I left too late and decided to head straight home. For the most part, I did go straight home, well OK, it was a little curvey. Straight home would have entailed me crossing the bridge that has become my subject here, I didn't go that route. It was probably for the best that I didn't get to do my ride as it was very hot out today, in fact, when I came out of the office at about 7:30ish, it felt like it was still in the 80's (which I think it was). I would have had a miserable ride had I left at 6pm like I'd intended. I loved the colors in the sky tonight. It is supposed to get cooler in the coming days, so I'm thinking some of these humid colors are gonna go bye-bye (which is a good thing). My 11-year-old & I have a 2 1/2 day Motorcycle Adventure coming up this weekend, the plan is to head north, and follow the border (Canada) all the way into New York. I'd take her into Canada, but she doesn't have a passport (I do) and we now have to have passports to cross the border so that Big Brother can keep tabs on us.
18-AUG-2009
Day 231 - Chasing the sunset
Not quite the effect I was aiming for, but I saw the field and the opportunity to get some kind of sunset shot and took it. Pulling back onto the main road, I wound up taking up the rear of a motorcycle club that was going the same direction I was going. I rode with them for about 20 miles until they went West and I went East. I forgot the name of the club, it was a red emblem and I originally thought they were all firemen, until I noticed the guy in the rear (ahead of me) was a cop, at least he had a vanity plate on his Harley with 'PD' on it. They had to be the most diverse group of riders I'd seen yet, which was why I didn't mind tagging along with them (normally I'm a solo rider). They had their fair share of Harleys, but there was a guy on a K1200GT and a couple of other guys on sport bikes (they were up towards the middle so I couldn't tell the actual make). For a day that hit record highs, the evening turned out some of the best riding yet (save for the fricken bugs that I had to clean off my helmet).
17-AUG-2009
Day 230 - Saddleback Mountain Road
This is as far as you can legally travel on Saddleback Mountain Road. The sign is just to the side of me, I couldn't turn around safely at the sign so I pulled up a hair and took this shot (gotta have pics). This part of the road looks better than the previous climb up, it's better packed. The previous stretch is loose gravel and it wasn't fun going downhill on that rear Trailwing. If I keep this dirt thing up, I can see TKC-80's for me in the future. This was also an unplanned stop, by this time, the sun was setting fast and I'd given up on my final destination which was still a 1/2 hour away this point. I never did make it to my final destination, I did make it to a McDonald's at the Lee Traffic circle though. I would have loved to continue on up Saddleback, I have to check with the local Ham club, we have a repeater up on this mountain and if I am a member in good standing (callsign: n1xf), perhaps I can get permission to climb this here hill (err mountain).
16-AUG-2009
Day 229 - Look what was in the mail
My ADV stickers arrived while we were away last week. After the hours of emptying the camper, I cleaned up the rear mudflap & the side cases and put some stickers on. The "ADV" stands for "Adventure" as in www.advrider.com (you can see the URL on the sticker). Time to go take some photos of this sticker in action.
15-AUG-2009
Day 228 - Fox attacks
Earlier we found a snakeskin on the rock island (it is a very tiny island) and put it on top of a boulder that is resting on top of the rock island (you can see it's shadow here). After taking a few shots of the fam, I caught Fox going berserk on the shady side of the boulder. At first I thought he was attacking an insect (he does this), then I thought he found the snake that belonged to the skin. After investigating, I realized it was the snakeskin that he was attacking, it had blown off the boulder and was lodged in this crevice and moving with the wind. He looks particularly fierce in this photo, when in fact, he is pretty docile.
14-AUG-2009
Day 227 - N734ME Takeoff run
This guy was pulling away from the dock as I came paddling in. I got a shot on my iPhone of him either just before or right after starting his engine. He had to taxi to the other side of the lake to start his takeoff run, which gave me plenty of time to get the kayak in & gear ready. I had about 40 shots of him coming at me, he took a while to get off the lake. On closer inspection of the photo, I found that this is a Cessna Skyhawk II, the newer version of the plane that I logged about 200 hours in way back when. Granted, I never flew a seaplane, I only have my SEL (Single Engine Land) rating. I haven't flown in so long, I couldn't tell you what this has for an engine up front (I bet it's not a Continental O-200 anymore). Edit: I did a search on the 'N' Number and turns out this is a '77 C-172 with a Lycoming O-320 up front.
13-AUG-2009
Day 226 - Caught the yard engine again
Something about this particular shot that I like. Even though I have a bunch of shots in sequence and usually prefer to have the entire subject in frame, there is something about this shot that I like over the others.
12-AUG-2009
Day 225 - Posing for peanuts
I bribed this little guy with stale peanuts that none of us were going to eat, to pose for me. You can see four other peanuts in this cropped shot. He could fit two peanuts in his mouth, then head off for his new home which was underneath a bump in the ground right on the waterfront. This little guy ate very well this week.
11-AUG-2009
Day 224 - Scene from our campsite
We got to look out over this weeded area from our campsite. While I thought this area would be teaming with bass and pickerel, I had no luck in finding them. Edit: We found quite a few, they had trouble finding our lures.
10-AUG-2009
Day 223 - Bridge Documentation Project
I set out on the kayak, armed with my iPhone and two other cameras. For some odd reason, I decided to start photographing all the bridges that we can go under. I began with the Panasonic LX3, then soon switched to the iPhone because I could GPS Tag the photo and upload it while on the kayak. This is one of the few shots from the LX3. I like the angle as it captures the bow of the kayak nicely and gets the bridge and its entrance in as well. At one point in the past, this bridge carried two tracks, my guess is that some point in the past fifty or so years, it was downsized to a single track.
09-AUG-2009
Day 222 - Outboards
We had a great first full day of vacation. The weather for most of the day was perfect. Only in the late afternoon did the clouds come in (just as we came in off the water from a family canoe, kayak, and raft tour of the lakes) and a little rain ensued (very little, it stopped as soon as the camper next to us broke out a tarp to cover his firewood). These boats are right beside us (through the trees). I've not seen anyone use them, I'd know if they did as all of them are full of water. In fact, that tube that is sticking out of the back of the boat is from a siphon pump that has not been used in a while. That material you can kind of see in the foreground is this tarpish material that is covering the boat launch. It appears to keep the vehicles from sinking into the soft sand and getting stuck. It has been here since we first came here about 9 - 10 years ago (at least). This is, however, only our third time here and only the first time with the kids. I'm not sure how we've kept the kids from this place for so long, there is a lot to do that doesn't involve a computer, amusement rides, or Television. The two youngest spent pretty much most of the morning and early afternoon at the beach (just beyond the boat dock in this photo). After their beach fun, we hit the water on the Canoe and kayaks. We towed my son in a little blow up raft behind us which was a lot more work than I'd thought.
08-AUG-2009
Day 221 - Deep in thought
Lonnie looking into the distance. I actually used the built in flash for fill on this and it didn't come out half bad. Of course, I cranked it down as far as possible. We took forever to actually get out of the house. I think we finally left about 2pm ish. By the time this shot was taken, we'd finally got the site set up (mostly). First night all the kids slept in the tent (woo hoo!).
07-AUG-2009
Day 220 - In the distance
Today was my last day of work, we are headed on vacation next week (tomorrow afternoon) and I simply could not get out of the office at a reasonable time. I decided to take my actual commute home and noticed that Northbound traffic on I-95 was pretty heavy so I diverted to the Route 1 Bypass bridge. Instead of crawling over the I-95 bridge, I had to park in the road and wait for the Route 1 Bypass bridge to come back down. I actually put the kickstand down, shut the bike off, and walked around (taking photos of course). The tall ships are in the harbor, a fact that escaped me since I haven't taken my normal commute in almost two weeks. After the bridge finally came back down and traffic could flow, I scurried under the far end of the bridge to see if I could get a shot of some of the ships (there's more to the Southeast or left of the bridge). It's a little dark, but you can make out the two directly in front of me and one more obscured by the windscreen. I wish I'd known about the tall ships sooner, we'd have made a special trip down to the harbor to check them out.
06-AUG-2009
Day 219 - Field of dreams
This long field paralleled the dirt road for a little bit. There were two or three entrances to it along the way, but they were blocked off. I found one that was open, it was most likely open due to a recent mowing. About a hundred feet behind the strom was a very large fox who decided I wasn't anything he wanted to mess with. By the time I got off the bike, he was gone. He looked like a larger version of my dog. This dirt road continued on for about a 1/2 mile. I kept riding on back roads until I found another long dirt road that was cool, but just not as interesting as this one. The most interesting part was that it ran along the back side of a nudist colony. There were no nudists out, it sets way back, I just happened to notice the location on the GPS. To tell you the truth, I'd not be too interested in any nudists even if they happened into the road. With the bugs as bad as they are, I wouldn't want to see their effect on unprotected skin. My short summer is coming to a close here, tomorrow night is the last night before our vacation next week (Saturday to following Sunday). I can't imagine the weather will hold and be nearly as awesome as it has this past week. When we get back, I imagine it is back to the grind of 'normal' commutes.
05-AUG-2009
Day 218 - A Knight's Rest
Though I heard the temps soared into the high 80's during the day, by the time I got out of work, it was absolutely beautiful out. I set out for the 'lesser' roads this evening and had simply the best time. I love this photo. The only thing missing is Shrek in the background and donkey beside my bike trying to schmooze it (and perhaps a busty serving wench or two). I parked the bike inside the castle gate and walked around. It was a great stop.
04-AUG-2009
Day 217 - Moment of rest
I went all over the place this evening. After getting stuck in traffic heading out 101 (they are repaving in the evenings and people must be getting antsy 30 minutes before they start), I vowed to take 43 North to Route 4 then onto Route 202. I got sidetracked on 107 which was a great little jaunt and got back on track taking 202 out towards Rochester, but following 9 back into Dover. Most of the ride was under the cover of trees, with only a few fields. This cemetery is in Barrington on Route 9, only about a mile from the 125 Junction (Calef's Corner). I tried to capture some of the colors in the sky, but the darker Strom kept mucking with the exposure. I wound up blowing out the skies and then tweaking them with a splash of color in Lightroom. I realize I appear to be hung up on "Bike Shots" lately, I have been riding pretty much every day since March, it's that the weather has finally changed and riding has become more of a 'Zen' thing now. I find myself spending hours on the bike each day just riding around on my way to work and back. By the time I arrive home, I vaguely remember that I am even employed. It is amazing how truly short our summers are. Next week we go on vacation and then after that we start getting the kids ready to go back to school.
03-AUG-2009
Day 216 - Just another V-Strom Sunset
I got out of work a little late (the week before a vacation, I never get out when I'd like to) and took a shortened commute home (shortened as it was only 47 miles versus the 100 that I'd wanted to do). It was a reversal of my route into work. There is this stretch on Route 9 in NH, just across the Dover line where the road bisects some ponds (which were absolutely packed with people, though it is hard to tell from this shot). I was actually heading the other direction & did a U-Turn to face into the sunset (the little boys walking up on the right were absolutely flabbergasted at a 'biker man' so close) for this shot. One of the benefits of summer is that I am using the stock windshield which means less fly-encrusted obstruction from a shot like this. I did try to pick up some of the clouds behind me in the left hand side view mirror, it kind of worked. I'm also keeping an eye in my mirrors as I am not supposed to be stopped on this section of road (the speed limit is 50 and facing into the sun, I am but a little speck on a cellphone-distracted drivers field of view).
02-AUG-2009
Day 215 - Roaming Hands
Smooching after we've cleaned up from dinner. My wife had Guard Duty this weekend, so I didn't get to see her during the days (though I found a way to keep busy on the bike ;-) I'm pretty wiped. I woke up early again to go on a motorcycle breakfast with some other friends. I came home in time to make a dump run, I had to bring the utility trailer filled with bags full of grass clippings that had been soaking up water from all the rain the past few weeks. After finishing mowing the lawn, I moved a pile of dirt & loamed and seeded the area that held said pile.
01-AUG-2009
Day 214 - On the ride
I started my day at 5am to go snag a Maine Motorcycle tag up in South Bristol, Maine. I put on about 220 miles before 11am, securing the tag and moving it south to home. I got back and cleaned my chain as it was binding on the master link and bouncing around and making a heck of a racket. I mowed most of the lawn. I shuttled the two youngest down to my wife's work so they could go to a pool party. Then I got back on the bike to reclaim the tag that had already been moved to a Ferry service for a small lake. After that, I sort of just 'rode' for the next few hours. All told, I put on 366 miles in the two trips AND got stuff done around the house (that is the disclaimer for the wife). I broke out the iPhone a few times and uploaded on the spot. I actually uploaded this shot via the iPhone earlier, but that shot didn't have "Bike parts" in it. This photo doesn't really do justice to this scene. I set EV down two stops to get more of the sky scene in, at this point it really wasn't that dark out (not even with my sunglasses on). The weather was just incredible. Perhaps the first really great day of the year.
31-JUL-2009
Day 213 - Union Train Station
I had a great commute in this morning. I went North my 'usual' way, had a short adventure down a dirt road that I'd wondered about this past week. Turns out it gets wet and rough pretty fast, I got to cross a small puddle then a much larger puddle ... twice! (I just finished rinsing off what mud was left after all the rain this evening). I went up by Mousam Lake & took 109 into NH (Sanbornville). I crossed over the Spaulding and continued on 125/153 into Union and saw that they were working on the old train depot. I spun around and grabbed a photo. There is an old snow plow to the right of this that was obstructed by the worker's trucks. In fact, I need to head back up there to capture that plow better (technically I did get a photo, but it sucks, but there is enough detail for me to realize I need a better shot). In all, I took about 2 1/2 hours to put on 100.1 miles into work (I live 17 miles away). Based on early Weather.com predictions, I thought I would be traveling home via Manchester/Concord again, putting on another 100+ miles but that isn't happening. I am sitting here typing this up in a wet shirt as my jacket leaked through for the third time this week.
30-JUL-2009
Day 212 - Sporting Goods
I have been doing an "Extended Commute" on my motorcycle this week and driving by this old Sporting Goods store in Lee, NH. I seem to remember this place when it was actually in business, though that was many, many years ago (no kidding, huh? Just look at the photo!). Anyway, I've ridden by this numerous times over the years and have always counted on it being here. This stretch of road has basically changed except for this building and the building that stood behind where I was standing to take this photo. This week I realized that the other building is now gone and a new store is going into it's place. With all the recent construction out here, this old sporting goods store is bound to disappear and get replaced with a "Quick Oil Change" establishment. This morning I made a mental note to make sure to capture this building while it still existed. My evening commute looped through the opposite part of the state and came back to within a 1/2 mile of this building. With the skies I had and the feeling of euphoria from getting to put 175 miles onto the bike in 3 1/2 hours of "Commuting" today, decided to pull over and get it captured. I only had the LX3, I might go back with the 40D some evening and poke around some more. This could make a great moonlit photo with some gel-coated strobes adding some mood to it (like in the
Lost America Style).
29-JUL-2009
Day 211 - Payday Marathon
My wife & son were holding a "Payday Marathon" when I got home. They were actually playing with two different pieces, they wouldn't cooperate with me, so I lined these two unused pieces up for my shot. I am absolutely exhausted, up all night and no idea why (we have the Air Conditioner in during our hot spell).
28-JUL-2009
Day 210 - Summer Look
Woo hoo! Summer is now here. Temps were in the high 80's for the ride home, time to put the Stock Screen on the Strom. There is a bit of a reflection of me in there as well.
27-JUL-2009
Day 209 - Guiding Light
I love Weather.com. I was tracking two very large cells this evening just before leaving work. Had I left and gone the more direct route home, I would have ridden through the worst of it. Instead, I noticed that I could head a little Southwest, then North & ride around the storm. It was worth a try. There was light rain when I left work, it all but stopped as I turned the corner to the airfield (about a mile away). I pulled over to snap a few photos and change out of my rain gloves. The rest of the ride was uneventful and beautiful. I could see where the cells never hit as I rode through miles of dryness, then I could see where they had just passed through as I rode through moist steamy patches of road. The temperature had cooled significantly so I kept riding North & snaked back a couple of towns further than I'd planned. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny, I intend to head out early and have an extended commute in ;-)
26-JUL-2009
Day 208 - Tracks
So we are out driving (I believe this was on Route 5, South of Fryeburg, Maine) and it is raining on and off, not just piddly rain, but "Great Big Rain". The outside temp is bouncing between 65 degrees and 81 degrees as the rain comes and goes. We pass over these exempt tracks and I see this scene and do that "1-2-3-4-5...I need to turn around" thing.
