Photo Of The Day 02/02/09 – Ashley on a PC
Nothing real special about this photograph, but it was my only photo form Feb 2nd, so it gets to be photo of the day. The reason behind this photo is that Ashley loves her Mac and we like to joke around about the whole Mac/PC debate. So when I walked into the office one day and saw her working on a PC and not her Mac, I had to capture the image for all to see.
Camera: Pentax K20 19-35mm lens ISO 400 Aperture f/4.5 Exposure 1/20 (Yes, it was hand held. I love the Pentax shake reduction.)
Lighting: Just crappy office lighting
See the rest of my Photo Of The Day posts here or just look at the photos on Flickr
Thanks for reading my ramblings.
Photo Of The Day 01/30/09 – Snow Angel
We had a decent bit of snow in St. Louis at the end of January. It was not tons, but enough to really cover the ground and the statues that I brought back form Loveland over the summer. We have on angel in the front yard that looked pretty cool with the snow coming up one side of it. 
So quickly before I had to take the girls to school I rushed out side with my camera. I wish I would not have been rushed, because I was not really happy with any of the photos. The best one of the day still required some post processing in Lightroom. Nothing too much except for really cranking up the black levels.
Although the photograph is not horrible, the thought of a massive crop to get rid of all of the red in the background sounded interesting. So I took the photo to the left and turned it into the photo above. I think the cropping really simplifies the image to show what I really wanted to show, all the snow piled up on the angel. What do you think? Agree or disagree?
Leave your thought in the comments.
Camera: Pentax K20 50mm prime lens ISO 200 Aperture f/1.4 Exposure 1/1500
Lighting: Just the overcast morning sun
See the rest of my Photo Of The Day posts here or just look at the photos on Flickr
Thanks for reading my ramblings.
Cameratown to Give Away Pentax K20D Digital SLR Outfit this Weekend – Enter Today!
Not a single photo here, but Cameratown is giving away a ton of great stuff, including a Pentax k20, my camera of choice. Here is the contest link or just visit their site.
Photo Of The Day 01/27/09 – Stop Snowing
Today I had great hopes for a nice winter wonderland photograph. The snow from earlier covered the ground so I took the dog for a walk with the camera slung around my neck. It was not too long before I saw a red stop sign standing out amongst the white and gray tones of everything else. I remember that cameras can be fooled by the bright white of a snow covered ground. To compensate you increase the exposure compensation a half stop or more. To me this is a little confusing, so I will do my best to explain at the bottom of the post. But now, back to the story.
I saw the stop sign and in my mind had a great photograph all figured out. Put the sign in the bottom right corner and it will be great. I just have to remember to dial in some exposure compensation. In reality it did not work out that way. I remembered the compensation, but did not like any of the photographs. I screwed up the composition.
Camera: Pentax K20 50mm prime lens ISO 200 Aperture f/4.0 Exposure 1/250
Lighting: Very overcast day
Post Processing: Adobe Lightroom
Photo Of The Day 01/24/09 – Mark Barnes for U. City School Board
I had the honor of photographing Mark Barnes and his family for Mark’s campaign. I made a bunch of photos (hopefully some will be useful), but this is quite possibly my favorite. It is just Mark sitting on the steps in his house as I was setting up all of my gear to try to get a good family portrait. When I saw Mark on the steps I thought it might be a good photo so I grabbed a light stand and fired off a couple shots. Mark was great because he did not try to pose or do anything special for the camera.
Camera: Pentax K20 Tokina 19-35, 3.5 lens ISO 200 Aperture f/5.6 Exposure 1/180
Lighting: SB-25 @ 1/2 power (I think) into a silver umbrella to camera left triggered with AlienBees CyberSyncs.
Post Processing with Lightroom.
Mark’s campaign is one of the reasons I have taken so long to post this and Friday’s POTD. I not only got to photograph Mark, but I also get to help on his campaign with the website, or as I like to say, New Media Management. My hope is to get Mark a website (www.barnesforucity.com – but not live yet), get him on Facebook, have his photos on Flickr, and create his own YouTube channel. Perhaps I will even get him to post on Twitter, but I am not sure if there are enough U. City residents who Twitter to make it worth the effort. Maybe when he wins, we will get Twitter going and encourage people to follow his progress for improving University City Schools on there.
I hope that I don’t miss too many more days of photography, but the campaign is really exciting.
Plus if that is not enough, I have also started helping Steve Zwolak (a.k.a. Mr. Z) from UCCC with a video project he is doing. It is not being released yet, but if you are interested in early childhood education, specifically literacy, watch this five minute video, Developmental Lines.
See the rest of my Photo Of The Day posts here or just look at the photos on Flickr
Thanks for reading my ramblings,
Photo Of The Day 01/23/09 – Mia & Matthew
Sometimes a great image is not technically good, but fun because of the subject. I don’t think any of the individual images of Mia and Mathew are technically great. some are cute, but the lighting is bad, the focus is often very soft and the composition is simply, blah. However, when they are shown together, I think they make a very fun image.
I wonder if the fact that I have a camera pointing at Mia almost every day makes a difference. Has she been desensitized to the camera or is her very bubbly character just shining brightly? Probably a little of both.
The photos were made at the Jackson Park Boy Scout Chili Cook-off in the basement playroom of Jackson Park Elementary School. Mia was following Matthew around all night and they appeared to have a blast. For more photos of the night, look at my Flickr photos tagged “ChilliCook-Off.
Camera: Pentax K20 50mm prime lens ISO 800 Aperture f/2.4 Exposure 1/125
Lighting: Crappy school lighting
Image put together in GIMP
See the rest of my Photo Of The Day posts here or just look at the photos on Flickr
Thanks for reading my ramblings,