commerce building by night

originally uploaded by billaday.

I took a pretty cool shot of this by day back in December, zoomed in and cropped, and wanted to get a night shot of it. Fortunately, I just missed the light, so I was able to capture 14 one-second shots. I used about 11 of them. In Photoshop, I changed the layer properties to Lighten (new to CS3). It's similar to Screen, but keeps the sky from getting too bright.

Year 3, Day 142

high key parrot gradient

originally uploaded by billaday.

Any guesses on this shot? It's pretty abstract.

Here's a clue:
I used Photoshop's curves to modify the colors from a dark orange to a bright(er) yellow and green.

Year 3, Day 141

Let's Go Fishing

originally uploaded by billaday.

And with this ridiculous image, I now have 9,001 photos in my iPhoto library. A milestone perhaps.

This is a really boring math training, SB472. The only worthwhile part of the 5 day training was discovering this center for my kindergarten classroom. Students (or Jeanene, as seen here) "fish" using a magnetic hook. The fish have paper clips on them (so the magnet picks them up) and numbers on them (so they kids can add) .

Year 3, Day 140

closing the blinds on mediocrity

originally uploaded by billaday.

Reflections are all around us. Here's a building reflecting another building. Not sure why the security glass looks like curtains.

Year 3, Day 139

reflecting upon a time

originally uploaded by billaday.

I want to start a couple small sets/projects:
1. taco stands
2. bathrooms

It wasn't until I wrote them just now that I realized they could be related. There are not, however. Both of these places seem to have objects conducive to photography. They both tend to have vintage, outdated stuff, and more personality than given credit for.

Year 3, Day 138

one legged man on a bus bench

originally uploaded by billaday.

This man sitting on the bench caught my eye. He was sitting with his legs crossed, but it looks like there's just one leg.

Year 3, Day 137

four twenty five was eight days ago

originally uploaded by billaday.

My goal with the photo-a-day project is to shoot (at least) one photo every day. I'm still going strong on the shooting part. The tough part is geotagging, editing, sorting, uploading, and blogging them. The internet at home has been painfully slow and intermittent. Translation: from what little free time I've had, it's been eight days since my last photo-a-day post.

On to the photo... I don't know what color this is. Blue? Purple? In Photoshop, I working in lab mode, and made it blue. When I converted back to rgb, it turned purple. Depending on the program I open it in (Preview, Finder, Photoshop, HoudahGeo, or Safari), the color looks different. Any Photoshop help here would be great.

Year 3, Day 136

Blue in Orange

originally uploaded by billaday.

The color of the windows changed depending on the angle they were at. Only this side of the building had the alternating blue and gray rows of windows.

If it wasn't for Zel's photostream, this scene never would have caught my eye. He's a big influence.

Year 3, Day 135

Geneva swings

originally uploaded by billaday.

I've always liked these types of shots, and have wanted to take one for a while. My original plan was to have my friend swing his daughter around, and I'd put my dSLR where his shoulder is. Then, I could get fine tune the composition, aperture, exposure, etc.

Here is what really happened:
Geneva kept trying to climb up and down the stairs. Up and down. Up and down. So, to avoid having her inevitably fall, I distracted her. She asked me to swing her, so I did. I reached into my pocked and grabbed my point-and-shoot (Canon SD870 IS). I was careful to not drop her, but knew that I may drop (and step on) my camera. I was only cupping it with my palm and one finger on the shutter. I'm surprised I could even push the shutter button. So I swung her around and snapped three shots. One had her looking away, one had a blurry face, and one was awesome.

Interestingly enough, I took what I learned from a blurry grass shot of my dog. I was able to get a good shot in only three tries here; with my dog, I took 40 pictures to get one good one. I guess I really am learning about photography, and getting better (or at least faster) at taking shots.

Year 3, Day 134

slow twitch muscle fiber

originally uploaded by billaday.

So, I just discovered that my motorcycle and gas station photo made it onto Explore. (If you don't know about Explore, that means it's listed among the 500 photographs chosen each day for the Flickr Explore page.) Thanks are in order to all the attention, comments, faves, and support from Flickr friends.