I pull over, my wife has her nose in a book, I get out and am assaulted by a wave of mosquitoes. No big deal, we are in Maine. As I open the trunk to get the camera gear, the amount of mosquitoes grows exponentially, at this point, I have to control my breathing as I am sucking these guys down. I figure I need to get this shot so I head to the tracks (about 20' away). I'm setting up on the tripod, setting the camera settings and taking a few shots, when I realize that my leg, scratch that, legs, are covered in mosquitoes. This whole time I have been swatting them away, or so I thought. I see about 20 dead mosquitoes, I begin to realize there is more going on here than meets the eye. But I'm not giving up this freakin shot, I mean, I braved it this far, what's a few more shots and bites? While putting the gear back into the trunk (which I left open), I notice a massive swarm inside the trunk. These guys have decided the trunk is pretty cool. I try to stow my gear as best I can (at this point, I could care less if my 40D & 70-200 F4L are nicely padded, I almost dump it into the trunk (I actually do put it somewhat in the Domke bag).
I am still scratching after a few hours and a shower. Oh yeah, about 30 mins later, we stopped at a diner for dinner and I open the back of the trunk to see what's going on back there. A bunch of mosquitoes fly out, I believe I've just helped a small nation of nasty bugs migrate.
25-JUL-2009
Day 207 - Nothin but net
So I took a 7 hour, three state motorcycle ride with many stops and have absolutely no photos to show for it. I am however, quite happy. While fretting about this evening for my PaD shot, I happened upon the basketball net. The actual net has been up there for about 3 or 4 years now, it has never come down in the winter. Now that I think about it, it is in pretty good shape for getting abused for this long. The kids will use it in spurts, they are currently traveling in the lull of the basketball biorhythm, perhaps next week it will become top priority again (usually a week to week thing, it really does get used). I believe it is down in its lowest setting to make the older kids look better and to give my son a fighting chance of getting a basket.
24-JUL-2009
Day 206 - For Joy
I've wanted to do this shot for a few days now. Today was the first day that I found myself wandering around without my cane at work. This was a hard shot to get as I can't jump all that high. I'm not so worried about my bum ankle, it is pretty secure in a brace, it's my good one that I am more worried about. It would be ironic and sad to injure my other foot while taking a photo that is celebrating feeling better. My interval timer remote shutter release has finally died, so this was shot with the 10 second timer on & me timing my jumps just right. I am digging the treatment on this one, the trees in the background look less like trees and more like explosions.
Today also marks the day that I have found the limits to my riding gear's waterproofness. My helmet, jacket, gloves, and boots leaked. My pants didn't leak one bit though. The only reason my boots leaked is because I inadvertently rode through a flooded road, twice. The water shot up my legs then down into the boots. My gloves have been drying since this morning and you'd swear I just took them off, they are waterlogged.
23-JUL-2009
Day 205 - Nuts
These are some almonds that are finally being useful. I bought these about a month & 1/2 ago, from the "Crunchy Section" in the local grocery store. They are horrible and they cause my mouth to swell, almost like I have an allergy to Almonds (which I don't). So they have pretty much sat by themselves in a tin, aging. I thought about chucking them outside for the squirrels, but I'm not a big fan of those rodents either, I don't want them thinking they can come on in the house whenever they want (we have constant problems with them in our attic!!). This is pretty close in, I'm actually happy with the depth of field, even at f/10 the 100mm Macro usually has a very tight DoF. I have to go swat some mosquitoes now. . .
22-JUL-2009
Day 204 - Ice Cream Man
I'm sitting outside wondering what I am going to shoot when I hear the Ice Cream Man's tune playing in the 'hood. I know he is going to blow by our house (he rarely stops for the kids, this guy trucks right along) so I figure I can get a photo of the Ice Cream Truck. I did a "Triple Print" Preset in LR to give it an overprocessed photo look, something you may have found about 20 years ago when you got your photos back from the developer. Just prior to this guy driving down the street blaring that annoying tune, there was a Red Cardinal in the tree just to the left of his extended side view mirror. That Cardinal bailed when he heard the commotion.
21-JUL-2009
Day 203 - Little Details
I never noticed this before today. This is the entrance and exit to basically nowhere. I've walked back there last summer a few times and taken some great photos in the field and ponds that are way back there. I've never seen the gate open, people simply aren't allowed back there. The direction of the stop sign caught my eye this evening, something about it struck me as a bit odd. It seems less odd now that I am sitting back at home on my computer. I was a tad bit rushed in taking this shot as about 250,000 mosquitoes converged on my location as soon as I opened the door to my Tahoe (yes, still not back on the bike yet). It was a tough shot exposure-wise, the dark area in the trees to the left simply would not cooperate with me.
20-JUL-2009
Day 201 - Lanes
First day that I have driven into work since early march. I packed up my camera gear and threw it into the back of the Tahoe (actually I placed it). On my way home, I took a longer route and noticed the fresh cut grass at Vaughn Woods, the local State Park. Just to the left of this is the flag pole, the groundskeeper had just lowered the flag for the day and was packing it up while I was setting up my gear. I'm not sure what he thought I was doing. I pushed the yellows to green to give it a more pleasant color. It was the contrasty lanes that caught my eye and forced me to turn around in the first place. The yellowish color to the grass wasn't cutting it (no pun intended there). The crop is almost all in camera, there was a bit of parking lot at the top of the photo, there is a rather extreme border between the field and the dirt parking lot that I couldn't seem to manage on the tripod, the shot was definitely level though.
19-JUL-2009
Day 200 - Contrast
I was up and around today, I believe that taking it easy yesterday, elevating and icing my ankle helped a lot. I have something like 2 Gel Casts, a super-special plastic temp cast, and a bunch of ankle supports. My left ankle was cinched up in a gel cast all day and I was able to finish the bike, do a dump run (with the kid's help), and even mow the lawn. Turns out I didn't actually need to replace my brake pads, but I did anyway. The cylinders were so gummed up, they wouldn't go back. Hopefully I have cleaned them up enough, the front wheel was spinning nicely after I mounted it. I permanently mounted my Stebel air horn, not where I'd expected to put it though. Turns out I didn't need to remove all the Tupperware after all, I could have made due with leaving it on. It only takes about 15 mins tops to button it back up, so no big deal. While the bike was up on the centerstand, I sat on it (it was running while I checked the temperature) and found that I can't actually shift up yet. We'll see tomorrow. I wish I had a cane, then I might look like that House MD character. Last time I sprained my ankle, I actually had a cane that I took with me on my bike (previous bike) and was told I look like House MD (I don't watch the show).
18-JUL-2009
Day 199 - Life's Little Surprises
So yesterday I am all happy about working on my bike. Big plans on finishing it up this morning, perhaps get a ride or two in today. I load the wheel with the tire that needed the beads to be set up into the back of the Tahoe and took off for The Home Depot. I figured if I wimped out on buying a compressor, I'd swing by a gas station and seat the beads for $1 in quarters. I had two frost free faucet heads to return from a project last week, I'm walking across the parking lot of The Home Depot, when the next thing I know I feel the sharp pain of my left ankle beginning to turn. By pure instinct, I go down immediately and I go down hard. The faucet heads go flying, one part shatters on the pavement (cheap fricken plastic). I didn't go down fast enough and my left ankle is shooting with pain, it takes about 3 seconds for me to realize that my plans for the weekend are pretty much F&$@#ed. Two very good Samaritans rush over to help, one is a nurse who very much wants tme to go to the local Hospital. I'm pretty pissed at myself, I've down this before, I know what I need to do. They help me back to my Tahoe which is pretty far away. On the drive back, I phone my kids (my wife is out of town today at a conference, this thing always seems to happen when she is gone ;-) The kids have the crutches, an ice pack, and the couch all prepped by the time I pull up into the driveway. 1600 mgs of Ibuprofen, two ice packs, and three movies later, I'm hobbling over to the computer to get a photo for today's PaD. For those of you who read this and ride, you know what my biggest concern is, this is my left foot, my shifting foot. I can actually ride with a right foot at 50% since the right foot controls the rear brake and it is the front brake that gives you all your stopping power. We'll see how things look and feel tomorrow. I still have a bike to put back together (the front tire still hasn't been set yet).
17-JUL-2009
Day 198 - Get my bearings
These are the old OEM front bearings that I tapped out earlier. The new ones from All Balls are sealed all around. My three tire irons are peeking into the photo on the lower right. After pulling these bearings, I realized there was nothing wrong with them at all. At $16 to replace the front set though, I am glad I did it. I like the new bearings better than the old ones. The inside of the bearing wasn't sealed. Since I ride in rain a lot, I prefer the sealed bearings. The rear bearings have been backordered, I'll change them out on my next rear tire change.
16-JUL-2009
Day 197 - New Tire
Yes, another "New Tire" photo. I have been waiting on this little nugget (the new Conti Trail Attack on the right) to arrive this week for installation either tomorrow afternoon or Saturday morning. I also have a new set of All Balls front wheel bearings and a complete set of brake pads for the front brakes. To top it off, I am going to balance it with dynabeads instead of lead weights. Looking at this photo, the old tire on the left doesn't look that bad, but it has worn a little past the wear bars in most places. I ride in rain and need that tread. I can't wait to try out the Conti's the tread pattern is so different. For the next 3k miles or so I will have a mismatched set with the Conti Trail Attack up front and my replacement Trailwing on the rear. I plan to replace the rear with a Conti Trail Attack when the time comes, most likely next month or so.
15-JUL-2009
Day 196 - Comfort
Technically, this is a "Comfort Test". I got the idea for a beaded seat cover from
Stromtrooper. After our day on the bike Saturday, I made a special trip to WalMart the very next day for this. I am testing this out to see if there is a fix for the pain quotient to the bike on long rides. My daily commute runs are too short, even though this week I am taking a longer route in to drop off my oldest. Provided my new front tire arrives this week, I should have a new front tire and brake pads to scrub in this weekend. I figure a 200 mile trip on this seat will give me a good idea whether this can work or not.
14-JUL-2009
Day 195 - The camera you carry
We never made it to the golf course. Instead, we went downtown with some people we had a meeting with. It was the first business engagement that I've had for quite a while. One of the other guys was a techie like me and had an iPhone 3G, we were comparing iPhone apps and showing off capabilities. While walking to dinner, I snapped this photo with my iPhone of North Church in Portsmouth. It was a good thing I did too, since I just got back home and really don't feel like taking any kind of PaD photo at this point. I added negative clarity (subtracted?) and did a slight straightening job, and boosted the exposure. I didn't take a whole hell of a long time to setup for this shot, I stopped for about a second to take this. I liked the clouds we had this evening, I kind of wish I had my DSLR with me...
13-JUL-2009
Day 194 - Call me hardcore
Yet another one of those "Odd things on a bike" kind of shots. I am going golfing tomorrow evening after two season "break" from "After work golf". I'm not willing to drive in, so I was testing out the concept of strapping the golf bag to the bike. It works fine. It doesn't extend much further over my tiny Givi E21 side cases (the black box with the scuffs all over it). The weird thing on top of the seat is a cheap bead thing I picked up at WalMart as a test for fixing the seat comfort level. While it seems more comfortable, I am sliding all around in my riding pants. The jury is still out on that thing.
12-JUL-2009
Day 193 - Dinner Ride
Well, it was more than a Dinner Ride. We left for the University of New Hampshire (My Wife & I) to find the Hall that our oldest will be going to for the next two weeks. She is in an upper class Writer's Academy. They had a class for new High School Freshmen, but her teacher put in a good recommendation and got her into the upper class program. I will be dropping her off in the mornings on the bike and my wife will be picking her up. After finding the building, we had to ride around for my wife to get her bearings, then I took a semi-extended way home. I stopped by Strafford Farms, it's the first time we've eaten at the take out in about 6 years. The weather was perfect, it was in the evening and it had started to cool down nicely. OK, I lied, I'm the one who ate, my wife claimed she wasn't hungry, didn't order anything, then picked at my food. It is kind of a "wife thing".
11-JUL-2009
Day 192 - Lunch
My oldest & I took to the open road today and visited the University of Maine at Farmington campus. It was nothing official, no tours. We simply went up there and had a look around the place. She will be a High School Freshman in the fall, it's not too early to start thinking about this. The trip was fun, it was her longest on a motorcycle (300 miles) and was enough to tell me that I need a new seat. While walking around the campus, she realized they didn't have a football field which means they probably don't have a marching band program, something she is very in to. This KFC/Taco Bell was a couple of miles away from the main campus, it made for a good lunch.
10-JUL-2009
Day 191 - Bags Ready
Tomorrow my oldest & I are heading out on an all day motorcycle ride. The main goal is to hit the University of Maine, Farmington campus. We aren't getting an official tour, we are simply going to walk around the campus and check it out, have a lunch, etc. It is also the first weekend with no rain and no baseball or cub scout commitment for the past 6 or so weeks. It will be the longest ride for me this season and the longest ride for her ever. Tomorrow I find out if I need to junk my stock bike seat and go with a Day Long Saddle.
09-JUL-2009
Day 190 - Looking up
Just a simple shot of the maple tree that is overhanging our deck. This is technically a tri-tone, I set the highlight & shadow tone hues to the same settings to get this effect. This is exactly what I was thinking when I shot it, it took a little persuasion during Post Processing to get it right.
08-JUL-2009
Day 189 - Up close
Another day of getting home with no PaD taken. According to the weather report, we have something like 3 or possibly 4 days of sun coming up!
07-JUL-2009
Day 188 - Turning
It is just barely July, there's been about 4 days of sun in the past 6 weeks and we already have leaves turning on our birch trees in our front yard. This happens each year though, normally because of insect damage, there's been no insects this year though, they must not like the rain. Another day of coming home with no PaD taken yet. It was raining so hard in the morning that I decided to leave the camera gear at home, good thing too as I don't have a ton of storage on the bike and I wound up hitting the grocery store on the way into work. I turned up the ISO again to get a grainy shot. I certainly got my wish.
06-JUL-2009
Day 187 - Free Squirrel
I was fretting over the fact that I'd left work so late and hadn't had time to shoot today's PaD. Here I was thinking there'd be slim pickings at home. That is, until I arrived at home and saw this nugget resting in front of our house (on the street). I made two different signs and made two different trips to the road to get the shot "just right". I was amazed at the fact that there was zero cars coming by during any of my shoots.
05-JUL-2009
Day 186 - Uninspired SP
Time is ticking away, it was a long ride home (we stopped at an RV dealer to look at RVs, they didn't have anything we liked). I just got caught up with my Flickr & pBase galleries and I'm feeling uninspired so this is a simple SP with the Tokina at ISO 3200 on a 40D (yeah, it's not 5D MkII low noise 3200).
04-JUL-2009
Day 185 - Fly a kite
My son made this kite at our campground. There was a husband and wife "Professional Kite People" in the field over the weekend of the fourth. They were flying these huge 8' kites in the field. They had this real simple "Sled Kite" that you could make in about a minute on their table. We tried with little success to launch it from the field that afternoon. We joked about taking it up to the summit of Cadillac Mountain with us and decided to do just that. It flew right from our hands with no problems and my son had a ball for about 15 - 20 minutes. It was easy to bring in too.
03-JUL-2009
Day 184 - Acadia Fog
While driving down to Northeast Harbor for dinner (at Docksiders) we noticed this scene at Upper Hadlock Pond. I had to bushwhack through some high grasses to get to the shore to setup the tripod and gear for this shot, but it was worth it. I have a feeling this shot will wind up as a print on one of our walls somewhere. The fog has just rolled in. On the island, you can have beautiful sunshine and warm weather one minute, then a few minutes later be engulfed in this cool fog. The fog is hell on camera gear though. I have to do some work to my 17-44 f/2.8 IS.
02-JUL-2009
Day 183 - Biking Trip
We hit the Carriage Paths today in 'so so' weather. First year for me on the paths without anyone in tow (no child seat, no child trailer, no tag-a-long). Even with the younger ones having to walk up some of the hills, we still made real good time. My oldest (passing me here) and I are thinking about taking the longer route next year.
01-JUL-2009
Day 182- Balls
If you can see the spray from the waves off to the right, you can get a feel for how close I was to the waves. I had one hand on the shutter release and one on a tripod leg, ready to yank the gear out to safety. Within a nanosecond of this shot, I was yanking the tripod and camera out of the way. During Post processing, I found that the two shots following this were highly blurred and the horizon line severely tilted as I continued to shoot while pulling the tripod and camera out of the way. No salt water actually landed on the lens, though the tripod legs and camera body had some on them.
30-JUN-2009
Day 181 - Hiking
I pulled my camera out and changed the lens only to reveal a serious fogging of the rear element. The temps were rising rapidly and the humidity was extremely high. The camera gear was well insulated and still at a much cooler temp. I should have known better, I do live in New England after all. The first hour of our hike I was assaulted by very foggy images. I decided to play the fogginess in an attempt to give the whole scene a bit of fog. The photos cleaned up real nice in Lightroom, almost too nice, most of the fog has been removed while adjusting the blacks. That is my family in the background waiting on Dad to take his photos and try and catch up. Most of our hike went that way.3
29-JUN-2009
Day 180 - Empty
The theme for the trip here on the island so far. We are here a week earlier than we've ever been, arriving the week before the 4th versus the week of the 4th. With the economy bad off and a month straight of rain, this campground (and all the others that we've seen so far) is very vacant. There are normally 5 campers blocking the view of these picnic tables in the field, there are none to be found today. In fact, the entire field has something like 45 or 50 sites, there are 3 campers in it, one is empty (possibly seasonal on a water/electric site). I snapped this right before we jumped on our bikes and took a short ride. We are trying to make the best of the situation this week.
