February Calendar

Here's my February Calendar.

February 28th - Duelin' Guitars

Yep. Guitars again. This time 2 in 1. They're duelin'! Or Dual Leading. Or something like that.
1/2 sec. f/9 iso 400

February 27th - Stripes

Lots going on today - not much time to set up a shot and be creative, but you can't have that all the time, huh? However this is a photo of something I'm going to be getting creative with in the future. I sent away for a sample gel swatch book. These are color gels for putting over my strobes to either correct for bad lighting conditions, or to do some creative special effects, so as time permits in the coming months, you should be seeing more from these.
1/13th sec. f/29 iso 400 - Lens on Macro setting

And here's the Great Twinkie Experiment - Episode IV: A New Depression

February 26th - Li'l Red Wagon

We had a little bit of snow last night. Maybe about one inch here at our house. Didn't take long for it to begin to melt away this morning. I went out in the backyard to the gravel area where the swingset used to be, and got this image of the Li'l Red Wagon covered in snow.
1/500th sec. f/8 iso 400 - Single strobe camera-right on 1/4 power

February 25th - Light 'em Up

I wanted to do a variation on the theme of yesterday's post, but I need some props that I wasn't able to get ahold of yet, so that'll be coming soon. In the meantime, here's another one with reflections and a little more color. Pretty much the same setup as yesterday but without the 2nd strobe (on the left) and without the foam-core.
1/500th sec. f/5.6 iso 400

February 24th - On the Rocks

I've had a shot like this in mind for quite a long time, maybe over a year but never had the "ice" to do it with. Then at class this morning, I noticed a bucket full of tempered glass fragments from a broken display case. They said I could take all I wanted as it was going to be thrown away anyway, so I grabbed some and here's today's treat. I wish I had a cherry to put on top!
1/500th sec. f/11 iso 200

>>>Edit - Here's the setup I used for this shot. Thanks for the interest!

February 23rd - SBB CFF FFS

Looking around the living room for something to shoot without spending TOO much time tonight... I gotta put in some family time once in a while too ya know... and my eyes fell on our souvenir from Switzerland. We spent 2 wonderful weeks in Switzerland last Summer with our friend Maurice and his folks. It was the best vacation ever. We loved the train system so much we had to bring home this clock. The letters SBB CFF FFS are the initials for "Swiss Railway System" in German, then French, then Italian - the 3 official languages of Switzerland.
1/2 sec. f/4.2 iso 200

February 22nd - Chester and Me

Today's photo assignment is "Perspective". I went out and shot a lot of photos and actually got one I like better than this, but I think this one lives up to the assignment better so I'm posting this one. I got a little crazy with post-processing. Originally I was trying to make the brighter areas outside of the building a bit darker to match the light inside, but I made a mistake with the layer mask. The more I looked at it, the more I thought it looked kinda cool, so here's my over-processed highlights perspective image for today.
1/100th sec. f/5 iso 200

February 21st - Twinkie: Unwrapped

And now, back by popular demand (see comments from yesterday's post), the Great Twinkie Experiment!
3 weeks and still going strong. It is showing almost no visual signs of giving up it's epic battle against microbes, spores, oxygen, moisture, and whatever else would cause a lesser food to decompose within mere days. This is one tough cookie ...er sponge or whatever it is. However it is a bit more solid than it was - You could play hockey with it now. Or if you played catch in the backyard and missed, it could break a window. See additional close ups here.

February 20th - The Lamp in the Amp

A few weeks ago I did a photo of my new lamp showing the room reflected in it. Today I'm doing a close-up of my guitar amp and the new lamp is reflected in it. As well as part of the room. So the lamp and the amp could be heading toward becoming part of a series called Reflections... Or not - We'll have to see what happens. 1/25th sec. f/4.5 iso 800.

And if anyone out there is waiting for the Great Twinkie Experiment... well it looks just like it did last week. I'm not sure how long I can continue shooting the same old unchanging preservative laden Twinkie. But let me know with a comment if you want to see it at Week 3 out of the wrapper, and I'll shoot it tomorrow when I find some time.

