I’m ready for warmer temperatures and longer days. Shorts and short sleeves. Open windows in the house. The beach. The ice cream truck. Picnics and cookouts. Very long bike rides.
I’m soooo ready…
One-A-Day
365 Photo Challenge
Disorganized
I’m a big fan (HUGE fan) of going paperless whenever you can. Probably to the point of annoying some people. Well, with all the options for portable devices and virtual documents, why wouldn’t you? And my computer desktop? It’s a pet peeve of mine when my desktop gets all cluttered. Mac, PC – it doesn’t matter. Organize your files in folders for cryin’ out loud. It’s not like cleaning your house (which I’m not very good at). Everything’s virtual. It takes very little to no effort at all.
Here’s my desktop. What does yours look like? by the way, you can order a print of my desktop image.
Many speakers distinguish between disorganized and unorganized.
Disorganized applies to the sort of person who stuffs receipts into the sock drawer and can never find the car keys. Unorganized applies to things which have not yet been arranged in an organized manner. By this reasoning, a person would be disorganized, but an office would be unorganized.
Patterns
Order a print of this image
Want to know how to take amazing pictures? Read on…
I’ve done a lot of self-guided learning in my life and have heard and read lots of advice – good and bad. It’s a daunting task to learn new things especially as you age. Get over yourself and accept the fact that there are others who are just as qualified as you are and even more qualified in many cases.
One gem I’ve heard over and over again in a variety of ways is that it’s not about your camera. It’s not about your computer or latest software. It’s all about you. It’s about your ability to see new things or to see mundane things in a new light. It will never be about your camera.
The key to taking amazing pictures is simply this – put yourself in front of amazing things.
Convenience
It takes effort to be good at anything – I know that. After two months of hard effort I’ve started to get frustrated with how things have gone so far. I’ve spent quite a bit of time reading about different techniques. Watching different tutorials. Learning about things I thought I knew about. Filling in the gaps of knowledge. And I realize I’ve got a long way to go. The one thing I haven’t spent a lot of time doing , however, is shooting. Don’t you love the irony here?
Practice, an enormous amount of practice, makes better. There is no such thing as perfect – I know that. But at least I can improve. I know I can. One of the biggest tips that any great photographer will hand out is – shoot every day. That’s a no brainer. If you don’t practice, you can’t get any better. You just can’t.
So, what to shoot? When to shoot? Where to shoot? Anything, whenever and anywhere.
Photo opportunities will rarely, if ever, come to me. I have to make them happen. Sometimes I have to go out of my way to discover new places, new things and new situations and just be ready wherever I am. There are so many things about freelancing that are going to push me beyond where I’ve been before (this is my second go at freelancing by the way – my first was wedding videos). I realize that to these opportunities come at a cost sometimes. Late nights, early (sometimes extremely early) mornings and weather that I hate.
These opportunities are rarely, if ever, at my convenience.
The Silver Lake Mill in Dayton, VA. Took a detour to shoot this and was late for lunch with my mom and sister. Order a print of this image.
Metal
So with the Olympics approaching, I starting wondering what the medals were made of and found this on the web:
Gold and silver medals are 92.5% silver. Gold medals must be plated with at least 6 grams of gold. All Olympic medals must be at least 3 mm thick and at least 60 mm in diameter. Bronze medals are bronze, an alloy of copper and usually tin.
This got me thinking about other famous iconic awards and what they’re made of. Found this on the web:
When they pick up their trophies, the winning celebs are toting around 8.5 pounds of metal. Oscar is 13.5 inches (34 centimeters) tall. The Oscar statuettes, officially dubbed the Academy Award of Merit, have a 24-karat gold plating on their surface. Beneath the gold, the statuette’s interior is a metal mixture called Britannium, also called Britannia metal. It is an alloy of tin (93 percent), antimony (5 percent), and copper (2 percent).
How about this one:
Each Primetime Emmy statuette weighs six pounds, twelve-and-a-half ounces (3.08 kg), and is made of copper, nickel, silver and gold.
And, of course, that got me thinking about what my stuff is made of. It doesn’t really matter, I’m just curious. This is all I could find:
Silver Winners are awarded a Silver Telly statuette, the highest honor. Bronze Winners are awarded a Bronze Telly statuette. Designed by the same firm that makes the Oscar® and Emmy®, the Telly statuette is nearly 12 inches tall and weighs more than 4 1/2 pounds.
A couple finisher medals and a Silver Telly Award I’ve earned over the past year
Dark
Looking forward to (possibly) two weeks of sunny Florida beaches this summer.
Just saying.
What happens after one week in the sun.
Light
I know I’m not the first person to do this. And I certainly won’t be the last. I just wanted to demonstrate how cool it is when you can manipulate light. That’s what being a good photographer is all about, after all, right? The ability to use light (or the lack of light) to create images.
“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
– 1 Corinthians 13 verse 13
I created this for my wife for our 13th wedding anniversary in 2007. Look closely at the scripture in the image.
Icy
When I was a kid, my family had a traditional vacation spot.
Sure, we went other places, but we had a specific place we visited more than others. It’s not been that way since I have my own family now. We kinda like to be adventurous and see different places.
Sure, we’ve been to places more than once, but that’s usually a weekend or shorter trip. Not the BIG summer vacation.
Austria, however, is the place that both my wife and I agree that we want to repeat. It was simply a great place, great sights, great food including the incredible Salzburger Nokerl.
But if/when we go back, I’d like to visit a place we just couldn’t squeeze in the first time. In the mountains behind this castle are the giant Salzburg ice caves. It would’ve been very cool, but apparently it was quite a hike and very icy.