28-JUN-2009
Day 179 - Jacob's New Bike
More of an 'artsy' view of Jacob walking his bike up the hill. With our Tahoe out of commission, we were unsure of whether we'd be able to get our son his 'new' bike today. His old bike was too small for him and he did not want to ride on the Tag-A-Long for our annual bike trips on the Carriage Paths. We were going to surprise him and tell him that we forgot to pack his bike and the Tag-A-Long so we'd have to buy a bike. He and his sister figured it out before we left though. This bike and this trips marks a passage of a very long chapter in our family's life. When we hit the trails this week (provided the weather cooperates) it will be the first time as a family that I (or my wife) have had to either carry or tow a child. Basically it has been 14 years since we've hit the trails on our bikes without a child in tow.
27-JUN-2009
Day 178 - Jumping Wizard
We made it to the campground. What should have been an uneventful four hour ride, turned into a desperate hope to arrive event. Just outside of Bangor (land of Stephen Kind) we picked up a high pitched whine in the front end of our Tahoe. After about 10 miles of it not getting better, I used our OnStar (The service we pay $20 a month for an *almost* never use). They ran a complete vehicle diagnostic (while we were driving) and pulled up nothing. They patched us through to another person who thought it might be a belt. While that kind of set us at ease, I began to realize it wasn't a belt. With about twenty miles to go, the whine lowered in tone and picked up a bad rattle on deceleration (we were towing our camper too). We somehow made it to the campground and left the vehicle parked in front of our site today. Luckily the island has a very nice network of buses to get us just about everywhere we want go. In the theme of nothing working right, I tried to set up my off camera flash and the freakin cheap eBay trigger wouldn't work. This was after trying to get the umbrella mounted to a camp chair. I finally gave up and put the 580EX2 on the camera as the available sunlight (well, cloudy overcast) was fading fast. In the spirit of "June is for Jumping" my son is levitating with his funky Wizard hat that he got earlier in the day before we left at the local Strawberry Festival. We really are roughing it. While the campground has WIFI, we have to hoof it to the main office for the only access point. There is no place to set the laptop and it is raining out. Not sure when this will get posted.
26-JUN-2009
Day 177 - Not a Turkey
This is not what I intended to post. For the past three or four days, I have noticed this wild turkey in almost the same spot by the road each day on my ride home from work. This evening I pulled around and decided to capture it. The sun was in the wrong spot, I was sweating in my motorcycle gear, and I almost stepped on her babies (they kept running through the tall grass, I couldn't see them but could see the grass moving). Before I left, I snapped a few shots of these daisies "Just in case". It was a good thing, all the shots of the wild turkey basically sucked. I might have to try an early morning expedition when it is cooler. I'd like to get a shot of her and her babies, if possible. Hopefully they will still be around in another week. We go on vacation tomorrow up to "God's Country", our annual trek to Mt Desert Isle, Maine. Let the photo's roll!
25-JUN-2009
Day 176 - Deep
On the way home this evening, I pulled into a construction company site to try to capture these curbs. I was on my bike, in full gear in the humidity and even walked up an overgrown hill to get a better shot. I think it might have been worth it. It was so bright out and I actually still had my helmet on, I didn't realize there was as much detail inside the the pile until just now while post-processing. I have to go mow the lawn, it's rained so much lately that we have had very few "lawn mowing days", its supposed to rain again tomorrow too.
24-JUN-2009
Day 175 - Header
After waiting 3 years to move our rear garage door, I finally got in gear and have someone doing it for me. He got the header in today. The old door sits level with the garage floor which is nice, but it also sits level with the backyard. In rainy weather (like we have witnessed for the past three weeks), water tends to flow quite freely into the garage. In a short period of time this will no longer be a problem.3
23-JUN-2009
Day 174 - No Birds Today
Shot off the same deck from yesterday, different subject. I could probably find a week's worth of PaD images from my deck alone. I'd rather have decent weather though. I didn't notice the spider webs until I was in Lightroom, we've not had bird seed in this feeder for some time, apparently the spiders aren't finding much use for this either. I did dial in a little negative Clarity on top of a stock Lightroom "Selenium" preset.
22-JUN-2009
Day 173 - Tritone Leaf
Raining again. There was a bit of a lull this evening when I got home. I noticed our bush in the back (right off our deck) looked interesting so I grabbed the gear and took a few shots. This is actually rim lit with my 580EX-2 off camera. I am shooting into my home-made diffuser, giving me some relatively soft light. I had the camera on the monopod and I was holding the flash in my left hand. This is an act of balance and a little luck. I was ready to go with the color version, but I liked the contrasty patterns when I went with a Black & White version. I added some green highlights in Lightroom as well.4
21-JUN-2009
Day 172 - Feats of Strength
Here I am lifting my wife for my evening exercise! We had a whole bunch of these jumping shots. Lots with the both of us synchronized, but this idea came to me towards the end and here we are. We went upstairs to the bedroom for this and actually locked the door. We showed the kids this shot afterward. This little session has a few benefits because the kids will now think that we are "jumping around" upstairs when the door is closed ;-)
20-JUN-2009
Day 171 - Go ahead, Make my Day!
We finished the baseball season today. I am actually in the process of ripping photo CD's for the team. Since I was the coach, I couldn't wield any of my cameras (which kills me each season) so I asked for a "Team Photographer" volunteer. While I burn a CD, my son & I would play with these Nerf Longshots that we got replaced the week after Christmas. They have been in the box ever since. This one was opened up today, there is one more still boxed. We took a bunch of photos indoors and then I moved us outside because of the distracting backgrounds inside. I was using my homemade diffuser for a little fill and it worked well here. It sits so high above the flash that it almost acts as a hair light. The flash is on the camera for this shot, with the diffuser, the light source is actually about 18 - 20" above the lens. I did BW (OK, quad tone) processing first, after I saw this I gave color a try, but with color, the barrel is orange and there is blue and yellow that seriously detract from the "Bad Ass" look that he is sportin!
19-JUN-2009
Day 170 - OOOOOOOOHHH
My 3GS arrived at work today. The FedEx guy was about a 1/2 hour late, I image a few other people were added to his stop today. I am/was an iPhone Virgin, today this is no longer true. I went with the 32GB model, my reasoning was that the extra 16GB is needed to replace my 60GB iPod. I am in the process of syncing 24 GB of music right now. I have a gunmetal incase plus an anti-glare sheet protecting the face. Without the anti-glare sheet, you'd be able to see the awesome "Sync in Progress" message along with the Battery charging indicator. This was my "Birthday/Father's Day present" from the wife (of course I did the ordering ;-) While the new 3MP camera with the "Point to Focus" interface is pretty cool, shooting with a Canon 40D equipped with an excellent set of glass is still no competition. I'm not sure that the iPhone would even edge out my Panasonic LX3 "Motorcycle cam" either.
18-JUN-2009
Day 169 - Rolleiflex (f/2.8)
This doesn't do the Rollei any justice, but I was able to capture the name and the big honkin lens (albeit the viewing lens).
17-JUN-2009
Day 168 - Me
I started out with returning to the "Through the Looking Glass" concept. These take a little while to get right. I'm not sure if this is just right, but it fits the concept. I did a few shots off the tripod downstairs, checked them on the computer, then went upstairs to the bedroom to check on the light. My wife popped in and distracted me so I never returned to this concept. This concept is pretty simple, hold a drinking glass out in front of the lens with the top up so that you pick up the distorted imagery around the subject. I need to head back outside in the sunlight to get some more of these going.
16-JUN-2009
Day 167 - Light
So I jumped on the bike at lunch and took a little ride in search of something to shoot for today. I went back to my old haunt (NH Tree Park?) from last spring and summer, hoping to find a bird's nest. I found what was left of the Blue Jay's nest from last year, but nothing new. There is an old private cemetery on the property and one of the markers is this very large granite tower. I leaned over a wrought iron metal fence and held out the camera to see what kind of shot I could get. The first shot was interesting, so I continued, trying to get the angle just right. I believe I had 34 shots of this single marker before I'd finished. This is the next to the last shot I took.
15-JUN-2009
Day 166 - One Small Step
I will call this my "Surprise Entry". I am finally living up to my screen name on a bunch of motorcycle forums "PhotoBiker". I got a set of saddlebags for my birthday that allowed me to put my day to day stuff into, freeing up my "big honking top case" to hold my camera gear. So I was at the boat launch in Eliot (Maine) walking around in my motorcycle gear when I noticed my boot tracks in the soft sand. I was actually heading back to the bike when I decided to try an up close shot of one of them (there is another leading up to the water middle left). In all my gear, it was impossible for me to focus, I did the "point and pray" technique (lots of shots). I'm glad I gave this a try.
14-JUN-2009
Day 165 - Shelving
My afternoon pretty much went into making this shelving to store our seasonal stuff. We put our winter stuff up there in the summer and our summer stuff up there in the winter. Before the new garage door, this was a cargo net that was suspended from the ceiling with the help of some rope. In addition to some scrap wood that I had in the basement, I spent all of $20 at The Home Depot today for some lag bolts and strapping. It is a great use of otherwise wasted space. I think I might put in another one of these on the other side of the double-wide garage door.
13-JUN-2009
Day 164 - Fox
My dog Fox Mulder. He's made it into a few PaD photos over the years. Today is/was my Birthday, I spent a lot of time riding the motorcycle, coaching, and going out with the family to celebrate my day. We wound up at the Texas Roadhouse where my children decided that payback is a bitch. They made sure the waitress knew it was my birthday and what my age is now. I got to ride the saddle. It wasn't nearly as embarrassing for me as my kids had hoped ;-) So I found myself towards the end of the evening without an acceptable PaD. While my wife & kids were getting the presents ready, they kicked me out & I hung out with the dog. I couldn't believe that I had to bump up the ISO all the way to even capture this.
12-JUN-2009
Day 163 - Evening reflection
We had some odd weather today, last night it rained out well into the morning. It was a a cold wet ride into work (I didn't ride straight into work, I took a bit of a detour). Just after noon, around 1ish, the skies parted, the sun came out, and it warmed up. We finished off the day with some very beautiful skies. Our practice ran late and I took a different route home to try to make use of the clouds and colors. On my way to some fields, I came across this pond with a reflection of the farm house. I wanted to get the sky above and its reflection in the lake, but the highlights were too blown out. Just way too much dynamic range and I'm not going to tackle an HDR tonight. I salvaged what I could, giving priority to the beautiful sunset tones and trying to recover as much as the farmhouse as possible. The result is a rather noisy farm scene.
11-JUN-2009
Day 162 - Needs replacing
I had to head home to catch a paving expert to give us a quote on replacing our driveway today. Since I had pavement on the mind, I grabbed the camera and set it on the driveway and tried to line it up on a crack. There's no shortage of cracks in our driveway.
10-JUN-2009
Day 161 - Reo's Barber Shop
Another last minute PaD entry, I've driven by this shop numerous times, I've never actually stopped in (though there was this one time when I tried to stop in but they/he was closed). I shot this with my Tokina UWA so I had to get pretty close.
09-JUN-2009
Day 160 - Shoe
A last minute PaD entry. I'd wanted to go with a bit of a desaturated color version, but this quad-tone works very well. No real story here.
08-JUN-2009
Day 159 - Nice Ride
Just about any day is a good day for a ride, but tonight was great. I found myself with no work or family commitments and nice weather to boot. I checked the Maine and NH Tags, and found that the NH Tag was achievable. It is a game that is basically an excuse to ride somewhere. One per state (some states have many different tags going on at once). You have to find the current tag and take a photo of your bike and the location for proof. You now own the tag and are responsible for moving it. People jump all over you if you drag your feet. I moved it East and already posted the new tag. I am trying to help out some of my local Tag buddies. I took this on the ride home, just outside of Dover, NH. Yes, I am moving in this shot.
07-JUN-2009
Day 158 - Finding the time
My wife had guard duty this weekend, the last one of the summer (they have July off because they double up in March). I caught her coming out of the shower, door locked, no chance of her escaping. I did wait for the clothing to go on ;-) I came up with this idea while waiting for her to finish, I was lying on the bed watching something on NatGeo or Discovery and realized our bedspread made a great background.
06-JUN-2009
Day 157 - Nature Boy
My son started shouting while I was working on my bike. When I checked on him, he was pointing to this dragonfly that landed on the driveway while he was on his scooter. I told him to hold on while I ran inside and grabbed my camera. We were able to get the dragonfly to climb up on his finger and pose, however, it happened pretty fast, this was the best of only two shots I was able to take. Right after I took this shot, the dragonfly took flight and my son tried to track him down with no luck. We really like dragonflies, they are like natural bug spray, their larvae feed on mosquito larvae & the adults eat mosquitoes. Not to mention, they look cool too!
05-JUN-2009
Day 156 - Following instructions
Sometimes the pictures take themselves. I was heading home from our practice this evening trying to figure out what to shoot for today's PaD. I was a bit rushed as I just found out I had a scheduling error for tomorrow's game, it is supposed to be at 9am not the 1pm that all the parents thought it was. Here I was contemplating missing a day, when literally right in front of me at a stop sign, in a church's parking lot this scene literally jumps out at me. I pulled over and grabbed the gear (my son was in the Tahoe and knows the drill). I had the tripod out on the sidewalk and had quite a few spectators. One person was asking me if it was a "Model A". I told him I had no idea, it was the scene I was after. Parents have been notified and I have a photo I really like. Nice day!
04-JUN-2009
Day 155 - In the mirror
I am actually shooting my wife's reflection in our bathroom mirror. I can't believe I got her to actually pose a little. We tried a few glam type shots with her bath towel, but the lighting was off. We were pressed for time as the kids share our shower for some odd reason, even though there are two other showers in the house.
03-JUN-2009
Day 154 - Looking up
I didn't feel all that photographical this evening, while pacing around looking for a shot, I spied our geranium bush (I call it a giant weed) off our deck and grabbed the gear. At one point a huge bee came by and upset my photo shoot as the shutter speed was pretty slow & he was bouncing this flower around. I prefer this angle over all the other shots I took of it.
02-JUN-2009
Day 153 - Where have I been
I saw this tractor on Sunday I believe when I was out and about riding. This was the shot I wanted to go for last evening. It worked out OK this evening, sun is setting much later, turns out I probably could have caught this yesterday, but you never know. I wanted a wider shot, but the tree line in the background is pretty ugly and sloped, making the photo look crooked. It was a lot hazier out than I'd expected, humidity is pretty high.
I have revisited this shot:
01-JUN-2009
Day 152 - Life in the fast lane
Life is a blur, I rush home from work to rush to a baseball game. Our game ended early and one of the children was waiting for his family to pick him up. My son wanted to play in the playground so we waited and they played. I was a little peeved as I had a chance to rush off to capture a scene I saw this morning in the evening light complete with clouds, but would miss it. I could have made it if we left right after the game too. Anyway, after I came to grips with the fact that I wouldn't be capturing that shot, I pulled out the camera gear and found something to shoot. I tried to talk the boys into staying on the merry go round while I took their [blurred] photo, but they zipped off to something else. This is one of 29 photos and about 50 revolutions on this thing. I still feel sick from this damn contraption. I think I could have used the Tokina UWA for this shot. Of course, the Tokina doesn't have IS (though I think I confused the Canon IS on this shot).
31-MAY-2009
Day 151 - Lunch at the Buxton House of Pizza
We actually pulled over to eat on Route 112, but before we actually began riding it. Route 112 extends North about 6 or 8 miles further than on any of the maps or our GPS. In fact, we appeared to be riding off road for the last leg on the Northern section. We put ourselves through all this (including rain storms) to claim the entire route for the Maine Motorcycle Olympics. You have to ride a complete State Route to get points for the miles. I have to do some fancy math in a bit to figure out how long Route 112 actually is. The food at the Buxton House of Pizza was very good, I had a "Real Italian Sub" and my daughter, Mikaella, had a Tunafish sub. And Mikaella is not in any danger from getting doused by the refreshing water behind her, it is just a picture.
30-MAY-2009
Day 150 - VStrom Posing with Slugger
The street was deserted so I pulled up and had the 'Strom pose with Slugger. And NO, slugger is NOT holding up that sign. This was shortly after my completion of Maine State Route 25, a 41.9 mile trip that started in the boonies at the NH border and ended in Portland just around the corner from the baseball park.
