Knock knock

I didn't let him in.



Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 28-105mm f/3.5-5.6
105mm - ISO 1600
1/30s - f/4

I know, I know, never play with matches. I bounced a flash off of a silver reflector angled down over the box of matches to give it a some directional light. Bouncing a flash straight up gives you a nice even fall of light over the whole top of your subject, but sometimes it is nice to mix it up and allow the shadows to come out and play. The angle of the bounce allowed the matches furthest from the camera to stay shadowed.



Nikon D90
Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6
85mm - ISO 200
1/100s - f/5.6

Nikon SB900
Zoomed to 105mm
1/16 power f/5.6
Bounced off of overhead reflector

The smell of charcoal late in the evening

My battered old set of drawing pencils hasn't been used in awhile, but I think I might just have to try my hand at some sketching tomorrow. I love how deeply the colors are saturated in this image. I bounced my flash off of the wall to camera left, just to enhance the ambient side lighting.



Nikon D90
Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6
75mm - ISO 200
1/20s - f/5.6

Nikon SB900
1/16 power
75mm zoom
Bounced to camera left

Ride 'em cowboy!

I love this decorative metal sculpture of cows chasing cowboys chasing other cows.



Nikon D90
Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6
105mm - ISO 200
1/15s - f/5.6

Carnival!

Do you remember the first weekend after school started? Summer's last hurrah before the first full week of classes, and the inevitable surrender to another long year of school? The carnival by the mall looked like a great place to spend it.



Nikon D90
Nikor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6
98mm - ISO 400
1/20s -f/5.6

Macro magnets

It's been a long week, so my ambitious photo plans were downgraded to another "fun with rare earth magnets" night. Better luck tomorrow!



Canon 5D Mark II
Promaster 70-300mm f/3.5-5.6
1/50s - f/5.6
300mm - ISO - 500

Canon 580EXII
1/4 power
28mm

Candle in the "wind"

I guess I'm just hoping for fall, but I had a candle burning tonight. I always like seeing the separation between the molten wax and the still-solid part below.

Canon 5D Mark II
Promaster 70-300mm f/3.5-5.6
300mm - ISO 500
1/50s - f/5.6

Peach

I was driving home from youth group tonight and saw that the color of the sunset exactly matched the light on the church sign. Pretty cool.



Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 24-105mm f/3.5-5.6
1/15s - f/4
105mm - ISO 200

Splish splash

It was 95 degrees when I was coming home from the gym at 9:00 tonight, so this fountain really caught my eye. It was lit from above, and the water just glowed.




Nikon D90
105mm - ISO 400
1/6s - f/5.6

Fish sticks anyone?

So tonight I caught the kitten reading under the covers after his bedtime...just like his mommy, I guess.



Actually, we were teasing him with Cory's new set of "fish sticks," which are pretty awesome thin, flexible rods which are used to help running (or "fishing") wire through walls. It has a light on the end of it which seemed to hypnotize him.

Nikon D90
Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6
105mm - ISO 400
1/30s - f/7.1

I'm so...blue-who-who...blue-who-who...blue-who-who-who!

Sorry, if you haven't watched Veggie Tales, you might not get that. If you have, I'm sorry if it is now stuck in your head!



Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 24-105mm f/3.5-5.6
1/30s - f/5.6
300mm - ISO 200

Canon 580EXII
1/4 power
Bounced up and backwards

Surprise!

These surprise lilies, also known as naked ladies, are one of my favorite sights each July or August. The leaves appear during the summer growing season, but the flowers themselves pop up with little or no warning mid-summer.

My favorite memory is our late dog, Maddux, who walked outside one day and was quite shocked by a big pink flower which hadn't been there the day before.



Nikon D90
Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6
105mm - ISO 200
1/200s - f/13

A little wind

It was just a little bit windy last night in town.



Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 18-105mm
1/1000 - f/4.0
105mm - ISO 1000

Parallelism

I wasn't feeling too great tonight, so when I went outside and saw the cat laying amidst the ladders on top of our SUV, I decided that I had found my picture.



Nikon D90
28mm - ISO 200
1/40s - f/4

Nikon SB900
TTL
Bounced up to sky

Faster than a speeding...

...magnet? I wish I could tell you this was a long exposure capture of a ball rolling across a table, but in reality it is a long string of small round magnets stuck together in a long curve. Could you tell? Did I fool you? Silly macro tricks!



Canon 5D Mark II
Promaster 70-300mm f/3.5-5.6
1/25s f/5.6
300mm - ISO 200

Canon 580EXII
TTL
Bounced to ceiling

Meal planning

If you have been reading my blog for awhile now, you may remember the shot of the kitchen wallpaper. To cover some of it up, I put up a bulletin board, planning to cover it with fun pictures. Somewhere along the way it became a recipe board instead, and is a good source of inspiration while the time comes to plan meals.



Nikon D90
Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6
70mm - ISO 200
1/125s - f/5.3

Swim, swam swum

I have taken up swimming again, for the first time in about 15 years. Yowzer, it is hard! And, since a girl needs her accessories, I had to get a new cap and pair of goggles, in pink, of course! The goggles are mirrored for outdoor use, which provided a wonderful surface for the water droplets.



Nikon D90
Nikkor 50mm f/1.8
50mm - ISO 200
1/125s - f/1.8

Nikon SB900
1/16 power
50mm - f/1.8

But where are all the people?

When I was little I went to a summer day camp at a friend's church and learned a little story that goes something like this: "Here's the church..." *clasp hands together* "and here is the steeple..." *extend index fingers and press them together* "Open up the doors..."*reverse clasp and turn hands over* "...and see all the people!" *waggle fingers*

An unfortunate miscommunication caused me to miss the kids that ought to be in this picture playing in the awesome jungle gym. So while there is certainly a lot going on here, it lacks the most important part of a lot of photographs - the human element. Here's hoping for a lot of happy kids next time!