February 19th - White Balance

Thought I would do another experiment. Again, this is one I've thought of doing for a long time. Good thing I'm doing this blog... I'm finally getting some stuff done! Anyway, this is a little hand puppet Shannon picked up somewhere for a halloween thing we did several years ago. I think he was the star of some animated movie or something. I use him now to dial in lighting angles before I jump in for self-portraits or bother a family member for a photo. Only problem is, one of his shoulders is HUGE! Anyway, I've always wanted a visual reference of what the different White Balance settings on my camera will do to an image, so here it is. 1/125th sec. f/9 iso 800. Single strobe bounced off ceiling.

February 18th - Star Trails

I've wanted to do a shot like this for a long time. The noise reduction feature on my camera takes about as long as the exposure goes, so this one shot took quite a while. 15 minute exposure + 15 minutes noise reduction = 30 minute image! But it was informative. I'll do this again with something else in the frame to give the image more interest. A tree, a building, a mountain lake... but for now I've gotten my feet wet with this type of shot. 15 minutes f/8 iso 400

February 17th - Hitting the Books

What a busy day today was... I started a new class with Skagit Valley College - this is my binder full of course study materials. It's huge! Then went to Sammamish and back. That's pretty much an all day trip in itself. Just got home off the late boat. 1/25th sec. f/4.2 iso 800

February 16th - Off-Road Biking

Any day spent riding a mountain bike out on old logging roads is a good day. We did just that today, although it was only 1 hour. But still, what a good time! 1/400th sec. f/4 iso 800

February 15th - Playin' Guitar

OK, I know... we're a bunch of guitar freaks here. So there will likely be lots of guitar photos this year. Didn't have a lot of time tonight, so I just snapped this one real quick. This is Courtney playing some Fade to Black by Metallica. \m/
1/200th sec. f/11 iso 800

>>>Edit - Oh and Whoops.. it seems I jumped the gun yesterday with the theme shot. Today was supposed to be the "Pet Peeve" one. I did get the memo, I guess I just didn't read it carefully enough...

February 14th - The Whole Fam Damily

Today's assignment is "Pet Peeve". As in singular. As in ONE. I'm like "as if". Really? I have to pick ONE? How do I narrow it down from such a large field of worthy contenders? Don't get me wrong, there's a million things I DO like, but sometimes it's too easy to see all the things that drive me crazy. So easy in fact, that it's hard to pick just one. But Shannon helped me narrow it down... Ever go into the kitchen to cut up an apple and you turn around and there's no room for you? 1/5th sec. f/14 iso 800. Available Light.

February 13th - Earth and Moon

Just messin' around in the living room tonight and came up with this. It didn't turn out quite how I wanted it, but I added "stars" with photoshop and thought it looked kind of fun. So this is my shot for today. 1/500th sec. f/4.2 iso 400.

And Part 3 of the great Twinkie experiment can be viewed here.

February 12th - The Spectator

World, meet Cody; Cody, meet the world. There, now you all know each other. This is Cody watching a movie on his computer screen, one of his favorite pastimes. My money is on him becoming a film critic some day. 1/500th sec. f/8 iso 800. Softbox camera right with strobe on 1/32

February 11th - LaFarge Barge Landing

Today at around 4:00 or so it looked like we were going to have an awesome sunset, so I packed up my camera, jumped on my bike and went down to Jackson's Beach to see if I could get some good pixels. As I waited for the spectacular show, I busied myself shooting this and shooting that, while the few scattered clouds fizzled out and disappeared. By the time the sun was setting the clouds were gone and the sunset wasn't nearly what I had hoped for, so I was a little discouraged. But when I got back home and looked through all the other shots, this one popped out at me so I'm posting it instead. This is the old LaFarge barge landing at Jackson's Beach. 1/250th sec. f/5.6 iso 200

February 10th - Smoke and Mirrors

Man it's nice to be a grown up! I can play with glass, matches and candles! 1/500th sec. f/8 iso 800. Strobe at 1/32 camera left.

February 9th - Happy 100th!

