Nitrocross.com :: My Photo A Day Gallery

If you are interested in buying a 5x7 or 8x10 print please feel free to email me at abel@nxracer.com


	Lone Lilly Mary Jo Peckham Park May 20, 2004 - Thursday Since the weather was nice and clear today, I decided have my lunch out at the park. I had my camera in hand and I wandered around a little bit and noticed a pretty nice sized Koi pond with a bunch of lilies planted. I snapped a few pictures of this particular lily and have come to realize that I really want a digital SLR camera. A DSLR camera would make it nice because I would not be limited to my short 100mm zoom like on my G5 and I could buy whatever zoom lens I choose. So now I am officially looking for a good deal on a Canon 10d camera.

Manfrotto Baggins
My Makeshift Studio
May 19, 2004 - Wednesday

It seems as if photography gadgets and gizmos knows no end. I recently bought a very nice Manfrotto 3216 monopod that I think will come in very handy once I upgrade to a digital SLR camera (which may be sooner than I think). I also picked up a very cool Manfrotto 484 ball head which mounts to the top of the monopod and allows the camera to point from many different angles. Both of these items will come in handy when I make the leap over to the DSLR side of things and start playing around with different zoom lenses and such. Manfrotto is an Italian based company which also has a very nice line of sturdy tripods. I hope to pick one of those up eventually as well.

New Additions
Parking Garage
May 18, 2004 - Tuesday

A couple of weeks ago I noticed two mockingbirds building a nest under our covered parking lot at my office. The two birds spent the entire day getting the small nest built and it wasn’t too long before the nest housed a few new additions to the mockingbird family; four to be exact. For the past couple of days I walked near the nest to try to get a glimpse of the chicks but was rudely greeted by big bad momma mockingbird. She made a very good impression of an old World War II fighter pilot as she dove down at me from all different angles. Apparently she is not too keen on the idea of anything getting close to her babies, go figure. Anyways, during lunch today I managed to get up there and snap a couple of pictures of the newborns while a coworker stood post as a lookout for the disgruntled parents that were nearby.

Old Basketball Shoes
My New Studio
May 17, 2004 - Monday

I know what you are thinking; there is no way that those are “old” basketball shoes because they look brand spanking new. Well the truth is that I’ve had them for well over a year now and have only worn them once. I went out and bought this set to play basketball in and decided to wear them one day to work so that I could kind of get them broken in. As it turns out the material they are made out of makes a very annoying squeaking sound when you walk and everyone in the office could hear me coming down the hall. So to say the least, I decided that was my last day to wear those shoes.

Since I’ve been battling poorly lit indoor pictures I went out and bought 2 medium sized dome work lights with 2 of the biggest, baddest, brightest fluorescent bulbs Home Depot carried. In this picture I set my camera on a mini tripod and set the cameras timer to 10 seconds. Once I pressed the shutter release I then had 10 seconds to situate the two bright lights how I saw fit for the image. Trying to take images like this really give me an added appreciation for commercial photographers who do this for a living and produce great images that we normally take for granted.

I also have another old set of signature Charles Barkley Nike basketball shoes tucked away for safe keeping that I have never worn. They are about 6 years old now and are in mint condition. They were my favorite style of shoe at the time and I think I went through 3 sets of them during the course of the year. The set that I have now I originally paid like $89 for them in 1998. I have seen them sell on Ebay for as much as $300 a pair. I'll have to post some pictures of them sometime in the future.

Antique Shop
Spring, Texas
May 16, 2004 - Sunday

Lisa and I made the short drive to Old Town Spring which is located in Spring, Texas. Old Town Spring is a large shopping area made up of about 10 or so small city blocks which are home to over 150 specialty arts and crafts and antiques shops. Most of all of these shops are in homes that were built in the very early 1800s which really adds to the nuance of small town shopping.

