Location, Location, Location

The buiilding my daughter practices her ballet has a killer view. No wonder she is preocupied while dancing. Her mind wonders to the beach, swimming and splashing in the Puget Sound.

shot with my K10 f4~~1/1252~~ISO100~~28mm tamron 28-300

Busy day today

Who says men can't multi task?

While getting dinner ready tonight I grabbed plates out of the cupboard, making sure I had the everyday ware and tried not to chip the salad bowls as I set them neatly on the dinning room table. Three plates, three salad bowls, 2 coffee mugs and a sippy cup for the little one. I wanted to make sure the coffee was brewed just right for my honey and she likes it with a splash of half and half or as I call it, seasoned to taste. With an added 2 lumps of sugar and a swizzle stick set to cool on the table exactly 2 min before serving. That first sip out of the cup is the best. Only thing better is that morning cup of joe and the Seattle Times in bed on Sunday morning.

I had to answer the house phone once, it was work calling, as a disgruntled class participant wanting a different excel class to meet the needs of High School teachers. The call lasted longer than I had hoped as I was worried about the crab cakes burning in the oven.

I got the the crab cakes before they turned to a leathery texture and was able to flip them once. Then the cell phone rang. It was a buddy of mine I played college football with that I had not talked to in years. He was also my best man in my wedding and the reason I bring that up is he tells me the story of how we all jumped into the lake just outside the church right after the wedding reception. As you can see, if you look close you can see my bored expression on my face as he is reliving something that happened 22 years ago....did I just say that, 22 years, where did the time go. Anyhow getting back to the conversation as he was calling to tell me his son was accepted to Harvard law school. I was excited for him but knew if I didn't get that milk poured for my daughter that things would fall apart fast... She was screaming at me camera right ;) Milk dadda milk.

I said my good-byes and told him I would call this weekend and off I went to the fridge. I had to move the leftover pizza, tomatoes that my co-worker gave me last week and the day old bread that needed to be eaten 2 days ago. But there was the much needed milk that my daughter craves just about any time of the day. Phew, dinner is served and I now know what my wife goes through every night...and who says men can't multi task.
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I have not had my Tue 200 for awhile so I went well into the 500-700ish word range...sorry for the wordy post and hope I held your attention to get you this far in todays blog. Taken with my k10 at various shutter speeds but the f-stop, ISO and Zoom stayed constant. f11~~all around 1/4 sec~~ISO100~~18mm with my 18-55 Pentax lens

Off camera flash was used in 2 of these shots...which 2 shots did I have the off camera flash triggered?

Neon

EDIT So this is where the mystery, magical meals start the PROCESS. A cuboard seldom opened by me, if in fact it has every been opened by me until tonight. I will never be acused of being a chef, but I wash a mean pot and pan.

As soon as I find my memory card I will post my neon shot I too this week. found it :)

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k10 f3.5~~1/125~~ISO400~~18mm set white balance to tungsten.

Last day of warmth

The weatherman says it turns cold starting tomrrow and by Tue the high will only be 58. Burr chilly. So I took advantage of the sun and went out and took some shots today. This one of the detail in the leaf indeed captured the day. Sunny, warm, and alive.

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Taken with my k10 and seldom used 18-55. I really like th crisp shots this lens takes. I need to slap this on the camera more often. f10~~1/801~~ISO100~~55mm

Fall in the sun

We played in the back yard today, went to the pool and swam, came home and watched scooby and had dinner waiting for mom to come home. All was good today.

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k10 f10~~1/125~~ISO100~~55mm

Uncle Lloyd Wayne

A different note. My daughter left me a note on the couch tonight. She is really into coloring and writing notes. ...Uncle Lloyd Wayne, one of the last true cowboys. You were a true BEAL

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k10 f2.8~~1/50~~ISO800~~75mm

TWEETS

My daughter loves her treats. She is at that age where the RRRR sound is WWWWW. Some kids go through this and some don't. Mine is right smack dab in the middle of the difficult r sound. This is her tweet jar. She gets to pick something out of the jar once a day unless it is too close to bedtime, and tonight it was cutting it close so we gave her a piece of gum. This is her new found joy in life. She even knows how to blow a bubble. I envision long talks with her as a middle school student. Trying to explain why her teacher does not want gum in class, blah blah blah....

