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February 29, 2004"Learning"
This is another shot of Jonah working at the computer, in front of a bright window...
Contemplation for my 26 Things Part II |
February 29, 2004"Eyelashes Abstract"
I achieved this by shooting with extremely narrow depth of field. Jonah had a bright window behind him, and I shot 2 stops over exposed for this effect. |
February 29, 2004"George"
This is more an exercise in lighting than anything else. I'd like to revisit this and do it really well. This one doesn't have enough depth of field, as I was shooting handheld. I'll do it again with a tripod and get all the details clear... |
February 29, 2004"A Little Past Sunrise"
Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, CO |
February 28, 2004"Hanging Tough"
This is the same Daffodil I photographed February 20th. A little worse for the wear, but lasting longer than we expected! |
February 28, 2004"Still Sick"
This is Jonah camped out on the couch. He is still not over the illness that set in on his birthday Tuesday. He likes having an ice pack on his head when he has a headache, just like his Dad. I hope he feels better soon... |
February 28, 2004"Saturday Morning Bedhead"
This is Josh's typical look on Saturday mornings. His bedhead is a little 'tame' today compared to most mornings! |
February 27, 2004"Nearly Gone"
With three little boys, we go through lots of paints, crayons, and playdough, not to mention cookies, Gogurt, and Eggo waffles... |
February 26, 2004 |
February 26, 2004"St Mary's Cathedral"
This is the door handle on a very old, very large, majestic door to one of the 'old' churches in Downtown Colorado Springs. We go to Rocky Mountain Calvary Chapel, but they don't have doors that are this interesting... |
The EndThe book of Acts states that we are already living in the End Times, and that was 2000 years ago. When Jesus returns, we will all stand in judgement before God. Will you be ready to account for your life?
I shot this image this past summer (at Grace St Stephens Episcopal Church in Downtown Colorado Springs) as part of my "26 Things Part II" challenge. I wanted to repost it today to coincide with Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ" movie release. |
February 25, 2004"Picket Fence"
We have the house, three kids, the white picket fence, but no dog! Instead, we have a Tokay Gecko and a Parakeet! |
February 24, 2004"Smiling Sun"
I had hoped to get a picture of my 'smiling son', as today is Jonah's fourth birthday. Unfortunately, he is in bed with a fever, and doesn't have many smiles for us today. I went out to the front of the house where our 'other' smiling sun lives to get this shot... |
February 23, 2004"Red on Blue"
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February 22, 2004"The Hobbit"
Tracy and I made it to this age without ever reading the Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings trilogy. We saw the movies and loved them. Tracy ran across this 1960's edition of The Hobbit that she has had since she was a kid, but never read. Now I'm waiting for her to finish so I can read it! |
February 22, 2004"Just Playing Around"
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February 22, 2004 |
February 22, 2004 |
February 21, 2004"Good to the Last Drop" |
February 20, 2004Daffodil"
This was a very pretty yellow flower, but I liked it in BW... |
February 19, 2004"Seed Pod" |
February 18, 2004"Yet Another View"
Another shot of Garden of the Gods...
It just never gets boring to me there, no matter how many times I've taken the same photo! |
February 17, 2004"Wild Goose"
I found a flock of wild geese at a pond here in town. I was able to get within 10 feet or so to get this shot! |
February 16, 2004"Garden of the Gods and Pikes Peak Panorama"
This is five shots stitched together to create the final image. The red rocks are 400-500 feet tall, so the scale of this scene is massive! At the top left of the red rocks are the 'Kissing Camels". Take a look at this in original size to get a sense of the details!
This image won a POTD at www.digitalphotocontest.com on February 24, 2004! I was also contacted by the Colorado Springs Business Journal, who has expressed an interest in purchasing this photo to use on their web home page! Details to follow! |
February 15, 2004"Pikes Peak and Garden of the Gods"
A cold, clear morning resulted in this nice shot... |
February 14, 2004"San Francisco"
This is an archive shot from April 2003. |
February 14, 2004 |
February 13, 2004 |
February 13, 2004"Valentine Girl"
This little girl was at Jonah's Valentine party. She was very cute, and when I asked for a smile, I got this expression instead! |
February 12, 2004"SPRAWL"
They are building houses everywhere in and around Colorado Springs. This used to be a really nice view of Pikes Peak. Now it is just more uncreative, greedy development, with a really nice mountain behind it... |
February 11, 2004"Archive from Summer"
It snowed today and is gray, overcast, and cold. I thought I would dig up a shot from summer. I found this one of Ethan from August 2003 at Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. |
Annisshinryu-tech-pbase.jpgOK... I was really impressed with Annisshinryu's technique for her self-portrait on February 9th! She mentioned something about a diffuse glow in soft pink. I had no idea what she was talking about, but I wanted to try it.
I took this photo of Jonah again, but did not do any editing on it. The left side is straight out of the camera. For the right side, I duplicated the layer, converted to grayscale and made a levels adjustment. I looked through all the plugins for a 'diffuse glow', but had no luck. I knew that in the layer styles, there are inner and outer glow parameters. I used the inner glow set to a light pink, blend mode to normal, opacity to 20%, softer technique, center source.
I then did a gaussian blur on this layer, with the blur set to 36 pixels (huge amount of blur, to the point of destroying the image). I then set the layer blending mode (as opposed to the layer style referenced above) to soft light, and reduced the opacity until it looked nice.
