Day 40 - Xavier Helps Me Out

    Xavier helped his old man out again today playing with lights. I let him off the hook when I could tell he was getting annoyed with me.

    7D and 24-70 2.8L@ 1/200, f/22, ISO100, 50mm. Two B800's for lights. Beauty dish w/diffuser camera right and one with barn doors for rim.

Day 39 - Stacey is the God of War

     So I always see images in magazines, posters and on commercials that I want to recreate. I had seen an image for the video game God of War 3 and thought it would be cool to recreate something like that. Sadly my Photoshop talents aren't that great when it comes to reverse engineering things like this, most of my skill surrounds pretty typical photo manipulation. As luck would have it though I got my copy of Photoshop User magazine in the mail today with a section on how to create this. Since I have some decent PS experience it didn't me long at all to grab my wife, shoot a photo and use the article as a reference to create what you see above.

Day 38 - Xavier Profile Test

     This is a test shot I did with Xavier for a set of black and white profile shots I want to do of the kids to hang. The test shots I think came out pretty well, but I have a few more things I want to try before deciding on a set for print.

     Shot with 7D and 24-70 @ISO100, 40mm, f/5.6. 1/200. 1 B800 with barn doors was used for lighting and the B&W conversion  and PP was done in Photoshop.

Day 37 - Knee Slider

     This is a knee puck from my track pants the last time I wore them and that was at the end of the season in 2008. Nothing artistic about this shot, but it does hold a rather significant memory for me. For those of you not familiar with these, knee pucks (or knee sliders) are used to create a barrier between the knee of the rider and the asphalt when the knee is down in a turn. You can see the wearing along the edge and top of it from just a little dragging knee at Putnam Raceway. What's unusual about this puck is the dirt and grass embedded in it. :) There was only about 5 mins left in the last session of the 2nd day and I had a run off into the in field at around 75 coming around a turn called Dead Bear. Unfortunately I hit a dip, bump or hole causing myself and the bike to go flying. I walked away from the wreck, but the bike was totaled. That weekend was easily some of the most fun I've ever had. I got another bike that very next Spring but haven't been back to the track yet. I hope this year is my year to get back out there and bring home some pucks that are a little less dirt and grass filled.

Day 36 - Tree Rat

      We have a feeder outside our window at work and we get all sort of critters coming by to take advantage of it. This little guy like to run off birds that are sitting on the ground picking up some of the feed. Today though he ran into a couple of large geese that weren't having any of it.

     7D and 100-400 4.5-5.6 L IS@ ISO400, f/5.6, 1/320, 400mm.

Day 35 - Push Play

     Another grab what's closest shot. Macro shot of the remote that was sitting on my desk and apparently is a tad dusty.

Canon 7D and 100mm macro@ 1/200, f/8. This is lit similar to yesterday's shot using a B800 with the beauty dish and diffusion sock.

Day 34 - Macro Fun

     So what is it? Other than a macro shot of course. It's a tool some photographers use and that's all I'm saying. :)

     7D and 100mm macro@ f/8, 1/200. I used one of the B800's at about 1/4 power and the beauty dish w/diffusion sock attached.