Father's Day at the Library of Congress

One place I've spent a massive amount of time browsing is the Library of Congress Digital Archives. It almost sounds smart to spend that much time in a library, even if it's only virtually!

The archives are full of old photos free of copy right restrictions (for the most part.) Combine that with some Flikr inspiration found in pennylrichardsca's photostream and suddenly I've got a nearly instant personalized Father's Day gift.

Here's the concoction:

This picture from the digital archives, which I believe might

be the original pagoda at the track (or at least one like it.)

+

This picture I took of the 2009 Indy 500 Pace Car

=

This gift for my dad.

(I love the way the guy in the front is eye-ing that hot ride!)

Happy Father's Day, Dad! Hopefully, you don't get your computer fixed till after this weekend...

I played with my food

What do you do when you have 4 stale, purple Peep bunnies laying around for a whole week? Make a shot a stop-motion video, you say! You read my mind.

Here is a quick and dirty first attempt at stop motion. It's crude, but that adds to the charm, right??

Photo Weekend - A Series of Shots

Sue threw out a photo weekend challenge inspired by these sledding shots Scott and I took earlier in the week. The challenge is to create a series of shots telling a story. 

Well, here is the story of the intensity, luck, and heartbreak known as the Farming Game. Special thanks for the brown farmer, Sara, for allowing me capture a roll of fate. 

(click on the pic to see it larger)

To change it up a bit, I tried to get an retro feel by tweaking the color as well as adding some grain and blur. I adjusted the saturation down, contrast up and pushed the hue toward yellow.

Here is the pre-tweaked original for comparison.  

Love Thursday

Hey, 2 Love Thursdays in a row. I'm rolling here!

I took this yesterday on our way back from sledding. All that up-and-down-the-hill really got the body temperatures up, and the truck windows fogged up like that steamy scene in Titanic. Not quite as romantic, but we had a great time acting like kids instead of working drones.

A Winter Wonderland (and now I'm done with it!) and #11 (Jan)

When Mother Nature gives you snow, go sledding! This evening we hit the slopes of Forest Park, I use slopes loosely, but seriously, for Indiana, not too bad.

Wipe out by Scott: click on the pic to see it bigger

Wipe out by Steph (and the tailgating tuber): 

Other shots from the outing:

Including a quick portrait (#11) for the 28 for 28 list!

Okay, snow, nice to see you, now go away, and we'll see you next winter!

Love Thursday

Karen, over at http://www.chookooloonks.com/blog/, has been inspiring me daily since I came across her blog. She is an amazing photographer, I especially love her portraits!

Here is my contribution to Love Thursday: 

The beauty of a 50 mm, 1.8 lens

The best 85 bucks I've spent in awhile was on my new 50mm, 1.8 lens and here is why:

The 50mm is perfect lens! 

-Great for portraits since it can reach the lower f-stops meaning higher apertures resulting in shallower depths of field.

-Great for everyday since it doesn't need as much light, meaning faster shutter speeds and less blur.

-Great for travel since it is so light and not nearly as big as most zoom lenses.

-Great for the pocket book since you can get one for uner $100.

So here it is!

The following is an example of the difference between the lens I was primarly using, a 18-55 mm (zoom), 3.5 to5.6, to the new 50 mm (prime), 1.8. 

The two pictures below were both taken with a shutter speed of 1/30 sec and the lowest f-stop the lens would allow, 5.6 for the zoom lens at 50 mm and 1.8 for the prime lens. 

This picture was taken with the zoom lens at approximately 50 mm, 5.6 f-stop, 1/30 sec.

Here is the prime lens at 50mm, 1.8 f-stop, 1/30 sec.

As you can see the ability to reach lower f-stops, which means larger aperatures, with the prime lens allows much more light in at the same shutter speed. 

*In case you were wondering the relationship between f-stops and apertures here it is straight from Complete Digital Photography by Ben Long. "F-stop values are simply the ratio of the focal length of the lens to the diameter of the opening in the aperture." 

Now that's covered, here are a few samples of the 5o mm in action. 

A portrait of Coach.

Notice the shallow depth of field, only his face is in focus.

A bokeh shot.

Notice the blurred light circles in the background.  

Musical bokeh. 

This was created using a tutorial from DIYPhotography.net.

Finally, I feel obligated to mention one more thing about the 50 mm. The auto-focus is much slower than with the 15-55 mm. If you are trying to caputure children and pets this may take some getting use to and some planning ahead on action shots. 

Okay, so that's the tale of my love affair with the 50 mm, 1.8 lens. I must get back to playing with my new toy! 

Earrings from the Light Box

These are some earrings I made over the weekend and then photographed in the new light box. I might list these on Etsy, but I'd like to hear some feed back on them and on the photography. Give me the good and more importantly the bad! 

This first ones were my personal favorite, but the picture is probably my least favorite. The little turquoise bead at the bottom looks odd from this angle. Maybe I'll reshoot these from a little lower vantage point. 

These last ones I also snapped in front of a colored background. Thought the pearls might be lost with the white background...but I think the white background turned out better... maybe it's because this color looks like it needs a weather map projected over it...kinda green screen effect...not good.

Thanks for taking the time to look at my stuff!!

A Light Box on the Cheap

One of the most aggravating aspects of winter, besides the bone chilling temperatures, is the lack of sunlight.  Bad for people, worse for photography. In lieu of moving hundreds of miles south to Key West, I decided to construct a light box on the cheap. I'm also hoping this will help me with my #12, get an Etsy shop up and going, on the 28 for 28 list.

I used this tutorial from the Digital Photography School. The whole set up cost me $2 for 2 pieces of poster board. 

The light box under construction, before the fabric panels

In action. Yes, the lighting is totally jimmied, but it works for on the cheap!

The results:

An anniversary gift from Scott

Dog Treats from Christmas

A little penguin friend

I'm pretty happy with the results! I also took pictures of a few pairs of earrings, I will be posting soon hopefully for some feedback, and eventual posting in my shop. 

Also, here's a link to a fold up version my shutter buddy Amy made over at Drawings in Montion. Much easier to store. :)