Flowers In Bloom
A Friend's Garden
May 15, 2004 - Saturday

Today was a long day, I spent about 8 hours at the office trying to get our company’s new server online and finally got everything up and running correctly. Afterwards, Lisa and I had previous plans to meet a couple of friends of ours for dinner at their house. The weather was perfect for an outdoor Bar-B-Que so that is exactly what we did. Anyways, as we hung out on the patio I noticed a couple of very cool looking flowers in their garden so I ran out to the car to grab my camera and snapped a few pics.

Small Scale Racing
My Racing Garage
May 14, 2004 - Friday

Well as you probably already know I used to race large scale radio controlled cars but has since retired from that for a short time. I still have my Kyosho Mini-Z 1/28th scale electric car just in case I get the urge to race I have something to satisfy my competitive itch with. The cars I used to race were about 20" long and weighed as much as 8 lbs, this little Toyota Supra Mini-Z is about 6" long and weighs in at a mere 8 ounces. That's quite a bit of change from what I am used to but it is still fun nonetheless. The image below shows the front corner of the car and the overall diameter of the wheel and tire is the exact same size as a U.S. quarter. That's pretty small.

I have only had one chance to race this car and I did very well with it. I won all 3 of my qualifiers and won 1st place overall in the Main Event which secured me exclusive bragging rights until the following weeks race. I hope to make it out racing with my Mini-Z sometime soon and I will definitely post some race pictures of these mean little machines in action.

Fuel Prices Too High?
Bissonnet and Hwy 59 South
May 13, 2004 - Thursday

I had to run a few errands today after work and passed by this gas station on the southwest side of town and was amazed at what the prices were. I normally fill up for about $1.69 or so per gallon for regular unleaded and I can't see how anyone could fill up at this station. I mean it would cost me about $30 to fill up my small car with Premium unleaded at this place. That's insane!

CRKT Knife
My Studio
May 12, 2004 - Wednesday

I bought this pocket knife about 3 years ago and it has been one of my favorites that I have ever owned. It is made by Columbia River Knife & Tool which makes a wide variety of custom knives. This M-16 model I have was the first knife I had seen that had what is called a Carson Flipper which is an aid to safely open the blade with one hand.

The Carson Flipper was named after one of the original designers and is made up of a small area of material that sticks out on the back side of the blade which can barely be seen on the top of this image. While the knife is in your hand, you place your forefinger on the Carson Flipper and flip your forefinger back towards your palm and that action alone causes the blade to snap open quickly. This knife by far has one of the sleekest designs I have ever seen.

Little Orchid
My Greenhouse
May 11, 2004 - Tuesday

Lisa and I were doing a little grocery shopping and saw a bunch of potted orchids for sale in the floral department. I decided to pick one up to add a little color to the living room. These plants have very cool looking flowers and hopefully it is easy to take care of. If all else fails, I can always go and buy an artificial Orchid for decoration.

I borrowed a Canon 550EX external flash from a friend and have realized that I need one for myself. This thing really makes a big difference when taking indoor photos of objects and especially people. These flashes are not cheap, they run about $330 online but I feel that they are worth the money since my indoor and portrait photos have been lacking a lot in quality. The Canon flash really made for a nice photo of this new Orchid.

Blue Light Special - Part Deux
My Humble Abode
May 10, 2004 - Monday

As you can probably tell by the overall design of my website that I used to be very involved in racing radio controlled cars. I raced for about a total 6 years and have recently gotten out of the hobby for a little break. Anyways back to my point, I was rifling through my tool box at home looking for a subject for today's photo and I came across a couple of sleeves of spare bearings. These bearings are commonly used on 8th scale buggies and I had completely forgotten that I still had them. I decided to go ahead and make them my subject for the day before they head off to Ebay this weekend.

Since the lighting in my house is not anywhere near the level it needs to be for photographing I chose to go ahead and duplicate the blue light technique I learned back in March. I really like the blue light technique because it gives the image a very cool vibrant futuristic feel. I hope to one day get a couple of nice small light boxes for photographing objects such as these indoors.

