Project 365: Week 11

I’ve been thoroughly enjoying having my new wide-angle lens and can’t say enough good things about it. Most of the pictures this week were taken with it and I’m pleased with this lens’ performance. As I said last week, I’d like to encourage you to check out more of my photos on my Flickr page if you want to see more. I try to upload as much as I can to Flickr, but then only pick my favorite seven to post here. You can get to my Flickr page, here. Now, for my favorite photos of the week. Enjoy.

 

11/9/09 | "Uncluttered" | 12mm | f/4 | ISO 400 | 1/30

11/10/09 | "Into the Depths" | 12mm | f/4 | ISO 200 | 1/10

11/11/09 | "Homework Session" | 24mm | f/4 | ISO 400 | 1/60

11/12/09 | "Sunset on Campus" | 24mm | f/4 | ISO 400 | 1/2500

11/13/09 | "Game Night" | iPhone 3G | f/2.8

11/14/09 | "Cuddles" | 22mm | f/4 | ISO 400 | 1/60 | Flash

 

11/15/09 | "POM!" | 50mm | f/8 | ISO 400 | 1/500 | Flash

 

 

Project 365: Week 10

This past week I was able to get out to shoot a lot more and I happily became the owner of a Tokina 12-24 f/4 lens. I won this lens in an EBay auction and couldn’t be happier with the purchase. I’m a huge fan of architectural photography and having a wide-angle zoom really opens up lots of avenues for taking these types of photos. Some of my favorite photos I took this week were over at the KU Campus during a walk with my dogs. To see more photos than those that I post here, be sure to check out my Flickr page. Enjoy the photos and as always please leave comments, critiques, etc. in the comments section for me.

 

11/2/09 | "Job Security" | iPhone 3G | f/2.8 | edited with Best Camera

11/3/09 | "Chico Silhouette" | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 200 | 1/640

 

11/4/09 | "Chainring" | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 800 | 1/25 | Flash

 

11/5/09 | "JRP" | 14mm | f/5.6 | ISO 400 | 1/320

 

11/6/09 | "Arches at Dusk" | 18mm | f/4 | ISO 400 | 1/20

11/7/09 | "Spearmint Forest" | 24mm | f/4 | ISO 200 | 1/200

 

11/8/09 | "The Castle" | 15mm | f/4 | ISO 200 | 1/320

 

 

 

 

 

Project 365: Week 9

This week went by a little slower than last week but was still very busy. I’m playing around with my 18-55mm lens a little bit more lately, expanding my horizons a little from the 50mm f/1.8. Tonight I found out that I won the auction for a Tokina 12-24 f/4 lens on Ebay so hopefully I’ll have some pictures to show off next Sunday that were taken on that lens. We’ll see if UPS wants to be quick about getting that lens to me from Virginia this week. Anyway, on to the meat of the post, the photos. Please note that I’m not going to do descriptions of the photos anymore, I think the titles will suffice. I’ve been noticing that my descriptions have mostly been “I saw this and it was interesting.” When you take a photo of something clearly it is interesting so I don’t think I really need to repeat that every week. Anyway….the photos.

 

10/26/09 | "Prohibition" | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 200 | 1/2500 exp.

10/27/09 | "Autumn Trees" | 50mm | f/8 | ISO 400 | 1/320 exp.

10/28/09 | "Portrait of Chico" | 28mm | f/5.6 | ISO 400 | 1/500 exp.

10/29/09 | "S for Stern" | 55mm | f/5.6 | ISO 400 | 1/30 exp. | Flash

10/30/09 | "Two Face" | f/2.8 | iPhone 3G

10/31/09 | The Incredibles | 38mm | f/4.8 | ISO 400 | 1/60 exp | Flash

11/1/09 | Persimmon Cookies | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 200 | 1/60 exp.

Come back next Sunday for more photos. Until then, please put your critiques in the comments section.

 

 

Project 365: Week 8

This week really flew by, and one of the highlights was seeing my Flickr account really soar with visits. I’m breaking the rules of the 365 a bit and posting two photos from one day because the bonus photo was part of a set that brought in over 200 unique visitors to my Flickr account. I haven’t seen traffic like that before, or after, so I figured it would be good to commemorate that milestone here. Here are the photos from this week. Enjoy, and come back next Sunday for more.

