336/365 - Jim - Broken Arm

( f/5 50mm 1/30 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

My mother showed up today to babysit and told us her tragic story. She was walking out to her car this morning and was looking the other way when out of nowhere a pile of mulch jumped in front of her and caused her to trip to the ground. Everything she was carrying went flying and she tried to catch herself with her right arm. Little did she know it was not up for such responsibility. She complained all morning how she couldn't move it and had no strength in it. We told her to go to the doctor and get it looked at. She tried every excuse not to go, but finally went. They took some x-rays and found out she had a radial head fracture. So she came back with a cast and sling. I later took her to Giant Eagle Pharmacy to pick up her pain killers. As you can see, she didn't want me to take her picture. There is nothing technical about this photo. I just wanted it on here for memories :) I broke my arm when I was in 4th grade and all my mother cared about was whether I had clean underwear on when I went to the hospital. I finally had my chance to get her back.

335/365 - Jim - Unknown Plant

( f/3.2 50mm 1/400 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

Can someone tell me what this plant is? It has these orange flowers all over it and the seed pods hang down and spring or explode when you squeeze them. Since I was a kid, I have always loved to find the largest seed to squeeze and let explode. I'm not sure how I never knew what this plant was called. Maybe I actually have been told and have since forgot and when I hear it, I'll say "Oh yeah!".

334/365 - Jim - Hide and Seek

( f/2.8 70mm 1/500 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

Jameson and I walked around the yard before the sun set. The light was hitting these trees really nicely, so I told Jameson to go hide behind one and peek out at me. He thought it was pretty fun. I used a fill flash to give it a little more even exposure, but it kind of over exposed instead, so I fixed some of that in Lightroom.

333/365 - Jim - S'more

( f/9 70mm 1/125 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

I asked my mother what I should take a photo of today before she drove home. She didn't have any answer at the time, but had an hour to think about it. So she called me and said to take a picture of a S'more. I said that was a good idea and that I could eat it afterwards. Yum. I used a creme brulee torch to toast the marshmallow, which I held on a toothpick. By the time I finally got to eat it, it was cold and not that great. At least not near as good as it looks.

332/365 - Jim - Parabolas

( f/22 10.5mm over 100 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

I didn't know what to photograph tonight, so I looked at my email and found an article on fun light painting. I cut a piece of fishing line and tied it to an LED flashlight. Then tied the other end to the ceiling and used my fisheye lens directly below it. A good toss of the flashlight and then I opened the shutter with the cable release and let it go for at least a minute and a half. I think I would have gotten some better results with a rope that would go back to center faster than what fishing line did, but some of them turned out alright. Here are the best four.

331/365 - Jim - What is that thing...

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

More macros to guess. This time I included some easy and some very difficult. So let me know what you think they are and I'll let you know if you are right. I will be impressed if they are all solved.

330/365 - Jim - Another Moth

( f/5.6 50mm 1/250 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

Today was almost a repeat of yesterday where I took Jameson outside to play. This time I just wondered around the yard and kept my eyes open for anything interesting. This moth landed near where I was standing, so I took the opportunity to get really close. I cropped and added vignette in Lightroom.

329/365 - Jim - Grass Seed

( f/1.8 50mm 1/8000 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

Jameson and I were playing in the back yard today. The grass in our mini garden grew so high it has seeds. I had Jameson hold one up so I could get a picture of it and have him all blurry in the background. He was less than cooperative as 2 year old boys tend to be. I was able to get him to hold it up, but he waved it around so much and I just got lucky with this shot. At 1/8000 of a second shutter, it froze like a deer in headlights. I got quite a few good shots while the sun was setting. It makes me wonder why I bother to shoot at any other time of day...

328/365 - Jim - American Bald Eagle

( f/3.2 70mm 1/40 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

While on my way home from a birthday party, I stopped when I saw this eagle coming in for a landing. I couldn't believe my eyes, so I got my camera and took a photo of this statue. Did you think it was real? Maybe I fooled some of you... I've only seen one bald eagle in the wild before and it was so far up in the sky that I had to take a photo at 200mm and then zoom into that to be able to tell it was a bald eagle.

328/365 - Shawn - Fireworks Over the Allegheny

( f/4.5 38mm 1/15 sec ISO 1600 Nikon D40x )

This was taken with my first DSLR camera that I sold to Shawn when I upgraded to the D300. It is pretty difficult to take fireworks photos while hand holding the camera, let alone while hand holding on a boat, but he did a pretty good job of it. Here is his poetic description of the night he took this photo. Thanks for the guest post, Shawn.

The green and red navigation lights of all of the boats sway and reflect off of the Allegheny river. If you could look to the left you would see all of the onlookers lined up against the railings of the convention center. If you could feel the air around you it would remind you of laughter, smiling, good times, and hope. Awe speaks into the air with booms and flashes. The river current never stops its incessant tugging at the anchor lines as we lose ourselves in the flow of the Allegheny. The bridges pull like arms holding us in an embrace of the city of Pittsburgh. My hand holds that of one so close to me and we both squeeze all the more tightly. Our souls twist together on this night when the sky has become so bright in the darkness. Dreams fill the mind as we worry about naught and stare at the overhead spectacle with the bright eyes of children.

