124/365 - Jim - A Mother's Kiss

( f/11 60mm 1/125 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

Theme is kiss. I originally wanted to have a photo of my son Jameson kissing Nolan on the head, but he was sick all day. This was the best photo of the group. Nolan kept crying when my wife held him out to give him a kiss. I used a flash with softbox to the left and behind to get the nice highlights around the left edges. I also had a flash with softbox to the right just in front of the camera as a main light.

123/365 - Jim - Nitecicles

( f/5 24mm 1/60 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

Theme is negative space. I wanted to make it look like the blackness of the night was icicles, but it didn't turn out that well. This isn't the best representation of negative space, so instead I enhanced the color of the icicles in Lightroom to give it the Steelers black & gold spirit. The Superbowl is coming soon. Go Steelers!

122/365 - Jim - Dizzy

( f/3.5 10.5mm 1/3 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

Theme is distortion. I used my fisheye lens and pointed it at myself only about a foot away. Then I started to spin very fast. The flash was set to rear so It would capture my face with minimal blur, but leave the shutter open long enough to show all the motion in the background. I took quite a few shots, so I got pretty dizzy, which also makes me a little sick. Luckily my dinner stayed down. If anyone tries this, send me the photo!

121/365 - Jim - Pollock Tree Limbs

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

Theme is contrast. It just so happens to be Jackson Pollock's 97th birthday today. He died in 1956. I think my photo looks a lot like one of his paintings. We had a wintry mix from last night until now, which left the trees wrapped in ice. I took this photo out through my basement window. Contrast was added in Lightroom. I also made it black and white to make it more uniform and not give any specific focal points. Learn more about Jackson Pollock at Artsy.com.

120/365 - Jim - Panasonic AG-HMC150

( f/8 50mm 1/125 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

I have finally upgraded to HD video. This is the Panasonic AG-HMC150. It records to SDHC cards, so there is no tape to bother with. A big bonus to that is that it records to AVCHD, which my PS3 can play. I took a few little videos tonight and put the SD card into my PS3 and it played them without any issues and the quality was superb. This is going to be a lot of fun. I need to learn how to use it though and there isn't a whole lot of information online yet. I may have to start up yet another blog to document what I have learned...

The main reason I got this was to film my children as they grow up. I only have a couple short clips of myself turning 1 and almost walking. The quality is horrible, so it will be nice in 30 years to at least have videos that are the best quality of today. Who knows what TV will be like then...

119/365 - Courtney - Steeler Excitement

( f/2.8 7.9mm 1/40 sec ISO 100 Sony DSC-P200 )

This was taken by my sister-in-law Courtney. She prides herself in her ability to take blurry photos. In this picture is my father-in-law, Bill, at the AFC Championship game. Courtney tells me this was right after the Polamalu interception. Very understandable that the image would be blurry with all the jumping around and excitement. Go Steelers!

119/365 - Jim - Blur

( f/1.8 50mm 1/20 sec ISO 1600 Nikon D300 )

Theme is blurry. I used my 50mm f/1.8 lens at the highest aperture to ensure a lot of blur. The depth of field is so shallow that only the lens cap is in focus. I had my mother hold the lens cap with her arm extended out as far as she could. She complained at me saying she didn't want to be in the picture, but the extreme blur settled her down.

118/365 - Jim - Monkey Boy

( f/11 29mm 1/60 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

When my son Jameson was a baby I took a similar photo of him against this mural that I painted. So I got requests to do the same with Nolan. I took one shot with just the mural. Then had my wife take the shot of me holding Nolan on my arm. I cropped him out and pasted him onto the clean photo and erased my arm. Then I filled in any missing pieces and added some shadow to the branch. With Nolan awake, it was hard to hold him in place. He wanted to wiggle off my arm. It's ok though because I hear babies bounce or there is a 5 second rule or something like that...

117/365 - Jim - Argus Borders

( f/22 105mm 1/250 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

Theme is borders. I set up an old Argus Seventy-five camera and shot at the viewfinder. Since it is so old, there is all kinds of dust and crud on the glass. I cleaned off what I could reach, but it left the edges dirty and whatever was on the inside of the camera. This gives it an old photo look. If I wanted it to make it look even older, I could have warmed the image. I have been wanting to try this for a while and finally got the chance. There is a group on flickr called Through the Viewfinder that has a collection of photos like this.

116/365 - Jim - Ping Pong

( f/13 48mm 1/160 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

Theme is sports. It isn't one of the most popular sports, but I love it. I grew up watching my dad play. Then I started to play a lot in high school and got pretty good. The only problem is that I never have anyone to play with. I'm going to have to wait until my boys are old enough and start the training. I can beat my dad now and hopefully one day they will be able to beat me. This is the same paddle that I took a close-up of back on day 99.

115/365 - Jim - Winter Sunrise

( f/9 38mm 1/320 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

Yesterday on my way to work I saw a really nice sunrise over this field, so this morning I went armed with my camera. I parked the car and ran across the road to get this shot. It was extremely cold, so I shot until I couldn't move my fingers anymore. Gloves really come in handy in times like that and I didn't bring any. On my way back to the car I noticed a huge snow covered field with very few trees against the horizon. I took some photos of that and also included some mailboxes that you can see if you click here. I really like this shot, maybe better than the sunrise, but the sunrise is what got me out in the cold, so I had to post it.

114/365 - Jim - Panasonic PV-GS400

( f/16 70mm 1/125 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

I plan on selling my camcorder, so I figured I would take some photos of it for potential buyers. This is a Panasonic PV-GS400 which I got when it first came out for $1200. It got great reviews from places such as camcorderinfo.com. It records to miniDV tapes and can take 4 megapixel still images onto an SD card. There is even a built in pop-up flash. A friend of mine was attending the Pittsburgh Filmmakers school and they have these camcorders for the students to make films with. The reason I want to sell it is to upgrade to high def. If you have any interest, take a look at the camcorderinfo review and send me an email.

113/365 - Jim - Framed On The Fly

( f/22 48mm 1/5 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

Theme is frame. I looked out my back door after work and noticed some really nice late day light on the trees. I had this idea for a while so I went to get the frame taken apart and get my camera. By the time I was able to take the photo, the sun had moved on and I lost the perfect light. I took the photo anyways, but know it could have been better. My wife held the frame while I took the shot. I used a rear flash to light the frame so the shutter was pretty slow and resulted in less than perfect sharpness. I made the inside of the frame black and white with Lightroom.

112/365 - Jim - Attitude Adjustment

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

Theme is attitude. Paige here always seems to show some attitude when I take her picture. Usually at some point she will roll her eyes and put a scour on her face. This photo shoot was the only time she really didn't. I had to tell her to look mad at me and instead she looked sad. So my mother was fixing her hair and I noticed a "look" so I snapped a picture.

111/365 - Tim - Cheerleading Competition

( f/3.5 18mm 1/100 sec ISO 800 Nikon D60 )

My uncle Tim is the guest blogger today. He asked me for some advice on photographing in a gymnasium. I told him about setting the white balance for the fluorescent lights and to shoot in Shutter priority. Also how to use the ISO if the pictures are too dark. He took my advice and got a quality shot. Here is some info he emailed me about the photo. Jessica is my cousin if you can't figure that out...

Thanks to the advise I received from a great photographer I know, the picture turned out great. I had no idea you could take such a nice photo inside a gymnasium without a flash. Jessica is the red head holding the girl up on the right. Jessica's team took third place in the competition. The Nikon D60 with the 18-200mm lens took first place.