Go Speed Racer Go!
I-10 and I-45 Interchange
May 9, 2004 - Sunday

While Lisa and I were making our Mother's Day Rounds, I decided to snap a few pics of the freeway off ramp we were on. I thought the images would come out kind of cool since the low light setting would force my cameras shutter to remain open longer causing a cool motioned effect of the road. I know this is not an awarding winning image but it was a learning experience for me and that my friends is why I created this Photo A Day project to begin with. Also, for those that are concerned with my personal well being, I was not the one driving at the time so it was perfectly safe. :o)

Vintage Harley
Custom Cycle Shop - Katy, Tx
May 8, 2004 - Saturday

I drove by a custom motorcycle shop and noticed a vintage bike sitting in the bed of a classic 1950's Chevrolet truck. I decided to pull over and snap a few pics of the motorcycle. I noticed that the bike was actually marked as a Harley Davidson but I never knew they produced a bike that was so similar to a simple moped.

After doing some research on a Harley Davidson message board, I was told that the bike was actually an Italian made Aermacchi M50-S that dated back to 1965 - 1966. I was a little confused as to how it had the Harley name but was manufactured in Italy. This question led me to dig a little deeper and I found out exactly how and why.

Aermacchi's are true Harley Davidson's that were made in Varese, Italy. In 1960 Harley Davidson bought 50% of Aermacchi Motorcycle Company in order to produce lightweight motorcycles. At the end of 1972, Harley Davidson finally acquired the remaining shareholdings retained by Aermacchi to make it 100% Harley Davidson. By May, 1978, the Varese subsidiary was put into liquidation and sold to Cagiva, which is another Italian based motorcycle manufacturer that is still in operation today. Aermacchi's would be the last lightweight Harley Davidson's ever manufactured.

STOMP
Jones Hall
May 7, 2004 - Friday

Lisa surprised me with a pair of tickets for us to go see STOMP at Jones Hall tonight in downtown. Stomp is mixture of music, dance, theater and comedy all wrapped up in one entertainment filled 90 minute show. The main basis of the show is the cast has several musical performances with regular everyday items such as matchbooks, brooms, sticks and even kitchen sinks! If you guys have not heard of Stomp or simply have not seen them, I definitely recommend checking out their schedule and trying to make one of their performances, it was a blast. I did not get to get any images from the show because they were very strict about not allowing cameras inside for the show. I did have my camera on hand but didn't manage to get any shots, oh well.

Anyways, Lisa and I started the night out at the Hard Rock Cafe at Bayou Place in downtown since it was only a block or so away from Jones Hall. This was the first time we had been there so we thought it would be a nice change from the norm. This is an image I took from our table looking at that main bar area which had a classic Cadillac hanging from the ceiling.

After the show we walked around Bayou Place a little bit and enjoyed the night out on the town. Bayou Place is a large area comprised of about 2 blocks or so that house a couple of restaurants, two dance clubs, a small concert venue, a pool hall and a movie theater all in one complex. I was not carrying my mini tripod around tonight so I had to make do with what was available. I knelt down and braced my camera on a short concrete pillar in order to get this shot. I think I am getting pretty good at improvising when I don't have a tripod handy.

All in all we had a great time out tonight. We were both very impressed with the show and the performers tonight and will make it a point to check them out when they come back into town next tour. Like I said earlier, if you have a chance to attend a show, DO IT.

Steak Time
Texas Land & Cattle
May 6, 2004 - Thursday

If there is only one thing that I don't miss from the cruise it would have to be their food. Sure they had a lot of food to choose from and it was all free but 90% of the time it just sucked. Lisa and I ventured out tonight to have a nice hearty New York Strip at a local steakhouse, Texas Land & Cattle Steakhouse. Even though this restaurant is not our favorite, it still beat out the cruise food hands down.