June 30th - Welcome To the Machine

Precision machined surfaces with strobes and gels.
1/250th sec. f/22 iso 400

June 29th - Heavy Traffic

We saw some pretty heavy traffic in our sleepy little town tonight at about 9:40 PM. We counted more than 12 vehicles all told.
1.5 sec. f/11 iso 400

June 28th - Grate Color

Playing with strobes and gels again, this time with a cheese grater.
1/125th sec. f/8 iso 200

June 27th - Ending and Beginning

A friend lost his mother this week, so in honor of her, our theme is "Ending". I wonder if it could be comforting to think of all the beginnings that are here because of her. Does it help to ease the pain? Do the newer beginnings shine any brighter? I'm sorry man - My thoughts are with you.
1/60th sec. f/5.6 iso 200
One strobe playing "Sunlight" directly over the ferns on 1/4 power, another strobe camera-left, on the ground at 1/16 power for a bit of fill.

June 26th - When Opportunity Knocks...

I swung (is that a word?) thru American Camp today as I drove around scouting a location and subject for my photo for this week's theme, and as always, I looked up to see if the eagles were in their nest, and sure enough there was one stuffing twigs here and there. But I had already done the parking lot loop and was on the way out - and besides, I hadn't gone out there intending to shoot eagles, so I drove on. But then after shooting my intended photo, I was kind of pumped to see how good of a shot I could get of that eagle, so I went back there again and waited and waited and waited, but the eagle never came back. I guess I shoulda jumped at the chance when I first saw it.
1/100th sec. f/8 iso 200

June 25th - Shannon

This is Shannon looking much better under the same lights I shot myself under last night. We had fun shooting these as you can see by her expression, and this was one of the quickest portrait shoots I've done yet as everything was still set up from last night.
1/250th sec. f/9 iso 200

June 24th - Over Processed

Long day today working 2 part-time jobs. Home late, not much time for creativity and then my strobes were malfunctioning. I lost about a 1/2 hour trying to figure out what was wrong and then "Poof" they were working again, but it was past midnight, and I didn't have much of a shot. So I over-processed this in photoshop to try to salvage something worth posting after all my troubles. It's gritty. It's coarse. It's late, and I think maybe it looks kinda cool.
1/250th sec. f/7.1 iso 200

June 23rd - Yellow Gelled Mug

Here's one of the better results from a quick run into town this evening with all the gear to attempt an on-location-special-effect-portrait. Just playing with strobes and gels and umbrellas again. Still so much to learn...
1/200th sec. f/5.6 iso 320

June 22nd - Sea Dogs

As I returned home to Friday Harbor this evening I saw this from the car deck on the ferry just as we were coming in to the dock. This image here is the more artistic one, but if you click on it, you'll see a better view of what it actually is - a quartet of Golden Retrievers going on a Sea Cruise. The first view was shot almost directly into the sunlight on the water (obviously) and the 2nd one was shot as they cruised by behind the ferry with the sun to their back.
1/1000th sec. f/16 iso 320

June 21st - A June Wedding

June 21st. The Summer Solstice. Father's Day (this year anyway). And from now on, our anniversary. Yup you read that right. Shannon and I got hitched today. This is our wedding cake. Click on it and see the silly smurfs decorating it.

What a day, we looked outside this morning at the rain pouring down. Flashed to that Alanis Morissette song lyric "It's like rain... on your wedding day...." and we thought naw... not for us! So it cleared up and the weather was beautiful. We went to Turn Island with the family and had a wonderful small ceremony on the beach. And right after we got back home it rained again. So it seemed like it cleared up and was beautiful just for us! (well that's what we like to think).

Eric was our photographer and he might post a photo or two after he gets home.
1/100th sec. f/5 iso 200

June 20th - Guitar Psycho

Very busy day today and no time for a very creative photo. So here's TJ under the harsh light of a single bare strobe playing a song when he looked up at me with an interesting facial expression. This week's theme is "Special Moment" and it looks like this is it.
1/250th sec. f/11 iso 400

June 19th - Ferry at Night

This is the ferry that dropped my kids in beautiful downtown Friday Harbor tonight. It was a gorgeous evening.
2 sec. f/4 iso 400

June 18th - Portraits

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Today I had the pleasure of working with James, Sheryl, Corwin and Julian for some location portrait work. (and I hope I spelled everyone's name right.) We went out to Whale Watch Park and had some good weather and a lot of fun. These are my favorite 2 from the 18 or so keepers.
1,000th sec. f/4.3 iso 200
and
1,250th sec. f/4.3 iso 200

June 17th - Dramatic Light

I wasn't unhappy or depressed when I shot this but I know it looks that way. I was playing around with the strobe trying for some dramatic light and I thought this one turned out pretty dramatic. I bumped the contrast up a bit in Photoshop and took the color saturation way down. Almost black and white, but not quite. Cody says it looks depressing. What do you think? I think it looks like me after a long long day at 2 jobs, trying to think of something creative to photograph.
1/125th sec. f/25 iso 200 - One bare strobe at 1/4 power.

