Saturday, September 20, 2008

A fair to remember


A fair to remember, originally uploaded by billaday.

We hit the L.A. County Fair today. It had been a while. I learned 3 things:

1. Park at the Blue Gate (not yellow)
2. You eat whatever the kids want to eat. You can't wait in line twice.
3.

ok, I learned two things. It sure was a good time.

Day 285

Friday, September 19, 2008

I Be a Pirate


I Be a Pirate, originally uploaded by billaday.

Argh! It be International Talk Like a Pirate Day. I read "How I Became a Pirate" to my kindergartners today. They liked it. I wore this shirt as my undershirt all day. For the story, I put on another shirt over my work shirt: "Aaaargh ya' glad you're a teacher!" And then, as luck would have it, we studied the letter i... as in, "Aye, aye!"

Day 284

Thursday, September 18, 2008

classic


classic, originally uploaded by billaday.

Isabelle got the new iPod classic today. It's silver. Oooh. And although it's brand new, it's already a "classic". As with most new things, I had to take a picture of it and make it the photo-a-day.

Day 283

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

up periscope


up periscope, originally uploaded by billaday.

Look at how gross the bottom of that stopper is (where it meets the floor).

They don't make sturdy door stoppers like this any more. Maybe because they are too hard to thoroughly clean.

Day 282

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

glass ceiling


glass ceiling, originally uploaded by billaday.

You can't see them, but there are actually 18 million cracks in this glass ceiling.

Thank you Hillary.

No thank you Sarah.

Day 281

Monday, September 15, 2008

vents


vents, originally uploaded by billaday.

I revisited this shot. This heater was one of my early photo-a-day shots. The original is here.

For a while, I really liked the original shot. It had a cool perspective (taken from the floor), and the pattern of the vents was interesting. As I went back to it (it was taken Dec. 29, 2006), I noticed what was lacking.

Hopefully, this shot is a great improvement. I went black and white, since the texture, not the color, is what caught my eye. I used a flash (on my point-and-shoot SD870) and got close. I ended up with a nice high key shot, where the top is intentionally washed out, and the bottom of the frame is fading into black. Better?

Day 280

Sunday, September 14, 2008

crop hardlight


crop hardlight, originally uploaded by billaday.

Robert is sending his Christmas CD off this week. We took 100 photos Sunday night for the back cover. Sadly, it was really dark by the time we were able to get out there. Since when is 7pm dark time? Seriously. Any way, I could get some good light on him with my SB-600 speedlight, but couldn't get much background light/color/anything. We were at a park, so I was using available backlight. Besides, I don't have any other fancy lighting. So here's the final shot, with the speedlight mounted, with a 1/60 exposure at 90mm.

Though I was hoping to get a more interesting background (I've learned a ton with this shoot), I was happy with the color of the background. It was originally a cheesy pink, since the sun was setting. Robert liked this photo, but wanted a dark blue background. So I took a picture of the sky, added that as a layer above this photos, and changed the blending properties to hard light. Then, it was just a matter of masking around him (so he wasn't dark blue, too).

Day 279