hung up on the detail...

I posted an iPhone photo of this on IG a few months back. It was a wide-angle view of the room, compared to this closeup of the hangars. There is merit to both, but I mostly prefer the detail of closeup...

big inside sale...

 

It's your typical small-town downtown with all sorts of interesting store fronts. After reading all of the signs, I was even getting confused...

more photos from my afternoon with Sadi...

Here are some more photos of Sadi from yesterday afternoon.  They were shot with my Leica M8 and Olympus EP2.  Already looking forward to the next time that I get to take her picture again...

an afternoon with Sadi...

Sadi and I went downtown Greenville today and did a quick photo session in an old vacant building (no really!  I had permission to be there)...  It is good to have a place to take pictures inside on a windy day.  My days are probably limited on finding buildings such as this in the downtown area.  Amazing to have such good props.  The photo below was taken in front of a window with a bare wooden wall behind her.  You can see the filler putty in the voids between the slats.  All of the pictures were taken without a flash so the shutter speed was pretty slow even though I had window light coming through.  I used a tripod for most of the pictures to limit the blurring.  This one was taken with the Leica M8 and the Zeiss 35mm f/2.0 lens.  It was the one that immediately caught my eye because of the dark shadows on the right hand side of the picture...  I will post more photos from the afternoon later on this weekend.

an afternoon on the town...

Took my 40D camera out on the streets of Greenville to try out a new lens that I bought.  The lens is the Lensbaby Composer (www.lensbaby.com).  It is definitely not a lens for the people who examine a photo for sharpness.  I would consider it an artsy lens that gets your creative juices flowing.  I bought it to use for some ideas that I have for Pyper and Sadi, however I wanted to take it around for a few days and photograph still life (things that don't move) to get used to the lens.  As you can see, the photos generally have one area that is in focus and the remaining parts of the photo are way out of focus.  If you are facing the sun, the lens flares really bad (see the first photo) across the photo.  This is a feature of the lens, not a flaw.  Everything about the lens is manual.  I really had a great time with this lens and I honestly think you can create better photos when you have to think through all aspects of the photo prior to taking the picture.  At least that holds true for taking pictures of things that don't move...

a lasting memory...

Sure seems like this picture was taken a long time ago...  Was looking at some of the pictures that we have around the house.  This is one that the girls and I took in May of 2004.  We snapped it downtown on the Saturday before Mother's day and had it printed and framed for them to give to Sherri for Mother's Day.  I would have to say that it has lasted longer than the box of chocolate covered strawberries that probably came with it...

sign...

This is a sign that is downtown Greenville.  Everybody that lives in Greenville has seen it.  However, it is hard to take a good picture of this sign.  There is an awning and power lines around it that clutter the picture.  While I was out taking pictures of buildings, I tried to get creative with this angle.  Took this one with the Leica M8 camera and boosted the color and contrast in Aperture and Color Efex Pro.  I think the white clouds add a great balance to the picture.

getting a handle on my photography...

Took these picture downtown Greenville.  Was needing pictures of architecture to enter in a photo contest.  What I found out was that I am not very interested in taking pictures of buildings, but when you break the building down into small bits, it starts to get fun.  Both of these doors had character around the handles. Modified the first one in Silver Efex Pro and the second one in Color Efex Pro.  Angled the shot and the camera to minimize reflections of myself in the windows and to get more of the interesting parts of the door in the shot using the diagonal.

sadi & mikayla photo shoot (outside)...

Ok, here is one of the shots that we took outside on Saturday (after the rain quit).  Basically, we were out of time and running late to get the girls to Rockwall.  I was determined to get at least one shot using my Leica M8.  We stopped and got out for less than 5 minutes and I took around 10 street shots and we got back in the Land Rover and headed to Rockwall.  Love the serious look...

sherri...

This doesn't happen very often...  Sherri is not one who likes "posing" for pictures.  However, in this case, maybe she just feels sorry for me.  Spent all this money on a camera and no pictures to show for it.  Made alot of progress this weekend on getting better with the Leica, but lots of learning and practicing will still be required.  Small tweaks on contrast and color in Aperture.

old picture...

This is a picture that I took of Maci downtown Greenville during her Senior year of high school.  Loved the pictures but never got it printed because we had her Senior pictures taken by Veraska in Cooper.  Edited it in Aperture using a NIK Silver Efex Pro plug-in.  Created the look by using the Antique Plate option and then applying the Tmax 100 film setting.

no peeking...

Started looking at some pictures that I could use to practice on to show off my new Photoshop skills.  Sometimes I think I tend to overdo it...  Or maybe I have the creativity of a rock...  I really liked this picture and I thought it would be neat for it to have the appearance of an old poster hanging on the wall with the image superimposed in it.  Tried the background in several colors and settled on black & white.  What do you think?

Sadi & Mikayla

Got them edited and wanted to post them before Sadi gets them on her facebook.  Lots of fun trying to find new places downtown.  Had so much fun on the last try of "Best Friend Pictures", thought I would try it again.  Wish I could be more creative with the poses, but creativity is not my strong point.  Mostly, I just look for the moment and snap the picture.  Unfortunately, the majority of the time, I overthink it and the moment passes...  Here are the ones that I caught!

Sadi 2010

Took some pictures of Sadi and Mikayla downtown Greenville again today.  Couldn't resist posting this one of Sadi...

More Best Friends

Ok, so now I may have found a way to take pictures of my kids (or maybe this is my calling in taking pictures).  First Maci asked me to take pictures of her with her best friend before they went off to college (separate colleges).  Then, after Sadi saw the pictures, she wanted me to do the same for her.  Again, I resorted to downtown Greenville and visited the same locations, but changed up the poses.  In this first one, they were peeking through the crack in the doors.  Looked cute to me...  The second one was just a good closeup of them both smiling.  Plus, the garage door handle and cracked wood/paint add character to the picture.  The last one started out goofy, but after I took a few, it started to look better.  Sadi and Mikayla actually liked it...

In Color

Was looking for a way to mix black and white and color.  Disassembled a framed picture at home to use the frame as a prop.  Took this in an abandoned building in downtown Greenville.  The building is now overgrown and boarded up.