June 16th - Poppy

We have a couple of poppies in the middle of our brown lawn. Never saw them before today. And by the time I could get ready and take a picture they were already closing up for the night. This was shot at about 9:20 PM or so under available light. (twilight).
1/3rd sec. f/4.2 iso 400

June 15th - No Agoraphobia Here

It would do this little fella some good to develop at least some agoraphobia - He's been hanging around out in the middle of our kitchen floor for a while. At one point, Shannon walked by and stepped directly on him (after I shot this photo) and miraculously he wasn't squished because of the arch on the sole of her shoe. He was completely untouched. But you should have seen him jump each time my strobe went off! I don't think he liked the strobe. Interesting because the birds I was shooting in December and January didn't even notice the strobe.
1/125th sec. f/8 iso 400

June 14th - Photowalk

Killing 2 birds with one stone today - First, our theme this week is "Post-processing Effects", so here I am 5 times in one image. Thanks Photoshop! And thanks Cody! Cody was instrumental in helping me do this project today. He clicked the shutter release for me and also kept guard over all my gear as I ran to the Men's room at the port to change clothes. He also helped me line up the different postions for my various poses.
Second, I am excited to announce that I will be leading a Photowalk this summer. I saw a post on Celina's blog recently mentioning a Photowalk. I had no idea what that was, so I checked into it and was quite intrigued. But then I saw that none were offered near Friday Harbor, so I applied to lead one myself and I was accepted. So anyone reading this is welcome and encouraged to join me for this on July 18th. You can read more about it here. It's totally free, but you do need to register.
1/125th sec. f/16 iso 200

June 13th - Sun Dog

It was a beautiful day in paradise again today. Some friends invited us to the beach for a bonfire barbeque and it was a good time. Maybe a little breezy, but we had fun. Chester got to run free on the beach for a while and get some wiggles out. Here he is with all his fluff backlit by the setting sun.
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June 12th - You Can't Kill the Metal

Tone. It's all about getting the right tone from your guitar and amp and whatever effects you have hooked up. This is my cheater box. It's got gobs of cool effects and sound processors. It's all digital so it doesn't sound as good as a classic tube amp, but it's pretty cool for everything it emulates - Surf, Crunch, Tweed, Boogie, Vox, Tipton, Angus, Foxy are all just a few of the presets. Stacked is one of my favorites.
1/20th sec. f/4 iso 400

June 11th - Home Improvement

We're starting on a small project in our house. Nothing too big, we're just going to take out a couple interior walls, replace the kitchen cabinets, tile the floor, put in a couple of bay windows and replace the sliding glass door with french doors. And well then we might replace the living room carpet as the stuff we have now is pretty old and ragged. This photo shows our entry way by the front door and you can see we've removed the coat closet to make the entry larger.
1/250th sec. f/8 iso 400

June 10th - Green Grass

Shaking my head I looked out the window this morning and sarcastically muttered to myself "wow, look at our green lawn...", but then I got thinking about it and realized that it is very green. In fact, so green it's brown! Fresh water is a precious resource on our little island and it could be said that our choice not to "waste" it on watering our lawn is an environmentally responsible (Green) thing to do. So that's why our lawn is brown. Well that, and the fact that we simply couldn't afford the water bills we would have if we watered enough to keep the lawn green.
1/500th sec. f/11 iso 400

June 9th - Algebra

A means to an end. Don't they say you'll never use algebra in your life? You only learn it so that higher math will make sense? Or maybe so you can get into the Statistics class which is a pre-requisite for the nursing program you really want to take... Anyway, this has been Shannon's pastime for the last few months, but now she's finally on her last unit - one test away from being done with it for good!
1/8th sec. f/4 iso 400

June 8th - Interesting Shadow

I realize you're all probably getting tired of me shooting photos of my guitar for my blog, so I thought I'd give you a break tonight. Instead, I'm shooting my wall with an interestingly shaped shadow being cast on it in the sun's last light of the day.
1/100th sec. f/5 iso 200

June 7th - Sunset

Just back from a busy weekend and saw this orange sun setting over the neighbor's house. Worn out, exhausted, and this shot will do for today...
1/250th sec. f/8 iso 200

June 6th - Graduation Day

My niece Kate graduated from High School. She sat in one of these very chairs for the ceremony. I think hers was the fourth from the left. Woo-hoo! Way to go Kate! Congratulations!
1/15th sec. f/4.5 iso 400

January 5th - Ready to Go

We have a big weekend planned. We're packing up to get ready to go, and I don't have time for much of a shot tonight. Here's our truck ready to go.
15 sec. f/4.5 iso 400

June 4th - Too Bad About the Weather....

What a beautiful day in paradise! I love Spring. This was the view tonight down at Spring Street Landing.
1/250th sec. f/8 iso 200

June 3rd - Stratified

I don't think I will ever get tired of photographing my guitar.
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June 2nd - Wall Sconce

I woke up this morning feeling a little - no, make that a LOT - under the weather. So I didn't go to work, and I slept most of the day. I'm finally feeling better this evening but still very, very tired. Having been up and awake for a whopping 5-1/2 hours, I was almost drifting off to sleep again as I lay on the sofa staring at this lamp trying to decide what to shoot for today's photo. I guess I was staring right at it the whole time....
1/100th sec. f/4 iso 400

June 1st - The W/C

Killing two birds with one stone today - I'm working on updating my portfolio of architectural interior photos, and I decided I'd use this one for my blog photo as well, so here it is. I'm working to improve my lighting skills and trying to make the light look natural, and also to minimize the distortion caused by the wide angle lens. So it's a work in progress, but I thought this one looked pretty good.
1/60th sec. f/10 iso 200

May Calendar

Here's my calendar for May.