My town is 100 years old today. February 9th, 1909 Friday Harbor was officially incorporated. There are celebrations going on and lots to do this year. I thought it fitting to take a picture from the harbor. 1/400th sec. f/6.3 iso 800

February 8th - Account Past Due

Today I'm killing 2 birds with one stone. I submitted my first ever entry into a Photosig Monthly Assignment and this is it. Because February is the shortest month, the assignment is to make a photo that illustrates "shortness". After thinking about it for a while I thought about my current financial situation and so this is what I came up with. I'm thinking maybe a lot of people can relate to this sort of thing these days, unfortunately.  1/400th sec. f/4 iso 800

February 7th - Film Noir

Another stakeout - this time at the Fleabag motel just off of 47th and Lafayette. 2:15 AM and nothing's moving but the cockroaches. That dame Betty told me Louie always brings his big players here, but I'm beginning to think she's playing me like dime store fiddle. I saw Rudy taking her out of Frankie's Diner and over to the Club last night and from the look of things, she was enjoying his company about like I enjoy a 2 day hangover. He probably told her she'd go swimming with cement overshoes if anyone caught on to their game. But that poor kid's not my problem anymore - I'm angling for a bigger fish and Louie is next on the food chain.

>>>Film Noir is our assigned theme for today's photo so here's my submission. 1/250th sec. f/8 iso 400

February 6th - Open Wide...

"...and this won't hurt a bit... well maybe just a little... "

Today was an off-island day again for me to go visit my periodontist in Burlington. Loads of fun. I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't gone. Actually it wasn't all that bad. I just have bad gums is all. So they require extra care. After all the scraping and digging, my hygienist let me shoot this photo to show you all how my day went.  1/60th sec. f/3.5 iso 800

And for those of you chomping at the bit to see the Great Twinkie Experiment Part Two, here it is... (If you're new to this blog, take a look at last Friday's post to see what's going on :)

OK, so as promised, here is our next installment of Science In Action! The Great Twinkie Experiment. Our Twinkie has now been out of the wrapper for 7 full days. And it's been sitting out in the open, no cover or tissue or anything at all protecting it. Just it all by itself exposed to the great indoors. The scary thing is, it doesn't look any different. In fact, I'll bet some of you are thinking I used the same photo as last week, but I promise, this is a new photo shot this afternoon. Hmmmm..... maybe I should have put an old piece of bread next to it for comparison. Anyway, that's it for our show today boys and girls. Tune in next week when you'll hear Tim say "Ugh! Even microbes won't eat it!"

February 5th - What Photoshop Might See

Ever wonder how Photoshop sees things? This is the view from inside my monitor looking out. Great, from now on I'm gonna probably feel like I'm being watched whenever I work in Photoshop ;-) 

Note: This is my version of someone else's idea I saw on photosig, so not my original idea. But it was fun to emulate! 1/10th sec. f/3.5 iso 400

February 4th - Biker Babe

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood Sunny San Juans! So nice that we took the dog for a run around Briggs Lake. It's our favorite off-road biking place on the island. It's property abuts the Mitchell Hill DNR land and we can easily spend all day exploring all the trails. This is Shannon and Chester coming out from under a fallen tree. 1/100th sec. f/5 iso 400.

February 3rd - The New Lamp

Funny how if you wait long enough and just don't over analyze it, the image will come to you... So far I've usually not had too much trouble coming up with a photo to post here daily (knock on wood), although it is only February... but tonight I was having no inspiration at all and really just wanting to pick up my book (see yesterday's post), when I looked up and saw the light, pun intended. This is the lamp my folks dropped off today to give my office more light than the little fixture in the ceiling. If you look closely in the reflection, you can see Friday's twinkie experiment! 1/15th sec. f/4.2 iso 800

February 2nd - Six More Weeks

Phil, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow today so that means six more weeks of Winter. Time to warm up some tea and enjoy a good book. Either that or go play some WoW. 1/5th sec. f/5.6 iso 800.

February 1st - Sweet Ol' Chevy

Stopped to use an ATM today and saw this old beauty in the parking lot. I knew I didn't have a lot of time today for photos so I whipped out my camera and got a few snaps of her. Good thing too, because here it is just about 11:00 and I haven't shot anything else so here's my photo for today. Whoo hoo!! Made it all the way through January! 1/160th sec. f/6.3 iso 400