274/365 - Jim - Fedora

( f/4.5 55mm 1/80 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

They had this fedora at Target when we were there a few days ago. I thought Jameson would look cool with it on, so I had my mother stop today and pick it up. He didn't want his picture taken, but I got it anyways. His shirt was actually bright yellow and so distracting that I changed it to blue. Then I noticed the reflective yellow on his face and had to correct that. It was a whole process that took way too long.

273/365 - Jim - Nolie

( f/3.5 70mm 1/80 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

I took some pictures of Nolan a while back on a black background and didn't realize the flashes were not turned up enough until I got them on the computer. So I wanted to do some re-shooting. This time it worked out well and I got some nice shots. Especially some close-up photos that I really liked. I was mostly happy that I was able to expose his eyes properly and show how they are becoming more blue. I'll definitely print some of these for the family and the wall.

272/365 - Jim - Lotus Elise

( f/8 24mm 1/200 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

I went to the Cruise-A-Palooza in Butler today with my family. There were a bunch of unique and old cars lined up and down Main Street in downtown Butler. When I saw this car it immediately brought back memories of when I really wanted to get this car. This was of course before I was married with kids... This was a very amateur shot so I spruced it up by removing all the surroundings and adding the gray faded background. I also did some other touch-ups, but won't point them out because I didn't do that great of a job on them. The Lotus Elise now starts at $47,000 which means I'll never have one in my garage...

271/365 - Jim - Stick'em Up

( f/2.8 200mm 1/640 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

I got this water bottle out to spray the flower a little bit. Jameson got a hold of it and squirted me right away. I wanted to try out my 70-200mm lens and see how well I could blow out the background at f/2.8. I stood back to a safe distance and told Jameson to squirt me again. Of course he ran toward me, so I had to get him to stay in one place but I finally got the shot I was looking for and stayed pretty dry for the most part. I only wish I could have got the water coming out of the bottle. That would have made it more interesting.

270/365 - Jim - Hofbräuhaus

( f/11 50mm 1/640 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

We went to dinner here today and had some German food. The food wasn't that great, but it was fun to finally get out. I took a few quick pictures of the place before we went in, which turned out to be the best of the night so I didn't have much to choose from. The light inside was pretty dim so it was very difficult to get any decent photos.

269/365 - Jim - Pushing Daisies

( f/11 70mm 1/125 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

I have seen several photos like this and wanted to try one. The daisies in my landscaping just started blooming last week, so I went out and cut one off. Then asked my wife if she would model for me. She said no... But then she found out it was only her hand, so she agreed. I took the photo on a white backdrop and then used Photoshop to edit it out and put an old sky photo in the background. The white version looked ok, but the sky version is more interesting.

268/365 - Jim - King Cone

( f/11 10.5mm 1/500 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

It was a nice warm day today and Carol wanted to go get her car washed. The car wash is not far from King Cones Castle, so we of course stopped in to get a cone. They have a drive through, so I used my fisheye lens and took a shot of the large cone statue they have in the yard. Then I used Photo-Brush to do a polar coordinate effect on it. That program has a few really cool effects that are a lot of fun to play with. This one isn't exact because it isn't a seamless panorama, but it does an alright job of blending and mirroring to make it look ok.

267/365 - Jim - Best Pirate Loss

( f/8 10.5mm 1/250 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

IBM took me and some coworkers to the Pirate game today. The Pirates only had 4 or 5 hits the whole game until the bottom of the 9th inning. That is when Adam LaRoche hit a solo home run over right center field. Until then, I thought all the people at the game were Indian fans, but the home run cheers showed how many Pirate fans were there. They continued to get on base and drive in runs until it was 4 - 5. With 2 guys on base, Freddie Sanchez was at bat. They ended up walking him and loaded the bases with who else, but Adam LaRoche stepping back up to the plate. The pitcher took him to a full count to add to the excitement. On the next pitch Adam tipped a ball foul to stay alive. Then he popped out to right field to end the game. I'll tell ya, it was the most exciting loss I've ever been to. My photo isn't anything special. The bright sky and the dark shadow on the field made for a very difficult shot. I ended up darkening the sky and lightening the field and crowd with Lightroom.

266/365 - Jim - Hangover Poster 2

( f/11 44mm 1/125 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

Carol was not real crazy about me doing this, but I convinced her anyways. I wish I knew how they took these pictures because I just can't get the right color. Ed Helms is the actor that plays the character Stu. He is also on the Office as Andy Bernard aka the Nard-Dog. We love that show.

265/365 - Jim - Spider

( f/8 105mm 1/60 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

This spider is just outside my window by my computers. I went out and sprayed the web with a mist of water to make it more visible. It looks like a big spider, but really it's maybe a 1/4 inch long if that. It is kind of interesting to be able to see it this close up and all the little hairs on it's legs and colors on the back side. Today also marks that I only have 100 days left.