10/19 : Photo omitted due to “rule breaking” mentioned above. It was a picture of a clock I have in my house, but it is a lot less interesting than I thought it would be.

10/20: Rust. Saw this post as I was getting into my car one evening after work and the colors of the rust really caught my eye.

10/20/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 200 | 1/800 exp.

10/21: Fall leaves. I can’t stop taking pictures of the colors of the fall season. I’m a little obsessed but its only once per year and in Kansas it only happens for a short time, so you’ll just have to deal…

10/21/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 200 | 1/250 exp.

10/22: Maya Smiling. My little dog Maya has been on this blog a couple times and it is her turn once again to be featured. As I was sitting in my office one night she walked by and then looked at me with this great smile on her face. I was messing around with my camera so I was lucky to get this shot of her before she meandered back to the living room.

10/22/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 800 | 1/40 | Flash

10/22: Bonus Photo. After taking this picture of Maya I decided I wasn’t done photographing for that day and I ended up grabbing a flashlight, a tripod, and then proceeded to turn off all of the lights in my office and do some light painting. I uploaded the results to Flickr and the next day I had over 200 views to my account. Here’s to gimmicky photos doing really well!

10/22/09 | Nikon D50 | 24mm | f/4 | ISO 400 | 5 sec. exp.

10/23: Us. My parents bought us this lawn art from the Garden Deva series of artwork by  Lisa Regan. Because we live in a rental house, Amelia and I have decided that it will stay inside for now until we have a more permanent place to put it.

10/23/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 400 | 1/40 exp. | Flash

10/24: One Way. One of my favorite features about this photo is the distribution of the vine leaves in the frame. To the immediate right of the one way sign the wall was completely full of vine leaves and then there was this one little line of them sort of coming out from the one way sign. It was my goal to create an effect almost as if the leaves were being pushed through the sign and forced to go “one way.”

10/24/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 200 | 1/2500 exp.

10/25: Old Pipe. I’m always fascinated by old buildings and their fixtures. This old pipe really caught my eye due to the paint job and the blazingly white “E” that has been painted on.

10/25/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 200 | 1/640 exp.

More photos will be posted Sunday. As usual, leave your feedback in the comments section, I look forward to the critique.

Project 365: Week 7

Not too much to say before the photos other than that I am in awe that I’m already 7 weeks in to this project. It has gone by so fast and I’ve had a lot of fun taking more and more photos. This week there are a lot more photos that were not taken at my house…I’m getting out a bit more which is good for my photographic eye.

10/12: Cuddling Dogs. Sometimes when I go home for lunch I have a really hard time convincing myself to go back to work, here are 2 reasons for that….

10/12/09 | iPhone 3G | f/2.8 | Edited w/ Best Camera

10/13: Warmth. The temperatures have only gotten colder and the need for space heaters has risen. We have this one as a permanent fixture in our bedroom.

10/13/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 400 | 1/40 exp. | Flash

10/14: Pottery. My sister-in-law is a very talented artist and she made this piece a few years ago. It was one of her “throw-away” pieces (I have no idea why) and I have it in one of the cubbies of my desk.

10/14/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 400 | 1/40 exp | Flash

10/15: Stuck. I was in Bonner Springs, KS doing some work at one of my company’s properties. Walking back to my car after finishing up I noticed this bright piece of gum stuck on the wall and thought it would make an interesting focal point for a photo.

10/15/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/1.8| ISO 200 | 1/1250 exp.

10/16: MuteMath. Saw MuteMath in concert along with As Tall As Lions at the Beaumont Club in KC. It was an awesome show that exceeded all of my expectations.

10/16/09 | iPhone 3G | f/2.8 | Edited w/ Best Camera

10/17: Daisy. There’s a park close to my house that has really beautiful flowers still growing. Walking through the park I noticed this single daisy sticking up out of the ground cover. It really caught my eye because the flowers around it are yellow, red, purple, etc. and here’s this bright white flower sticking out amongst the “crowd.”

