093/365 - Jim - Shot in the Dark

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

Being New Year's Eve I thought I would take a photo of a drink. The recipe to this drink is pretty simple. You take 2 parts of hydrogen and 1 part oxygen. The white top is produced by turning the knob on my sink which is labeled H. The bubbles go away and you are left with a warm shot of pure water. So here is to you and a happy new year! Yuk, I had to chase it with cold water...

092/365 - Jim - Callender Talent

( f/5 38mm 1/60 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

As Jameson watched his nightly show before bed, he put a second pacifier into the handle of the one in his mouth. This is the kind of dumb thing I would think to do :) When I put him in bed we put 3 of them together so I could take a picture. He loves to have as many pacifiers on hand as possible when he goes to bed. Maybe I should invent a pacifier dispenser that works like the Dixie cup one. If you are wondering what Callender Talent is, it is kind of like stupid human tricks but maybe not as impressive.

091/365 - Jim - Hess Toy Trucks

( f/18 27mm 5 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

This is one of the toys that my son Jameson got from his Aunt Courtney. The truck lights up and makes lots of sounds and I just discovered the bed lifts by hydraulics at the push of a button. The front loader also lights up and has forward and reverse. It runs on the carpet and Jameson gets so excited when it is about to run into him or someone else. For this photo I used the modeling lights from my Alienbee flashes as the fill light with a rear curtain flash at the end. This allowed for the 5 second exposure so you can see the lights on the vehicles.

090/365 - Jim - Nolan Sepia

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

This is the other furry fabric I got for Christmas. It is white and sheds pretty bad right now. I should probably run a sweeper over it and hope it doesn't go bald. For this shot I used available light from a large window. I thought I would get enough light to shoot at f/8, but I was only able to get a 1/8 sec shutter speed. This is a good recipe for blur, but Nolan didn't move much for this shot and I was able to get a somewhat clean photo. I raised my ISO up to 640 after this and got a better shutter speed, but Nolan stopped cooperating and was flailing about. If you are getting sick of Nolan, I plan on staring up the themes again on the 1st and I'll be looking for more guest bloggers!

090/365 - Jameson - Hotel

( No EXIF Available vtech^® Camera)

Jameson is my guest blogger today. He got a vtech camera for Christmas from my sister. He has a tendency to turn on the camera and take shots straight down because he is just looking in the LCD for something. This was taken in his room of a play road mat on his floor. Not bad for a 2 year old and a lousy camera :)

089/365 - Jim - Furry Fabric

( f/8 35mm 1/125 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

I got this furry material for Christmas from my mother. I almost bought it the other day, but my mother was with me and said "Why don't you hold off" so lucky for her, I did. Under the material is a bean bag which is great for posing babies. Nolan wasn't really up for this, so I didn't take off that bulky shirt like I wanted to do. All the other shots are mostly of him crying or being fussy. I used 3 flashes for this photo. Two of them had softboxes and one was behind to the side with a grid on it. I probably would have tried to adjust the flash levels a little better because I think this shot looks a little washed out, but I will wait for a happier baby...

088/365 - Jim - Bow Head

( f/5 56mm 1/60 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

I got a Gary Fong Lightsphere for Christmas. I used it on top of my Nikon SB-800 flash to take this photo. It does the job and softens the shadows. Hopefully it will be a nice addition to my equipment. I took a similar photo of my son Jameson with a bow on his head in the exact same outfit. My wife asked if I was going to get one of Nolan, so I did.

087/365 - Jim - Christmas Morning

( f/3.5 24mm 1/60 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

All he wanted was trains. He got them. A lot of them. 32 in all. We put them all together and counted up 52 cars. It was amazing how many of them he knew by name! I know one little boy that had a good Christmas.

086/365 - Jim - My cookies are gone

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

We have been telling Jameson all day that tonight was when Santa is coming to bring presents. Here is proof for him. I plopped this Santa in front of the tree and tried various f stops to see what kind of bokeh I could get from the Christmas tree lights. I liked the f/2.8 bokeh much better than the f/8, but the Santa was not in focus as much as I liked so I went with f/8. Have a Merry Christmas everyone!

085/365 - Jim - Sliding Motion

( f/3.5 32mm 1/13 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

It can be difficult to portray motion and still have a decent photo. To create this effect I set my flash to rear curtain. This allows the shutter to be open longer and expose more for the ambient light, then at the very end of the exposure it will flash. That final flash will somewhat freeze the action. In this case you can see the blur behind Jameson and then his face is still somewhat crisp from the flash. I don't do this very often, so this was just some trial and error. Jameson loves playing at the mall playground, but his time was cut short when a kid puked and we got out of there in a hurry.

084/365 - Jim - Gas Smile

( f/3.5 105mm 1/60 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

My wife told me to hurry with the camera because Nolan was smiling. Of course it was because he was gassy, but we'll take any kind of smile we can get. By the time I got upstairs, he was done with the big smiles. This was all I could get. I had plans of getting Nolan into the studio again, but it just didn't work out. Maybe tomorrow...

083/365 - Jim - Finger Candle

( f/16 105mm 1/125 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

I gave Nolan a break today and just took a photo of my finger on fire. Actually I just put a lighter directly behind my finger and lit it before the photo.

082/365 - Jim - Cry Baby

( f/11 70mm 1/60 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

Instead of explaining this photo, I'll just tell a little story. As I held Nolan today in front of me with one hand behind his neck and the other on his bum, he gave me a look that I was not familiar with. Just as I figured it out, a quick blast of vibration was felt in the hand that was not on his neck. My suspicion was quickly confirmed. He made a poo poo in my hand. Thankfully he was diapered or I would have a real mess on my hands...

081/365 - Jim - Announcing

( f/11 29mm 1/125 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

I finally got Nolan into my studio. I used two flashes at each side with softboxes. Then using Lightroom, I desaturated all the color in the photo except for the red hat. A slight vignette was also added. I exported it to a JPEG and used Picasa 3 to add the text. And there you have it, a quick announcement.

080/365 - Jim - Foot Ornament

( f/13 105mm 1/60 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

I am still sick and not taking much time for photos. Here I took an ornament off the tree and put it on Nolan's foot. I wrapped green felt around his leg while my wife held him. My SB-800 flash was on a tripod with a shoot through umbrella. I only snapped a few pictures and this was the most in focus. I would have rather used one of the landscape ones, but they were not as crisp.