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k10 tamron f2.8 28-75 @ f16~~3 sec~~ISO100~~33mm off camera flash (camera left on shoot-through defuser) drug the shutter ie 3 seconds to give the orange pumkin some punch as well as ambient light.

Home

Someone lives here. Sometimes its not the most pleasant creature around but they have their place in the food chain.
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f2.8~~1/320~~ISO100~~55mm

Trader Jose

We love this store. Nice and handy and is close to the neighborhood. We use to tell Katherine it was trader joe's nose nose...
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K10 off camera flash right at 1/16 power f16~~1/180~~ISO100~~43mm

Control the light

Photography is all about light. 90 percent of the battle is your light source. Too light and you have a high key shot that you were not expecting or hot spots that blow out one side of the image. On the other hand if it is too dark you lose the detail or the image altogether. Things to think about is how you use available, ambient light or the flash that is much harder to control. It is a fine balance between these shadows and highlights. Or you can play with light as I did here in this iamge. I used 2 pentax 540 flashes both off camera to take this shot. I had a red gel on the left flash and a blue gel on the right flash and rapped each with a 4 inch homemade paper snoot. I was inspired by Tim's shot this past week so I figured I would try my hand the same technique. This sigma 24-135 f2.8-5.6 is my 2nd favorite lens right behind my tamron 28-75 f2.8.
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k10 tamron 28-75~~f5.6~~1/180~~ISO100~~43mm

Rule of Thirds--catching the shadow

My daughter was seeing if she could catch her shadow and I like this shot of the series as I caught her off the ground. She loves her new haircut and this might be easier for mom to keep maintained...all you moms know what I am talking about I am sure. Tim picked the category this week and I am axious to see what he and bro came up with.
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k10 Tamron 28-75 f3.2~~1/4000 <---made for a nice clean shot today~~ISO 400~~75mm

The aftermath

We had Mary and Lee over for dinner. ice cream and cake topped off the halibut, salad, rice and grilled veggies. Lee is healing nicely from the knee operation and Mary is doing a good job taking care of things.
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f16~~2sec~~ISO400~~28mm light from chandelier and lit candle.

Record breaker

Dragging myself out of bed today, groggy and tired I knew I would be better off with my daily run, well not as daily as I like sometimes as I take a day off now and again. So with that said, I went for my run this morning. About half way through I was feeling pretty good and started picking up the pace. 10 years ago this would have been a slow pace but this is here nor there at this point in my life. But today as I approach my 50th birthday and for the past year-ish I was able to brake my record for my route around Twin Lakes. I thought I would photo document the record time. I will try and beat the time tomorrow., or sleep in....I hope to do drag my sorry a$$ out of bed and run!!!
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f5.6~~1/13~~ISO100~~63mm tamron 28-75

On borrowed time

The leaves of fall are doing everything in their power to hold on to that last day of glimmering sunshine. Now I truly know where Buffett gets his lyrics " The weather is here, wish you were beautiful" A great day of sunshine and the hope is is stays this way for a few more days. Hold on leaves, hold on!!!!
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f2.8~~1/50~~ISO100~~75mm shot w/k10 tamron 28-75

Sunset in the city

Humid and rainy in the early afternoon but the sun broke just as it was time to set. A great illumination of our back yard.
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f5~~1/80~~ISO200~~63mm

Washing Tomatoes

I washed my tomatoes in a bowl of water tonight. Had to clean them before slicing them in my salad along with the avocado's for my health dinner.
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An interesting effect. Camera setup, about 4 feet from subject. Glass and water is between the lens and the subject.

f5~~1/40~~ISO200~~63mm

Emotion

This weeks theme was Emotion given by Eric. The emotion with this shot was mostly behind the camera. Although the more I stayed and looked around I did not have to look too hard to see emotion in the marble and name engraved. Finality is a weird hard to grasp feeling/concept...
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f2.8~~1/1603~~ISO200~~38mm

Daddy bear, mommy bear, baby bear.

The long shadows tell the story. The early morning sun rose on the family flip flops. These slippers logged in a lot of miles this summer, Oklahoma, Hawaii, many trips to the cabin, and a general overall comfort shoe for the summer. Is it time to retire these thongs? I have a feeling the small pair will be outgrown by this time next year.