264/365 - Jim - Half Year Old

( f/11 26mm 1/125 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

My little boy Nolan is a 6 months old now. We wanted to get some pictures of him to send out to family because last time we printed some, they just didn't end up in the mail. He has seemed to become a strong little dude overnight. I held him today as he squirmed around so much on me that I had to wrestle him. I mean at one point he tried to climb up over my shoulder and the next he was flipped over and crawling down my legs.

263/365 - Jim - Jameson the Movie Star

( f/11 52mm 1/125 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

This is the first of my movie posters I want to do. If you haven't gone to see The Hangover, go see it. It was awesome! Hopefully Carol will the my next subject, then lastly I will hold Nolan for the poster of the characters Alan and Carlos. Jameson cooperated really well for this photo and I got the exact shot that I wanted, but for some reason I had a lot of trouble getting the color right. It's close enough though and I'm pretty happy with it. If you haven't seen the poster I modelled this after, click here.

262/365 - Jim - Sluggish

( f/40 105mm 1/125 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

When I got home from work today I felt so tired. I sat on the couch for a couple hours and then finally got up. When I went to find something to photograph I found 3 kittens playing on my deck. By the time I got the camera, they had moved under the deck. So I went out to see if I could find them, but they must have been too afraid. There was a slug crawling around so I put on some gloves and brought it inside to photograph. Wasn't my original intention, but it goes with how I felt today.

261/365 - Jim - Lightning Storm

( f/14 18mm 66 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

Tonight there were some terrible storms in the Pittsburgh area. I generally like storms when no damage occurs, but this one sounds pretty bad. There was flooding and I think a tornado touched down. Even though the lightning and storm was mild in Butler, I set my camera in the window in hopes of catching some lightning. I used my remote and opened up the shutter until I would see a flash, then I would shut it and open it for the next shot. I was very lucky to get this little bolt.

260/365 - Jim - Lost in Repetition

( f/14 35mm 1/125 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

This is called a fractal droste. I don't know how exactly it works, but it makes a really cool image. I've seen these before and nobody explained what it was, so I never knew how to create one. While surfing the web today for an unrelated reason, I stumbled upon this program that gives you the ability to easily create these. I'm sure I'll use this effect again. It's very Escher like.

259/365 - Jim - Water Bounce

( f/16 105mm 1/320 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

I watched a video on how to produce a nice water drop photo, so I put myself to the test today. I put a painted blue sky shot behind the water and flash pointing directly on it. Then I had another light on the right side pointing across to the left of the drop. It probably wasn't needed, but I had a red gel to the left hoping that it show in some parts of the drop. This is one of the best shots I got. I did try to get a collision shot where as the rebound drop comes back up, the next drop hits that and creates an umbrella look. This requires 10 drops per second pretty accurately and my method of dripping was not adjustable. I hope to get a shot like that one of these days.

258/365 - Jim - Strawberry

( f/8 #mm 1/250 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

My mother is here today and wanted a strawberry dessert, so she went out to Giant Eagle and got some along with shortcake and ice cream. We all had some and it was pretty great. I wish I had thought of doing this photo before she cut all the strawberries, because I had to use just a little chunk of one. With one hand holding the spoon and shutter remote, and the other hand sprinkling sugar on top, I took a few pictures simultaneously. I used a flash directly above with a grid spot to keep he light from spilling too much an illuminating the background.

257/365 - Jim - Trimming Weeds

( f/11 70mm 1/250 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

I went to my parent's house today to help stain their deck. My sister and I worked on it and sat down after the first coat was applied. It was like watching paint dry... So I suggested she drive me around and I could get my foto. She has a Jeep and took the top down so I was able to pop up and shoot from right in the Jeep. We went on all these back roads and saw some interesting things. This guy was trimming the weeds along the road with this device. As you can see, it is 2 horse power. I applied a sepia tone to fit the subject better. If you would like to see some of the other shots I took, click here.

256/365 - Jim - Light Painted Guitar

( f/8 29mm 4.3 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

I got inspired yesterday after watching some photography webcasts. The one guy did a lot of painting with light and the photos looked pretty awesome. Painting with light consists of a small light source, usually a flashlight, and a long shutter speed. Once the shutter is open, you move the flashlight around the places you want to be lit. For this shot I opened the shutter and wiggled my small mag light around over the guitar and slightly the background in an arch pattern to give it a natural vignette. I did this about 80 times until I got exactly the look I was after.