I don't believe I achieved as much 'soft look' as she did in her portrait, but I did come up with something with a soft, nostalgic look to it.
OK Ann, confess and tell us your secrets! |
Annisshinryu-tech2-pbase.jpgAnd here is a second try. This time, I used similar settings for the top diffuse glow layer. I duplicated my base layer again (the black and white still sharp layer). I applied a gaussian blur of about 6 pixels to the 'top' base layer. This gave the image an even softer look, but took away too much detail. I used the eraser tool with a soft edged brush and at 50% opacity and erased over the eyes, mouth, nostrils, eyebrows, etc. This brought back the sharpness needed in those areas, but left the overall image with a softer look, better than my first attempt. I also tried using a sepia diffuse glow, and blue. Everything looked good except green and purple. I'm glad I stumbled across this at Ann's site. I am shooting a wedding on Saturday and I think this technique will work especially well for a bride in white. I'll post some shots if it works out well... |
February 10, 2004"Half Smile"
Half is all I could get out of him tonight! |
February 10, 2004"One hundred twenty years ago..." |
February 9, 2004"Two Shillings" |
February 9, 2004"Two Shillings"
Happy Birthday to my brother Aubrey!! |
February 9, 2004"E PLURIBUS UNUM" |
February 9, 2004"No Pictures Please"
Jonah preferred not to have his photo taken tonight. Instead, I got his very dirty hand! Shallow DOF was achieved with my Macro lens, not in editing... |
February 9, 2004"The Business End of Things"
I am a Project Manager at Intel, which is a very bureaucratic company. Someone recently asked me to describe my job. After a little thought, I said "Square peg, round hole, and I am the hammer." |
February 8, 2004"JD and Wine Bottle"
Still playing with lighting... |
February 8, 2004"Eight Ball"
This exercise was one in lighting, specifically, trying to control glare and reflections. This was shot with an Alien Bee 800 to the right and a white reflector to the left. It came out pretty well, although I had to touch it up in Photoshop. |
February 8, 2004"Tax Time"
Are you ready?? I was working on some shallow DOF images for a challenge site. I'm happy with the quality of these two shots, but I'm not too crazy from the 'creative' aspect. One if them will have to do as I have no more time... |
February 8, 2004"Get to the Point"
I was working on some shallow DOF images for a challenge site. I'm happy with the quality of these two shots, but I'm not too crazy from the 'creative' aspect. One if them will have to do as I have no more time... |
February 8, 2004"85 MPH in Wyoming"
This archive shot was from March 2003. Shot out the window on the way to Santa Clara, CA.
Compare this to the original; it is amazing what a few minutes in Photoshop can do for an image! |
Unedited original |
February 8, 2004"85 MPH in Wyoming, or maybe Utah?"
This archive shot was from March 2003. Shot out the window on the way to Santa Clara, CA. |
Unedited original |
February 7, 2004"Two Brothers and a Friend"
This is Josh, Jonah, and their friend Titus. |
February 7, 2004Another shot of Maya from the 5th that I edited today... |
February 7, 2004Another shot of Maya from the 5th that I edited today... |
February 7, 2004"Frost"
This is frost on my Suburban window this morning. I converted to duotone, then create multiple layers and played with blending modes and opacities. It resulted in this colorful abstract... |
February 7, 2004"The Whole View"
I have shown several images of Pikes Peak shot from my house. They were taken with my 70-200 f2.8 L and just showed the mountain. Here is an image I shot this morning with my 50 f1.4, which shows more of my surroundings. I live in town in Colorado Springs, not out in the country! |
February 7, 2004"Tulips"
Another archive shot from January 2003. |
February 7, 2004"Old Stone House, Manassas, Virginia"
From the archives... This is an image I had not viewed before. This is near the battlefield in Manassas. There are cannon balls embedded in the stone walls in some places. |
February 6, 2004"Carnation" |
February 5, 2004"Peaceful"
This is Maya again, resting peacefully... |
February 5, 2004"Maya Faith"
Congrats to our friends Collin and Becky. They have a new baby, Maya Faith, to go along with Titus and Eli, their two sons!! |
February 4, 2004"Jonah in White"
I took my November 3, 2003 shot of Jonah and ran it through a Photoshop infrared action I downloaded from the web. I then did some slight levels adjustments and added the gradient to the left of his face. |
February 3, 2004 |
February 3, 2004"Manassas, Virginia"
This is an archive shot from January 2003. I am looking for shots from the past that I never viewed or processed. I'm planning to add a couple of these 'brand new' old shots each day until I've gone through them all... |
February 3, 2004 |
February 3, 2004"Pencil with Wood"
Archive shot from Summer of 2002. I cut these blocks of Maple wood in my shop specifically for this shot. The blocks were straight... the curve is from barrel distortion on my Nikon CP5700 with wide angle adapter lens... |
February 2, 2004"Christy"
This is Christy, on of Josh's friends from down the street. |
February 1, 2004"Homesick for Halloween"
Josh's favorite holiday is Halloween and he asked me to make a scary picture of him. His feedback: "It doesn't look creepy!" Well, it is creepy enough for me... |
February 1, 2004 |
February 1, 2004"Jonah made Photo of the Week"
My January 7, 2004 shot of Jonah made POTW at www.digitalphotocritique.com (sister site to www.digitalphotocontest.com). All right, way to go Jonah!! My thanks go to Susi Lawson for choosing this image as POTW! |
