356/365 - Jim - New Studio

( f/5 18mm 1/60 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

I was kind of lazy today and just watched football all day. This is the only photo I took, so it will have to do. At least there is a story behind it. This is going to be my new studio. The far wall is where I will have backdrops. I'm thinking the right wall is where I will put a few large cabinets to store all my photography gear. Directly to the right where you can's see is where I will put my office space. Since I work from home a few days a week, it will be nice to have an actual office again. When we had kids, I got booted to the downstairs living room where we have a fireplace. It's not horrible, but I'm anxious to have my new office!

355/365 - Jim - Alameda Gazebo

( f/16 24mm 1/13 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

We went down to Alameda park today to let the kids play. I took this shot to later do an HDR with it, but ended up just blending exposures. It is similar to HDR, but not quite the same. Then I used Photoshop and duplicated the layer, and blurred it. On the sharper layer I chose a Lighten blend mode. This gives it an Orton effect look. I also used Picasa to add a soft focus so that only the gazebo is sharp.

354/365 - Jim - Ducks Take Flight

( f/2.8 200mm 1/400 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

We went to the Succop Conservancy today so I could take some photos that weren't in my basement. There is a pond there and these shy ducks didn't like when I got too close to them. The two males took off flying right beside each other and I quickly got a shot of them. There was a reflection of them, but it wasn't full so I cropped it out in Lightroom. Then added some vignette and the usual contrast, vibrance, etc. Using Picasa I added a soft focus effect in an attempt to give the front duck more pop. I also did a Photoshop frame effect on this photo where the ducks are flying into the picture. Check that out along with some other shots I took there by clicking here.

353/365 - Jim - Nintendo

( f/5.6 48mm 1/125 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

At work today I saw that Smochko had this wallpaper on his computer. I said to him that I could do something almost exactly like that, but would have to find my old Nintendo. Well, it was up in the attic. I got it and set the shot up as well as I could to match the original. It's close enough.

352/365 - Jim - Pond Fountain

( f/22 32mm HDR ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

This pond is just down the road from my house and I have been wanting to take a picture of it for a long time. I've always liked house that sits there too. Over the last 6 years, they have added the rocks and some landscaping around the pond and then the fountain. I pulled Jameson in his wagon all the way there and the fountain wasn't turned on. I was a little disappointed to go all that way and not see the fountain. I'm not sure if the owners saw me taking photos or it was on a timer, but it suddenly turned on and I was able to take some fountain shots. I bracketed 7 shots and then merged 3 of them into an HDR. I set the HDR effect to it's lowest setting, but turned the strength and saturation all the way up. You can see the leaves are turning a little already. Kind of sad to see summer ending.

351/365 - Jim - 9 Months Old

( f/4.5 50mm 1/125 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

Today Nolan is 9 months old. He has 2 brand new teeth and is super active. Probably within the month he will be walking. I tried something new today and brought a studio flash outside with a large softbox. The sun was already setting, so the background was pretty dark. I liked the results, so maybe I'll have to get a battery pack someday.

350/365 - Jim - Amuse-bouche

( f/4.5 50mm 1/125 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

I made a dinner for my mother for her birthday today. Her birthday was actually on the 6th, but I was in Canada, so I missed it. This is an amuse-bouche, which translates to "mouth amuser". It is a single, bite-sized hors d’œuvre. I marinated shrimp in olive oil, salt, pepper, and thyme. Then boiled red potatoes until they were soft. Sliced them into two and scooped out the guts. Then filled them with a mixture of cream cheesem, sour cream, salt, pepper, and more thyme. I dried off the shrimp with a paper towel and put them on the potato. Voilà! It tasted pretty good too. I paired it with a filet mignon that I got from Bona Terra. If you haven't eaten there and are in the Pittsburgh area, I highly recommend you go.

349/365 - Jim - Jameson

( f/4.5 50mm 1/320 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

Since I posted a guest photo from Carol (without her knowing) of Nolan, I figured I would post a similar shot of Jameson. I did however take some other interesting shots today that aren't of the kids, but again I wanted to match Carol's photo. I played around with this in Lightroom adjusting the exposure to make it brighter and then used the paintbrush to enhance his eyes two-fold. I used sharpness and clarity at full strength twice to make them really stand out. Just a side note for family, you might have noticed the cut beside his right eye. He built a tower of blocks and when he knocked them over, so did he fall down onto the base and hit his eye hard enough to cut it open. Luckily it wasn't a direct shot to his eye!

349/365 - Carol - Nolan

( f/5.6 50mm 1/500 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

We took a walk around the block today and put the kids in the Radio Flyer wagon. Halfway through the walk, we switched and I pulled the wagon. Carol carried my camera and I told her to take some pictures. I figured she would say no, but she actually took some photos. I set it up so all she had to do was hit the shutter. When I loaded the pictures on the computer, I was surprised to find this one. She framed this one nicely and I'm not sure she really meant to. See Carol, maybe you could get into photography...

348/365 - Jim - Penn State Kids

( f/5.6 24mm 1/60 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

Aunt Courtney got these jerseys for Jameson and Nolan. It was hard to get Jameson to do this without hurting his little brother. He fell back on him right after this was taken and Nolan cried. I don't know if the Penn State game was on TV here today, but they beat Syracuse 28 to 7.

347/365 - Jim - Perfect Toothpaste

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

I never used this much toothpaste before so I've never tried the squirt that you always see in ads. It wasn't as easy as you see on TV. I think I should have put the toothpaste in the refrigerator for a while because it seemed to just droop. Anyway, I attempted to do the perfect toothpaste look. I had a softbox directly over top and a white reflector below which gives it the nice highlight edges. The background was just a piece of white board that was far enough behind the light source that it is a dark gray.

346/365 - Jim - Radio Flyer Tricycle

( f/5.6 36mm 1/320 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

I was supposed to be in Canada until Saturday, but we came back early. Jameson had his Steelers gear on ready for the game. I noticed the nice shadow behind him, so I told him to look at me and smile. He chose to be super difficult... So this was the best shot I could get of him. The Steelers finally won in overtime 13 - 10.

345/365 - Jim - Water Like Glass

( f/10 24mm 1/400 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

We went out fishing in the morning and the water was like glass. The moon was still out and you could see it in the reflection on the water. It was pretty awesome to see the river this way. The Allegheny River is never this calm.

344/365 - Jim - Optical Illusion

( f/22 50mm 1/25 sec ISO 640 Nikon D300 )

We decided to take a walk and knew about a trail down the road out of camp. On the way down the road, the camp owner drove by and stopped with a bear hunter that just got a bear the day before. The bear hunter told us about a bear charging his son and stopped right before him. His son tried to make himself look bigger and the bear eventually walked away. Well that story scared Smochko more than he was already and we only walked down the trail a little ways before turning back. Before we turned back I asked them if they wanted to take a cool photo. I had Smochko go down the trail a ways and Bmarz hold his hand out. Then changed to Aperture priority and selected f/22. This kept everything in focus. I don't know what is up the the look on Bmarz face :)

343/365 - Jim - Canadian Goose

( f/5.6 400mm 1/640 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

This goose was out on the lake and since I was in Canada, I assumed it was Canadian :) I used my 70-200mm lens with the 2x teleconverter zoomed all the way in to 400mm. We couldn't get very close to this thing or it would fly away. I cropped it into a bookmark because I thought it looked cool that way.