It's a Trap!

Today's shot is one that was inspired by our vacation to Florida. We had a few chances to visit downtown Disney during our trip (it was a short boat trip away from the Port Orleans Resort where we were staying after all!) and one of the most interesting stores that we visited was the Lego store. There was a Lego knight and dragon as well as an interesting Lego sea monster at the store, but the item that I was really impressed with was the Lego Imperial Shuttle. The detail was so impressive that I thought it was a model when I first saw it. That got me on my current idea of taking macro shots of a few Lego playsets and characters in hopes of producing some pretty cool images.

Today's shot is courtesy of the Home One Mon Calamari Star Cruiser set (#7754). Admiral Ackbar has had a special place in my heart for some time and I jumped at the chance to acquire the set and construct the bridge. I was slightly concerned about the proper backdrop, but it turns out a perfectly placed light actually created the perfect backdrop (the blue-ish glow behind him is the light reflecting off a Puffs Plus tissue box of all things)! Admiral Ackbar was a trooper throughout the photo shoot, I don't think he moved once, although I thought I did hear him muttering something about my camera lens being unable to "repel good looks of this magnitude".

I have plans to construct at least one more Lego set (sorry, no hints on what it might be!) but I am so happy with the way this shot turned out I have a few ideas for some more interesting Lego Star Wars photos that I will be shooting and sharing in the near future!

It's a Trap!

If you are so inclined, please feel free to leave any comments or feedback. Also remember that clicking on the photo takes you to my online gallery hosted over at smugmug where you can view the photos that I have posted in various sizes. Thanks for stopping by!

Hamilton Pool Nature Preserve - May 2011

Today's photo is another shot from what may be my favorite place in Texas to shoot, the Hamilton Pool Nature Preserve near Dripping Springs, Texas. I had hoped to get up there on a partly cloudy day, but unfortunately it was clear blue skies. Instead of using Photoshop to put in the cloudy background, I took several underexposed shots of just the blue sky in order to make the differential between the sky and the vegetation less noticeable (personally, I think it came out very good!). I am still hoping to get up there a little bit later this year when there is more of an actual waterfall as well as even more vegetation. I have a season pass, it is just an issue of trying to find the time to account for shooting and about 3 hours of round-trip traveling.

Hamilton Pool Nature Preserve - May 2011

If you are so inclined, please feel free to leave any comments or feedback. Also remember that clicking on the photo takes you to my online gallery hosted over at smugmug where you can view the photos that I have posted in various sizes. Thanks for stopping by!

Apollo 8 Mission Control

Today's photo is a shot that I took while touring the Apollo/Saturn V Center during our visit to the Kennedy Space Center. After witnessing a short video presentation that detailed the beginnings of the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union, we shuffled into a room that was set up to mimic mission control during the launch of Apollo 8. We managed to get a seat in the second row and I had enough room to set up my tripod and take some long exposure shots (long enough to capture enough light to create a good photo anyway).

I ended up deciding not to take bracketed shots for this scene because there were too many different lights and countdown clocks and the brackets would have come out looking terrible. The fact that I didn't have much room for the tripod also contributed to my decision, as I could not guarantee it would remain stable during the period of time that I would need to create a set of bracketed shots. So, this image was created from a single RAW shot, the different exposures were created using DPP, then processed using my normal methods. As the last step I then converted using Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 and decided that I liked the black and white look more than the color version, so I decided to keep it and make that my final processed shot.

Apollo 8 Mission Control

Canon 60D, on tripod, 1 RAW shot, Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM (@10mm), Aperature f/8

If you are so inclined, please feel free to leave any comments or feedback. Also remember that clicking on the photo takes you to my online gallery hosted over at smugmug where you can view the photos that I have posted in various sizes. Thanks for stopping by!

Remember the gator that got your hand?....

Today's photo is another that I took while playing around with the 100mm macro lens. I managed to sneak up quietly on a napping gator during our trip to Florida and managed to snag this shot before running away screaming and crying like a little girl because the ordeal was terrifying!!!

Ok, ok. So none of that is true (except for me taking the shot with the macro lens). About 4 years ago on the way back from a trip to Florida from visiting my wife's family we stopped at a little tourist trap shop along a highway. Only because they had a sign proclaiming "see live gators", as seeing live gators is totally fascinating to me. One of the "momentos" that were available for purchase were gator heads, which I gladly purchased (although I will admit it did smell a little funny the entire trip back to Texas!). I subsequently purchased an autographed football display case to store the head in, and it has resided in my computer room ever since.

I took it out of the case for this shot, but I had trouble getting the exact angle and lighting that I wanted. It probably took me about 2 hours total before I finally got the shot that I was looking for. I am still learning about macro photography, I really think that I am going to have to get one of the macro lens specific flashes at some point to capture more of the shots that I want, but for now random objects that I have around the house make pretty interesting subjects to say the least!

Gator Head

Canon 60D, on tripod, 3 bracketed shots (-2,0-2), Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS USM Macro (@100mm), Aperature f/8

If you are so inclined, please feel free to leave any comments or feedback. Also remember that clicking on the photo takes you to my online gallery hosted over at smugmug where you can view the photos that I have posted in various sizes. Thanks for stopping by!

PS: Yes, the title of today's post came directly from the classic golf movie Happy Gilmore, in case you were wondering!!

Hyatt Hill Country Dusk

My original plan for today's post was going to be a couple of shots that I took while touring the Kennedy Space Center, in honor of this morning's launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour (which, while I am disappointed that I did not get to see it live, based on photos of the launch, the low clouds made the prime photography window VERY short so that would have had added some disappointment to witnessing the launch). I took these shots last night and was really impressed with how they came out so I decided to share them today at KSC/NASA photos will wait a few days!

The first shot was taken after a long journey (about 2134 jelly beans *) from my back door to the back fence line, which borders the 6th fairway of the Lakes Course at the Hyatt Hill Country Resort. When I investigated the cause of abnormal barking by our three vicious attacks dogs (Pomeranian, Chihuahua, and Pug), which turned out to be our neighbors in their backyard (which, for whatever reason, still causes the dogs to go bonkers), I saw the sunbeams bursting through our own low cloud cover and rushed to get my camera. This was actually the first set of bracketed shots that I took. I took a few more but none captured the sunbeams as vividly as this photo so I settled on this set for processing.

Lakes Course Sunbeams

Canon 60D, on tripod, 3 bracketed shots (-2,0-2), EF 17-40mm f/4L (@40mm), Aperature f/8

The second shot is the entrance to the Wild Oak Ranch, which is part of the Hyatt Hill Country Resort. I have wanted to take a shot of the entrance for awhile (especially since the flowers have started to bloom) but never really had a good day to take the shot until yesterday, which was just the right amount of cloud cover, relatively calm winds, and actually having some time to set up for the shot. I took this shot on the corner of the sidewalk bordering the entrance after taking several from across the street. I decided that I liked this angle the most and processed it. I might end up working on the across the street shot at some point, but there is something that I just really like about this shot but I cannot put my finger on exactly what that is.

Wild Oak Ranch Entrance

Canon 60D, on tripod, 3 bracketed shots (-2,0-2), EF 17-40mm f/4L (@17mm), Aperature f/8

If you are so inclined, please feel free to leave any comments or feedback. Also remember that clicking on the photo takes you to my online gallery hosted over at smugmug where you can view the photos that I have posted in various sizes. Thanks for stopping by!

* Roughly 35 feet