327/365 - Jim - Jamaican Fish

( f/16 35mm 1/160 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

We got this wooden fish in Jamaica after we got married there a little over 6 years ago. It has been sitting on a speaker in our living room for a long time and I never thought to photograph it until now. Picturing it in my head, I just thought I would put it on a white background and that would be it. Then I thought it would be cool to have bubbles in the air around it. I didn't bother with that though and I didn't want it to be just a plain white background. I found this blue blanket laying on the couch and thought it would be perfect with some ripples. Turned out to be pretty cool and best wooden fish picture I've ever seen :) I sure would like to go back to Jamaica someday...

326/365 - Jim - Beware of Bubble Beard

( f/2.8 48mm 1/60 sec ISO 100 Nikon D300 )

I was just settling down for a nice nap when Carol said I had to come back and see Jameson. So I climbed out of my slumber and got my camera. When I got in the bathroom, there he was with a mohawk and beard. Is it a glimpse into the future? Maybe... I rarely do soft photos, so I thought I would give it a try and then added the white vignette to make it even more soft.

325/365 - Jim - Warhol Portrait

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

Courtney was reading my mind when she said I should do a Warhol portrait because that was my plan. Warhol did portraits by creating a large silk screen matte and putting that onto canvas, then painting in the areas with over the top colors. In some he also did some outlining of features, which is what I did here. I also applied some textures to give it a canvas look.

324/365 - Jim - Warhol Inspired

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

After going to the Andy Warhol Museum, I knew I wanted to do some similar art using Photoshop. I raided the cabinets for this can of soup to photograph. I was hoping for some tomato soup, but mushroom is all I could find. I don't even like mushrooms... Anyways, I used Photoshop to do the rest and make it look similar to an Andy Warhol painting. Click here to see the original photo.

323/365 - Jim - Got A Guess?

( f/14 105mm 1/200 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

It's not very difficult. I couldn't figure out what to photograph today, so I grabbed the macro lens and got some close-up shots. You can click here to see the answer.

322/365 - Jim - Road Sign Art

( f/8 70mm 1/640 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

Click here to see a panorama of this image. On our way home from my parents house, we went through Meadville, PA to get gas. Someone has taken old road signs and created this long fence in front of Penndot. They also have a bunch of large flowers made out of signs at the corner of the street to the left. I've been driving past this for years and have seen it become larger and larger and never stopped to take a photo. I would have liked to cross the street and walk the whole thing taking photos every so many feet, but it was an extremely busy road and we were on our way home. Maybe someday...

321/365 - Jim - Presque Isle

( f/8 56mm 1/1000 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

We went to Presque Isle today for the kids to play at the beach. I'm not a beach person, so I was there for photos. Jameson had a great time going in the water and playing in the sand. Nolan wasn't able to do much, but did enjoy jumping in the water. With it being nearly 90 degrees, I was ready to get back into air conditioning immediately, so I took the trip out with my dad to get pizza for our dinner. We had it so cool in the car that when I grabbed the pizza to take to the picnic table, I thought we chilled it. It turned out alright though and was a nice day.

320/365 - Jim - Flower

( f/8 70mm 1/80 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

I don't know what the names of flowers are and I did try to look it up, but have no idea how to find it without wasting way too much time. I did take some photos today, but they were mostly just snapshots so I decided to go with the flower shot. Boring I know, but it was a busy day.

319/365 - Jim - I Have Lost Control

( f/7.1 70mm 1/200 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

I've had this in my back pocket for a while just in case I couldn't come up with a photo before midnight. There isn't anything special about it. I used two constant lights and applied a vignette in Lightroom. My photos have become a bit stale lately. Hopefully I can find some creativity and they will be better.

318/365 - Jim - Many Faces of Carol

( f/4.5 56mm 1/80 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

My uncle Tim suggested that I take a photo of someone and mirror each side of their face. He said the results looked like totally different people. Carol was kind enough to let me try this out. Instead of taking the whole image down the middle and mirroring it, I just grabbed her facial features so it wouldn't look really weird. I should have had the lights exactly the same way on each side because one side is more shadowed than the other which made it difficult for me. On the left is Carol's right side of her face mirrored. The middle photo is the original. The right photo is of Carol's left side mirrored. I don't think she looks like different people, but I can definitely see differences. The right photo is my favorite Carol :)

317/365 - Jim - Farm Show Ferris Wheel

( f/16 70mm 13 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

The Butler Farm Show is going on this week about a couple miles away from my house. As I'm typing this I can hear the tractor pull going on. I never get the chance to photograph ferris wheels at night, so this is my rare opportunity. I didn't go in to the farm show, but instead just stood across the road from it with my tripod and zoomed all the way in. Then I used a remote with the camera set to bulb and just left the shutter open for various times to check the results. I was a little annoyed by the two bright lights on the right, but there wasn't anything I could do about it.

