2 of MD's Finest

I was fortunate enough to attend two graduations, one last September, and one this past month. The first was my son-in-law Chris and the second was my son Tim (foreground). These are to fine young men that will do the state of Maryland and the county of Anne Arundel proud.

Chris had come to the county on a lateral from another government agency while Tim had to go through the full blown academy with the county.

This was one of the final shots from the XTi before I proceeded to destroy it on the asphalt parking lot.

We are off to Chicago this morning and we are going to try and make a zoo day for animal shots. Hey... If you cant afford an African Safari the zoo is a fine substitute.

Have a great 4th tomorrow and I will be back to the blog on Monday.

Cya... Doug

Just for the fun of it.

This has been a bit of a wacky day (not too unusual for day one of work) in that I was to hook up with a crew at Midway to do a checkride. That rapidly changed to airlining to Salt Lake City. The flight must have been full as I was on a first class ticket through Minneapolis. That was going to be way cool until we landed in MSP. With a quick update on my Blackberry it was clear it was not going to be SLC but rather Las Vegas, my favorite airline destination, NOT! I had never been on Sun Country Airlines before and It was not as bad as I thought it might have been sans the first class seating. Oh well. With all the changes and time spend waiting, it took me 13 plus hours to get from Grand Rapids to Las Vegas. Man, do I ever love flying the airlines!

Anyhow while I was waiting on the connection in MSP I was able to put together the following picture. A while back our oldest son Tim e-mailed me a few pictures he took on his Macbook when he was on a break at work. I simply made a levels adjustment and assembled them into one picture.

For a guy who comes off all serious he does have quite the sense of humor. Using the iSight and the options in Photo Booth on the Mac the Win folks are missing out. This little jewel at the top of the Mac is too much fun.

Photo Booth has a bunch of different options to "enhance" your image. It doesn't have to be one from the iSight either. Some of the options are kind of artsy and others are totally abstract. Andy Warhol would be proud. One of the ones I like are the roller coaster. This is where you let the iSight make an image of the background and then when you come back into the frame it looks like you are on a roller coaster (in motion). It's pretty cool.

That's about it for my brian tonight.

Take care... Doug

Friday Night Portrait

The story behind this photograph started last fall when my wife and I went out to Maryland to visit our daughter and son-in-law. I had brought my gear and we spent an hour or so shooting them in and around their place. This image was actually on of Sandy peeking around a sheer red curtain on their bay window in the kitchen. This was natural light at it's harshest. With the 24-70 f/2.8L stopped down enough to give me some detail I took advantage of the angle of the light. Not exactly loupe, rembrandt, or butterfly, but I thought the shadows gave it the depth that lighting is ultimately looking for.

The portrait was processed in the develop module of Lightroom and blended in Photoshop Elements. I really do miss Curves and Adjustment Layers that CS3 offers but I am afraid my little PowerBook G4 would come to a halt if I tried to run CS3. Elements in all it's lobotomy is relatively thorough in its performance. Without the adjustment layers there is a lot of layer duplication and then the work is done on a destructive nature.

Blending the overall photo is always fun when you can expand you creative talents. The rose in the background was vignetted with white then the opacity was reduced to produce the look that is shown. One thing you must do in reducing the opacity of a main layer is generate another layer that allows the opaque layer to show through to, in this case a white layer.

As far as the frame is concerned the stroke value may range anywhere from 80 to 140 pixels. While I most often use a white mat color, in this case I use the color picker to pick up Sandy's lip tone. The frame was color matched to a portion of Sandy's skin tone.

That is about it for this week so enjoy the weekend while I spend it teaching the aircraft to a few pilots new to the company.

Take care all... Doug

Estrogenic Capture

A couple of weeks ago, our house became an estrogen center when my mother-in-law and three sister-in-laws spent the weekend. It really wasn't as bad as it may sounds but then again I did have other things going on.

On saturday I spent the day at the race track shooting cars and environment shots. but before the lady;s took off on Monday we had to get the "family picture". So why not take the opportunity to jack the lighting up and use my skills.

Above are the ladies in question, Ma, Nancy, Ellen in the back, Ruth and my wife Evelyn up front. We had a couple of different poses, one of which was all five on the couch. All I can say for that attempt is that none of them are in their twenties anymore and I will leave it to that. (That probably got me some couch time)

The lighting combination for this impromptu shoot was a Wastcott TD-5 Spider-light with a 36" soft-box for the main light and a Canon EX550 II on a light stand shooting through a 36" diffusion umbrella. The TD-5 was powered all the way up while the 550 was controlled by a camera mounted ST-E2 transmitter with the flash power dialed all the way down for some fill. I would have used a reflector but as I did not have anyway to hold it and with the size of the subject coverage, the flash probably worked out better.

