Sunrise shots near home

Sunrise shots near home
Originally uploaded by _davdog

RoseScape

 
Thats sort of like a landscape, but it's just the rose.

Valentines Leftovers

 
 

I just did a few Strobist style shots tonight.

Strobist Flowers

Strobist Flowers
Originally uploaded by _davdog

I spent a lot of time on these this evening. I like how they came out though. Strobist info: 430ex with OG straw gridspot, two Lowes florescent work lights. You can see more on my Flickr page by clicking through on the photo.

Allee House Bombay Hook Wildlife Refuge

Allee House Bombay Hook Wildlife Refuge
Originally uploaded by _davdog

I posted a bunch more photos on my Flickr page, head on over and check them out!

Late Night Strobist

Late Night Strobist
Originally uploaded by _davdog

I did this with my new grid snoot using OG straws. I asked the waiter for a big fistful of straws and he gave me ~300 of them in a bag! I did the shot with the snooted flash camera right about 3 feet from me and the camera about the same distance while I looked into the grid. The flash is the 430 ex and I used pocket wizards to fire it

Book reviews and a bonus movie plug

My nephew's wife (I'm pretty sure that makes her my niece, but, I'm going with wife in case that's not true. not that thats relevant. yeah, the ADD is kickin in!) loaned me an awesome book "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" It was written by a cheese eating surrender monkey, I mean a frenchman. Specifically, he was the editor of a major french fashion magazine, right up till the time he had a massive stroke. The stroke left him unable to talk or move, with the exception of blinking his left eye. He worked out a system with his therapist where she would say a special alphabet of letters, in order of frequency of use in french, till she hit his letter, and he would blink his eye. Then she would record it,and start the next letter. For a whole book. One letter at a time.

All that was impressive in it's own right, but not enough to make it a book worth buying. The writing does that. It's wonderful. Poetic. Inspiring. Incredible. He describes the people around him, the things that give him pleasure,and irritate him, all in precise witty detail. Yeah, I liked it. I'll read it again. Soon. You should read it now!

On a photographic note, I posted a minireview of a book I haven't finished reading yet, since I just got it today. It's a wonderful book for anyone interested in photography. Go to my tips blog and read the review, then click through on the link, and order it!

I went to see "Bucket List" this weekend. The premise of the movie sounds like it's going to be depressing. It's not. Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman are perfect together in this Buddy movie with a message. I liked it. If you ever liked either actor, it's definitely worth seeing. You could wait for it to come out on DVD, the big screen isn't necessary for the story, but I recommend seeing it one way or the other. I plan to buy it on DVD when it's available. Maybe then I won't get that grain of sand in my eye right at the end. Again. Go see it!

Thistle ala Strobist

Here are some shots of frost laden thistle out at Bombay Hook. I shot them with a flash in full morning sunlight.

Some still lifes and some knuckleheads

We went down to the Polar Bear Plunge in Rehoboth Beach today. 2400 fundraisers agreed to jump into the Atlantic ocean in February to raise money to support the Special Olymics. It got to 53 degress today, water temp = 43, both near records for the event. But, It's freakin February! There were thousands of folks there to support them too. Lots of girls in bikinis, so it wasn't all bad! After the Plunge we ate lunch at a restaurant near the boardwalk. I saw the glass of water sitting there, and had to try to get a photo of that lemon, glistening in the sun. I liked both of the water shots, I can't decide which I like better. Leave a comment if you have a favorite,or if you don't like either one!
I took another one of the glass with my lunch in front of it to try out something I read about online. It looks like it worked out!

Frost at Bombay Hook

I tried some things from the Strobist today at BH since it was so foggy I couldn't really see anything worth shooting. I liked these...

Lunch at the lake or, fill flash is our friend

It was very windy today at the lake so, I figured, why not take a photo of my lunch? Here is the process I used:

This first shot is of my lunch, but, it doesn't tell the story since there is no lake in evidence. It is however not too out of control as far as a lunch goes. It's a 10 inch sub with lots of lettuce and veggies, and a healthy apple along with my diet soda. At least there is no big ole bag of chips there instead of the apple.



This shot shows the lake, but the food is too dark because the settings are best for the lake, which was in full sun and the food was in partial shade.


When I set up for the car, the lake got blown out (turned white) since the shutter had to be open too long in order to capture the dark interior.


The best solution when there are dark areas and white areas might be to use fill flash. Fill flash fills in the dark areas when there are a lot of bright areas in the shot. Now there are no shadows across the bag or food and you can see the spillway from the lake behind. Fill flash is the tool pros use when taking photographs with the sun behind the subject. Set the flash for a few stops below the measured value and you get nice shadow free eyes and a clear background, and much better looking shots!

I didn't notice the shadow on theright side of the image when I took the shot. I did notice the glare on the apple from the on camera flash. I would have been able to fix the shot using my off camera flash, but that would have been a lot more work and risked draggin my camera bag through open food. Plus, I was hungry!

Science Light and Magic, and Lunch at the Lake

The bottles are from me trying some stuff out from a photography text book, "Science, Light and Magic". The rest are from my lunch at the lake Series, taken today on another overcast day. The heron jumped up when I got too close and flew high up in a tree.

SIlver Lake, Lunch, 40d, it's all good

Today was dreary when I went to lunch at the lake. The skys are dull gray in these pics. It may accent the colors more.




You want to go where tonight?? I don't think so!






Bokeh and selective focus in the following shots

A couple from Bombay Hook

I had some time today to go to Bombay Hook Wildlife Refuge. Here are a few shots I got to take. I watched the fox for about 10 minutes today. It was cool!

Lunch at the Lake, Nifty Fifty

There was a lady and her daughter feeding the gulls, so I asked if I could get behind her and take the photos of the gulls as they came in.

Nifty Fifty at the Lake and beyond

These shots were taken at Wyoming Mill Pond, instead of by Silver Lake yesterday morning in the fog. The railroad tracks were on the way from the pond into work. I took the photos for a project on the photography forum I hang out at. Fridays are for using the inexpensive 50mm prime lens from the camera manufacturer. They are popular because they have great image quality and very affordable prices. I liked the shapes in black and white shots. For the railroad I liked seeing the glsitening on rail and spikes and the lettering on the inside of the rail.