29-MAY-2009
Day 149 - Where have all the golfers gone
I took a quick run out to the golf course after our baseball game. I as a little shocked to see the course empty. The Tee box for the 18th hole is right in front here, with this much light and no rain, I would have expected it to be backed up. My son couldn't stay in the car, he popped out to ask about the markers, though his description of what he was asking about was quite confusing.
28-MAY-2009
Day 148 - New Door
Flip side of yesterday, this is the new garage door. I have driven my wife crazy opening and closing it every 15 minutes or so. I have my son following in my foot steps. Just before he went to bed, he asked if he could go test out the door. The thing that my wife really likes is the fact that she can park her car in the garage. We've not had a car in the garage in about two years.
27-MAY-2009
Day 147 - Last day
This is the last day on earth for our garage door. Tomorrow the Garage Man Cometh and will be ripping this old thing out and putting up the new metal one. A few years back the panels began to warp and pop out. I replaced the three panels on the right side of the door when they looked something like these two. Shortly after the base of the door began to show signs of rot. I decided to hold out for as long as possible before shelling out the umpteen $$ to replace the garage door. Last fall the opener died and I had to open the double-wide manually (though we have a very nice spring, it is not a chore) to get my motorcycle in and out. With the new garage door, I am getting a special opener for my motorcycle. I will be able to ride in and out of the garage again!!
26-MAY-2009
Day 146 - Old Home
Our town has quite a few old homes, if it wasn't for the power lines and the new windows, this photo could have been taken many years ago. My son & I stopped to take this shot on our way back from a Cub Scout Pack Meeting. This was a big event, he earned his Wolf badge and our den crossed over to Bears. This is his last year as a Cub Scout, next year when he crosses over, he will be a Webelo.
25-MAY-2009
Day 145 - Memorial Day
Earlier today we marched to this spot with the Cub Scouts (My daughter marched with the Marching Band) for a Memorial Ceremony. We couldn't have asked for a better day, the weather was beautiful. Our town has a bunch of American Flags on wooden poles that are placed in holes in the sidewalk in town. It is really quite striking. I waited until sunset to go out to get a shot of the street with all the flags, perhaps get part of the memorial in frame. When I got into town, I'd realized that all the flags had been put away. These flags were still at the memorial, in fact, just as I finished with my shooting, someone from the American Legion came and put them away. We chatted about our military experience for a little while though. I set out on a 15 minute 'mission' and returned 45 minutes later. . .
24-MAY-2009
Day 144 - No points, just cute pigs
It took us quite some time to double back to get these pig vehicles. Off Route 5 in Limerick, ME. I am using this for today's PaD, not sure any other photo I take could possibly top this. Notice the duck off to the left in the background. The title reflects the fact that my oldest & I were out riding this morning and doing a Treasure Hunt. You collect points for photos of various things that you find, as long as you are on your bike and have your bike in the photo (it is an excuse to get out and ride). There should be 100 points awarded per "Pig car" that you locate on your ride.
23-MAY-2009
Day 143 - Not my kayak
Nor my view. I started out too early for an evening shot, realized my error and put my gear back, making a mental note to be sure to pop back out just before 8PM. I ran into a guy with a "Desert Storm" hat and we swapped stories for quite some time, next thing I knew, I'd missed my light, or so I thought. There is a slight band of red that I was trying to capture here, it's doubled due to the reflection off the pond. I drew a bit of a crowd with my tripod and camera. One guy was this kayak's owner who was interested in what I was doing. I think he was more interested in getting something out of his truck which I was near. Another guy was a fellow photag, I explained my "Photo A Day" thing and we kept talking. He has a Nikon, D40 setup. We talked for a bit, I touted Lightroom, told him to do the 30 day trial (he wouldn't be sorry). At one point his wife came out of their camper to jot down the name of the package (so there is interest ;-) I was a little slow in posting this, I spent the last hour or so showing my oldest the
advrider (www.advrider.com) site to explain my obsession with "Tag-O-Ramas" and a Treasure hunt. These are friendly competitions which equate to nothing more than an excuse to ride. It fits right into my "Photo A Day" paradigm, things to keep you 'fresh'.
22-MAY-2009
Day 142 - Spring colors
An extension of last night's "Campsite scene". A little to the right of the image is this particular scene. I was attempting to capture a Dragon, but should have known better. There were two of the buzzing around the shrub/branch thing to the left of the ferns. It is/was windy out and the Dragons would not land anywhere. After I gave up on the insect approach, I went overboard on this. I even grabbed my flash & diffuser and dialed in a little fill to bring out some of the detail in the ferns. I'd intended to process this as a Black & White, but decided to stick with color when I couldn't get enough separation between the ferns and the water.
21-MAY-2009
Day 141 - Campsite scene
We got a jump on the weekend and got to the campground a day early. My wife realized that the kids had tomorrow off, so she took the day off and roped me into setting up the camper on Thursday evening instead of Friday evening. I still have to work tomorrow, but at least when I get back, everything is already setup now. This campground (Beaver Dam Campground) is about 5 miles from home. This is our third year doing this and it works out well. As we get older, we forget things, lots of things, like the 30Amp power cord so that we can enjoy things like electricity, lights, etc. Other things like sewer adapters and other various 'things'. Tomorrow I will have a few more things to bring from home. Since I am stuck to my motorcycle, I will leave from here in the morning and go home, take a shower, then jump on the bike and head to work. Since I have to cart children and baseball gear around Saturday morning, I will take the bike from work to home, then pack up the Tahoe and head back to the campground. All in the name of fun!
20-MAY-2009
Day 140 - Special Delivery
No, I am not delivering this in person. I sold my old OEM topcase and need to ship it out UPS tomorrow. A couple of large bungee straps and it is good and secure. Makes for a very nice backrest too. I've not driven a car into work since the 2nd of March and I'm not about to start to until winter.
19-MAY-2009
Day 139 - Where my evening went
Aside from other various running around, most of my evening was spent replacing the pump on our Whirlpool Duet Washer. Last night it crapped out and I was able to download a service manual. I cleaned out the pump (thank goodness for a service manual, I didn't even know it had a clean-out) and got three more loads through before it decided to go to sleep. You can see a bit of moisture in the lower right hand corner, I had to drain the tub (again) and the water simply spills all over the damn place. I like this drain/cleanout idea, but the engineers need to put on their thinking caps and realize that the water has to go somewhere when you open this thing. They should take a cue from Campers and put a 5/8" or 3/4" drain off this cap so that we can hook up a hose to divert the water outside instead of onto our floors! Anyway, I called around and the place we bought this from, 4 1/2 years ago (anyone shocked that our 4 year extended warranty expired 6 months ago?) had this pump in stock. The hardest part was getting the hose clamps back on, they are located in the most awkward place, it requires a certain amount of dexterity and luck. Anyway, the washer sounds great now and works fine. . .
18-MAY-2009
Day 138 - Tower and contrails
I took my camera to our game again with hopes of capturing something on the way back home afterward. We had this great light in the evening and I wanted to make use of it. I got this tower before from a much different angle, I was much further away this time (my first try I was practically beneath it).
17-MAY-2009
Day 137 - Hair on fire
No, my hair is not actually on fire. I was trying to get a quick shot of the two of us for our
"52 of us" shot this week when my wife thought it would be absolutely hilarious to tickle under my arms. The light fixture in the background is not swirling, my hair is not on fire, I am moving and yet somehow able to finish the shot.
16-MAY-2009
Day 136 -Bikers
My daughter & I on the bike in front of my parent's store. My daughter is sporting her new pink jacket & gloves that we picked up at Rochester Motorsports (one of our destinations for today). The LX3 didn't do a good job with my Orange glow jacket. We were getting ready to leave and my mom wanted to snap a photo (from her cell phone). I always have the LX3 in my tank bag, so I decided to take one of us too. If you look in my sunglasses, you can see my mom's reflection in my left eye.
15-MAY-2009
Day 135 - In a row
Should have called this "Kill two birds". The baseball field that we had our practice on this evening is in the background. After practice, my son & I practiced pitching (Which was nice, I am his coach and want my team's parents to play catch with their kids and I don't usually have the time). On our way out of the parking lot, I caught these swings, I'd not noticed them before. The park was full of people and strange enough, no one was on the swing set. I had my tripod with me, a necessity for evening shooting. The swings were moving a bit, but not enough to cause too much distortion, helps with the Depth Of Field anyway ;-)
14-MAY-2009
Day 134 - Come back later
I wish there were some kind of hand-written sign in one of the windows with "Closed" or "Gone Fishing", that would have set more of the mood for this shot. I saw this out of the corner of my eye as we were coming back from my son's game (we got in two very wet innings tonight). I originally envisioned it as a Black & White, but 'settled' on the '300' Preset that I come back to from time to time. I like the subtle reflection off the wet asphalt.
13-MAY-2009
Day 133 - National Register of Historic Places
Plaque that sits in front of what is left of the old "Conway Junction Station" turntable. It is also known as "Brock's Crossing", though I don't know why. My oldest daughter & I did a report on this when she was in 2nd grade. This was my first experience with expectations of young children and school reports. I went a little overboard, learned my lesson, and backed way off after that. However, I did contact the Walker Transportation Collection (they have a lot of Boston & Maine stuff) and got a lot of photos and maps of the old station. This is just around the corner from our house, I'd always thought it was a jail until that research project. It's starting to get overgrown now, there is a swamp complete with swamp-related grasses and brush growing out of the center of it now.
12-MAY-2009
Day 132 - Velociraptors
My son has a dinosaur project due tomorrow. He had to make a dinosaur out of some kind of material, I'd been kicking around milk jugs or a cereal box (not literally kicking those items around) but never had the time. My wife saved the week by picking up some modeling clay. Our 11 year old helped him, hers is in the background (in focus) and his is the one in the foreground. I wish we had some beach sand, I could have spread some sand out on the wax paper to make it look like these guys have been uncovered in some sand dunes (I'd have to hide the toothpick though).
11-MAY-2009
Day 131 - Up close
We had a Cub Scout tour of the Counting House Museum in South Berwick today. While waiting for others to show up, we hung out around the falls. I'd never seen this particular angle before. I had to shoot through a fence, but with the zoom on, I was able to get a decent enough shot. This is the non-IS lens, handheld with a bunch of boys running around. It's not all that bad.
10-MAY-2009
Day 130 - Unused
While we had a great time at Battleship cove these past two days, it was a little sad to see the state of disrepair that all the ships (and Submarine) have fallen into. I am not a nautical person (I'm an Air Force dude) but I have to believe that the fact that these ships are sitting in the water cannot bode well for maintenance. The deck of the Battleship was pocked with rusted out railings and broken or missing boards (I almost turned my ankle twice simply walking on deck). This shot is on the Destroyer (I think the USS Joseph P. Kennedy Jr.). It was on the side of one of the 5" gun turrets. I'm quite sure it is for spotting (the inside of the turret was closed off). What I originally saw was the spiderweb, while looking closer, I realized there was a windshield wiper as well, but it was so warped that it could not possibly help clear that window again.
09-MAY-2009
Day 129 - Jumping on the ship
We spent the evening on the USS Massachusetts at Battleship Cove in Fall River, MA. Hundreds of Cub Scouts flocked to the ship for an overnight stay. While I got a few OK shots of the ship (I left my 40D at home, decided it wasn't worth the effort), this is from a "jumping batch" that I really liked. My son was very impressed with the ghosting effect, at least in the camera review screen. I am a bit impressed at his ability to not only jump across the obstacles (which was technically forbidden) but to be able to turn and face camera in the air. So this is late in posting, but not in taking.
08-MAY-2009
Day 128 - Game Time
So I got a little "Photoshop Action" going on here. I have spent so much time in Lightroom the past year or so, that my Photoshop Skills basically suck now (not that they were that great before, but I could certainly fine my way around). This Polaroid treatment took about an hour plus, something that should have taken about 5 - 15 minutes normally. I wanted this shot to work out, but my daughter was not cooperating with me AND the UWA picked up some nasty flare from our light above our kitchen table (it is forward and above the lens).
07-MAY-2009
Day 127 - Riding Boots
These are my riding boots. Technically they are the last pair of combat boots that were issued to me just before getting out of the Air National Guard in '99. They sat unused for a number of years, waiting for just the right motorcycle to come along. I started using them last fall in September, they took a few days to break in (as opposed to a few hours back in boot camp) and took a few hours to get water resistant (bee's wax). They leak quite well in a steady downpour, but work good enough for me for now. A new pair of riding boots is not cheap. This shot was taken up and close with my UWA, the toe of the boot in the foreground is actually too close and thus soft. I'm shooting wide open too, so there is a narrow Depth of Field to begin with. I just noticed that the inside soles are a bit worn, most likely from dragging my feet a bit at stops and starts.
06-MAY-2009
Day 126 - Partial Kiwi
Another abstract attempt. I just got home from our game that ran a tad bit late. I really need to start packing the camera with me in the mornings, but I need just a bit more space on the bike first. I am holding the flash off-camera, above the glass & fruit. There is a distorted banana to the left.
05-MAY-2009
Day 125 - Probably not what you think
A quick shot this evening. I find myself getting home a tad late. I would have been home much earlier for baseball practice, but had to call it due to weather. Then I got on a roll at work and forgot the time. This is an abstract via my Macro lens. It's not what you are thinking, yeah, you were thinking that, I know you were.
04-MAY-2009
Day 124 - Homework
My oldest doing her homework (at least I think she's doing her homework). We are down one child for the next few days as our "middle one" is off with her group from school on a camping trip up North (a 5th grade Rite of Passage for our school system). There is a hint of purple highlights and shadows, this is my oldest's favorite color (its our school's color too). That is her MacBook, though 7th & 8th graders get MacBooks here in Maine, she opted to buy her own, funded through a very thriving Babysitting business (It's good to live in our neighborhood).
03-MAY-2009
Day 123 - Loud Pipes
I was able to install my Stebel horn on my bike this afternoon. It will definitely make a lot more sound than the puny little stock horn that is standard on the bike. Before I could install the horn, I had to wait for a switched fuse panel & wiring harness to arrive. Those items arrived earlier this week. I have a few more goodies for the bike, but have to wait for a mounting shelf to arrive (correctly this time) before I can put those things on.
02-MAY-2009
Day 122 - Eerie
It is kind of ironic that my oldest is clamoring for me to hurry up so we can go watch another episode of "The X-Files" (In fact, she just put the DVD in, I can hear it in the family room from here). This was not the effect I was shooting for. I was going for an abstract of my eyes, this was kind of a "what will this look like with the sliders all F#$@d up in Lightroom". It was opening day today for Little League, even though I put on sunscreen, I still got burned, however, part of that can be attributed to riding the motorcycle for a couple of hours after the game (my new face shield has been burning my face, not good). I am wiped, but can't miss a chance to get my daughter interested in The X-Files. My other daughter is over a friend's house, sleeping in a tree house tonight.
01-MAY-2009
Day 121 - Berry
I got home later than I'd wanted and still hadn't taken today's PaD. While loading the dishwasher, I uncovered some strawberries. I set up my 'studio' and went to town. I normally shoot with the monochrome picturestyle so that I can check luminescence during the shoot. I decided to keep with the Black & White theme after importing into Lighroom (they revert back to color after the previews are rendered).
30-APR-2009
Day 120 - Hit the deck
I had to run out to a baseball field tonight to get our team shirts. I packed up my camera gear to find something interesting along the way. The field I was at is behind an elementary school that sits up on a hill, down the hill is a pond with another baseball field and some real nice public area with this grandstand by the pond. I've never seen this grandstand used for the traditional purpose of concerts, but that didn't concern me today. I put the Tokina on and got up real close (like almost on the floor close). It looks larger than it actually is, you can't actually land an aircraft on this.
29-APR-2009
Day 119 - In an album
This is one of those photos that you might find lost in an album from years back. I was looking for an opportunity to try this Lightroom preset called "Tripleprint" which is supposed to mimic the old over processed photo lab treatment. I could see this in one of my old albums, some photo I took as a teenager with my Olympus OM-10, had developed through the mail and stuck in some album (possibly it was an assignment in Photography class). I realize that it was taken a few minutes ago on my front lawn with a Digital SLR & then processed through Lightroom to look this way, but still. . .
28-APR-2009
Day 118 - Boy in dah hood
We just got back from our pack meeting on the third floor of our Town Hall in this 92 degree heat. Actually it wasn't nearly as hot up there as I thought it would be, we had a nice breeze kick in. In a rush for today's PaD, I kept eying the sky on the way back, it was a tad bit too late for this shot, but it still kind of works. I asked him to look 'cool' for this. This is in between his "Daddy, can't I go to the bathroom?" rant, which I wasn't aware of until after I'd pulled out my camera gear.