10/17/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/8 | ISO 200 | 1/15 exp.

10/18: Pruned. Not much to say about this photo other than that this particular branch which has been pruned caught my eye today.

10/18/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 200 | 1/250 exp.

Again, please leave critiques in the comments section, I really appreciate the feedback. Watch for more photos next Sunday.

Project 365: Week 6

This week represents a lot of work with my flash. Most of the photos are also objects around my house, because I was super busy with school and work and did not grant myself enough time to get out and take photos. I have to say, though, that I’ve enjoyed the challenge of making what I see everyday interesting. If nothing else, this week has taught me about the many opportunities I have for taking pictures wherever I am.

10/5: Blue Dino. I saw one of my dog’s toys laying on the floor and decided that with some interesting lighting effect I could turn it into a neat photograph. I think this is what kickstarted the obsession with off-camera flash the rest of the week…

10/5/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 400 | 1/80 exp | Off-camera Flash

10/6: Rope. Another dog toy, another off-camera flash lighting effect.

10/6/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 400 | 1/40 exp. | Off-camera Flash

10/7: Security. This week I bought an external hard drive so that I could back up the data on my two computers at the house. I have Macintosh computers so backups are very easy using the built in Time Machine software. I bought a 1TB MyBook Home Edition from Western Digital which is more than I’ll probably ever need. If you don’t already backup your data regularly, I will humbly suggest that you consider making the $100 investment of an external hard drive. $100 is a lot less to pay than the thousands it would cost to recover your digital music/photo/etc. collection, right?

10/7/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 400 | 1/60 exp | Off-camera Flash

10/8: Coffee. I love coffee, am a coffee snob, so what better an every day object to photograph than coffee beans?

10/8/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 400 | 1/60 exp | Off-camera Flash

10/9: Munny. I have this vinyl figure called a Munny that I haven’t used yet and I was distracted from doing my homework. With my camera in hand I looked around my office for things to photograph and saw my Munny figurine and decided to play around with light and the Munny.

10/9/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 200 | 1/500 exp | Off-camera Flash

10/10: Self Portrait. Using my table-top tripod, laying on the ground, I lined up this shot with the mirror drive doors of my G4 and captured this “self portrait.”

10/10/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 200 | 0.4 exp

10/11: Leaves. I love fall weather but would rather not deal with the product of fall…leaves off the trees and in my yard. Last year Amelia and I picked up roughly 60-70 bags worth of leaves from the 5 trees that we’ve been blessed with in our yard. Here’s to another season of raking!

10/11/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 200 | 1/640 exp.

Thanks for taking some time to look at the photos. I really appreciate the feedback that I’ve had over the past couple of weeks and would love to hear more. Come back next Sunday for more.

Project 365: Week 5

Autumn is upon us in full effect and the weather is turning much cooler. We’re in the 60/40 weather battle (that’s degrees, folks) which makes wanting to work on cleaning up the yard a testament of will. This, however, is some of my favorite weather and one of my favorite times of year. Unfortunately it goes quick so I have to enjoy it while it lasts. And of course, take more pictures of the turning leaves. Enjoy the photos and come back next Sunday for more.

9/28: Maya, sleeping. I love my dogs, as you may have guessed. Here’s a photo of Maya, lazily sleeping upon the chair in our living room.

9/28/09 | iPhone 3G | f/2.8 | edited in Best Camera

9/29: Bouquet. One of our friends gave Amelia some flowers in honor of the 3 yr. anniversary of her dad’s passing. This photo highlights the stargazer lily which was part of the bouquet.

9/29/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 400 | 1/60 exp.

9/30: Relief. Amelia came down with a cold and bought a large variety of relief options to medicate herself. I gathered all of them up and made a “still life” of sorts for this image.

9/30/09 | Nikon D50 | 35mm | f/4.8 | ISO 400 | 1/125 exp | Flash Used

10/1: Beer. It had been a while since I had a beer, and I thought after a long couple days and as a reward for getting homework done, I would treat myself. It was delicious.

