Monthly Archives: March 2010
Weekend Wilderness
I got out this weekend to enjoy some of the sunny weather. Things have been see-sawing in terms of weather in Ga. One weekend it�s freezing and the next it’s mid-70′s. Personally, after this crummy cold grey winter, I’ll take what I can get.
The balmy Saturday meant the animals were out and so was my camera. Results?
Spider stalking!
So.. I tried looking the spider up’ but I started freaking myself out with all the spider pictures. For now he can be the mystery spider (Araneus anonymous) . This shot took a bit of setup. It’s a 28-300mm macro w/ 2 extension tubes and a full power flash to get enough light since he was in his dark hole and I was shooting at f/16 on top of that to try and increase my DOF since the little crapper was so tiny. 30 pics later, voila! Totally worth it though!
The lizards are out sunning themselves too� and aren�t too bad at posing. He looked me straight in the lens the whole time. I coaxed him onto my hand after he let me bug him for about 2o minutes.
The amazing part about this lizard is that he was brown on brown things and green on basically everything else. I thought only chameleons did that!
Anyway. even the riverside was springing with color, sun dazzling below its bank:
It was just a gorgeous day overall and I had plenty of opportunity to get out and shoot. Lately things have been going well for the business side of my photography hobby too. I went out and shot some art pieces for a local studio and it was really fun to photograph such lovely pieces of art.
I’ll leave you with one more photo; my nephew Joshua’s birthday cupcake, as it was being blown out, from his party Sunday!
Looks good right?
Macro to the MAX
So you know I have a mild obsession with macro photography.
Okay.. not so mild.
So I got to taking out my one potted plant and an old pair of earrings and had some fun. Results? Voila!
The rest are of the flowers taken at different angles to be… you know… artsy.
I think I’m getting better at this
I’m experimenting with different lenses and extension tubes to get different bokeh. Pentagons!
Each one is 1920 px x 1200 px so use ‘em as wallpapers if you’re feeling a little flowery.
Any specific thing about spring you look forward to?
Spring, Breaking Up and the Rebirth of Photography
Spring’s here.
This means I get to run around with a camera plastered to my face shooting every poor life form that has the gall to move in range of my eyesight.
On Saturday it was this badass looking owl observing me as I observed it.
Look at that creepy sucker. I thought he was a giant pinecone first. A reasonable conclusion considering by then I had inhaled spray paint fumes for a good 10 minutes trying to decorate some wall art.
Then there’s water. Glorious water everywhere.
Did I mention this love of water photography is the reason my 3 year old DSLR no longer wants to be my friend? He’s agitated and I can’t touch him for more than a few minutes before he decides he’s had enough and won’t cooperate. He’s already sleeping in another bedroom.
That’s okay. I have my eyes drifting towards this beautiful body I’ve been staring at alone in the dark, on the internet.
She looks a lot like what I have now but everything inside is better. And it’s the inside that counts in a relationship, isn’t it?
Just wait darling, I’ll be the first at the gate, waiting to pick you up and take you home with me. We’ll make beautiful photography together.
Sports & Getting Out
It’s baseball and basketball season! This usually means nothing to me but I’ve looked at some of my older photos and noticed that I kind of like taking sports photography. At least, I think I’m half decent at it. Tonight was the GT vs. UGA baseball game (which we of course won) and I went with some friends and coworkers on a —gasp- working night.
Actually it was really good to get out. I got some fun shots while there, which I share with you:
The team gathering before the game starts
Pitch that sucker!
Silly dogs. He missed this one by the way, for a strike.
What some GT fans will do for some free goodies…
Cole Leonida played really well, in my opinion. :) Home run!
I’m really surprised how well these turned out. It was definitely getting dim around 7:30 and I had to shoot at ISO 1600 the entire time to get a decent enough shutter speed to capture the action at the telephoto end of my lens.
I wanted to do a refresh of my current equipment, upgrading my camera body to either a Canon T2i or 7D… still haven’t decided because I never do until the last minute. I also wanted to add the Sigma 150-500mm and Canon 10-22mm when its financially feasible. It might take all year but I can’t wait to expand my shooting abilities. What are your favorite things/places/events to photograph? And what equipment do you use for it?
Fractal Wallpaper Goodness
Okay, so I love fractal art. I’ve loved it since I was in high school and I would look at the fractal art ticky-tack’d to the painted cement walls above the chalkboard. Back then it was an art I was not smart enough to pursue, but thanks to a lot of smart developers, we have access to generate as well as appreciate this kind of image.
I generated this today using EscapeMotion’s Flame app and some photoshop-bokeh magic. :) It was so easy! They’re all wallpapers, so click for the large widescreen versions.
Here are three more, just Flame generated:
Man, this app is fun. I’m a sucker for abstract wallpapers so this was just the ticket since the output was widescreen friendly. There are two other apps worth mentioning that are not quite so easy to use but give you considerable control down to the equations involved; Apophysis and UltraFractal 5. Each is a desktop application, UF5 is unfortunately not free but the demo lets you work with almost all its features while Apophysis is free, open-source and has a massive community behind it. I love working in all three and have done so in the past and would recommend either for the beginner fractal artist.
Anyone else love math-related imagery?