27-APR-2009
Day 117 - Baseball
Here's where my evening went. Not from trying to capture the best angle on these hats, but on a Coach's meeting, writing up our schedule, and other various tasks related to coaching that I seem to forget about. I'd hoped to catch some kind of sunset theme, but our meeting started pretty late and ran past sunset. I can't believe it is 10PM already, not sure where this day went!
26-APR-2009
Day 116 - Awakening
One of the homes at the entrance to our neighborhood had these apple blossoms pop out this weekend. They are not in full bloom yet, just starting to show. I took a short break right after putting the baked potatoes on the grill to snap a shot or two (or thirty as the case may be) of these. I was all grungy from a day of working around the house & standing out on a baseball field with my team. The grunginess didn't seem to affect my camera skills. This was a partial mistake, I was going for a silhouette, but decided against it when I saw the preview in the camera. It wasn't until I finally started looking at these in Lightroom (after finishing the BBQ & taking a shower to remove said grunginess) that I realized this was the keeper.
Today also marks the day that my hitcount broke 300,000! Yea!
25-APR-2009
Day 115 - Restin by the songo river queen
Took advantage of this premature hot day and headed out for a motorcycle ride this afternoon. The Songo River Queen (II) is still wrapped up in the black tarp behind us. We are sitting on the boardwalk in Naples, Maine, approximately 70 miles into our trip. My wife's not a huge biker chick, so I have to entice her to go. For day trips its a nice dinner (we ate at the Muddy Rudder in Yarmouth, Maine). For overnight trips, I have to book us at B&B's. We are Sans Gear here, though I am still wearing my riding pants (I don't normally wear suspenders). There were not a whole lot of bikers out today who practice "ATGATT" (All The Gear All The Time). We wound up doing 160 miles today, which isn't a whole lot of riding, but pretty nice for an April day. I am trying to work her up to some nice long riding days in hopes of touring Nova Scotia this year.
24-APR-2009
Day 114 - My bookworms
My wife is always reading something. My eight-year-old son is fast becoming a bookworm, like the rest of his family. At some point, we are going to have to get a bigger house to fit all our books. This is a nice cool evening before the heat wave. I've talked my wife into a nice late afternoon/evening motorcycle ride/dinner tomorrow night so we will beat some of the heat. Two days of 80 degree weather though will be nice, considering it was in the twenties earlier this week (at least at night/early morning).
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:
11-APR-2009
Day 101 - Reflections
I went down to the pond to get a long exposure of the falls and was a bit shocked to find them pretty much non-existent. I tried to capture a loon that was close to shore, but by the time I had setup, it was 1/2 way across the pond. This scene looked interesting while I was out there. I liked this tighter shot that shows the base of the birch tree and its reflection much better than the wider shot with the whole tree, sky, etc.
10-APR-2009
Day 100 - Aftermath of a magic trick
When I came home this evening, my two youngest had a magic trick to show me. They'd put together a stage, complete with a "Box" that was covered with a blanket. My son crawled in and promptly disappeared. He was also able to be brought back. Shortly after the trick, I asked them to hang out for photos. This is something like the 4th shot, things broke down fast, we went from posed shots on their 'stage' to "Hey, let me hold my Brother". . .
09-APR-2009
Day 099 - 22222
I wasn't actually planning on this as a semi-Self Portrait, but my helmet & camera are in the reflection off the bezel. If you look close enough, you can see that my riding gloves are still on for this shot. I was able to get the LX3 out of the tank bag, opened up, and shoot all without removing any riding gear at all. So the main point of this shot is the odometer though, I am just shy of 1,000 miles this season. If I do the rate that I intend to this year, I should see 33333 right at the end of this riding season (November/December).
08-APR-2009
Day 098 - Golden Barn
I almost made it to my intended location for today's PaD. Another 100 feet or so and I would be posting a shot of yet another waterfall/rapids. This barn has alluded me for years, I've always wanted to shoot it, but it has always looked like, well, just a barn. This evening I was driving in this awesome light, the sun had just popped out from behind some pretty serious clouds, about a 1/2 hour before setting. I noticed this golden glow coming off this barn as I approached it and never thought twice, I pulled a little further forward so as to not cast a "Car shadow" onto it. I tried to handhold at first, but at ISO 400, I was still borderline. I had the tripod with me, with the RRS QR plates, it literally takes a few seconds to get all set up, so I played it safe (good thing too, the handheld shots weren't that great).
07-APR-2009
Day 097 - After the rain
There are so many good places within my town to shoot rapids & waterfalls. After the rainstorm we had over the night, I crossed the bridge into New Hampshire to get the lower rapids beneath the train bridge (beside an old mill). There is an excellent vantage point to shoot from behind the mill. Great solid, dry place complete with a parking lot. I took a few shots without an ND filter, one with a 1.8x and a few with the 3.0 ND filter on. I settled on this one wiht the ND 3.0 filter. I normally jump to the ND 3.0 and then struggle to get any kind of focus. Today, I gradually worked my way down, setting the MF without any ND filters then tweaking lightly after each filter change. With the ND 3.0 there is very little light coming through, so AF is impossible. It is also very tough to Manually Focus as you can't see anything. I might head back and use my 70-200 tomorrow and go for a slightly different composition.
06-APR-2009
Day 096 - A fitting opening day shot
I wanted some kind of baseball theme for today's shot. This morning we had sunny skies and cool, crisp weather. The Red Sox opener was postponed before it even started. I imagine that I could have cropped a little tighter and called this "Fenway Park" and it would look the same (deserted). Of course, I'd have to add about an inch of water to it too. We are in the middle of a huge storm right now, I imagine tomorrow's theme will be water based again. Spring is here!
05-APR-2009
Day 095 - Part of me
I'm actually shooting into my bike mirror for this shot. A mirror that hasn't been cleaned in a little while. The mirror is pretty small, not your average SP mirror. I have the 100mm Macro on the front of the camera which helps a lot. I am actually in my garage, the lighting sucks. I'm not sure why I didn't take the bike outside and shoot this in the shade. Actually I know why I didn't, I had someone coming over to look at our popup camper and I looked a little odd straddling my bike with a tripod and a camera, shooting into a side view mirror. I wish had a bit more grain but I am too tired to muck with this in PS right now.
04-APR-2009
Day 094 - Trophies are sooo cool
We had our Pack's pinewood derby today. I am still tired from it. My son got 2nd place for the "Wolves" and 6th place overall. He was in something like 16 races and had an absolute blast. He had been looking forward to this event for weeks, the past few days were an endless "I can't wait!" - fest. His car is in the foreground, lower left of the image (blue with green, yellow, and red). He pretty much did all of it, including cutting the car on the band saw (with dad's help). I'm not sure who is going to sleep better tonight, him or me (I'm ready now).
03-APR-2009
Day 093 - Resting in peace
There is more than one reason why I'd like to be buried in this old private cemetery. This morning it provided a very tranquil scene that I had to do a One-Eighty to capture (Again, I set off for a different destination). The real reason I'd like to be buried here is that it is on a golf course. I was standing off the road, just above the 18th hole. I was able to crop out the green & got in tight enough to keep the clubhouse (to the left) out of the shot. Two foggy mornings in a row, tomorrow will be different as we are in the middle of a very large rainstorm, I might have to go capture some of the cresting rivers. That is, after the big Pinewood derby.
02-APR-2009
Day 092 - Farm in the mist
When I saw the heavy fog this morning, I had a couple of potential destinations in mind, this was what I envisioned, I had actually forgotten about this particular farm. From this angle, the farm doesn't look as run down. If I moved about 500 feet to my left to shoot the barn from the side, you'd see that the topless silo was hiding a pretty huge rift in the roof and side of the barn. The silo isn't in great shape either. It is, however, very picturesque, especially with the stalks left over from last season (which allows me/us to see this barn from this angle).
01-APR-2009
Day 091 - Spring Falls
Trying a different set of falls, this angle was not achievable last year (at least not easily achievable). This is the bottom of the falls, the lower portion of the photo from yesterday, anyone falling off the ladders would plunge into this rocky area below. It is amazing how such a beautiful scene such as this is right around the corner from my house, but I have never seen this angle. I might not get a chance to see these falls from this angle again either. I was standing at the edge of a parking lot for a new set of condos that just went into this previously vacant (wooded) lot.
31-MAR-2009
Day 090 - Photoboothed
Not sure if this is an actual phrase, but after a very long day where I had hoped to get an evening (dusk) shot, but I come home at 9:30, I am turning to my Mac to get today's PaD. Ever the optimist, I didn't realize that there were such cool effects built right into Photobooth. So, technically, this is "Right out of the camera" also.
30-MAR-2009
Day 089 - Words could not describe
There is no way I could possibly describe this without a photo. I saw this scene yesterday when I was coming back from my PaD shoot on the pond. You are looking at an old mill house, built on the side of a ravine that drops about 40' to the river below (which drains into the pond I was at). In the foreground is a small piece of the falls that plunge downward. I am standing across the river on a bridge beside another mill building. Those ladders you see are resting on a ledge with a couple of feet to spare. From this angle it looks like you'd continue to plunge into the gorge below once you reached the bottom rung. There has to be a Discovery Channel film crew floating around here (no pun intended) covering either the "World's most dangerous jobs", the "Future Darwin Awards", possibly both.
29-MAR-2009
Day 088 - Melting
I expected to find the pond had thawed out, I was a bit shocked to see so much ice. It was raining out and I wanted to try a semi long exposure closeup of the pond water to capture the water drops landing on it. There was too much snow for me to get close to the pond which was mostly iced over anyway. The falls on the other side of Leigh's Mill Pond were pretty spectacular, but I saved them for another day.
28-MAR-2009
Day 087 - Somone is coming
After we had a dinner with the inlaws in Wells (on the coast) I took the remaining family members (my wife & my oldest daughter) on a quick jaunt towards the ocean for my photograph today. I didn't expect to make it to the ocean, and I didn't. I am parked in a restaurant parking lot in the middle of the tidal marsh. I had been shooting the water & fog when I decided to rotate the camera towards the oncoming traffic. I like the glow effect of the headlights into the fog. Today was supposed to be a beautiful day, it was cloudy and foggy pretty much for the most of it (but it didn't rain). Tomorrow is supposed to be a rain fest. I can't wait.
27-MAR-2009
Day 086 - Down the road (2)
This morning I knew that I wouldn't be home in time to do any kind of evening shot, so I drove around a little, looking for something to shoot. This is a dirt road just outside of an attached development that parallels a cemetery on the right (out of frame). Like most of my other PaD shots, I initially drove by this with intentions of a different shot altogether. I got about a 1/2 mile away and turned around (it took that long for my brain to process this shot apparently).
The reason I wasn't supposed to be home before dark related to an after work meet up for drinks with the group. That never happened, as I predicted, something important came up and kept a few of us there late. I wound up heading out with a coworker to check out his new property that he bought (just around the corner from this road). I find it interesting that this shot of a slightly muddy road, taken in the morning, is how I ended my day. We went muddin' in his Prius and my Suzuki (bike). I only wish the road we drove down was 1/2 as improved as this dirt road in the photo.
26-MAR-2009
Day 085 - Army Surplus
My daughter told us that tomorrow there is some kind of "WWII Theme" at school. There was a lot of drama about other various requirements, all of which had to be completed "right now" (wow, this really sounds like working at a Software Company). When asked how long she'd known about this (which we knew would have been an "Oh, a few days") we explained the difference between "expected" and "actual". Somehow, a WWII theme extends to BDU pants from my wife (who did not serve in WWII), dog tags, new style combat boots (again they were not in WWII), and a "Hot Shirt" which was most likely not standard issue in any war. On the PaD forefront, I left the camera gear at home this morning on purpose with the expectations ("illusion") that I would come home before 6pm so I could get out and get some kind of dusk shot. I'd envisioned a beach scene if there was enough time. I got out later than expected, it had already started to rain, and was so overcast that it was too dark to do anything outside when I got home.
25-MAR-2009
Day 084 - Two Scoops
Now THIS is what I was envisioning yesterday. In the whole
"Agile Photographer" kind of thing, I took a look at what I had achieved yesterday and actually had the chance to go back today (while the snow was still there) and get the shot I wanted. It helped that I happened to be back in town this evening at dusk. I was able to get the silky falls with a slow shutter speed without having to put an ND filter on the front of the lens. The two ice/snow caps are more centered in the frame formed by the bench, with the beautiful light that I had, I was able to pick up a lot more detail of the snow, they look a lot more like two scoops of vanilla ice cream now.
24-MAR-2009
Day 083 - Springtime
I knew that this evening was going to be hectic, I didn't have room on the bike to bring my camera gear (I brought my Mac Book Pro into work), so I took my gear with me when I dropped the kids off to school. This was a bit of a whim, the park beside the falls. The last time I was here, I trudged through two to three feet of snow to get to the wall just beyond the end of this park bench to take a photo of the ice on or around the rocks in the background. Today there was no snow to be seen, the parking lot was open (eg: not covered in snow). I had numerous shots from this vantage point, most with the falls and the snow/ice that is almost framed in this shot. I nixed those shots because the composition wasn't right, turns out I needed to get a little lower to get the snow ice mounds, that looked like two scoops of vanilla ice cream, in frame. I might go back tomorrow and try again, we are fast approaching the day where there will be no ice or snow left to shoot, at least not for another 9 months or so. The lack of a working off-camera flash did hurt this a bit, I would have liked to expose for the lighter background & then light the bench in the foreground.
23-MAR-2009
Day 082 - Stool Bus
I rode behind this truck on the Tradeport and was laughing (inside my helmet) at it. I made a decision that if he turned the same direction I was heading at this one intersection, that I would try to follow him to get a photo. He turned. I thought he would go to a construction site, my mind was spinning trying to do an internal "Google Maps" kind of thing to locate a construction site in the direction we were going (there are none, the other direction had a bunch). Turns out he went to the "Septage Receiving Station" which was news to me. It is a gated off area just down the street from where I work. I parked the bike outside the gated area and walked in with my camera (in my riding gear again). I tried to find someone to ask permission, but there was no one around. I certainly couldn't have been mistaken for spying, I was in my neon orange riding jacket. Just a note, the hose coming directly out the back doesn't come anywhere near where I was standing, it doglegged to camera left into that building which must be the "Receiving Portion" of said building. I sure home there isn't a cafeteria in there.
22-MAR-2009
Day 081 - Bandaged
My youngest daughter took a babysitting class over the weekend. Part of the class involved First Aid, she even received a First Aid kit at the completion of the course. I'm not sure what is left in the kit though. To be honest, I've not been around, I've been at a conference during the days over the weekend, so it is possible that she created this bandage from scratch by weaving tiny strands of silk gathered from the various cobwebs that exist in our family room. It is possible, not necessarily probable.
21-MAR-2009
Day 080 - Something interesting on the screen
A sort of rarity for me, a P&S shot straight out of the camera (with cropping). I am attending a conference just outside of Boston through this weekend and I am riding my motorcycle each day. There is no room for the 40D gear and my "geek stuff" so I packed the LX3. I took some boring shots of the hotel (even though the hotel isn't all that boring) that won't make it into my PaD. This shot was supposed to be for our weekly "52 of Us" set, but it is pulling double/triple duty today.
20-MAR-2009
Day 079 - Local Memorial
I've wanted to take a shot of one of the civil war cannons in our town for a while. This morning I found myself in a "non-rush" situation since I wasn't going straight into work, so I gave it a shot (so to speak). I really needed my remote flash to light up the shade side of the cannon, but it wasn't behaving (I couldn't get the flash to trigger from only 2' away, which has not happened before). I gave up with the flash and relied on some Post Processing work. This is a pretty early post for me, but I won't be back until 9pm or so tonight, it is better to take care of this now.
19-MAR-2009
Day 078 - Old Reflections
I actually had a few extra minutes to spare before zipping off to a Spring Concert (oldest, Flute). I decided to head around the corner from our house to THE "Old Mill" (we live in a development called "Old Mill", though there were no mills in or on the site of our development). I originally started with the UWA and decided to pop back with the 17-55 to get a little tighter. This is actually a cropped down version of the shot I went with. The full version was too busy, there was nothing to focus on. In this version, there is a bit of symmetry in the center around that little outcropping of building. One of those "hindsight" things, but I wish I captured the roof of that building as well as it's reflection. Perhaps another time.
18-MAR-2009
Day 077 - Suspended
I hit up the boatyard that I visited for my PaD back on the 20th of January. There is a lot less snow at the yard now. In fact, some of the boats are working their way back into the water. Someone was backing a boat in (behind me in this shot) while I was walking around taking photos. I was on the bike again, I was doing that "crazy guy in the balaclava thing" this morning, bumped into a number of people, some at the boat yard, and a few joggers and dog walkers. I pulled off the road and had to work on my kick stand so that it wouldn't sink all the way into the mud/muck.