10/1/09 | iPhone 3G | f/2.8 | Edited with Best Camera

10/2: Coffee. Needed coffee at the house and picked up this bag of Ethiopian Mocha Yirgacheffe beans. It made for a wonderful air freshener in my car.

10/2/09 | iPhone 3G | f/2.8 | Edited with Best Camera

10/3: Leaves. As I mentioned above the leaves are turning colors and they are absolutely beautiful right now. Such great colors exhibited by nothing else than nature. Love it.

10/3/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 400 | 1/1600 exp.

10/4: Danger. I was walking around the backyard and noticed the box where the electricity cables go into the receiving box on the back of our house. I saw the “Danger: 90 Volts” tag and was trying to figure out a good way to capture its texture and make it interesting.

10/4/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 400 | 1/1250 exp.

That’s all for this week, come back next Sunday for more. As always, I really appreciate critique so leave a comment if you so desire.

Project 365: Week 4

After an overwhelmingly busy week and weekend I can finally sit down and write a few thoughts. This past week I discovered the work of Chase Jarvis and his philosophy “The best camera is the one that’s with you.” I have a link to his stuff in my “links” section so please check it out. Also, if you are an iPhone owner, go and download the “Best Camera” app. It is worth the very small price…no more expensive than a typical latté at your favorite coffee shop. Lots of photos from the iPhone this week and they were all (except one…it was taken before I bought Best Camera) edited using Best Camera on the iPhone. Enjoy.

9/21: Bent Keyboard. I deal with computers day to day and every once in a while we have to replace parts. This particular keyboard came as a replacement for someone’s laptop at work and when I took it out of the box the first thing I noticed was this nasty “feature” of it being bent out of shape. Dell took care of it and I got a pristine-condition keyboard sent to me the next day.

9/21/09 | iPhone 3G | f/2.8

9/22: Campanille silhouette. I got to class a little early and when I got out of my car I noticed some great cloud formations around the bell tower on the KU Campus. I purposely underexposed the photo to get the bell tower silhouette effect.

9/22/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/8 | ISO 200 | 1/1250 exp.

9/23: Azalea. This is the first photo I took and then edited with Best Camera on the iPhone.

9/23/09 | iPhone 3G | f/2.8 | Edited w/ Best Camera

9/24: Lawn Chair. At lunch I couldn’t resist being outside, I think it was about 75º with a slight breeze and it was very sunny. Hard to blame me, right? So I snapped this one of a lawn chair I have outside but mostly was intrigued by the shadow it was creating.

9/24/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 200 | 1/4000 exp.

9/25: Ominous Clouds. Nature appeared as though it was about to smack us and as I was walking by the Union I noticed how the clouds were forming so I used my iPhone to get this photo.

9/25/09 | iPhone 3G | f/2.8 | Edited with Best Camera

9/26: Bowling. Our friend Chris invited some friends out to bowling at the Jaybowl on campus. I was able to grab this photo of Amelia about to bowl. I don’t know how many pins she got on this shot, but I think she was close to a strike after this photo.

9/26/09 | Nikon D50 | 35mm | f/4.5 | 1/80 exp. | External Flash

9/27: Fence. This was a last-minute photo op. I had just finished with a meeting for a group presentation for one of my classes and I noticed the neat fence posts near where I work downtown. Again, taken on an iPhone.

9/27/09 | iPhone 3G | f/2.8 | Edited with Best Camera

Come back Sunday, I’ll do what I can to get the next batch of photos posted by then. Again, any feedback you give is more than welcome.

Project 365: Week 3

As I reflect back on another week of photos I feel more growth in understanding the concepts of composing and framing images. I’m getting much faster at recognizing ways to make a photograph more interesting, and also even more about producing photographs that I like. I hope you enjoy this week’s photos. Come back again next Sunday for more.

9/14: KU Campus. The University of Kansas campus is absolutely beautiful and I’d love to have a few days to walk through it and take photos. From the parking lot outside the Education building (Joseph R. Pearson Hall), I was able to capture this view.

9/14/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/8 | ISO 400 | 1/250 exp.

9/15: Tea. If you get a chance to check out Teavana tea (there’s one in Kansas City) I highly recommend the Samurai Chai Mate. Here’s photo of the container I got when I purchased some tea earlier this year.

