Back to Work

Although the holidays are not yet over, it's back to work for Scott and me. Yesterday was quite lonely with not many people around, but I got a ton of work completed and plenty of things prepared for today.

Needless to say, I had to take a picture of Scott's hand and also had to make a witty remark about "I better get a shot of you working!" Heh.

I'm probably going to take a dive into natural lighting and black and white for a while. I'd like to see just how steady my hand is now, but I'm a little apprehensive as I know that I'm not as steady as I was 10 years ago. Higher films speeds and grain will be my two new friends I'm sure. We'll just have to see.

Mom leaves tomorrow. I'm sure I'll miss her before she steps onto the plane. What a great lady.

Christmas Morning

Merry Christmas All!

Of course, our son was the first person awake this morning, patiently awaiting everyone else. As usual, none of us had showered yet and looked like we just rolled out of bed. (Which we had.) Needless to say, we do not look our best in the pictures which were taken. That will be different tonight when we sit down for dinner.

Our son is at that age where he gets to hand out the presents. (And of course the duty to throw away all the trash afterwards falls on him as well.) So, he presented gifts to each of us, and save the majority of his for last. And there was a present under the tree of which he was not aware, so that was a good time.

Naturally, I had to take a set up photograph, which is posted here. I'm glad I have an outlet for the artistic side of my personality, which doesn't get to rear its head that often.

I wish everyone the best of days and make sure you tell your family members that you love them very much.

Christmas Eve

Here we are near the end of another year with much on which to reflect. So many things have happend this year that we definitely qualify as having "life changing event." The kind that are supposed to cause tons of stress and make bad things happen. (At least according to "them." You know... those people who always say everything. "Well, 'they' say 'blah, blah, blah.'")

The company for which both my wife and I worked was sold. I predicted my division (Technology) would be outsourced and I started looking for a new job. Then I turned out to be correct about the outsourcing and luckily I had found a new job, 12 hours and two states away from home. So, we decided to move and I left to spend a month-and-a-half by my self down in a creepy hotel in Round Rock, Texas. We put our house of almost 9 years on the market. And, in one whirlwind of a weekend, close on our sale, pack up the moving vans, attend a going away party, wake up at 5:30 am and make it to Austin by 6:00 pm to buy a bedroom set because the sale ended that night, close on our house purchase and then promptly lay down and sleep heavily at a much nicer hotel. The next week, van number one shows up, unloads and then the driver informs us that van number two is not following him and most likely will not arrive for a couple weeks.

Pretty adventurous week for us, not to mention the entire year's events leading up to that week. It's all worth it.

My new job is great. My wife is able to work out of the home and keep her old job and my son is enjoying his new school. Our neighbors are fantastic and everyone we've encountered so far has been very kind and outgoing. (With the exception of this family from New York we had to sit behind at the restaurant last night. BUT, they provided us with an excellent example for our son on exactly what are "horrid" table manners - so it was all good in the end. I hope I never have to sit behind 10 - 13 year-old kids making farting noises with their mouths again.)

And through it all, the hobby I loved the most for 20-plus years and let die off has set off a fire in my belly which I haven't felt in 8 years. I will admit, I miss getting under my old Omega enlarger (which is still packed up in the garage, by the way.) but my computer is my new darkroom. And, (in best Monty Python French guy voice) "It's ver' nice."

Tomorrow should be fun with some candid shots of our son opening presents and such. I just need to make sure I set up the camera when he opens the present he doesn't know about yet.

My mother has been here since Friday evening and it's nice having her around. I miss being able to drive 3 hours and be back at the farm. Those days are over for now as it costs just a bit too much to fly back up every time I get the need to hear and smell the farm. I will have to settle for twice a year or less. One thing for sure, we will not miss the annual Swine and Dine.

Well, time for me to go lounge and enjoy my day off. I wish everyone the best.

Sunrise in Austin - HDR Style

I have found a new favorite thing with photography. HDR. I've been snapping pictures for a LONG time for my relatively short life and I have always enjoyed the amazing things that could be done in a darkroom. Being a black & white fan, multiple filtration always made me gawk in wonder at the results of some careful planning. But....

The things that can be done now with digital photography simply blow me away. Take this shot for example. This is the very same shot which I posted this morning, except this is done with HDR. For those of you who don't know what HDR is, (and I didn't know until about a week ago) it is the combining of photographs of different exposures to gain a wider tonal range in a single photograph. It's simply amazing stuff.

This particular photograph is the combination of three separate pictures: one shot spot on, one overexposed and one underexposed. To me, it reminds me somewhat of infrared photography. At this point, I'm overwhelmed at the ideas which are flowing through my head. The shots I've taken in the past. The things I've seen in the last week. The places I want to travel.

I am so influenced at this point by what I see can be done, that I've set my camera up to take three shots of everything... simply for the adventure of seeing what the shot will look like as an HDR.

Maybe you'll enjoy this as much as I. Well wishes for all over the Christmas holidays.

Oh yeah.... New Website is LIVE

I forgot to post yesterday evening when I finished uploading the new site. Go check it out at:

Phantom Images

Sunrise Photographs and Sadness

So, this morning I was all excited and prepared to try and get a few really nice sunrise shots. I had watched the news to find out when sunrise would occur (7:22 am) and loaded up my tripod, camera and extra lens into the carpool car. The sun didn't look like it was going to be very "orangy", most likely because there were few clouds, but I didn't care. I intended to take some pictures today.