Any activity we were doing had us driving past this huge castle on the hill. The ice caves entrance is just to the right of the castle in the image. And these mountains are monstrous. Order a print of this image. Read more http://www.sallerhof.com/en-attraction-ice-caves-werfen.htm
Together
Lots of companies have a big competitor. It’s nothing new.
Coke/Pepsi. McDonald’s/Burger King. Wal-Mart/Target. Mac/PC. iPhone/Android. And Dannon and Chobani are about to go head-to-head this Sunday in the Superbowl (vote now if you haven’t already).
How about Hershey vs. Nestle? I may be behind, but I just saw that Butterfinger is making peanut butter cups, too, and since I’m a big fan of Butterfinger I was curious.
How about that – chocolate and peanut butter ARE, in fact, two great tastes that go great together.
Something On Me
Apparently this hat has become my vacation hat. I only got it for our trip to Africa so my head wouldn’t burn because of my short hair, but I’m loving it now. I might just make it my “shooting” hat.
Broken
So this is what our dog looks like after breaking a nail in the park yesterday. What a diva!
Laugh
Really putting myself out there.
“If we couldn’t laugh, we would all go insane.”
– Jimmy Buffet
Making
So this is the last day of an entire week off from school for both my daughter and wife. My daughter had school today, but was sick. My wife told me I was going to miss her being home because of all the awesome meals she’s made. She’s right.
Microwave dinners and pizza delivery here we come!
In My Town
I think I’m going to change it up a bit moving forward with my One-A-Day. So much about photography is about being in the right place at the right time so I’m going to post photos (hopefully never-before-seen ones) according to a daily prompt (which may also change in the future), but not necessarily taken on that day.
This image is a prime example of right place, right time. This image was taken just before the downtown walking mall was completely redone as part of a revitalization push. This view, however, didn’t change much.
ViewBug featured this photo and had me describe my process for their social feeds. See it here. Order a print of this image.
On My Plate
It’s not couscous. It’s not rice. It’s Quinoa.
Quinoa, a species of goosefoot, is a grain crop grown primarily for its edible seeds. It is a pseudocereal rather than a true cereal, as it is not a member of the true grass family.
I’m guessing that most people will notice what’s behind my plate first!
Accessory
Ever thought about a gift for someone and wondered “What can I get them that they don’t already have?”
I think we’ve all been there at least once. What DO you get that cyclist/golfer/photographer/musician/hobbyist/amateur/computer geek in your life? I can speak volumes about all the weird gadgets that exist out there. I love ’em.
I’ve collected plenty of them over the years. I have a hot-shoe bubble level, lens filter wrenches, drawers full of all sorts of apple sync/charging cables, firewire and USB cables galore, a full shop of pro cycling tools, cases for this and pouches for that, multiple editing input devices and I even have a larger-than-life mouse from a Christmas party years ago.
The “Mighty mouse”
So if you think there’s nothing left to get that certain someone, think again because companies are always creating stuff that you never knew you needed.
So the new “toy” I just got for Christmas is something I’ve always actually wanted, but never got it for myself. Rain gear for my camera. Don’t know why I’ve never invested in it. I have rain gear for my bags, rain gear for myself, but I’ve never had rain gear for the actual camera.
Cool. Just cool.
A noise
A lot of everyday objects will elicit a certain sound in your mind just by seeing an image. I started my day with this sound…
I had a couple of teeth pulled today. It wasn’t so bad. But there’s nothing quite like the sound (or smell) of this thing grinding away in your mouth and all the other associated sounds that go right along with it.
Thanks to Dr. Amos (Facebook link) for humoring me when I wanted to take pictures afterward.
I suppose dentists’ interpretation of the catch phrase “It’s like pulling teeth” is a little different from mine.
Black & White
Have you ever tried to drive anywhere without the radio on? What about all you runners – ever train without the music Ever seen a TV commercial without a music track? It gets your attention because something’s just not right about it. What about movies? Even most silent films still have a music bed. What would the world be like without music? Think about it. It would be weird. Could we do it? Would you want to? What would the consequences be?
Just food for thought.
“Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.”
– Plato
Glass
Guess I got a little too excited about taking Disney character photos last weekend!
Another follow-up – this time to day 10. I spend all kinds of time making sure my lenses are protected. Lens hoods. Lens caps. UV filters. Protective bags and pouches. And I’ve been successful. So with all that energy focused on the lenses, I got a little careless with the other end of the camera recently. The LCD screen on the back of the camera.
Typically the LCD screen is exposed. Luckily the Canon 60D LCD screen has a protective layer of glass on top. It saved my LCD screen for sure. Guess I’ll be investing in one of these for my 7D.
Bundle
Can you tell I’m a big Apple fan? Just saying.
I don’t consider myself a computer geek at all. In fact, just today I contacted SmugMug to ask how to point this domain to my SmugMug galleries. I got some kind of gobbledegook back that makes no sense to me.
Instead, I get “geeked-up” about computers because I’m excited about how creative they allow me to be. Or how efficient. So when I opened Final Cut Pro X for the first time in quite a while, I got geeked up. Those of you who couldn’t care less about software editing workflows can just stop reading now.
I’ve been editing with FCP X since it was released. I was one of the early adopters. And through all the criticism and complaining from the world at large, I stuck with it. And I’m glad I did. They’ve improved big time. I could go on all day, but I’ll spare you. This latest update is huge in terms of workflow, organization and efficiency.
They’ve bundled the events and projects into libraries now just like in Aperture. They’ve bundled them. Together. This is huge.
Alright, I’m a geek.
Cedarmeade Studios 