Nikon D90
Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6
18mm - ISO 200
1/20s - f/4.5

Rushing to the rescue

This is one of those pictures that illustrates what NOT to do. Namely, don't use a slow shutter speed on a fast-moving object! At 1/20s, it was fast enough so I could hand-hold the shot with no camera shake, but not fast enough to stop the action. This picture could have been a lot darker (from a faster shutter) and still looked better than it does now.



Nikon D90
Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6
24mm - ISO 200
1/20s - f/5

I've seen better days

Broken windows always fascinate me for some reason. These in particular caught my eye because the light refracting through the wired glass of the window on the left picked up the parking lot lights and changed the color of the reflections so that it very closely mirrored the color of the bricks.



Nikon D90
Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6
80mm - ISO 200
1/4s - f/5.3

Mmmm...tacos

I have to say, this is a pretty good way to build a taco. Put the sour cream on one of the inner walls of the taco shell - so you get some in every bite! Don't say I never taught you anything!



Nikon D90
Nikkor 50mm f/1.4
50mm - ISO 200
1/50s - f/1.8

An apple a day

My friend Abby went to a class last night and learned about the latest craze in baking - Cake Pops! They are possibly the only thing cuter than cupcakes. They are basically round balls of cake dipped in decorative chocolate and then decorated. More information here. I stuck it in a green flower pot, isolated it with my macro lens (the black background is actually a bunch of camera equipment, but thanks to the magic of macro, you can't tell!) and shot it super fast before I devoured it.

Canon 5D Mark II

Promaster 70-300mm f3.5-5.6

200mm ISO 250

1/40s f/4.5

What's the story, morning glory?

I love morning glories. They might be my favorite flowers in the entire world. I start them from seed indoors every February, and the vines and leaves grow for SIX MONTHS until the flowers finally start blooming in August. It is always such a reward after the long, hot summer. Each blossom starts to wilt by the middle of the morning, and if the day is hot, the spent blooms will drop off by the middle of the evening. The heart-shaped leaves are great too, but the flowers, in their short-lived glory, are spectacular. They are hardy too - I didn't even plant them in this pot, but when the seedlings appeared, I stuck a piece of lattice in the back and the vines went up, up and away!

Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 50mm f1.4
50mm - ISO 100
1/50s- f/2.8

Earth angel

I know I have already done a picture like this, but this piece of wire art was just perfect for it. I focused on the center of the piece, then zoomed out. You can get a different effect by setting your focus to the edges of the picture instead of the center. Either way, it is something to have fun with.

Nikon D90

Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6

38-80mm ISO 200

1/15s f/8

The end of another weekend

Well, another summer weekend is over *sigh*. Driving home from a cookout with some dear friends, we had an amazing view of the setting sun. The actual sunset, with its dramatic, flashy oranges, pinks and purples was off to camera right, but I was attracted to the layers of blues from the clouds on the outer edges of the action.

Nikon D90

Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6

25mm ISO 200
1/2500s f/4

My day

So I spent the whole day watching movies on Lifetime...

Just kidding. But when I saw the edge of a copy of The Ladies Home Journal, I knew I had to snap it.

Canon 5D Mark II
Promaster 70-300mm f3.5-5.6
300mm - ISO 400
1/60s- f/5.6

Canon 580EXII
TTL

Billions and billions

I have always loved this McDonald's sign downtown. I'm sure it is historic, but I didn't find any information on it during a quick Google search. Much like last night's photo, I used a tight aperture to keep the details crisp.

Nikon D90

Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6

105mm ISO 400

1/13s f/18

A capitol night

One of the side effects of being a photographer is an increased sensitivity (and irritability) toward lighting conflicts. The Capitol building is lit up with some seriously yellow lights at night, but the statue on top is being hit with bright white flood lights. It certainly stands out that way!

This shutter speed/aperture combination perfectly lit up the building yet preserved the detail of the scene. I started with twice the aperture, but I wasn't getting the crispness that I wanted in the architecture. Sometimes we make the mistake of shooting wide open in low light, but that often results in a loss of detail.

Nikon D90

Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6

50mm ISO 400

1/1.3s f/10

Swimming in a strange sea

When I was little, I loved to doodle all over my school notebooks. I'm not sure what I was going for with this white-out turtle, but when I narrowed my focus on it, the foreground became a seaweed jungle for it to swim through. That is the fun of selective focus - it can turn a distracting part of the scene into something that enhances your subject.

Nikon D90

Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6

105mm ISO IEV

1/30s f/5.6

SB900
1/4 power
105mm zoom
Bounced off ceiling

Backed into a corner

I was running short on time tonight and decided to play with my macro lens. This is a walking stick leaning up against the corner of two walls. The shallow depth of field makes the background very interesting, and helps draw your eyes to the middle of the picture.

Canon 5D Mark II
Promaster 70-300mm f3.5-5.6
180mm - ISO 400
1/60s- f/4.5

Canon 580EXII
TTL
Bounced up to ceiling

A fresh juicy bite

Nothing says "summer" like a big slice of watermelon. I decided to stage these slices isolated on white, to allow the colors to really shine. Then I nuked it with my flash on 1/4 power bounced off the ceiling. I put an orange gel on my flash to play nicely with the overhead lights of the room I was in, which is why the lighting is even throughout with no strange color casts.

Nikon D90

Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6

42mm ISO 1EV

1/30s f/4.8

Nikon SB900
1/4 power
42mm zoom
Bounced off ceiling