17-MAR-2009
Day 076 - Shadow and downspout
I've been here before (9 Jan 2008) but at a different time of day and with a different composition. I was in my riding gear when I took this, I'd pulled into the parking lot & took off my gloves & helmet, but had my balaclava still on (think ski mask) because it is a pain to get back on right. So here is this guy in a ski mask, toting a telephoto zoom lens & camera, taking photos of a transportation building. One car full of people pulled into the parking lot and soon exited, not sure if they couldn't find a space or if they were worried about me ;-)
16-MAR-2009
Day 075 - Riding Season
This is the obligatory "I'm out pretty early" kind of shot. To call this vain, would be an understatement. When I left the house this morning, I had this Church's Parking lot in mind as a destination. I needed a large pile of snow, larger than the bike, and it had to be clean. Most of the snow that is hanging around right about now is this dingy black/grey stuff that wouldn't make for an interesting background.
I am also going to file this under my
"Agile Group" as I have something that I would have (should have) done different. I should have parked in the snow (I actually wanted to this morning) and I should have taken a tighter shot, perhaps of the front wheel, so that it looked like the entire bike was engulfed in snow. Perhaps I will stop by again tomorrow to see what snow is left.
15-MAR-2009
Day 074 - Levels of rust
Old fire escapes on an old factory building in Dover. Taken from an angle that puts each level almost inline with each other. It helped that I was able to step on a snowbank for this shot. I had to crop it pretty tight as I was on the North side of the building in the shade, the sky was pretty blown out. I realized this while I was out there and tried to compose it in such a way that the intricate curves on the escape would make the crop. While I was out there I noticed the rust but didn't pay much attention to it. During Post Processing, I can see that theses landings were pretty rusted.
14-MAR-2009
Day 073 - Decaying
Even though it is weekend, I still found myself on the Tradeport for my PaD. My oldest & I were in the area and noticed a very beautiful sunset as we were getting into the car to leave. I realized that the sunset would be gone by the time I got to a spot where I could actually capture it. I tried anyway, had to get onto the Tradeport, when I realized it wasn't going to happen, I decided to catch some of the yellow/orange tones from what was left of the sunset. I find it fitting that I converted the image to Black & White & then added some split toning (so it's a Quad tone now) effectively removing the natural coloring. This is part of a wall on a building right beside the flightline. It has not been in use since the base closed, there are bushes growing out of it and birds living in it (according to my daughter who saw birds flying into a hole in one side of the wall of this building).
13-MAR-2009
Day 072 - More than Fore
From a distance, I thought these were golf carts, though I should have known better. I was driving into work and hadn't found anything to shoot. I saw what I imagined to be golf carts off in the distance on the Pease Golf Course (so there is a good reason for me to think they were golf carts). As I got closer, I realized what they were (and was reminded that the golf carts are secured in a fenced in area). The picnic tables were still interesting enough to make the PaD though.
12-MAR-2009
Day 071 - Upstanding
Had to take a different way into work today to find something interesting to shoot. I left my snow boots at home thinking I wouldn't be doing any trekking around. I got lucky here as the ground was still frozen and there was no snow to traipse through to reach these lines from the road. I imagine there were a lot of morning commuters trying to figure out what the heck I was doing near these poles. Big honkin iron things shot with a very Wide Angle lens. I had no filters on the lens, the inconsistent blue sky is natural (due mostly to the inconsistent exposure across such a large field of view.
11-MAR-2009
Day 070 - Down the road
For some reason, this morning I just wasn't feeling it. I worked pretty late last night, I wasn't feeling so hot this morning, and it was raining out. I told myself a little lie that I would skip out at lunch and find something to shoot. At 3ish, I was able to nuke a quick lunch and return to my desk before heading into a long meeting. I skipped out with some sunlight still left but no idea what to shoot. It all worked out though, while riding out to the flightline, I spied this stretch of road (the flightline is off to camera left) and was able to pull over, setup the tripod, and grab a number of shots from this angle and from right on the double yellow lines. A car finally showed up as I was packing up. As I was driving away, the available light dropped to render this scene only a memory (but captured on Digital).
10-MAR-2009
Day 069 - Blocked
And to think, I was actually pulling into this used car dealer's lot to turn around and head back to shoot some snow covered pine trees. While pulling through the lot, I did a double-take when I saw this old camaflauged vehicle. The best part was the fact that this truck was beside and slightly behind the dealer's building so I was able to pull over, grab my camera and have unfettered shooting access without getting bothered ("Can I help you?"). Technically, he could have helped me if he had a reflector to get a tad bit more light on this side panel. ;-)
09-MAR-2009
Day 068 - Tell me this is a dream
Yesterday I was riding around on my motorcycle, welcoming in the new riding season. I'd expected to ride in this morning to work. I don't follow the news or weather. I don't usually have time to watch TV. While the snow we received this morning was beautiful, I'd have enjoyed a ride in a lot more. At this point in the season, however, this snow will simply not last long. (At least, that is the hope).
08-MAR-2009
Day 067 - Bike season
I was able to chisel away a large enough pathway through the ice on the driveway to official open biking season. I took the Harley out for a spin, mostly to start working through the Sta-bil in the tank. The VStrom started right up, no real need to prep it, though I will go lube the chain after posting this. I took about 100 photos from about 5 different angles to arrive at this shot. I didn't realize it would be so time-consuming. . .
07-MAR-2009
Day 066 - Ice Fishing
The ice is still about 18" thick, but with temps reaching 60 dgrees (F) today, we had to slosh through about 3 inches of water and slush. Spring is almost here. From this photo, it doesn't look safe or wise to be out on the ice today. It was very safe, not sure about the 'wise' part though ;-) The Cub Scouts had a blast baiting the hooks then rushing off to go sledding (that whole patience part won't kick in for another few years). My son only popped out onto the ice in the final 15 minutes that we were there, he managed to become entirely soaked sledding down the slush and mud hill.
06-MAR-2009
Day 065 - Me
Better known as "this is what happens when you use your camera at work for work stuff and leave the CF card in your laptop which is still at work with all your intended PaD potential images from this morning on it". It gave me a great chance to set up my studio (black duck cloth background, my special flash reflector, flash stand, tripod, camera, and other stuff that gets in the way). I also got a chance to drop into PS CS4 to adjust the black levels of the background since some of the wrinkles from the fabric made their way into the image.
05-MAR-2009
Day 064 - Wide angle crane
Something for an UWA lens. I was amazed at how close I had to get to this crane for this shot. The Tokina is nice and wide. I have the B+W CPL on the front of the Tokina, I didn't see the exposure difference in the sky until just now, during Post-processing. I had read comments about a CPL on an Ultra Wide Lens but never really thought about it. This sky shot is after applying an aggressive gradient filter in Lightroom.
04-MAR-2009
Day 063 - Urban Scene
I have seen this fire escape a number of times when driving through Portsmouth. Today it marked my "Point of no return" for the morning PaD. I mentally dialed this shot in as my final choice. It was a bland morning, more for me than anything else, technically I could have stopped and captured any number of things along the way, but nothing really worked for me this morning. Photography is like golf, a lot of it is mental (and I am arguably mental ;-)
03-MAR-2009
Day 062 - Sign of the times
I've been to this stand a few times in the past 6 months or so. This sign is on top of the roof of the stand, I am hand holding the camera for this shot and NOT extending the camera above my head. There is a snow bank that I am standing on (out of frame) that puts my eyes about level with the "Farm Stand" lettering. I used the Tokina up close for this one, I should have gotten a little closer as I had to crop out a chunk of the left side (there was as car in a snow bank that didn't contribute to this at all). I'm not too pysched about the grey skies, but there isn't much I can do about the weather (except wait).
02-MAR-2009
Day 061 - Clearing the driveway
My old faithful Wheel Horse C-120 garden tractor with snowblower attachment. I have the 42" mower deck and the straight blade attachment (for use a a plow) for this tractor. I believe this tractor is circa 1974. It gets a lot of attention when I mention it at the local small engine repair (I go in for parts once a year or so). It just came back from service a couple of weeks ago, it got a carb rebuild & the snow chute was repaired (now I can control direction without getting off the tractor). The snowblower is a single stage, with the throttle on full, power to wheels set to Lo (directing most of the power to the PTO) this thing will throw some snow. You can barely make out the spruce tree to the right (it is about 15 feet from the tractor). Had I thought about it, I would have used a wider angle lens to get the full snow stream.
More on the setup in my
blog.
01-MAR-2009
Day 060 - A Good Book
March begins on PaD Day Number 60.
My daughter enthralled in a book this snowy afternoon.
28-FEB-2009
Day 059 - On the dock
I don't do a lot of Candids. There is something about this shot that I really like out of all the shots I took today on a "Portsmouth Shoot" with Erik, a fellow (and local) Flickr photographer. The shot is taken in Portsmouth on the North Pier, the machinery (crane) is in Maine, part of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.
27-FEB-2009
Day 058 - St John's at 11mm
I drove around Portsmouth a couple of times before I was able to figure how to park in front of St John's. It's a good thing I've been doing my PaD shoots in the AM (before 9am) as I had to stand in the street to take this kind of shot of the church. I would be listening for the sound of an oncoming car (luckily traffic is one way in front of the church) so that I could avoid getting splattered.
26-FEB-2009
Day 057 - Hull
Not what I intended to shoot, it was actually just behind what I intended to shoot. This boat kept getting into frame, it was either this or a farm implement on the other side. It was an interesting test of my new (to me) Tokina 11-16 f/2.8. I had to get up real close to this hull for this shot (and it is cropped at that).
25-FEB-2009
Day 056 - Danger
Some equipment from the line crews. I don't think these will be here much longer so I snagged a photo of part of them this morning ;-) And, yes that is an accurate orangish-red color.
24-FEB-2009
Day 055 - Spring Training
A late post due to PBase flakiness, I couldn't access my 2009 PESO Gallery at all last night. My
Flickr Mirror continues to work like a charm. . .
Its hard to believe that baseball season begins next month. Signups are happening this week. I've coached my son's first two years of T-Ball, it looks like our league is trying a new concept out and I will be coaching AA Minors.
23-FEB-2009
Day 054 - New England Winter
After a snowstorm anywhere in small town New England, you can see this scene. This just happens to be in downtown South Berwick. On my way in this morning, I wound up stopping twice. For this stop, I parked in the church's parking lot which is to the left (and luckily out of frame here) and then proceeded to slip and slide my way across the frozen sidewalk to this vantage point.
I didn't mirror my PaD today on
my Blog either.
I've posted a couple of extras out on my Flickr account today:
22-FEB-2009
Day 053 - Swimming's Done
Photo of my son after his last swim lesson (for this session). I was able to utilze his modeling services for all of 45 seconds this afternoon. After that, his patience wore thin.
I have the flash off camera, sitting in the bleachers behind me to the left. He is looking at a point between the flash and myself. It isn't that bad for a single bare 580EX-2.
21-FEB-2009
Day 052 - The Trainyard
I 'd never actually been to the train yard in Dover (NH) before. It isn't a huge trainyard, it is basically a couple of parallel tracks and a muddy parking area. But, it is very interesting, lots of things to photograph. These tank cars were lined up and just sitting there, waiting for someone to photograph them. There was another train on the other side of it that began to move while I was out there. I expected to be shooed away while I was out there with all my photographic gear, but there was no one in the actual yard, per se. The crew had already boarded the freight train.
I actually found this area (yard) on google maps a few weeks ago and made a mental note to check it out. Google maps rocks, I've lived in this area for pretty much all my life and never knew about areas like this. I've been able to scope out some interesting locations by just 'browsing' through maps (Satellite view).
20-FEB-2009
Day 051 - Slick Road
We got some snowfall last night that was completely unexpected. The roads this morning were a little slick. I tend to see cars off the road around two times in the winter.
The first time is the first snowfall, drivers have forgotten what it is like to ride in the snow and take their minds off the road for a split second and wind up in a ditch the next moment.
The other time I see this is right towards the end of winter, like the last or next to last snowfall. Especially after we've had some very nice weather. Last week we had great weather, we had a weekend of 40's and 50's lead into a nice warm[er] week. I was able to get 90% of my driveway cleared, most of the ice had been chipped and/or melted away. Roads widened as the snowbanks melted. We all felt like it was spring. Then this morning, we were reminded that we live in New England.
A lot of us, myself included, didn't think anything of the snow until we saw this car off the road, then we paid a little more attention to the road. I want to thank this guy (or gal, there was no occupant when I pulled over) for reminding me that the roads were slick.
It's easy to make light of this situation now as I am from and was in Maine when I took this shot, the car had New Hampshire license plates, that state is so much further south, they have better weather ;-)
19-FEB-2009
Day 050 - Just before the fall
This old condemned building beside the pier at Prescott park is literally on its last legs (it's not even touching the post in the foreground). I imagine I will come by some day to find that a quarter of it has slid into the river (or more). It was raining out this morning as I was taking this photo (the rest of the photos got canned).
I really like the tones in this photo and believe I might have to come back to retake this photo when the weather is better, I can try a better composition.
18-FEB-2009
Day 049 - All for a bag of chips
I took a different route this morning through Kittery, Maine and came across this scene. It was quite the event, police directing traffic from three directions. I swung around after realizing that Tody's PaD had found me. While I was walking around snapping photos, the driver (in this photo on the right) shouted to me "All for a bag of chips". (He explained he was reaching over for a bag of chips that fell under the seat) He perked up and was quite chipper with me when he thought he was going to make the paper. After I explained what I did, he looked confused (I get that a lot).
Just as I was packing up, this cruiser pulled up beside me presenting this particular vantage point. I couldn't pass it up.
And, yes that sign on the back of the truck says "How's my driving? Call...".
17-FEB-2009
Day 048 - Concrete Example
Today is a quick one (though it was the result of a complex and perilous adventure ;-)
It is a concrete example of a vignette.
This is what happens when you spy an aircraft taxing out for takeoff at one end of the runway, while driving into work, then rushing to the other end of the runway in hopes of catching it taking off. I was about 2 minutes too slow, I saw the plane off the end of the runway well before I was near the end to pull over, setup, and get a shot of it.
16-FEB-2009
Day 047 - Frothy
I snuck out of the house this afternoon to take some photos and stumbled on a path beside the Salmon Falls river in Somersworth. The river has started to show itself, working it way through the ice and snow. This is the perfect time for some long exposures as the snow and ice provides for a great surface for me to walk and set my equipment on.
15-FEB-2009
Day 046 - Weathered and Worn
The side of this barn has seen its better days. I noticed this while driving this afternoon (the barn, that is) and caught it on our way home. It was the weathered look that caught my eye, I knew it was worn, but didn't realize the door was just resting on the side of the barn. While Post Processing, I noticed the track was about a foot higher than the door, there are missing boards, and there are some extremely rotted (possibly burnt) boards further to the right (out of frame). I love the colors.
If I could do it over again, I'd push the ISO up and open the aperture up to f/8.0 as it's a tad soft on the edges.
14-FEB-2009
Day 045 - Winter Thaw
The river in downtown Dover has begun its thaw. I had a few minutes while waiting for my daughter to change while I was at the pool, to get a few shots in.
13-FEB-2009
Day 044 - Rusty
My morning photo jaunt took me into downtown Portsmouth today. I thought I was going to shoot something in the alley on Church Street (behind the North Church) but the shot didn't happen after I actually made it to the street. A short walk down the alley and I saw a number of potentials, including a very interesting angle on North Church with the Church Street sign in the foreground (but it didn't pan out during Post Processing). This is the kind of fire escape that you'd have to think twice about in the event of an actual fire (is it safer to brave the flames?).
12-FEB-2009
Day 043 - Misty Ski Hill
Powderhouse hill. The local Ski, Snowboard, and sledding hill (just around the corner from us). Sledding is actually to the left of the ski hill, there is no sledding allowed on the ski hill as indicated on the sign. We've never actually skied or snowboarded on this side, we've only used the sledding side. In the coming years, I believe my son will be using this side for snowboarding. The posts support a rope tow that is powered by an ancient motor that just keeps on ticking.
Powderhouse hill is named so because there was a gun power house on the top of this hill in colonial times. As far as I know, there is no longer any gun powder stored on this hill.
My kid's daycare is pretty close to the hill, after dropping off the kids this morning, I saw the mist on the hill out of the corner of my eye and did a U-Turn to come back to the parking lot and get this captured. I lucked out, it stopped raining out long enough for me to get out a couple of times for shots (I returned to change lenses).
11-FEB-2009
Day 042 - Leftover light
Our 'traditional' Christmas Tree stand, down the road "a ways". I pass this pretty much every morning and mean to stop to capture some of the lights that have been left up. There are more colorful lights to the right of this string, but I saved them for another day.
A very simplistic shot with great Depth of Field, though it could have been even better if I had the 70-200 f/2.8 IS (but I digress). Just the kind of shot that I required from this very hectic day.
