Starving Artistry

Day 179

// June 30th, 2011 // 6 Comments » // Photo, Project 365

Matt

Wow, two photos in a week. Matthew, that is an accomplishment held only by Tay, myself, and my dogs. Haha, welcome to the club.

Anyway, today we went out to celebrate Troy’s birthday at none other than Chipotle. Because… that’s where us grown ups go to celebrate birthdays. Right?

So, I’ve been having issues with my new 35mm f/1.4L. By all accounts, it should be a razor sharp lens, even wide open at 1.4, but I’ve been having issues with it front focusing. Or back focusing. However it’s called. I was doing research, and was *this* close to sending it into Canon to be calibrated, and then I read how my 7D has the ability to micro-calibrate lenses to my body. So basically the camera will detect what lens is attached and then adjust focus specifically for each lens. I went through the “suggested” method on this site: www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/cameras/1ds3_af… but then tweaked it with my eye. I am MUCH happier with the results. Let’s check out some photos from tonight, shall we?

Birthday Boy Troy

Martin… this is posed believe it or not.

Davis

Joe

Chipotle

The Guys

Funny story (or not) about that last photo. I was propping my camera up on some railing and gonna use my 10 second timer since i had my 35mm attached, and not my wide angle. Anyway, a fellow diner saw my camera precariously perched on the ledge and offered to help take the photo. So i passed the camera off to her, forgot that not everyone knows how to use a DSLR and left her hanging. Then on top of that, I left the timer on 10 seconds, so she had to stand there for 10 seconds holding the camera while we all held a cheesy pose until the photo took. Haha, awkward. End of story.

Anyway, then we went back to Troy’s for some good conversation and MindQuest.

I was SOOO tempted to use that last picture as my picture of the day. just because his pose is ridiculous. But then I realized I didn’t want to look at that picture all that often, so, best to leave it out of my 365. =)

Anyway, MindQuest is crazy. Can you read the card in the picture? It says:

“Sam Slug was standing in the post office looking at a ‘wanted’ poster. Somone asked him who the man in the poster was and Sam replied, ‘Brothers and sisters I have none, but this man’s father is my father’s son.’ Whose picture was on the poster that Sam was looking at?”

And if you google it, you are a CHEATER!

Day 178

// June 29th, 2011 // 1 Comment » // Photo, Project 365

Steve

One of Steve’s friends does artwork for bands. He sent Steve a text last night about needing photos for some new poster he’s working on, so Steve had me take a quick headshot of him this morning. He requested a neutral expression, so I guess this is steve’s neutral expression… check out his site here: http://www.brianewing.com/

Anyway, shot him on white seamless, very neutral lighting. That’s what I sent his friend, but then I tried to spice it up a bit in processing. Tried to find some sort of dystopian backdrop to put him on, and came across this particular one on deviantart here: http://williamaddocks.deviantart.com/art/Dystopian-City-99109769?q=boost%3Apopular%20dystopian%20cityscape&qo=4

Anyway, then I processed his image to match the illustrationy background. I dunno, turned out pretty decent. Glad I got my photo of the day out of the way early though, because I then spent the majority of the day mucking about with my new projector. I have holes all over my ceiling now (note to self, trial and error is NOT the way to go when mounting)! Ahhh well.

Is it possible that my screen is TOO big…?

Day 177

// June 28th, 2011 // 1 Comment » // Photo, Project 365

Chinese Dessert

My Mom’s father’s friend was in town visiting, so my parents took them out to dinner at the Peking Gourmet inn in Falls Church, VA (http://www.pekinggourmet.com/) It is quite the renowned Chinese restaurant in our area. Famous and important people come to eat there all the time. There’s pictures ALL around the restaurant of the owner and his wife with all these famous people. Pictures I remember seeing tonight… both George Bushes, Robert Deniro, John Travolta, Colin Powell. There was a supreme court justice dining in the private area behind us. Pretty crazy.

Anyway, Chinese people aren’t too big on dessert, especially by western standards, but this is what they sprung for today. It’s basically apple drenched in sugar. When they bring it to the table, the sugar is still hot and melted, and the quickly dunk it in ice water so the sugar crystallizes. Then you can eat it with a cool candy shell, but a hot apple inside. It’s quite good actually. Previous to tonight I’d only had it with banana, but the apple was good too! I don’t know the name of the dish though… anyone?

The Fam

Day 176

// June 27th, 2011 // No Comments » // Photo, Project 365

Hibiscus

Last year as a housewarming gift, Nancy gave me a hibiscus, and I enjoyed these beautiful red flowers the blossomed last summer. Then I promptly forgot to water it (like all my plants) and figured it was going to die. Yet, somehow it survived all winter without any water, and then when it was warm enough, we moved it to my back deck and now it’s healthier than ever. This is like, an invincible plant!

Anyway, i’ve been playing with new focusing methods with my 7D. I started out with changing the focus button from the push-the-shutter-halfway method, to the asterisk button on the right side of the camera body. That was neat because I could specifically focus on something using a single point with my thumb, then recompose my shot without having to worry about continuing to hold the shutter down halfway.

I found though, that this actually slows me down a bit when taking pictures. If I HAVE to, I want to be able to just swing my camera up and have it auto focus on something and take the shot. So, i changed the asterisk button (formerly AE lock) to turn the autofocus off while my thumb is down. This seems to be the best of both worlds. Focus on a single point, hold thumb down, recompose, shoot. Holding your thumb down seems to be a much “sturdier” way of locking focus while recomposing rather than just holding the shutter down halfway.

Besides, who uses AE lock anyway…

Here are a couple other shots I took today. Another one of the Hibiscus where I tried to process it so that the pedals looked like paper:

Paper Pedals

And one of Tay’s super dilated eyes. She went for a consultation regarding Lasik, and they dilated her eyes for it. So of course we took a picture, without flash so as not to blind her.

Dilation

Day 175

// June 26th, 2011 // No Comments » // Photo, Project 365

Today I Feel…

Today I went over to my friend Martin’s place after Church. He had a few people over one last time before he moves out of the basement apartment he and his wife had been renting and move into the house they just bought! This isn’t Martin though, this is Matt. He’s a good friend and singer of my band from College. I hope this chart will help him through his days…

Definitely click through to Flickr to see it in a larger size!

Here’s Kylee again, giving her little sister a kiss… or CPR apparently.

CPR!!

Then I got right up in James’ face and kept taking pictures until he payed attention to me.

James

I swear she did this on her own…! The first time…

Uncle Martin

Kristen

Hey There…

James & Kylee

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