Here is a slideshow of my Explored Flickr photos.

Year 3, Day 133

put a cork in it

originally uploaded by billaday.

Cork is an interesting thing. I would not have thought to shove a piece of tree into a bottle to help it last. Apparently, there is a cork shortage in the wine world. Some day, there won't be corks in wine bottles. I might as well capture the iconic keeper of the wine while I can.

Year 3, Day 132

the low end is the heart of the band

originally uploaded by billaday.

This photo is a good illustration of why I love the photo-a-day project...

It was 9pm, and I hadn't bothered to take any decent photos. I was getting tired, and would have much rather vegged out and watched TV, but I knew that I had not taken a good photo yet.

So, I begrudgingly took out my D70s and my SB600 speedlight (strobist: speedlight mounted, TTL mode, 1/60 shutter). I knew what shot I wanted to take (which sometimes is most of the battle for a photo-a-day shot)-the day before, my eye caught an angle of the bass when I was setting it down. Rather than take a photo with my point-and-shoot, I waited until I could get my f1.4 lens to shoot. Before shooting, or even taking out my bass, I decided to take 5 shots, then go back to relaxing. As I knew it would, 5 shots turned into 40, and I got a couple great photos of the tuning keys on my bass guitar. I like the bokeh (shallow depth of field) in this shot.

Year 3, Day 131

The Lord looked down from heaven on the children of men

originally uploaded by billaday.

Isabelle was trying to get the kids to mellow out, so she suggested they pretend to sleep (on the hot, hot pavement). They loved it, but didn't lay down much.

Year 3, Day 130

old time gas station and a hand built motorcycle

originally uploaded by billaday.

I arrived early to a Pasadena appointment to give myself some time (ten minutes) to take some photos. After a brief photowalk, I was heading back to my car, and I passed a guy with a purple motorcycle. He got off the bike and took out a Nikon dSLR. He positioned his shiny motorcycle in front of an old-style gas station, and was planning to photograph his bike for a calendar. I asked if I could jump in, he obliged, and I snapped a few.

This was was taken with my Canon DS870is, which is a killer camera, but doesn't have a very wide aperture when you zoom. So, in Photoshop, I duplicated the layer, applied a gaussian blur (at 22 px), and masked out the bike and gas pump. I also applied a Color Stylizer filter using Nik Software's Color Efex Pro. Basically, it applies a sepia filter, and lets you fade in the color. You get way more control over colors and shadows with Nik, but that's the basic idea. Now (hopefully) it looks like it was shot with my f1.4 lens with a super old film.

Year 3, Day 129

Let me ask you a question, how do you feel about frilly toothpicks?

originally uploaded by billaday.

I'm for 'em! Well, this club is formed. Spread the news on menus nationwide.

Year 3, Day 128

Bob Tron and his green bowl

originally uploaded by billaday.

Remember the movie Tron? Remember how the characters from Tron used to be on the Peoplemover at Disneyland?

So, I think that if I was hanging out with those guys, this is what their diningware would look like. And, of course, the guy's name would be Bob. Bob Tron.

Year 3, Day 127

aerodynamic and warm

originally uploaded by billaday.

I started teaching with University of La Verne. It's a satellite course, so I'm teaching at Rio Hondo College in Whittier. I wanted to photo-a-day the building I teach in, but the light on my car just looked so cool. And by cool, I mean warm... warm colors (reds and yellows).

Year 3, Day 126

called out of retirement

originally uploaded by billaday.

Tires are expensive. We bought 4 recently... it's not as though you can buy just one tire. I suppose that's why there are place like this that sell 4 tires that are used. I went to Costco and got 4 new.

Year 3, Day 125

a moon made of diamonds

originally uploaded by billaday.

150 teacher and I sat in a room for 2 days waiting to see if we were going to get laid off. So far, 89 of us, including me, will not have jobs in August.

Year 3, Day 124

heirloom

originally uploaded by billaday.

I think that my grandpa built this way back when my mom was a baby. It's a handcrafted chair, and is still working (sort of).

Year 3, Day 123