Illuminating

Found myself doing a little group of pictures in my living room with a point and shoot late at night…

Out with the class

Teaching a new class this semester. I’m very excited, because so far, this is a good class, with good photography. And I’m excited because my last two classes got cancelled due to low enrollment and this one almost did too.

Anyways, we went out shooting last night and we brought Aubrey, Lou Ann and Michael with us. They’re part of my photo club, which is how we had class when there wasn’t one. Next week, maybe I’ll post some pics from the students to follow this. For now, here are some pictures I shot that I liked. As you may also notice, I used some new Lightroom presets, so excuse my enthusiasm for those.

 

Eddy gets a pet

Eddy, our cat, who we’ve featured before here and here, has a new little buddy and we have….another cat.

Here she is. She is crazier than a bag full of lizards. And I chose this picture, not for good photography, but because she is absolutely up to no good.

We adopted this little kitten, and her name is Sylvia Cat. Or Sylvie. Whatever, it’s a cat. Anyways, she’s crazy as only a kitten can be . She seems to like fighting with her older siblings and Edward has now had two infected eyes . They might be due to her gnawing on his face. Take a look at this and see if you agree.

Just absolutely nuts. That dog is Laylah, by the way. We’ve got three dogs, but they don’t get featured as much because they’re dogs. Needless to say though, the house is full of animals. Especially now with the little crazy one tearing around at all hours. Sheesh.

Golden flowers

So many of these posts mention Meghan, which is because so much of the time, when I’m shooting for fun, she’s out with me.

This shot is hers, sorta, she saw it, she had me back the car up on the country road, she even shot it. But she didn’t like her pic, and I saw the photo she wanted in my mind. So I took the camera and got this.

I'm a sucker for pretty flowers.

So any ways, I’d say we split credit on this one…

 

There goes the sun….

Meghan was with me the last time I went out shooting. And the time before that come to think of it. And before, and before, etc.

Anyways, Meghan found herself, not for the first time, as a photo subject, because I had a cool portrait idea. The sun was going down, I had a clear shot on it and it was falling. Strobe was on a light stand in the back seat.

Meghan said she initially thought I was having her stand there for shadow or something like that.She said she thought she might be acting like a reflector or something too. Not in a purple shirt honey…We don’t want no color casts here.

Couple of test shots for strobe, fast shutter speed to darken the sky, telephoto to pancake everything and to make the sun sorta big in frame and BAM! We got it! Hope you guys like it.

I got lucky and married "Up" a class when it came to looks.

(Note: When you put your wife’s photo on your blog, she gets to choose the picture that goes up. You also gotta compliment her looks, which fortunately for me, is not hard to do.)

This week’s roadies

Got some pictures out while driving around with my wife.We got pulled over coming home after this all. Had a headlight out. Also didn’t have my license with me. Or my insurance card. Cop was nice and didn’t ticket me, because, whoo boy, he could have. Got the light fixed. License is in the car now too.

Camera in hand, I wait…for my wife to get off of work.

A lot of my photos I take when I’m out with my awesome photo buddies or my wife, Meghan.

These ones I took when I was giving her a ride home from work, or rather, waiting to do so.

Just took this while waiting for Meghan to come out of work.

I’ve got a couple here that I took outside of Meghan’s workwhile waiting for her to emerge for the day.

Same here. It was good light, about 7:30 p.m., when she got off.

This one was across the street from where I was waiting.

I love it when light is good when I have my camera.

Upside down

This is another cemetery shot. I had to lie across someone’s grave for it. The flowers were beautiful though.

I've been told a few times what these flowers' names are. I've forgotten each time. (A Late Note: "They're surprise Lilies!" Said Meghan, "I've told you that like, 5 times!")

 

More roadies

Roadies, or pictures taken while out driving, are some of my favorites. I’ve shown plenty before and will show plenty more. Because sometimes, you just gotta go take some pics for fun, not because you have to.

So I haven’t updated in a while and I figured that this might be a nice way to put a few more there.

Rather like this one. Of course, making it BW makes it. I'm continually surprised at the tones I can get from a digital color original converted to grayscale.

Here’s one Meghan took.

It looked good on the camera back. Using LR's fill light slider though I was able to bring some detail to the darks and really pick it up.

Did a couple more where we went to some of the local country cemeteries too.

Just liked the light shaft hitting it.

 

Getting dark at this point, so I lit this with a strobe.

This one too...

And this one I like because, well, it's scary lookin'.

This next one I shot with a telephoto into the woods where some light shafts were hitting. Like a 30th of a second, from a moving car.

Visually engaging if not technically well-done. If I can't put it in because I like it, what's the point.

And another flare-y, glare-y sunset cemetery shot. We were told we had to go into this cemetery through the gate and out of it the same way by our guide, Aubrey.

Hope you like ‘em. More coming.

Kaboom 2: a retrospective

As I mentioned in my earlier fireworks post, I’ve taken a lot of good photos of fireworks and I’ve had a lot of good times.I might not have a lot of readers, but those who have been checking this out voiced a lot of praise for my fireworks pics, so here’s some more.

These are some of my absolute favorites. These may not all be my photos. Some of these, I was to busy lighting the fuses to take the pictures. Hehehe,

Flora's fireworks from July 4, 2006. My first fourth downstate.

A nice shot taken in a park in Chicago on the Northwest side. I love the guy in the foreground. As a visual element anyways.

One of my favorites that I've run in the newspaper. At Orchardville Church, south of Xenia, a few weeks prior to the 4th in 2010.

This was shot by my buddy Derek Anderson during one of Mark Lambird and my "Weekend After the 4th" fireworks show. This was our biggest show.

As I said, Derek came to see the biggest show Mark and I put on. The shots Derek got were more about the excitement of lighting the things though. He is a man that knows that excitement well. Here’s another example from the same night. For more of Derek’s work, check his blog here.

That's Mark running for dear life from a mortar he just lit. We had a 75 mm shell go off just above ground level – No injuries though...this time.

One of the coolest fireworks shots I’ve seen was by Mark himself. It was while I was in Chicago shooting the pic four above this and the one after this one. I swear this isn’t Photoshopped. Or rather, he swears this isn’t ‘shopped and I believe him.

Photo by Mark Lambird. Just a perspective thing: lightning in the distance, fireworks close up. Cool, huh?

Here’s the other one I shot in Chicago on that 4th. One of my favorites, overall.

That's how neighborhood fireworks work in Chicago. Everybody comes out to the park and blows up all the stuff they went to Inddiana or Wisconsin to buy. It was a real good time.

Here’s a favorite (Aren’t they all). It’s not regular fireworks, but an example of what happens when you tie 600 sparklers together and light them. Kids, don’t try this at home. Adults should probably be wary too…

Photo by Jens Deju. I'm just out of frame at the left with my jaw on the ground. That column of flame was around ten feet high.

Here's a photo illustration we did on firework safety. Real fuse, but we pulled the cracker out of it's housing. Burns are digital though.

Here's an old favorite of the fireworks show Mark and I did at his parents' house, I believe in 2006. The spectators may have been a bit close, we moved across the lake in subsequent years.

A good solid picture to end on. July 4, 2010, in Flora. Mix of long exposure with flash on the spectators in their chairs.

Thanks for reading. Now go blow something up! (Safely)