Sand, Sun, Smiles

Went to the beach Saturday morning and found my sister-in-law enjoying beach time with the family. Is this the last warm sunny weekend of the year? Hope not.
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f5~~1/1252~~ISO100~~75mm

Noir

I thought I heard a sound outside my door tonight. It turned out to be a swarm of killer bees. They were attacking the neighbors 3 cows and 2 chickens. I heard screams as the bees started to sting their victims. Good thing I was inside.
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f11~~ISO800~~1/180~~43mm tamron 28-75 off camera flash camera left at 1/32 power and camera right behind the shade at 1/8 power. I got this idea from Eric and like his version better as I was running out of steam tonight

Andy Shofner

Great music at Toscanos tonight. Andy Shofner a one man show!!!! Very well polished performer.

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f5.6~~1/15~~ISO800~~100mm

Product

Ok both by buddies broke out all the stops last night for their Photo of the day. Eric had a great shot of his boom box and Tim did a detailed tool shot. I had to come up with something tonight that involoved my speedlights. Luckily I had just hung a picture in my daughters room and used my handy level that my Dad got me for Christmas a few years ago. I thought I would try my hand at lighting this baby under a strobe behind subject with a shoot through refector, 1/4 power . Another 540 camera left, 1/8 power. Here was my take on the advertisement for B&D.
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f22~~1/180~~ISO400~~Pentax 50mm prime.

In the News

I would have loved to have had a TV this size in my classroom when I was in 7th grade. The new school has the latest and greatest technology and here is an example. Big monitors for the kids and a nice big smartboard with a projector lighting this up via the video box. Our president addressing the nation and more importantly our children and the responsiblity they have in making the world a better place.

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f1.4~~1/60~~ISO400~~50mm

Sick girl

She is back at daycare full time, starting pre-school this week and already had the stomach flu this weekend. Might as well get it out of the way early. Here I coaxed her into a photoshoot. I can't believe I talked her into it. She is still not 100% but feeling better today.
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f2.2~~1/30~~ISO400~~50mm Prime

Tri vase

The 3 vases sitting in the dinningroom. We had a dark and rainy day today and our gloomiest, darkest roon in the house is our dinningroom. I had to open up my 50mm prime all the way to get enough ambient light in to take the shot at 5pm.
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f1.4~~1/8~~ISO200~~50mm prime.

pocket wizard

Shooting a pocket wizard with my pocket wizards. I put a purple gel on my pentax 540 flash attached my pocket wizard and placed camera right at 1/4 power. I placed a big white foam core behind and a white sheet of paper camera left for fill light.
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f11~~1/80~~ISO200~~50mm prime using a tripod.

WOOT

I purchased this flashlight on Woot, 2 lights for 4 dollars. I figured I would use it for my post of the day and special effects.
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f5.6~~30 seconds~~ISO100~~50mm pentax prime flash camera left on 1/4 power.

Scott Kelby

The 3 box set came today. I should have had it days ago as the paperwork got lost in the mail. He is not as good a writer as Joe McNally but he does a nice job of explaining things.
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F2~~1/15~~ISO100~~50mm Pentax f1.4 Prime overhead light source (lamp)

Lockers NAW

What, No lockers???? The new middle school opened it's doors today right on schedule. It still needs a dab of paint here, an extra doorknob there, but I have to hand it to the contractor, I along with others didn't think it would be ready. This emblem will never be the same so I figured I would get a shot before 900 kids graced their presence across the EAGLE. And my added creative shot of the grate with oof of kids, parents and staff members in the parking lot.
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f2.8~~1/25~~ISO100~~28mm

f3.5~~1/80~~ISO100~~43mm grate shot

Bag from Hawaii

A. or

B. EDIT EDIT EDIT

My wife looked for this bag in every store we went in. She saw someone carrying it around the beach and just had to have one. She found it our last day. :)
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f11~~1/160~~ISO200~~50mm pentax 540 camera left--pentax 540 back right corner of the bag. both set at 1/16 power, I wish I had flagged flash camera left as to not light the chair behind. I guess I could have chop shopped it. maybe I will do that to see if I like it and post that image as well...you might see an edit in the works?