wide mouth

wide mouth, originally uploaded by billaday.

I took a picture of this can last December. Someone recently tweaked it, and I've been thinking about how cool cans can be.

So here's a wide angle shot of a can. It's a good stock shot. The whiteground is my sink (it worked really well).

Day 292

factory

factory, originally uploaded by billaday.

Driving home is pretty cool sometimes. I drove through Irwindale, where it's industrial and dirty. I've passed this building before, and the vintage-ness of it usually catches my eye. I wonder what this building is used for. It looks so old.

Day 291

drip

drip, originally uploaded by billaday.

Occasionally, it gets to be 8pm and I haven't taken a photo-a-day-type photo. This was one of those days. So I took my camera and marched into the bathroom. After taking some lame Q-tip photos, I saw my faucet drip. That was the A-ha moment. Yes, A-ha, as in "Take On Me."

Day 290

red light, green light, yellow light

red light, green light, yellow light, originally uploaded by billaday.

No photoshop trickery here.

Exposure time: 6 seconds.

I guess this is why people can't save up time. They would end up crashing their cars at intersections.

Sorry, that joke wasn't funny. That was hardly even a joke. But the cool photo makes up for it.

Remember that childhood game, Red Light, Green Light? Yeah.

Day 289

Fun with grain

Fun with grain, originally uploaded by billaday.

ok, honesty time.

I took some really cool pictures, but they were of my kindergarten students for our newsletter. On the way home, I realized that I hadn't taken any shots of stuff that I can post online. So I snapped this after depositing a check. Trust me, I had some other way better shots. However, I spent some time with a Photoshop plug-in Exposure, and added some nice grain.

Day 288

Isabelle on the phone

Isabelle on the phone, originally uploaded by billaday.

That's the wife. She was talking to a friend who is gonna have a baby soon. Her friend lives far away, so they talk on the phone (instead of in person). Isabelle was happy to hear from her friend, and I was happy to photograph it.

Day 287

palm trees and animal fries

palm trees and animal fries, originally uploaded by billaday.

I really enjoy In-N-Out. Whenever I'm there, I want to take pictures. It's a mixture of having a really cool (and clean) looking place, and wanting to remember the smell of grilled onions. I've taken a few In-N-Out shots for my photo-a-day, so I was thinking of more interesting angles, and different ways of telling the In-N-Out story, if you will. I like the giant logo in the background.

Day 286

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

pan the motorcycle

pan the motorcycle, originally uploaded by billaday.

We went up to Idyllwild this weekend with some friends. The girls shopped and the guys (me and Wayne) took pictures. I was starting to get bored/uninspired when I saw some long exposure ideas from Wayne. It was bright and midday, but there he was, taking 1/2 second shots, aiming at the big intersection in the town. I stole that idea, and panned my camera as bikers passed us.

Day 278

winding staircase

winding staircase, originally uploaded by billaday.

My original photo-a-day idea for today was a star trails picture. We were up in Idyllwild, and had a great balcony view of the stars and the valley. It was a full moon, though. So instead of stars, I took a picture of stairs. Just one letter difference. Special thanks to Wayne for holding my wireless flash (SB600) at the bottom of this staircase.

Day 277

fire

fire, originally uploaded by billaday.

There was a giant brown bear loose in the foothills today. At one point, there were five helicopters in the air. I drove around and took 100 pictures; it turns out, helicopters need to be far away from each other so they don't collide. Feeling defeated, I turned around and started walking to my car. This was what I saw. Not bad. The sky looked like it was on fire. I suppose it's all that smog.

Day 276

wax

wax, originally uploaded by billaday.

Melted wax is cool. This almost looks fake, the way it sticks to the tablecloth. I like the light in the background, shining through the candlestick holder.

Day 275

environmental print

environmental print, originally uploaded by billaday.

I find I'm taking more pictures for my classroom. Teaching kindergarten, I need to find examples of stuff that seems obvious to adults. This was one photo from a lesson on environmental print. Letters convey meaning.

Day 274

the foothills

the foothills, originally uploaded by billaday.

Bummer. I just realized that today's photo-a-day is quite similar to the Microsoft "sample desktop." That means it's cool, but unoriginal.

This is cool, however, because it's where I live (and not where Microsoft says I should have visited). I occasionally notice how cool it is to have the foothills right next to my home. It's tough to capture that feeling, but the depth in this shot (silhouette to light sky) reminds me of that feeling. And I suppose for that reason, this photo is a success. Even if some dude from Microsoft® sorta did it first.

Day 273