10-FEB-2009
Day 041 - Tug and Ship
I've wanted to get a shot of the tug(s) with a ship for a while. I was able to get right onto a deck of a seasonal restaurant for this shot. The deck was full of snow, but was also deserted. I even had a place to set my gear (the railing has a bench on it) and a place to hold the camera in lieu of my monopod or tripod (which were both sitting back in my car). Parking is free before 9am, something I wasn't aware of earlier, but noticed this morning. Makes this morning photo jaunt 25 cents cheaper ;-)
I got a few other shots while I was down by the 'docks' this morning:
09-FEB-2009
Day 040 - Line Work
Last fall there was work started on the power lines that run parallel to a very popular commute route for me. They have been working on getting these new poles into place all winter (my guess is that they can only work in the winter as the swamps are frozen). In the past few weeks they have been making incredible progress. This morning I noticed this one line worker at the very top of this one pole and thought it would make a great shot, but continued on. I got a little farther and saw a lot more trucks with more line workers and another person half way up a different pole. The next pole down had wires hanging from it and the rest of the poles had the wires already strung. I realized that I was looking at possibly the last day of noticeable activity. I turned my car around and went back to this one worker who was luckily still hanging out at the top of the pole.
A lot of my PaD shots have happened this way this year. I drive past something and think "that would have made a great shot" and then realize that I will probably regret not having stopped for the rest of my life. One of those "go with your intuition" sort of things.
I wish I'd had more time and a better area to take this photo. Looking at this after the fact, I realize that I really needed to give this shot more context, I opted for the widest angle I had, but I think I could have conveyed more meaning had I been able to capture the line worker with the rest of the new poles in the background. Of course, this would have required me to either own a crane, or somehow climb someone's roof a 1/2 mile down the road and possess an 800mm lens.
At the very least I have a shot (well a few more that I am not publishing out here) that reminds me of the work that was going on this winter.
08-FEB-2009
Day 039 - Under the bridge
I just realized this is the second shot this year that I called "Under the bridge" (I export all my PaD shots to a common folder before uploading & Lightroom warns of filename clashes).
Another shot in Dover, this one behind the Goodwill store, I originally thought this was an active railroad bridge until I noticed a small construction vehicle (backhoe) was sitting vacant on the tracks. The 'Downeaster' makes about 8 runs (4 up & 4 back) a day, plus freight trains. I realized my mistake after questioning the backhoe & then noticing another bridge behind this one that handles the active line. Which then makes me wonder what this track is used (or was used) for.
Someone had placed this particular graffiti signature on a couple of the support piers for this bridge (that were accessible on land).
07-FEB-2009
Day 038 - Red Door
After the kids' swim lessons, I had to head to the other side of Dover and was still in need of today's PaD. I've seen this stone church a number of times (right across from the police station) and decided to capture it today. It wasn't as straight-forward to actually get to the church as there are some funky traffic patterns around this part of town. I had a number of other shots, but the sky was completely blown out and really didn't help the "stoneness" any.
This door is NOT the same as the one from last January, taken in Portsmouth:
06-FEB-2009
Day 037 - Port's Mouth
Another cold morning. I believe I made it to an area that broke the single digits, it was probably around 10 degrees or so near the river this morning. I was at my favorite riverside hangout when I realized there was an interesting angle on the ship that got the steeple from North Church in it. I had just been talking with a coworker about interesting angles on Portsmouth, getting the steeple in a shot (and I told her I stole her idea too ;). I took a little artistic license with the sky, there were no such colors in the sky such as these, this morning. If you can suspend disbelief and NOT look at the time, it works as a sunset. Actually I bet most people that view this image only view the image (and skip my verbal renditions).
05-FEB-2009
Day 036 - Rim lit cat tail
On my way into work this cold, blustery morning, I saw this fog bank hugging some tidal marsh just off the main thoroughfare. I pulled around to get a better look and decided I could make something of it (I was wrong). The shots of just the mist were boring. I kind of realized this on site & started looking for a more pronounced subject. There were a number of cat tails along the edges of the marsh that were decently sun lit, so I trudged into position and captured a few. Up until I started on the cat tails, I was feeling quite lucky at not falling through the snow. Just as I took an extra step to get a little closer to one of them, I sunk in all the way to my crotch. It was -9 degrees out (I forgot to add that point). Jeans only retain so much thermal mass. . .
So I tried to get the cat tails and work on the lighting a bit. It was tough during Post Processing to get decent separation between the bright cat tails and the mist in the background. Turning this into yet another quad tone, seemed to help with the contrast a bit.
04-FEB-2009
Day 035 - Snow Boats
I went trudging through the snow this morning in Prescott Park in Portsmouth. This is an area that is not well known as a winter excursion hotspot. I didn't expect to encounter deep snow and sure enough, I encountered a lot of it. There was actually about a foot or more of snow on the wooden piers that extend out into the bay (where the water temperature is above freezing). I was able to capture these working boats in the marina on Pierce Island from one of the piers at the park. I kind of wish there was a little (or a lot) more snow to give this more of a wintery feel. The falling flakes aren't that apparent.
I need to look around for deals on snowshoes, this far into the winter season, I might get lucky and find a pair that fits me "priced to sell". They would have helped this morning.
Technically this is a quad tone as I added a highlight tone and a shadow tone (subtle).
03-FEB-2009
Day 034 - Urban shapes and textures
I set out this morning for another bridge shot, though this time of Memorial Bridge, the Southernmost bridge between Maine and New Hampshire (also the oldest). I found an interesting vantage point at a marina condo kind of place that was vacant as it is winter. I couldn't get the right angle and left unsatisfied. Memorial bridge spills you out right smack dab in the center of Portsmouth, I made it a few blocks before stopping near the "Warner House" which has been kicking around since 1716 (according to the sign in front of it). I like the brick shapes and texture, along with the windows, the arch above the door, and the fence rails.
Best thing about going a little wider, is that I didn't need my monopod, the Image Stabilization kicks in and gives me a little help. That was very helpful on the icy sidewalks.
02-FEB-2009
Day 033 - Monday Morning Commute
I took a much different route in this morning. There was a great early morning sun to my [South] East that I just couldn't compose properly (I stopped at 2 locations and just couldn't get it right). I wound up on "River Road" in Eliot (opposite the sun) going back North (my commute is south) and finding a lot to shoot. River Road is aptly named, hugging the river closely in places, giving a lot of opportunity for some kind of nature/landscape shot or two. If I go again, I know to keep a look out for ducks, although they were a little far for the 200mm reach on my Zoom.
I am standing in Eliot, Maine taking a photo of the "General Sullivan Bridge" that connects Dover Point (Right) with Newington (Left) New Hampshire.
I fell in love with this shot only after messing around with "Negative Clarity" in Lightroom. The temps were rising this morning and the river had a bit of fog and/or haze that kind of desaturated all the colors. I couldn't get anything to work right so, on a whim (well, I'd just seen an article over the weekend on Negative Clarity) I cranked down the Clarity slider and picked up some brilliant tones in the process. The sky was a lot more washed out, I used a gradient filter with a bit of color added. I thought I was going to get more of a blue sky, but the negative exposure and the blue I selected gave me this muddy kind of eerie "Sunset Quality" feel to it.
I was on the fence between this photo and another one of an island and lots of moody clouds. I really liked the other shot better, but opted for the bridge(s) because it appeared that my clouds suffered from some posterization during Post Processing (at least on my monitor). Here is that "other shot" that didn't make the PaD:
01-FEB-2009
Day 032 - Sanctuary Shapes
This morning's shoot took an interesting turn (so to speak). My oldest was over a friend's house for a sleep over and needed to get home. I grabbed my gear before leaving (this would be a typical weekend jaunt, camera gear always comes with me) and put myself in "Find a subject" mode. The trip out was uneventful, it was a great overcast morning and I really wanted to find something of interest outdoors to make use of the better lighting (a reminder that it is winter here, direct sun and snow don't mix that well).
I picked up my daughter & we made it about 500 feet from her friend's house before I had to swing around because I'd found my subject. There is an old church that is in the process of getting a new paint job. The use of bright colors really drew attention to itself (though for some reason I'd not seen it before). Before reading the sign in the front, I realized it was an Art Related establishment. My daughter gave me the "teenage sigh" and the look of "oh my god my dad is going to take more pictures" (if you have teenagers, you can insert whatever activity you want in place of "take more pictures", the look is the same ;)
There were a few other buildings surrounding the main "Church" building and a well plowed parking lot with a number of cars present. I figured the occupants were inside one of the out buildings, which I figured for a gallery, perhaps a number of galleries. I grarbbed my camera (and today I actually left the 17-55 on!) along with my
Whibal card (I knew this would be a color shot) and stood in the not-so-traveled-street to try and do some justice to the brilliant building.
As I was walking back, someone came out of the main building and asked what I was doing. This has happened a few times before, people ask me what I'm doing or I have to explain to people before I start photographing a scene, what it is I do this for ("you take a photo a day?"). I felt a lot more at ease this morning as I figured I was in the "Sanctuary" of other artists, they might understand. After a very brief explanation of what I was doing, we were actually invited inside where a private brunch was going on. My daughter actually jumped at the opportunity to go inside (shocking me).
There were quite a few people inside and lots of great food (my daughter & I both remembered this huge pie on the table as you walk in). We met a number of people, all of whom were very happy to find out that I was not some form of spy, that I really am just this really strange guy who goes around and takes pictures of things.
My daughter & I stayed for a little while, the person who originally engaged me (the brave soul who was sent out to investigate the 'spy'), Lauren, taught us about Foundry operations. Lauren is this bundle of energy who is obviously very passionate about casting. We were shown a few pieces cast in iron and in bronze and Lauren explained the process for creating each of them. As we were walking away, my daughter was very excited about all of the art in just the one room we were in. She was scanning the whole room while I was busy talking.
The name of this place is
Sanctuary Arts. Suffice it to say, there is much more to this School & Gallery than the shapes on the front of their building ;-)
31-JAN-2009
Day 031 - Escape Shadows
Took the two youngest to their swim lessons today (in Dover) and swung by this old factory building for my PaD shot. This particular building was actually in the family a while back. Northern Heel was a manufacturer of Heels in NH and Maine (there was another factory in Lewiston-Auburn). My 11-year-old takes gymnastic lessons right down the street from this building, I've explained the significance of this to them a few times, but they don't really understand. At their age (and a little younger) I was running through this building, defying OSHA & other various safety regulations in place today that would prevent the experiences my brother & I had in this building.
Some day I might try to figure out who now owns this building so I can get access to the floors that I still remember. Every time I stand outside this building, I am amazed by how much smaller it actually is from what I remembered. There is a side building that I swear was much larger (well, technically the original side building was much larger until it burned down in the late 70's or early 80's).
This one was tough as the white [vinyl] siding doesn't help matters in the bright sun. This probably should have been a sunset shot, but I wouldn't be anywhere near it at sunset (actually it is setting right now as I type this).
I have another wider shot of the fire escape that didn't make my PaD.
30-JAN-2009
Day 030 - Light Shadows
My goal this morning was to head to downtown Portsmouth and let the opportunity find me. I'd kind of envisioned some kind of urban street scene, either with pedestrians or of the buildings themselves. I was just outside the parking garage, trying to capture the Steeple from the North Church, in an alley when I noticed the interesting shadows of the street lights.
I had the 70-200 F4L mounted to the front of my 40D, on a monopod, focused on the wall. People were stopping to look at me and my subject (I didn't care).
It came down to two shots that I couldn't decide between so I exported both of them and randomly chose one for my PaD. As I write this, I'm not sure which one made it (though I have a hunch). The other will be in my "Not my PaD" gallery in mere seconds.
Here's the other one:
29-JAN-2009
Day 030 - Orphaned Posts
Not the typical "Day after the snowstorm shot" (now that I think about it). I took a short trip at lunch after I completed my running around that I had to do. I decided to visit an area I'd not yet gone. This is a much tighter view of this water area right off the river. I'm sure these posts were used for a pier at one time, I don't know how ships would have gotten into this little area, but the landscape has probably changed a lot over the past hundred years (or so).
None of my other wider shots seemed to do it for me. They were too busy. I was trying to capture a ship in port from a totally different angle, which I did, but it just didn't work.
28-JAN-2009
Day 028 - Fogg Memorial Building
This is the culmination of about 45 minutes of driving along back roads in a raging blizzard, in a Honda Civic, looking for something to shoot in the snow. OK, it wasn't "that raging" of a blizzard, but there was/is a lot of snow.
I swear these trees in the foreground were planted in such a way, many, many years ago to facilitate this particular shot. I would like to thank the greens keepers of Berwick Academy of 'ole for this particular arrangement.
This is the Fogg Memorial Building, or rather part of it. It sits atop the hill off Academy street in South Berwick. When I attended Berwick Academy (in 1980 - 82) this was the High School. I didn't stay at Berwick into High School so I never actually go to know this building. I'm not sure what it is currently used for now. It sure makes for a great subject though.
Part of the problem with taking photos in the snow, other than all the snow on your camera gear, is locating a suitable parking spot for your vehicle. Most of the barns are located off side roads with no space to park your car. The roads are constantly cleared by large trucks that would easily destroy my little Honda Civic so I have to be very aware of where I am stopped. For this shot, I was able to pull into the entrance way at the foot of the hill to the campus. I figured no one else would be driving on this unplowed road. Just as I was headed out with my monopod, sure enough, someone was coming down the hill.
I took some initial shots on the monopod to start. I had every intention of setting up the tripod because I wanted to drag the shutter a little to let the flakes blur. I did the fastest tripod setup ever. . .
27-JAN-2009
Day 027 - The path
This morning I had no clue what to shoot. I knew I had to shoot something in the morning because the rest of my day was stacked up and there would be no opportunity to shoot once I pulled into work. I have a go/no-go mark for shooting that is purely subjective to my mood more than anything else. It is the point just before the on-ramp to I-95 South in Maine. It's bunk as I could easily find some other areas to shoot once I make it across the bridge to New Hampshire, but for me that's my point. There is an old telcom building that is just before this on-ramp, in fact, the entrance to its parking lot is the last possible turn before the on-ramp which is only about 200 feet further down the road. I pulled into that parking lot today. I figured I would do some kind of contrasty shot of something projecting through the snow, be it a large blade of grass, a branch, weeds, etc. There was this path through the snow leading right out of the parking lot that I figured was some kind of blessing because a) it wasn't my path and b) I could easily shoot this from the parking lot.
Its really tough to shoot snow once the sun has come up. Today was no different. I imagine I will have a similar problem in the desert when we head out to Arizona, though sand presents more problems besides color casts.
We have a a potentially big storm coming tonight/tomorrow. I am usually opposed to taking any kind of photos in a snowstorm. I don't mind the snow on the camera gear, its the flakes that really pollute the photo. After viewing some stunning snow shots out here in the galleries and on other sites, I think I might give it a try tomorrow. My ride back from work this evening was spent trying to identify a "contrasty location" to shoot. I hope to find either a weathered barn or possibly a red barn. I know where there are a ton of red barns (this is New England). I'm drawing blanks on weathered barns (though there are a lot around). The key will be accessibility with a Honda Civic in a snow storm. . .
26-JAN-2009
Day 026 - Locked
I'm not sure the rewards for my troubles for this shot were worth it. I started out trudging through 3 feet of snow, sinking in to my waist. Each time I trek out a bit in the snow I think it might be a good idea to pick up a pair of snow shoes. I soon forget when I get back, or into work and my feet & legs begin to dry. . .
This is the "hidden side" of a trailer in an empty lot near the Kittery dump that I pass most mornings. It has been here for quite some time (it's not going anywhere in this snow either) and I've often thought about stopping and checking it out. Today I did more than think about it.
25-JAN-2009
Day 025 - Bump in the moonlight
Call this a save. . .
It looked great through the lens at 2 or 3 pm today, but not so great during post processing. This would have been my second failed attempt at a PaD shoot today. Some earlier shots of an old bridge just didn't do it for me earlier today. While trying different presets, I wondered what it would look like with a blue tint, a sort of moonlight feel to it. I basically cranked down the temp, if this were photoshop, I'd have added a blue filter layer and blended it in (yes, I am feeling the pull back to Photoshop now).
The blue really does it for me, it gives it that "scary late at night outside a child's window" kind of feel (as envisioned by a child).
24-JAN-2009
Day 024 - Stuck
On our way back from the Stratham SPCA (looking for a cat for my daughter), I saw these really cool streetlights & pulled over to shoot them. The lot that I pulled over into was an Animal Hospital which threw my daughter because we were just talking about other places to look for cats or kittens (she thought we were going to ask there). The Hospital was closed and the street lights were bust (I'm sure they worked, the photos, however, did not). Before I packed my gear away, I noticed this fence beside the car and took a bunch of shots from various angles of it. Good thing I did as this works. . .
And we didn't get a cat yet. Though we still have one (who hates me).
