Blue Light Special
My Game Room
March 05, 2004 - Friday

I picked up a magazine at Barnes and Noble Bookstore tonight that explained this cool lighting technique that I have seen many times but never quite understood how it was achieved. I bought the magazine and immediately rushed home to try it out.



This part will get a little detailed for those you who would like to know exactly how I took this picture. What I did was place the camera on a mini tripod and set it on the table. I set the camera to manual mode and set the shutter speed for a full 4 seconds long. I also set the camera to have a 2 second self timer on taking the picture so that it does not shake while I'm pressing the button. I placed this aluminum cd case which just so happens to store the backups of my daily image files on the table in front of it. I turned off the lights so that it is completely dark, and pressed the shutter release button on the camera. The camera has an auto focus illuminator light that shines on to the subject in order to let the camera properly focus. Once the camera is focused in it snaps the picture and keeps the shutter open for 4 seconds. While the shutter is open, I just wave this little blue light keychain of mine over the cd case moderately fast and then this effect is captured. It is very weird though how you don't see my hand or even my arm in the image since it was actually in the frame as I took the picture.


 

Salsa Night
Skybar Jazz Club
March 04, 2004 - Thursday

I met a bunch of my friends at a local Jazz club named Skybar in the Montrose area of Houston. This club is on the top floor of a 10 story building and has two open air patios that look out over Houston. Normally this place has an awesome view of the Downtown skyline but tonight the weather was very rainy and miserable. Thursday nights happen to be their Salsa Night and they give a free one hour group lesson to anyone who wants to learn before the live band shows up. There must have been at least sixty people or so out on the dance floor taking the class so we didn’t feel out of place at all. Like in any type of dancing, the more alcohol you have in your system, the better you tend to be, well at least you THINK you’re better.


 

Tequila!
My New Piggy Bank
March 03, 2004 - Wednesday

Our weekly poker game on Tuesday night left me with an empty bottle of Jose Cuervo 1800 Tequila. Frozen Margaritas were the drink of choice for the night and after about 5 pitchers we had to make a special run to the store to restock. I washed the bottle out and thought it would make for a very cool change jar for the house. I gathered up all of my loose change and dropped it in the bottle. As it turns out, I filled it up completely with just the spare change I already had so it looks like we're going to have to get a jump on that other bottle that's sitting in the freezer.


 

The Leaning Book of Pisa
Barnes and Noble Bookstore
March 02, 2004 - Tuesday

I went to my local Barnes and Noble bookstore looking for a couple of photography books to teach me a little about photographic techniques and composition basics. As I was sifting through my many options I noticed a few of these architectural books on the shelf next to me. This book in particular on the History of the Leaning Tower of Pisa definitely caught my attention. I have never seen a book that was actually manufactured like this and I had to get a picture of it. As if I didn't catch enough weird looks already since I was carrying a camera with me, I caught a few more stares from nearby book hounds as I was snapping a few pictures of this book. I definitely need to invest in a Canon S400 camera like I was testing out the other day because that camera would make things so much easier in these types of situations.


 

Water Drip Part Deux
My Sink Again
March 01, 2004 - Monday

I borrowed a co-workers Canon S400 digital camera for the day because I was interested in possibly buying one so that I can carry it around with me on a daily basis. It's pretty obvious to me now that I can't very well carry my Canon G5 around with me without looking like a tourist in my own city. My first test was to try to duplicate the water drip picture that I took yesterday and see how it differs. The S400 is a 4 megapixel camera but is pretty limited in its manual controls. Even with that said it still offers adjustable shutter speeds for night time photography which seems to be more my interest. I carried this camera on my hip the entire night and even at one point had forgotten I even had it with me because its so small and light weight. The Canon G5 water picture is definitely better but the S400 image can hold its own. 



I had to run to Target and get a few things for the house and I came across a bunch of these small Coleman tents up on a shelf. I guess its obvious that small people like to camp too. This happens to be one of those occasions where the picture of the day has no real photographic value whatsoever other than the fact it is a plain picture.


 

Water Drip
My Sink
February 29, 2004 - Sunday

This picture took me about 30 minutes and about 40 tries to capture. I've always enjoyed soft flowing water pictures and decided I would try something on the opposite end of the spectrum. My goal was to catch a water drip in mid air as it bounced off the surface. I set up a nice blue bowl in my sink under my faucet and filled it up about half way. I then closed the faucet just enough to get a steady drip at about every 4 seconds. I just practiced my timing and snapped off pictures. For this particular picture, I used a shutter speed of 1/100, F-stop 3.5, ISO 50, used the flash, camera was at full optical zoom and I also used the camera in macro mode. 


 

R/C Racing
Fastrak Hobbies
February 28, 2004 - Saturday

This is what drove me to create this website to begin with, Nitro Off-road Racing. I raced these scale model cars for about 2 years and just recently got out of the hobby a few months ago. I made it a point this weekend to stop by this week's race and say hello to some old friends. For those who aren't aware, these are fuel powered radio controlled cars. The drivers stand atop a drivers stand which in this picture is the green structure that overlooks the track.



These cars weigh in at about 8lbs or so and are powered by a 3.5 horsepower nitro methane driven engine. This particular class of racing is called 8th Scale Buggy. These buggies are 4wd drive and have plenty of power to reach speeds in excess of 50mph. 



This is track, it's much like a motocross track with a bunch of different jumps and timing sections. It's not only the drivers challenge to race against other drivers but to also to keep up with the ever changing conditions of the track.


 

A Fountain Maybe?
Hermann Park
February 27, 2004 - Friday

We went to Hermann Park for a little bit today and I noticed this rather weird looking thing on the ground. It was about 5 feet in diameter and had the words "Space Exploration" stamped into each quarter section. I'm thinking it may be some sort of fountain that is in the works. I'm  going to have to dig up some information on these things and see what exactly they are used for.


 

The Water Wall
Uptown Park
February 26, 2004 - Thursday

I had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory in the Galleria Mall in Uptown. This restaurant had a ton of awesome views so luckily I had my camera handy. Here's a picture looking up the main staircase that joined the two floors of the restaurant. I used a slow shutter speed in order to capture the true mood lighting of the area. There was no place for me to setup my mini tripod so I set my camera on the handrail and took a deep breath and snapped a few pictures.



I also stopped by the Water Wall Fountain that sits at the base of Williams Tower in Uptown Park and took a bunch of pictures despite the 40F degree temperatures. Since it was so dark already I had to us a much slower shutter speed than I was normally used to. In this picture below I used a speed of a full 10 seconds in order to capture enough light to make this picture decent. This fountain pumps a total of about 11,000 gallons of water over its 64 foot wall every single minute. This fountain was built in 1985 and is a must see attraction for anyone who lives in or visits Houston.



Here is another view looking up through the archway at the Water Wall. The original picture isn't this clean and I had to do quite a bit of post processing work in Photoshop in order to make the image presentable.


 

The Rose
Birthday Roses
February 25, 2004 - Wednesday

Today was a co-workers birthday and she received a bouquet of bright pink roses. I decided to take a few pictures and applied a couple of old Photoshop tricks to the image to get the look below. I converted the background to a black and white image while leaving the main subject in color. It makes for a cool effect and really makes the rose stand out.