9/15/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 400 | 1/50 exp | Flash Used

9/16: Keyboard. My mind needed a break while I was writing a paper on Wednesday, so I grabbed this shot of my computer’s keyboard.

9/16/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 200 | 1/30 exp.

9/17: Chico. Last week I featured Maya in my 365 so I figured it would be nice to feature my other dog, Chico as well. This is in my top 10 favorite pictures of Chico, perhaps in the top 5 even.

9/17 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 200 | 1/40 exp.

9/18: Sunrise: On my walk from the parking lot to my work the sunrise was too good not to capture. I just had my iPhone with me so it will have to suffice for this day’s photo. Note to self: always bring camera.

9/18/09 | Apple iPhone | f/2.8

9/19: New Lawnmower. I bought a new lawnmower this weekend at Home Depot. It is a Homelite cordless, electric lawnmower with a 24-volt battery. I cut the grass on Saturday but before I got started I decided that I needed to immortalize this inanimate object first.

9/19/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/3.2 | ISO 200 | 1/100 exp.

9/20: Azalea. I have a couple azalea bushes growing out in my backyard. The flowers of this bush are only going to be around for a few more days so I captured this one before it was too late. I took lots of pictures of this flower but this one is my favorite of the set.

9/20/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 200 | 1/1250 exp.

See you next Sunday.

Project 365: Week 2

The second week of my 365 project was a long one. Though my work week was only four days I felt as though I worked non-stop, which didn’t exactly lend itself well to taking photos on a regular basis. As you’ll see, two of the photos this week were taken from my iPhone, which may give you a clue as to how much I had going on.

All of this aside, I’ve started to notice myself really wanting to draw out colors more and more. The past few months I’ve been more or less “addicted” to letting the camera’s meter tell me how fast my shutter should be depending on my aperture but I’m in the process of moving away from that habit in order to see what kinds of effects I can get when I follow what I think would look good rather than the camera. Its been interesting and I’ve had some mixed results, but the images this week really represent my push to bring into the photographs what I want to see. Enjoy the photos and come back next Sunday for more.

9/7: Neglected books. Being in graduate school full time means that I’m reading textbooks and other assigned readings rather than the literature I would be reading in my free time. This first photo is an ode to the books I’m not reading right now.

9/7/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 200 | 1/125 exp. | Flash used

9/8/09: Study Aide. I am in love with my french press whether I’m making coffee or tea. I needed something to sip when I was studying on Tuesday so I made some tea. To get the lighting effect here I used my flash off-camera and bounced the light off the kitchen table into the glass of the french press.

9/8/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 200 | 1/25 exp. | Off-camera Flash

9/9/09: Snow Leopard. I’m a true mac nerd so when Snow Leopard came to my desk at work for my laptop I got pretty excited to get it installed.

9/9/09 | iPhone | f/2.8

9/10/09: We have a tree growing right outside the front door with these delicate pink buds. If you have followed my photographic “style” throughout all of my posts on this blog you know that I’m a sucker for macro photography. I took a few photos of the tree buds and this one was my favorite.

9/10/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 200 | 1/100 exp.

9/11/09: Dessert. Amelia and I went to the Scarlet Orchid here in Lawrence for dinner and got this fried banana dessert after our meal. The bananas are partially frozen, coated with coconut and batter, then deep fried and served with chocolate dipping sauce. It was absolutely delicious.

9/11/09 | iPhone | f/2.8

9/12/09: Maya. This is our female, yorkie-poodle we know as Maya. She spends lots of time atop the couch watching our neighborhood and letting us know when anything changes (a leaf blowing in the wind, squirrels, birds, people, rabbits…you get the idea). She is an absolutely adorable dog, as this picture shows well.

9/12/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 200 | 1/20 exp.

9/13/09: Flowers. The front yard of our house is very overgrown with plants and flowers and as I was searching for interesting things to capture today I spotted these small purple flowers very low to the ground.

9/13/09 | Nikon D50 | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 200 | 1/200 exp.

As usual, please leave critiques of the photos in the comments section for me so I can learn to improve. See you next Sunday.