23-JAN-2009
Day 023 - Reflected
This was about the only salvageable, highly processed (and cropped) shot from this morning's PaD shoot. In the span of the year, doing a Photo A Day, you have some good ones and some bad ones. You also have good ones you thought were bad and vice-versa. This morning was the latter. I really thought I had some good shots. My problem was that everything came out overexposed. I took the shots too late in the morning, after the sun was pretty high up. My primary subject was a ship across the bay. A very dark ship against a very bright & blown out background (there was even an all white boat or two to boot).
To top it off, I spent my lunch admiring
Scott Kroeker's Flickr Photostream. At first I felt safe, thinking this guy had a Full Frame setup, and an all pro lineup of lenses. Turns out he has a 40D like me and I believe we may even have a few of the same lenses.
Tomorrow is another day!
22-JAN-2009
Day 022 - Right On
I seem to remember being able to clearly read this sign on the side of an abandoned service station in Kittery, Maine a number of years ago. Without a clue as to where or what I was going to be shooting, I decided to head a tad bit further South in my commute (there is very little land in Maine South of this...) and the opportunity would present itself. I've driven by this station a number of times and really wanted to stop for photos and today I did. Well, I didn't stop, I drove by, thought "it would be nice" then kept going until I doubled back a short time later.
This is a truly desolate station, the virgin snow was very high. Again I stood in about 2 to 3 feet of snow to take my photos. I had to walk through quite deep snow to get to a decent vantage point. Every time I see this station I think that this is what old buildings in the Southwest must look like.
I was torn between this shot and another that was in my "cull pile" I passed over it a lot during Post Processing and was about to delete it, even though it had all the elements I'd wanted to capture about this station. Here is that other photo:
21-JAN-2009
Day 021 - Winter Mist
This morning I wasn't sure where I was headed for a shot, that was until I passed through town and saw a huge plume of fog from the falls. I took a back road to the falls. There is a park beside the falls that has the best vantage point (well, the best accessible vantage point). Unfortunately the park is NOT plowed in the winter. I parked in the local museum parking lot (err, space) and walked through a ton of snow to get to a wall off the river. I cleared a section of snow (with my boots) for the tripod and myself.
The sun was to my back, making it very hard to focus via live view (probably should have just left AF on). I used my ND 1.8 filter and forgot to shoot the whibal card so all my shots picked up this ugly reddish cast that I had to try to get out.
My goal was to shoot the falls, but there was so much fog coming off the falls that it was seriously affecting the clarity of the ice beneath the falls and the water itself. I basically nixed all the falls shots. . .
20-JAN-2009
Day 020 - Working Class
I made it to my intended destination this morning. We drove by this marina a couple of days ago in the snowstorm and it reminded me that I wanted to capture something in this marina during the winter. I was standing in 3 feet of soft snow, otherwise I would have gotten a bit closer to the dock and would have captured an entirely different composition. This boat was not my first choice, but I kept coming back to it during Post Processing.
Completely handheld, even after I had a discussion with myself earlier about the use of a tripod. I wasn't talking out loud with myself ;-)
There are a lot of boats in this marina, the exotic ones are wrapped up and resting on land. There are a few exotic ones wrapped up and sitting in the water, a few not wrapped up & resting in water, and a few not so exotic ones resting in water. I can guess that this particular boat in the foreground was going out sometime today. If I ride by tomorrow, I can bet that most of the other boats will still have snow on them, unless the marina cleans them off for posterity.
19-JAN-2009
Day 019 - Under the bridge
There is a lot of water under this bridge, both frozen and liquid form. This is an old rail road bridge that is still in use today that I have been trying to capture for quite some time. It is tough because there are galvanized steel fences that surround & block part of the base, there are telephone poles beside it, and a dam of some sorts below it. This is a tighter shot than I would prefer, but there are these three steel poles that are so out of place just out of frame below this that I had to crop them out.
I stood on what was once another railroad bed, but is now an access road to a path (rails to trails). Technically, I was standing beside my tripod that was resting on this road, but I digress.
The shot worked out, there are so many things to photograph in this one little area as there is this bridge, some falls, another auto bridge, an old mill, more falls, a small mill town, and other various sundries all within walking (well pivot actually) distance.
Here's a shot that didn't make the PaD:
18-JAN-2009
Day 018 - Worn
Today it pretty much snowed out all day, nixing any chance of an outdoor shot. I had some running around to do later in the afternoon (early evening) and I came up with this idea for my PaD shot for today. I believe I saw a very similar shot in someone's PaD gallery recently, but can't remember who it was. These are an older pair of work jeans (not work as in day job, but work as in "its ok if they get paint on them" work jeans).
17-JAN-2009
Day 017 - Muted
Another one of those "I went out to shoot x but wound up shooting z". I'd meant to drive around the corner and shoot the old mill from a different angle. I couldn't find my snow boots before I left (I fear I left them at work), when I got the mill, the spot I wanted to take the photo from required boots, so I drove on. I drove on to the Hamilton House and wound up trudging through the snow. I would have been warmer and drier had I "ponied up" at the original spot and walked around there.
I've never actually been to the
Hamilton House. All my kids have, just not me. It is all of about a mile from the house. I think I will be out there a lot more in the warmer months. There is a beautiful view of the Salmon Falls river, just to the left of these trees actually.
Here's a shot that didn't make my PaD from a barn near the parking area.
16-JAN-2009
Day 016 - Cold Bridge
So it was a balmy -2 this morning on the Maine side of the Pisquataqua river. I say 'balmy' because it was -19 on the ride to daycare. They kids & I were watching the car's thermometer level off. It was so cold I really had no 'inkling' for stepping outside for photography. I strongly considered driving straight in and stepping out for a lunchtime shoot. Good thing I didn't.
I probably couldn't have gotten to the Route 1 Bypass bridge (I don't know it's official name) at a better time for this shot. OK, I lied, I'm sure an hour earlier with the sun much lower on the horizon would have been better, but it would have been harder to keep the shadow details. I had visions of a desaturated color version of this shot, but fell in love with this tritone. Believe me, I tried to get the color to work. After I'd tweaked out the tritone (in Lightroom 2), complete with a couple of gradient filters, copied all but the greyscale settings and pasted into the color version to get the tones. I desaturated the green a tad, but couldn't get the tritone out of my head.
This is a much brighter shot than I am used to. I normally go for darker photos (not sure why). There are no clipped highlights according to the histogram and very little shadow detail lost (very little, almost too little for me ;). I only wish the sky wasn't so blown out 'looking'. What I wouldn't give for a few angry storm clouds (but then the temps would have been much warmer and there would be no fog).
Here's a shot from this morning that didn't make the PaD (From under this bridge):
15-JAN-2009
Day 015 - Sato Printer
Very busy day, I had to rush in early for a customer call (and drop all the kids off at their respective drop off points) so there was no morning photo shoot. I was going to step out at lunch, brave the cold, and get a photo or two but had a project dropped on me. By the time evening rolled around, I wasn't feeling all that [photographically] creative AND I was having a love/hate relationship with this particular printer, so I opted for this particular composition.
For any "Connoisseurs du Barcode Printers" you are looking at a Sato m84 Pro, loaded with 4x6 die cut Direct Thermal stock (you can tell it is Direct Thermal because there is no ribbon), hooked up to the network, driven remotely via TCP/IP. My day job involves writing, maintaining, and all around cussing at the software that drives these kinds of things. This might be the first time that my day job and my photographic obsession have merged.
FYI: "day job" refers to career. I have mad programming skills and we all know that chicks really dig guys with mad programming skills (at least I think my wife does?)
14-JAN-2009
Day 014 - Cold Harbor
It was fricken cold this morning taking this shot. I had to walk a couple of hundred feet down to the river to get this particular shot (though I didn't realize this ship was still in port). The wind was whipping quite strong and it was already cold to start. Something froze on my face (some water from ice or something) it was that cold. I didn't expect much from the shots I took as I only had my monopod and could barely steady that with the wind. The distortion in this photo is actually the heat coming off the water, the water is quite a bit warmer than the air. It was a long shot of the river, the ship had to be a 1/2 mile+ away from me. I have to admit the buoy wasn't planned, I was so cold, I only wanted a picture of the ship to look at later. During Post Processing, I was drawn to this photo, plus there is a sort of "Badge of courage" for even getting the shot ;-)
I did get another photo on the way out of a window on an old barn that didn't make the PaD:
13-JAN-2009
Day 013 - [Dover] Steeple
I had to go back to the Dover pool to cancel my Teenager's Swim Lesson as she had a change of mind. On my way out, I saw this steeple (that I have seen a thousand times before) from a different angle. There's a new traffic pattern coming out the Dover pool, it takes you through some side streets, spilling you out beside a Real Estate building that is partially obstructing this steeple. I pulled over, grabbed my camera, and started shooting. I started with my 17-55, but switched to my 70-200 when it became apparent that I needed a tighter shot.
12-JAN-2009
Day 012 - Winter Bench
We had a blizzard in the morning and then it cleared up just after noon time so I struck out to find something wintery. I tried a place I'd never been too. It is a park that almost underneath the 95 overpass on the NH side of the Pisquataqua bridge connecting to Maine. As I was trudging through the snow, I saw a large ship passing by so I rushed through the snow to get closer to the shore. There is a fence that prevents anyone from going down a hill to the shore, it keeps us in the treeline, enough so to obstruct any kind of decent view. I could see the ship clearly, there were three tugs guiding it in, but there were too many branches in the way to get a clear shot. It is too bad because I wound up sinking into 3 feet of snow [drifts] in the process.
There were a few benches in the woods that looked a little out of place in the winter.
11-JAN-2009
Day 011 - South Berwick Free Baptist Church
We had a snowstorm that actually stopped around noon, clearing up enough in the afternoon for the sun to peek out a bit. I had to run to the grocery store for some last minute items [alone] so I grabbed my gear and set out for something to shoot on the way. I had to watch out as there was still some flakes falling even though the clouds had moved away. The flakes were coming off rooftops and tree limbs, but they were flakes. A lot of my shots into the clock face looked like bad sensor dust. I even had to touch up this shot. I lucked out with the church's white as a background, you can't see the flakes ;-)
10-JAN-2009
Day 010 - Dover Fire Escape
Walked around Dover [NH] today after waiting for an hour & half at the Dover pool for "Out of Town Signups" for swim lessons. For the first time ever, I was #1 and all my kids got in! I brought my current book and got through quite a few pages while waiting. Treated myself to a photo tour afterward. After I'd grabbed my gear and was walking away from my car I heard someone say "Nice Donkey" and it sounded like it was directed at me. He repeated it again and I turned around trying to figure out what the heck he was saying. He actually said "Nice Domke" regarding my J-3, I'd never heard anyone comment on my photo gear before. I have to look him up after uploading today's shots.
This particular shot is of a fire escape on the roof of the old mill building in the center of town. I shot it level, but caught an odd angle of a rooftop in front of the scene so I gave it a rotated crop. I didn't realize the Phallus that was sitting above the stairs, I don't even want to think about what it must have looked like blowing ashes out of it.
It was cold out, I left my gloves on for all but the time that I put my CPL on. I like that I can shoot the 40D with gloves on, something I couldn't do with the XT, though that was an eternity ago. . .
Here are a couple from today's Dover walk that didn't make my PaD (I posted a total of 5 shots from this walk today):
09-JAN-2009
Day 009 - Eerie
This is an odd building beside the hanger that I have been 'hanging' out at a lot this week. I think it was some kind of boiler building. It looks eerie in the summer, it looks more "desert eerie" in the winter.
08-JAN-2009
Day 008 - Ship [in the harbor]
I saw this ship in port yesterday on my way into work. I had a Dr's appointment this morning and had the perfect opportunity to pass by a great vantage point on the opposite side of the river (in Maine) for a chance at photographing this.
I'm not sure how to mark the location for this, I was in Maine taking the photo of the ship that was moored (I hope I got the terminology correct there) in NH.
An interesting phenomenon encountered just after shooting this. You can see it is sunny in this shot, I got on the Rte 1 Bypass bridge to cross the river which was about 150' from where I was taking this shot (if that), it was still sunny. I crossed the bridge and by the time I was driving on land, I was engulfed in a snowstorm, a well-lit snowstorm at that. We had on and off snow all day after that.
07-JAN-2009
Day 007 - An Attempt at Painting With Light
There might have been too much ambient light for this shot tonight. With the fresh snow & the street lights, it was much brighter outside this evening than I'd expected.
I saw a couple of great shots on a grander scale over the Holiday break here at PBase while flipping through the PaD galleries. I decided to give it a try. It is hard to even see the light from my flashlight, it was barely visible in any of my shots. I realized on the spot that I need to get closer with both the camera and the flashlight to make more of an impact. I was using a high power LED flashlight that I thought was pretty clever as it is very white. I thought it was very bright, but the batteries are not fresh, there was a lot of ambient light, and I was standing too far away. This is where doing a PaD can be beneficial, this shot isn't so hot, but it is an attempt and I can learn from it, especially since I think I know what I need to do now.
Oh yeah, it was also pretty cold, but I really can't fix that anytime soon.
06-JAN-2009
Day 006 - Side
This is not actually the "Interesting Architectural Feature" that I was referring to yesterday, but I really like how it turned out during Post Processing. After some cropping, rotating, and pushing of black levels (to 100), I actually had something sort of symmetrical & geometrically interesting. . .
05-JAN-2009
Day 005 - Hanger
This was most recently the Pan Am Hanger on base. I believe this was a KC-135 hanger in the Air Force days, I seem to remember seeing some tails hanging out of it "back in the day" (though I can be mistaken as I only went on Pease when I was up here on leave).
I had a grand total of about 8 minutes for shooting today. I got caught up in something on my first day back this year & completely blew past lunch. On my way out to pick up something to eat, I grabbed my gear and cruised around the flight line (not on the flight line, but around it). I'd not been able to get close to this hanger last year as it was still occupied. At least there were cars in the parking lot. Not so today, though the parking lot was somewhat cleared of snow (enough for me to get the Honda Civic to the fence).
I will be returning to this hanger in the near future, while reviewing the shots earlier, I found some interesting architectural features that I'd not noticed while shooting. They need a better angle to get into the PaD though.
04-JAN-2009
Day 004 - Dapper Fox
Our dog looking very dapper in his Xmas garb.
My wife & two youngest took Fox [Mulder] for a walk, I left shortly after them, thinking I was going the opposite direction and would run into them & get a few shots in. I realized I'd gone the wrong way when I heard the neighborhood dogs barking from the opposite corner. If you know what to listen for, you can tell not only where they are, but their direction as well. I got back in time to catch them in our driveway, the kids wanted nothing to do with photos, Fox didn't either, but I kicked a little snow and he got interested.
03-JAN-2009
Day 003 - Snow Angel
My 11-year-old from this afternoon at "Powderhouse Hill", our town sledding and skiing hill (we don't ski though).
02-JAN-2009
Day 002 - Haircut
My son sitting still, in the chair, this afternoon. My wife tasked me with taking him out to get his hair cut. I had all my gear with me & decided to take a few shots.
01-JAN-2009
Day 001 - Food Court Shapes
Our annual holiday "Shopping Spree". We didn't go overboard this year, the package count was quite low. I brought the LX3 with me and took a few shots while in the Food Court (Eating a healthy, home-cooked Taco Bell combo meal ;)
09-JUL-2009
Day 190 - Looking up
Just a simple shot of the maple tree that is overhanging our deck. This is technically a tri-tone, I set the highlight & shadow tone hues to the same settings to get this effect. This is exactly what I was thinking when I shot it, it took a little persuasion during Post Processing to get it right.
11-OCT-2009
Day 284 - Decisions Decisions
This is a 1979 BMW R65 that I looked at today. I'm in the market for a second bike, most likely a project bike. I would label this as a "Project Bike". I'm the 'No' side of the fence right now. It would be a lot of work just to get this bike home, it doesn't run right now which means trailering it and hefting it around. The R65 is also kind of a "Black Sheep" in Beemer land, I'd run the risk of having to put more into it than it would be worth. Would be fun though.
18-OCT-2009
Day 291 - Shiny Things
17-NOV-2009
Day 321 - Frost
Right to the point today. As I was getting the bike ready to go home this evening, I realized that frost had formed on the seat. Technically when shit kept sliding off, I was a bit perplexed, then realized what the problem was. Please note that up here in the Great White North, we do not identify Frost due to the Nomenclature etched into frosty surfaces. The word frost was something I added (freezing my finger in the process) for effect.
20-DEC-2009
Day 355 - The Move
Playing chess with Kala this evening. She is very logical and will be a good player in time. Yesterday, I stumbled upon firmware updates for the LX3. Apparently the latest is 2.1, I was on 1.0. There were a lot of changes, one of which is an aspect ratio of 1:1. This is literally SOOC.