Mikayla - Back Yard Portraits

 

Playing around with my Canon 17-85mm lens some more. Pop a bit of fill flash in there and It made for a really nice portrait.

Chris.

Backlit Sweedish Aspen Leaves

 

Playing around with my Canon 17-85mm kit lens that I got with my 50D 4 years ago. I don't use this lens much at all. I didn't really like the results I was getting with it but as my skills as s photographer increase I'm finding uses for all those old lenses I didn't think were any good at the time. I was such a lens snob.

I think I need to play around with this lens exclusively for a few weeks and see what it's real limits are. Not the ones my attitudes had placed on it.

Chris.

Peek A Boo...

 

I see you. And I 'm not going to fly away until you leave.

I was trying to get a photo of one of the swallows coming back to the house and landing on the front. I waited and waited for almost an hour before I got too hot and decided to go in the lake instead.

Swallows - 1
Chris - 0.

It's That Time Of Year Again...

 

Now that the weather is turning hot instead of raining the balloons are starting to come out again.

I love hot air balloons. They look so peaceful just drifting across the city.

One day I will have to ride on one.

Chris.

Are You Shooting For You Or For Others?

Are you shooting for you or for others? That's a powerful question. If you are shooting for what you think other people want, you will never be able to feel satisfied with your photos. In my opinion anyway.

I post on Flickr and as of late, I've noticed that not too many people are commenting on my images or even looking at them. This bothered me for a while and I was unsure of why it was happening. I started to wonder what do people even want to see. Maybe I can photograph that and they would like my images. Turns out I have no idea what people want to see and I'm starting to not care anymore. I have noticed that photos of people are more popular on my stream but only slightly.

I've been very busy lately and have not been participating in any groups. That makes a difference. But still, I have several people that have me on their contact lists and clearly what I'm posting is not good enough for them. But, do I care? Well, not anymore.

I'm tired of trying to please other people with MY art. It's mine and I need to be the one to like it. It should mean something to me. It must resonate with me.

Take this photo for example.

This one means something to me and probably only me. This is my hard hat, gloves and coveralls. I wear these every day at work. They keep me safe. I like the colors in this photo and the contrast of the blue coveralls with the tan gloves and white hard hat. And because I really enjoy my job, this photo makes me feel good. I doubt anyone else will feel that if they don't wear the same gear at work.

So the next time you are out taking some photos take some just for yourself. I'll be you like them a whole lot more than you think.

Chris.

Photos Of Fire

I love taking photos of the fire in the fire pit at the lake. I set myself up with a fast lens, usually my 50mm f/1.8 and a higher ISO so I can get a really fast shutter speed to freeze the flames. Quite often you get some really interesting shapes and designs in the flames. Sometimes you will see a face here and there or snakes or dragons. As long as you look at them in a small size you can still see that shape but usually if you blow it up to say 8x10 or so, you will lose that shape to the holes in the flame that created it in the first place.

But every now and then you will get one like the photo below. See the dog on the right side just above the middle. That face stays there no matter how large I look at it. The really creepy part is that the image looks just like our family dog. You can see a recent photo of her here. We have always wondered why she is so afraid of fire and then she shows up in a photo of flames. If I were superstitious, I would read all kinds of things into this. :)

 

Next time I plan fire photos, I'm going to wonder what the next winning lotto ticket numbers are!

Chris. 

Catastrophic Drive Failure And The Need To Back Up Your Work

On the evening of Thursday May 9th 2013, I had a catastrophic failure with my 3TB external hard drive that I carry everywhere with me and have all my files on. You can already guess where this is going can't you. Now, normally I'm quite obsessive about backing up my files. Photos, home movies, TV shows, documents, etc. I make 2 copies of them besides the one I carry around with me.

Well, since the end of the year I've been "too busy to back up right now, I'll do it later". So I have paid the price. My drive failed and I have lost pretty much everything. I spent 4 days recovering what I could but most of that has turned out to be unusable due to fragmentation. The information is just not all there. I was pretty mad but I can only be mad at myself.

I explain this to friends and family all the time. It's not a matter of "if" your hard drive fails, it's a matter of "when". They all fail eventually and if you don't back up your important files, you will lose them. But do I take my own advice? No, I'm too smart for that. And now I have paid the price. All I managed to recover was the raw home movie videos and some smaller JPGs. What saves me a bit is that our trip to Arizona was on a different drive and I still have photos from when we returned to now on my camera cards. But I have lost 3 months worth of photos including my daughter's 6th birthday.

Am I disappointed? You bet. I could beat myself up about this all day long but it won't bring back these photos and videos. So, have I learned from this? Yes. I have plans for an external raid enclosure with 2 drives at 3TB each. I'll use this simply for backup and storage.

Now I can just try to keep recovering photos as best I can but it's not looking good at all.

Chris.

Nuts & Bolts

 

Chris. 

I'm So Sad And Lonely......

 

Sad and lonely, sad and lonely.

Sorry for the David Lee Roth reference but look how pathetic she looks. We didn't make her go into her kennel. She just went in on her own.

This was taken with my 50mm f/1.8. I've been a little disappointed with my Tamron 18-270mm lately. I believe I've found the limitations of that lens. I'm going to blog about it later this week. Time to save for a 24-70mm f/2.8 me thinks.

Chris. 

Hula Girl

 

She may not keep the hoop going long but she's getting there. A video of this would be quite funny. She must do 100 MPH when she's going. I needed a shutter speed of 1/800 sec to freeze the action!

Chris.