Here you can see the setup of the lights. There was a little bit of natural light coming in from the front picture window. Once the image was captured and brought into Photoshop I hit it with levels, brightness and curves. I then tossed a layer on top, oval marque selection with a fifty pixel feather, inverted, and filed with black. Then it was a simple drop in opacity the provide a nice vignette to the photograph.

That does it for today... Doug

Something Is Still Missing

This pano was from five shots I too while returning to Manhattan on the Staten Island Ferry. We had figured out that on the lower deck we could open the side windows and get a good shot of Lady Liberty but I was not happy with the shots I was getting of NYC while on the island. On the ferry though I found out we could go stand on the ramp of the ferry while it was on its way to downtown.

With camera in hand and using Scott Kelby's pano trick I was able to get the images I would need for this wonderful pano. Ok.. You are asking... What's the trick. Well, when I got home and found that I had taken 450 images in the three days we were in New York it can get a little daunting to figure out the images. Lightroom helps, but there is still the issue of which shots are for the pano. Say there are 15 images of the same general landscape. Which ones are for the pano and which are for a stand alone image. Here is the trick... Before the first shot is taken stick you index finger in front of the lens and fire off a shot. When the last of the pano shots are taken, put two fingers in front of the lens and do the same. It is what I call simply-stupid, but it works great!

So it has been a number of weeks since the trip and I have not had much time to go through the images when my wife asks me to put together some pictures to show her mom and sisters who are all over for the weekend. I say not a problem and shuffle through the 450 images (most of which have not been processed) and come up with 125 that will work. I get them processed and drop them into PhotoMagico (great app), select all, single command to fit to screen, dump in a single transition and timing for all slides, render it to iDVD, and finally burn a DVD so the ladies can watch it on the TV rather than huddle around me in the office.

Great idea but the auto sizing did a lot of messy cropping. It was really my improper use of the command for all the slides that caused the problem as I was rushed. Bottom line is that we ended up in the office huddled around the iMac. So what does this all have to do with the pano? One of my sister-in-laws just got a Mac and was interested in how a panoramic was put together. So right there before her very own eyes she watched the assembly process and retouching of the final image develop into the what you see above.

Now for the title of this post. I have been flying in and out of the New York metro area for so many years, I can not look at it or an image of the lower Manhattan area without envisioning the twin towers. Those tow majestic columns of strength will forever be etched in my mind.

I must be off getting ready to head out tomorrow so I will catch you all latter.

Doug

30 Years and Still On A Roll

Today is Evelyn and my 30th wedding anniversary. I have often wondered where I would be in life if it had not been for the stability of my godly wife.

At a time where divorce rates are in the 55% range (much higher in the aviation industry mind you), we have found a way to accomplish this unique milestone. Evelyn jokes and says that as much time as I have been gone flying during our marriage it is more like fifteen years.

Evelyn wanted to get me a watch for the occasion and shopped around and ended up spending three hours at jewelry shops looking at watches and rings... Did I say that? Thats right guys... Diamonds are a girls best friend. I ended up getting a nice Movado watch pictured right.

As far as the new diamond is concerned... Well we are still working on that, but it's looking pretty good.

After that we went and had a very nice dinner at The 1913 Room in the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel. Following that pleasantry we stopped by the video store and picked up a couple of westerns (by her request) and went home an couched the night away. Not exactly a night I would have envisioned 30 years ago, but then again, it has been 30 years.

Bottom line is that we are still disgustingly in love with each other and are looking forward to the second half of our marriage.

Take care all.

Doug

Before and After

A few people have aske me about the image on the post card under the Mpix Rocks post. Som on what was the original image but the most was on how I got the two dogs to both look attentive.

The first is easy. A lot of clone stamping of the wood floor and wall to get rid of the distracting book case. Alignment of the floor trim was critical to prevent an arcing line going up the wall. See if you can figure out the error in the picture. Clue; it is called baseboard.

As for the dogs, I just asked the owners (pictured... Duh!) what word got the pups attention the most. In this case it was "Food!" The would lock onto whoever was making that call. In this case it was my wife standing behind and to my right. This is evidenced by where the Lucy and Copper are looking, because it was not down the lens of the camera.
The original shot was taken with a single speedlite but I have forgotten what the speed and aperture settings were at the time.

Later,

Doug