255/365 - Jim - Duck Head Version 2

( f/2.8 70mm 1/320 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

It rained most of the day, so I got the idea to put Jameson out in it with his umbrella. Then I realized this is like the bathtub photo with the umbrella being a duck. I took this from the basement window so I didn't get my camera wet and I also was able to have a low perspective. I used Photoshop to desaturate everything except for the umbrella and added a heavy vignette and surrounding lens blur.

254/365 - Jim - Moth

( f/3.5 70mm 1/200 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

I walked out to the woods to see what I could see. A large moth was on this tree so I gently walked toward it. It flew away... But then a second moth came by and landed in almost the exact same spot. Not as colorful and a little torn up, but I was able to get close enough to get this shot. I have no clue what species it is. I actually spent way too much time trying to find it, but came up empty. If you happen to know, post it in the comments.

253/365 - Jim - Duck Head

( f/8 60mm 1/60 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

Jameson was getting his bath and I asked him what I should take a picture of tonight. He pointed and said that picture with the duck on my head. We have the photo below of him hanging above the toilet from when he was 8 months old. So I got my camera and found the duck and little cup he was eating. Then put him into a position as close to the original as I could and got him to look at me. I'll have to ask him what to photograph tomorrow too.

Taken 7/23/2007

252/365 - Jim - Peek-a-boo

( f/11 56mm 1/125 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

I saw someone did this on flickr and I knew right away what my photo would be today. I feel that I must keep my fans creeped out by my portraits because it seems every time I post one I get one or more comments about it being creepy. I took two pictures and merged them together with Photoshop. It wasn't very difficult at all.

251/365 - Jim - Swing High Sweet Jameson

( f/5.6 10.5mm 1/320 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

Jameson wanted to go swing in the back yard today. I brought my camera with the fisheye lens and put it directly under him with the 10 second timer on. I told him to look at the camera as I ducked down out of the way. He was swinging back and forth, so the timing on this was luckily perfect. I bumped up the exposure and vibrance in Lightroom.

250/365 - Jim - Vimeo Profile

( f/11 56mm 1/125 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

I wanted to get a profile picture for my Vimeo account, so I had Carol help me. She took two pictures which took forever and I didn't really like either of them. It was frustrating for me to see Carol looking through the camera with the wrong eye and telling me how blurry it was when she didn't even hit the shutter to focus :) So, I'm not sure I'll use this photo for my profile, but it can be my photo of the day. I guess...

249/365 - Jim - Growing the Green

( f/8 60mm 1/125 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

Back to stock photos... I wanted to do something interesting so I started looking at iStockPhoto.com to get some ideas. I tried to think of a common word and ended up searching for "money". There were a lot of cool shots on there, but one had money coming out of a little pot very similar to this one. I remembered my son had this pot in his sandbox, so I cleaned it out and started working on my origami skills. It's not great, but pretty close to what I had envisioned. I think out of all my attempts at stock photos, this one could actually earn more than $4.

248/365 - Jim - Panorama Tattoo

( f/8 45mm 1/160 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

Matt Smochko has a small tattoo that covers his entire arm. We discussed taking pictures all the way around his arm and joining them into a panorama. Well, it turned out to be a lot harder than I thought. I ended up doing a lot of it by hand because of the perspective and rotation required to make things match up correctly. Actually, I spent over an hour just merging the images together.

247/365 - Jim - Ronnie Loves Mambo

( f/11 105mm 1/125 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

If you listen to the Howard Stern Show, you would know about Howard's limo driver Ronnie Mund. Howard found out the the whole staff was complaining about the amount of cologne Ronnie was wearing. Ronnie argued it was only a moderate amount of Mambo. Howard laughed about it being sold at Target, but Ronnie said it wasn't anymore and was discontinued. So he would buy four or five bottles at a time and put them in his freezer. They laughed at him for weeks and even made a spoof song to Papa Loves Mambo. My sister in law, Courtney, got this bottle for me for Christmas this past year. It makes me laugh every time I look at it.

246/365 - Jim - Mocha Flowers

( f/22 210mm 1/100 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

These flowers are very tiny. I used my 105mm macro lens along with the 2x teleconverter to get really close. They are bright yellow and the original looked nice, but I preferred this mocha effect. It gives it an old look. There were some ants crawling all over the flower, but I wasn't able to get any of them in focus as well as this shot.

245/365 - Jim - Papa Turns 57

( f/11 62mm 1/125 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

My dad's birthday is today and he came to visit. I wanted to get a picture of both boys, but Jameson wasn't cooperating very well so it didn't happen. Now for some crazy facts. Jameson is 54 years, 5 months, and 4 days younger. That is 2840 weeks or 19,880 days or 477,120 hours or 28,627,200 minutes. I am 23 years, 9 months, and 4 days younger than my dad. Jameson is 31 years and 8 months younger than me...