316/365 - Jim - Repetitive Vision

( f/3.2 10.5mm 1/40 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

I finally made it to the Andy Warhol Museum and the Mattress Factory today. This photo is a permanent exhibit in the Mattress Factory by Yayoi Kusama. It was very cool in the small room that appeared to be infinite, but also extremely hot. I guess there isn't any room for an air conditioner, no matter how large it looks. I stood in the small dark hallway and took this shot with my fisheye lens. You could see me in there, so I removed most of my reflections with Photoshop.

315/365 - Jim - Post Storm Sky

( f/8 50mm 1/25 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

We had a quick storm that dumped a LOT of water. Afterwards I found a nice large puddle of water in my basement and then this sky appeared. I was busy with cleanup so this is the only photo I took today.

314/365 - Jim - Soaring Buzzards

( f/8 400mm 1/800 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

It was an extremely hot and humid day today. My wife and I took a walk through a cemetery for photos and saw these turkey buzzards flying over us. I put my 70-200mm lens along with the 2x teleconverter on my camera. I used Picasa to crop down the bird on the left and then placed it back on the same uncropped image as a collage. Then added another bird on the right to make it a little more interesting.

313/365 - Jim - Shadow Faces

( f/8 38mm 1/3 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

I wish I could take credit for the idea, but I saw something like this and thought I would try it for myself. I probably didn't spend near the time that they did, but my faces are at least recognizable as faces. I did the one on the left first by just crinkling away. Then I wondered what would happen if I put the paper against the profile of my face and tried forcing it into shape. It ended up turning out better than I thought, but I mistakenly did it on the wrong side of paper so it produced the opposite shadow effect. To create a nice shadow I used a single light and feathered it extremely. This produced the sharpest shadows.

312/365 - Jim - Pepsi

( f/4.8 60mm 1/320 sec ISO 1600 Nikon D300 )

We went to the Pirate game today and they lost to St. Louis 6 to 4. After the game was over I tried to get some empty seat shots. There were still a lot of people there so it wasn't easy. Plus, we were walking out as well. I got this shot with the Pepsi drink and thought it looked cool, so I used Lightroom to do selective coloring and bring your focus even more towards the cup. I didn't have any fast glass with me, so all my photos of the players were kind of motion blurred even at ISO 1600.

311/365 - Jim - Fake Poster

( f/11 10.5mm HDR ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

I went out to take some progress shots of the addition and pointed my fisheye straight up into the sky and took 7 bracketed shots. Then I turned that into an HDR. Using Photoshop I tried to correct the fisheye and it pulled in all the sides and made it look like a big poster. So I took an old picture of Jameson holding a frame and added him into the photo. It would be cool to get some poster sized shots printed, but I'm not sure what I would do with them. Maybe I could just get Jameson to hold them.

310/365 - Jim - Quiet Bench

( f/4 38mm 1/250 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

After going out to dinner we stopped down at Alameda park so my wife could show me a little playground that she has taken my kids to. I had never been there and she said there were some photo opportunities there. I liked this simple shot where I made sure the sun was coming through the tree. As an added touch, I used Photoshop to insert the lens flare. I wish I had brought my SB-800 flash to add some fill, but I packed lite. There were some other interesting things there, so I'll have to go back sometime.

309/365 - Jim - Chaotic Panorama

( f/11 70mm 1/100 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

We went to visit my family at Whitehall campground in Emlenton, PA. They go there every year for church camp. The camp has three levels on a huge hill and this is the view from the middle level down to the lower level where there is a pond and other recreation. When I went as a kid, there was never this much activity going on and I had too many bad experiences. I cracked my head open when I was 7 and got 7 stitches. In the woods back there a kid was climbing an unfinished dam wall and it fell on him. A friend and I picked it up off of him. It was extremely heavy so we must have been full of adrenaline. The kid stared at me blankly with blood coming out of his ears. He was pretty messed up. I could go on and on about the place, but I'll stop there.

308/365 - Jim - Drop of Milk

( f/11 105mm 1/640 sec ISO 1600 Nikon D300 )

The milk expired today and there was only a little bit left, so I took it to photograph. I filled a ramekin and a little baggie with milk. Then I set up 2 constant lights on each side pointing at a green background. I poked a hole in the bag and let it drip and then put my finger beside the drip to get focus and then set it to manual. To try and get the fastest shutter possible, I set my ISO to 1600. That produced a lot of noise in the image, so I corrected some of it in Photoshop. I did this to see how constant lights work for drops, but I now know I prefer flashes.

307/365 - Jim - Basil

( f/5.6 105mm 1/25 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

I have been growing this basil in my office window for a while now. I let it get a little too dry and the leaves all curled up goofy. The late afternoon light coming through the window back lit the basil really nicely.

306/365 - Jim - Rack

( f/3 105mm 1/10 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

Today I spent the whole day playing in a golf scramble. Our team wasn't the best, so we ended up +3. We did however eagle a par 4 to take the only skin , so it was a successful day. I was out so late and didn't have a photo, so I ended up taking some with my 3mp camera phone just in case. I got home before midnight, so I quickly took this shot because I don't have a data plan and it would have cost me to send the photos to my email.