171:365 liquid 9.10.10

An Assortment of drops:





Golden Showers.

170:365 Liquid 9.9.10

2 shots.

Ok, I have to get something off my chest... I hate when people add an "X" to espresso. It's not "expresso"!! That just makes my skin curl. While we are on that note, "across" does not end in a "t" and there's no "x" in "especially" either... thanks. I feel better now.

168:365 Liquid 9.7.10

hot, butternut squash, cocktail.

sounds interesting... look for it in the November Styleline. Photographed at Cafe Cortina.

167:365 Close-up 9.6.10

it's in the eyes.

here's a tip: make sure the eyes are in focus. even in this little toy giraffe, the photo doesn't work unless the eyes are in focus. I took 5 or 6 frames of this little guy and this was the only one that had the eyes in focus because the depth of field is so shallow. This means that only about a 1/4 inch sliver is in focus, then it goes out of focus extremely quick. I love the look, but its a bitch to get something in focus accurately without using a tripod. Click here to see the scale of my little friend so you can understand just how little is in focus.

166:365 Close-up 9.5.10

camp.

165:365 Close-up 9.4.10

no vowels.

I have great respect for people who speak multiple languages. I spent 4 years of my adolescence learning the basics of Hebrew to study for my bar mitzvah. I came away with little more than memorization of many of the prayers from pure repetition. Sure, I can read most of the letters, but understanding what you are reading is a different story. Since I had a subconscious desire to inflict pain upon myself, I took a semester of Hebrew in college. What made me decide to do this during my first semester of college is beyond me, but I managed to survive. I got a 2.7, but it could have been much worse.

Here's what it boils down to: When you study for your bar mitzvah, you learn Hebrew with the vowels (various dots and dashes under the letters). Then, just before your bar mitzvah, the Rabbi pulls a bait-and-switch and says, "oh, by the way, the Torah doesn't have any vowels, you are going to have to re-learn your Torah portion and figure out how to do it without the vowels." Try t rd ths sntnc nd s hw sy t s. (Try to read this sentence and see how easy it is). Yeah, it's a pretty cruel joke to pull on a 12-year-old. So you manage to get through it (since you memorized it) and everything is ok. I thought that would be my last brush with a vowel-less world. Then, to my surprise and horror, I walked into my 2nd week of college Hebrew and the professor throws out the vowels. sht.

164:365 Close-up 9.3.10

the beholder.

163:365 Close-up 9.2.10

beans.

I'm going to need a lot of this ground up with hot water poured through it in a cup or a mug tomorrow. If you were stalker-ish enough to click all the way through to see the file info, you would notice I took it at 2:13AM. Time to go to bed.

Oh, while I was up, I thought you might like to know how to get some nice, natural looking light at 2:13AM (or any other time of day) so here you go:


...that fancy reflector is a sheet of white paper propped up by the coffee bag, the bounce light is a little piece of foam that was in the close-up filter case (which happened to be on the counter. Yes, I triggered it with my wireless pocket wizard remotes and the light came from my canon 580EXII speedlite, but you could probably do something similar with a flashlight or a table lamp. Give it a try.

162:365 Close-up 9.1.10

honey bee.

Don't worry, I was about 2 feet away from this guy. He didn't really care much about me either. He was enjoying one of the many mint flowers that adorn my planter box. On a somewhat related note - the yellow jackets that have taken up residence behind my gutter don't want to leave just yet - despite my many pesticidal attempts. I may just have to wait for winter and hope they don't come back next year...

161:365 Close-up 8.31.10

dent.

So the whole idea for this week's theme is because I just got this cool new close-up lens filter. It's pretty high quality and it allows me to get macro shots without keeping an extra lens in my bag. It works great on my 70-200 as seen in last week's penny photos, but there's just one problem - my lens is a little dented. It is a screw mount filter so it is supposed to screw to the front of the lens, but after 5 years of use, my 70-200 has taken a few bumps and bruises. The dent that can be seen here is preventing me from actually screwing the close-up adapter onto my lens. I'll get it fixed soon, but for this week I'll have to just hold it up there - ghetto style. Enjoy.

160:365 Before & After 8.30.10

Before.


After.

Breakfast for Matilda on her first day of school! This was actually taken at night, but I tried to light it to look like daytime. What do you think?

159:365 Before & After 8.29.10

You guess which is which.

158:365 Before & After 8.28.10

Before.


After.

Classic.

157:365 Before & After 8.27.10

Before.


After.

No, it's not photoshopped. It's two different photos. This is a great example of one of those cheesy photographer tricks that often works. This was for Elana's senior yearbook photo and really all you need is a good smile. Don't worry, I didn't have her say "cheese."

For the first one, I had probably said something like "give me a nice smile" about 5 frames prior to this and by this point, the smile had gone a bit stale. Don't get me wrong, she looks great, but as you can tell, it wasn't her best smile. Then, all I said was "ok, now give me a real smile!" There was actually a frame between the two of these that shows her thinking over my statement and then she gave me the "real" smile. I know, it's cheesy, but it works. I do what I have to do.

156:365 Before & After 8.26.10

Long day.... so I shot myself. Twice...

before.


20 minutes and 2.5 miles after.

"Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don't shoot their husbands, they just don't."
-Elle Woods