Getting out of the car, a co-worker approached me with a question about his new laptop. Remember, I'm one of the resident geeks at the company for which I work. Anyhow, as I was getting my lunch, I turned to acknowledge him and out rolls my lens case onto the parking lot. I heard a definite impact, but no crack or crunch. So, I was hoping for the best. This was my less-expensive 28-70mm AF lens, so I was happy it wasn't my camera, which has my 105mm macro attached to it.

Considering I was after a sunrise, this would be the lens I would be using. I unpacked it and didn't notice any obvious damage. After mounting the lens on my camera, I began to set up my shot and noticed the zoom ring was tighter than normal. Major sadness - I'm sure I've knocked it out of kilter and my shots with that lens look a little soft. I'm going to test it out on some close subjects without any morning haze and check it out tomorrow, during my day off.

Anyhow, I mounted my 105mm lens on my camera and began shooting away, trying not to think of my abused 20-70mm. I duplicated a few shots from the other morning, using some more refined bracketing so I could try some more HDR work. Practice makes perfect, I always say. One of my shots from this morning is attached to this entry.

Once I get the HDR shot completed, I'll post an entry. Have a wonderful day!

Picture of a Mall Kitty

My wife and I were leaving the Lakeline Mall in Cedar Park, Texas after doing some Christmas shopping when I saw something on the sidewalk out of the corner of my eye. When I turned, I saw this guy looking right at me, getting a little sun. I quickly unpacked my camera (which I had habitually brought with me) and snapped of a few photographs before he dashed back into the evergreen bushes.

I'm assuming he was feral as there are a ton of them in the area, he had no collar and didn't stick around very long. But, as you can see from the picture, he probably has many a mall-goer feeding him on a regular basis.

Big fat mall cat.

New Website Alert!

For those of you tracking my website:

Phantom Images

I thought I should let you know that I will be revamping this site, most likely tonight, so it will look quite different. I didn't want anyone to think they had typed the address incorrectly and close it down.

Hope you like it!

Night Photography Last Saturday

I've been a bad blogger... I'll admit it, but this last Saturday I needed to take some pictures. So, I loaded up my gear and my son (who was highly excited to be out taking pictures with Dad) and we went driving down Mopac to hit some sights I had been checking out over the past week.

One is a building I call the Borland Building - which I have named this because Borland resides there. It is located in north Austin, Texas at the intersection of Mopac and Steck. Anyhow, I set up shop across the street in the parking lot on the hill. My son got to "hold the camera," so he was pretty jazzed at the time. I call my Bogen 3047 my "heavy pipe" as the thing weighs about 15 pounds, but it does the trick when I need a good sturdy base. I'll edit this post later and drop the links to these shots here.

Note: The new photoalbum is made in Flash so does not allow direct links. Follow this link: Album on Phantom Images click Architectural and then select Night Shots. It's the panoramic-like picture.



The second building I photographed was the Mariott Hotel in Round Rock, which has some fabulous red lighting on the sign. For this shot, I set up in a vacant parking lot off CR 172, next door to a building which is being constructed. At this point, my son was getting cold and was more than happy to stay in the warm car while I photographed the hotel. I'll edit this post later and drop this link here also.

Note: The new photoalbum is made in Flash so does not allow direct links. Follow this link: Album on Phantom Images click Architectural and then select Night Shots. It's the photograph just previous to the panaoramic-like shot.

I'm not as happy with the Mariott photograph as I am with the Borland building. I think the exposure was a little long. I may go back and retake this shot this weekend if the weather is clear.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

No photography for me today, or probably for the next few days, unless I can find something interesting indoors to frame up. It's been raining here in pretty steady most of the day today and I do not forsee any break in it until possibly the weekend.

Hopefully, the temperature will rise some and I can attempt to take pictures of the skullers on Saturday morning.

In the meantime - working on the website.

Working on the website - no photos for a couple days

I learned a few new things and I want to employ them on my website. So, I'm concentrating on that for a few days and won't be taking any photographs. This is probably a good thing, since the weather just went south and subject matter for pictures is a little scarce when it's this way.

Anyhow, look for a post when I finish and I'll include a link to the new and improved web site.

- Mike

Mold Count is HIGH

I had big plans this last weekend to go out early Saturday morning and take some pictures of some skulling on the lake, but woke up to a huge mold count and my lungs were full. I'm highly allergic to mold and this pretty much shot my weekend for doing much of anything except setting up our Christmas tree.

But, I did manage to get a few shots of an injured wasp which was crawling through our grass in the backyard and I snapped a few off of our ornaments on the tree. I'll post links later, but now I have some work I have to get done.

Night Shots!

I pass this refinery (or something... might be a gravel processing plant) every morning on the way to work. For the last month I've wanted to get some night shots of this beast and tonight I finally did it.

Being very patient, I waited for all the invading cars to clear the highway and took what shots I could. The web views do not do these justice as they are quite processed down. Believe me when I say that these processed as full detail JPEGs are sharp as a tack and gorgeous.

Night Shots

I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

The Sun Came Out!

Just when I was about to give up, the sun came out a tad and allowed me to take a few shots. So I drove around, looking for a few things to shoot and found a future steak dinner:

Moo

And this cool rock:

Picasso-Looking Rock

Rain Rain Go Away

No shooting for me today - it rain or was quite cloudy all day. Possibly tomorrow. But hey, I got a room painted in the house, so there was some productivity.