Black and White Sky

Fall Portraits

A couple of my favorites from some portraits I did last month.

Two From Today

Reece

Fall Driveway

Blue Skies

Greenhouse trip

Kenzie's class went on a field trip to a local greenhouse yesterday. Here are shots of some of the goodies they had.

Black and White

Green Jellyfish

This turned out so good, I had to post it on both blogs. It's a glow-in-the-dark jellyfish encased in a lightbulb-shaped chunk of glass. To take a photo, I went to one of the only rooms in our house where light doesn't get in (being our guest bathroom), and did an 8-second exposure at ISO 400 to get this image. It was sitting on the back of a porcelain toilet, which gave a nice reflection effect that was completely accidental.

Painting with Light

Here's something cool to try ... painting with light. You basically take a flashlight or some other type of small light into a dark room, set your camera on a tripod (or in the case of this photo, a dresser), then leave the shutter open for an extended period of time while moving the light. You may have to tinker with the settings a little (film speed or f-stop) but the long exposure will leave a trail of light wherever you move it.

In this photo, the shutter is open for 10 seconds, and I tried to make a poor attempt to "write" my daughter's name (Kenzie). Actually trying to get something legible is a little more difficult, because you have to write backwards, right to left because the camera is seeing it from the other side.

Sprint has a series of commericals that use this effect, and there's a neat video on YouTube showing how it was done. You can find it here.

Sunset

Spillway

Below the dam at Grayson Lake.

Flowers after the rain

This is a crop from the flowers photo that's on my 365 Photo Project blog.

Back of the Van

For some reason, this composition just struck me as interesting as I sat in traffic this morning.

What's this?

Anyone know what this is a photo of?

Morning Dew

Flowers

Simpsons Marketing

It's the KDMC marketing department in Simpsons form, thanks to simpsonizeme.com. I'm the fourth one from the right.

Spiders

We seem to have an abundance of these things around our house in the late summer.

A simple background solution

I had to shoot some detail shots of devices used in heart treatments, and I was looking for something a little different than just arranging them on a table. That's when I noticed the desktop background on my monitor is a simple solid blue, and thought that may make a good backlit background. To prevent glare, I put a flash over my shoulder and bounced it off the white ceiling, and the results were pretty neat.

Old-Time Medical Equipment

From back in the good old days when syringes were reusable and gonorrhea was kept in a jar.

Lightning

The Fuji F10 has a neat little feature to it that makes catching lightning shots a little easier. In one of its multiple exposure modes, you can capture up to 40 bursts, but the camera only records the last three after you left off the shutter button. (If you let it go for all 40 frames, it gives you frames 38, 39 and 40, then stops). This makes things a little easier, because you can put it on this mode, hold the shutter down, and when you see a bolt in the viewfinder, you can then let off.

Bug update II

Well, the caterpillar that had made my garage door its home hatched the other day, and I think the bottom photo of the butterfly is actually him, because he was struggling to fly at first like he had just come out of the cocoon, and he looks like photos of butterflies I have seen that are supposed to form from that type of caterpillar.

Bug update

The caterpillar is starting to enter the larva stage. He's still hanging in there on my garage door.

Weird Bug

This deserves to go on both blogs. I have no idea what this thing is. It was on my garage door yesterday evening. If anyone knows what this is, please post it in the comments.

UPDATE: The folks at the University of Kentucky Department of Entomology say it's a Spicebush Swallowtail (Papilio Troilus) and pointed me to this page. This caterpillar is usually bright green but turns yellow for only a few days before it pupates. Its false eyespots and other markings help protect it by making it look like a small snake to predators (especially when it is green).

Slow Posting

I haven't been posting much on here lately, because most of the posts have been over at my other blog that I'm trying to update every day. (Or at least take a photo every day and post them whenever I get a chance).

Flower details

The Ocean

ISO 200/ f29/ 2.0 second exposure with ND 8 filter.

Swimmers

Japanese Beetle

Not to try and blatantly copy this post by Rick Lee, but I saw this Japanese beetle in my yard yesterday evening and couldn't help but try my own pic of one. We always referred to these guys as June bugs, but I guess those are actually something different.

World's Nicest Parking Garage

We were at Miami (Ohio) University for a swim meet this weekend, which is a beautiful campus. The building in the background is actually a parking garage. You can see more pics here.

Maggie

A very big, yet very friendly, dog.

Silver Surfer

A cool display in the lobby of the Pullman Square theater in Huntington, W.Va.