Image of the year

Typically, we start the new year with a resolution. Instead, I'm ending the old year with my personal favorite image from 2009. After reading LeggNet's Digital Capture blog post about his year-end tradition of looking back and decided I should start the same.

What I love about this image is the sense of wonder it produces. Who is this floating girl? Why is there a dog? How is she floating? This was also one of my first images where I set out to create a particular idea and ended up with something even better than I had pictured in my mind. Previously, my ideas had usually fallen far short of what was in my head.

Hope you have a great 2010, see you in a year!

More Costumes, Dancing

This past weekend was the last weekend for the Dickens Fair, and the December Gaskell Ball. We spent most of Saturday dancing; it was wonderful! I purchased both CDs from Brassworks and I've had various Victorian dance pieces in my head for the last few days.

Jessie made a beautiful new blue day dress:



we discovered a T-Rex:





and danced some lovely waltzes at Fezziwig's:



Later that evening we went to the Gaskell Ball. Jessie wore one of her red ball gowns and looked absolutely lovely:



Next week, I promise a blog post about something other than costumes. The topic? Moving into our new cottage!

Waltzing

It's been a long time since I posted anything here! Since my last post, I've been busy with a variety of waltzes:

First up, the Gaskell Ball in October. Jessie and I had a blast dancing in our "schmancy dress" (her words) ! I have a set of photos from the event up on flickr



Fast-forward a few weeks to the Dickens Christmas Fair with more fancy outfits, and more dancing. The fair is a lot like a renaissance faire, but with Victorian England stylings. More photos are up on flickr. We're going back in a couple of weeks, so look forward to more photos (I'll try to actually post something here).



And for a waltz of a different kind... Jessie and I started a daily photo project just after my last blog post here! In our Photo Waltz project, each of us takes a photo every day, and we post them side-by-side on the Photo Waltz site. We don't share our photos with each other until they're on the site, so the results are always a surprise. Every day, we rotate places, first her photo's on the left, then mine; our photos waltz through time. Here's one of my favorite pairings:

Headshot retouching

Photo retouching, before/after:

Costumed Outings

Earlier this month, Jessie and I got all dressed up and headed out to the Sacramento Gold Rush Days, and then the PEERS Space Cowboy's Ball. We had a great time! Rather than attempt to bore you with text, I'll just share the pics:

Knapp's Castle Roundup

Has it really been a month since I posted anything here? I bought a D700 at the beginning of the month, and I've been quite enjoying it. I've been up to Knapp's Castle several times this month... twice for photo shoots.

First, Patty, Theresa, and I hiked into the castle around 11 PM and stayed through 1 AM. We first set up at the ruins of the old wall:



Then, the fog rolled in and we moved to the arch. It's a several second exposure... I don't know how Patty managed to stay so still for so long!



A couple of weeks later I took Jessie up to Knapp's castle for a shoot in her lovely red ball gown. The sunset through the La Brea fire made for some amazing backdrops!

Accidental Diptych

These two photos ended up above each other in my flickr stream in an amusing fashion:

Texturing

My friend Jessie convinced me to try my hand at "texturing." I combined these two images:





To get:



Overall, I like the tones and the vertical lines, but I'm not a big fan of the rivets across Melody's face.

I got the aluminum image from grungetextures.com. Their images are free for non-commercial use, as long as you give credit. Lots of good stuff there, I'll have to try this more.

Before / After

Here's a quick before and after retouch post, using a neat javascript utility I found:

Stagecoach Road Photoshoot

On Sunday, Melody and I took a quick trip to Stage Coach Rd. off of route 154. We captured several great portraits and I'm still post-processing them, but here's a quick preview.

This was my first real opportunity to use all of my newly acquired AlienBees gear (hooray for Craigslist). I decided to experiment with the beauty dish as a key light and use the softbox for fill. The first shot here was actually a candid, but I liked it and decided to post-process it anyway. It was quite warm out, so we were both sucking down a lot of water, and I happened to catch Melody being adorable in the process:



If you look at the large image, you'll see the telltale doughnut-shaped catchlight from the beauty dish in her eyes. Here's what the setup looked like from a few steps back (click through to the image to see some notes about what all of the equipment is):



We also played with the idea of wind in her hair. Since there wasn't much wind (and if there had been my lights would have toppled quickly), we faked it. She pulled her hair down and put her head to the side, we counted to three, and then she tossed her head up and to the side, causing her hair to fly to the left. Ten or so takes of this later, et voila:

Last night I attended the 90th Annual Santa Barbara Hunter-Jumper Show with my friend Violet. She competed in a number of the events this week, but last night we were just watching the competition. I was struck at how quiet the event was. When the horse was close, you could hear it breathing, but there was little noise otherwise. Once the jumpers finished the course, the crowd erupted into applause, breaking the silence.

It's a good thing I don't do sports photography very often, otherwise I'd be tempted to buy the Nikkor 70-200 ƒ/2.8; who am I kidding, I want the lens anyway!

Fireworks

This evening I went to Girsh Park to see the Goleta Fireworks, and I happened to get a couple of photos of Patty:

New flash!

I picked up a couple of AlienBees flashes from Craigslist this weekend on my way to Jessie's graduation party in Sacramento. I haven't had much of an opportunity to use them, but we did get a couple of shots in the pool at the party:





I also got a beauty dish, which I'm very excited to use more of:

Austin: Inner Space Cavern

Denman and I visited Inner Space Cavern today. It was in the mid-sixties inside, but around 90% humidity, so it wasn't much better than the 100-degree temperatures outside! Quite a bit of fun though. I've discovered that getting good photos inside a cave really requires a tripod, so I'm only sharing one with the world:

Austin: Hike to the Capitol

Today Denman and I took a six mile hike up a creek bed to the Capitol building. Along the way we stopped at Whole Foods and had a fantastic smoothie and lunch. We took a bus home since neither of us really wanted to hike in the 90+ degree heat.

Austin, TX

I'm in Austin, TX for the weekend, visiting my friend Denman. It's HOT here, and I'm really not used to the heat.



We visited the Zilker Botanical Gardens:



and the Umlauf Sculpture Garden:

Now what?

Now that SoFoBoMo is complete, what's next? With SoFoBoMo, I had a set of ideas and a goal to push for. Now I feel directionless. I have some vague ideas for some more portrait work, but I'd really like to continue my set of magic and mystery.

Perhaps inspiration will hit suddenly. Perhaps I'll have to dig through mythology or fairy tales or fiction. Or, perhaps you, my fine reader(s?), have an idea? Please share!

Of Light and Life -- SoFoBoMo '09 Complete!

Last night, I finished my SoFoBoMo 2009 book, titled:

Of Light and Life

A big thanks to Melody, Meka, Christy, Ryan, Dore, Patty, and Katie. for modeling. Thank you Jessica, Christy, and Melody for helping carry equipment. Also to my readers Ian F. and Beth S. for encouraging me. And finally a tip to Mike for the ghostscript resizing tip!