100 - More Signal, Less Noise

I am 100 days into this 365 project. It's been an interesting and enlightening experience. Along the way, I've learned a number of technical things about lighting and exposure and composition. Just forcing a camera into my hands every day has sharpened my skills. I've also learned things about myself like, if under the gun, I can produce creatively. That's incredibly empowering!

And I've taken some pictures in this project that I'm really proud of.

But.  There's always a but.

The problem is I just don't have the free time required to come up with a shot of which I can be proud every single day. All too often, after the kids are in bed, I scramble to take a photo in the remaining hours of the day. As a result, I've developed some creative crutches that I've abused to get the shot out. Some of my pictures fall short in both concept and execution. I learn nothing from these and they turn this project into work of the tedious and unenjoyable kind. Most of all, I hate that they've diluted the quality of my online work - the stuff by which people form opinions about my photography. In my life - whether it's mowing lawns, making music, programming computers, marketing products, or taking pictures - I've never been happy working on something unless I feel like it's genuinely good. And too often in this 365 I've not been able to do that.

Worse, this project is competing for time with other projects that I desperately need to complete - like finishing off my guitar photos, building a new web site with e-commerce, or putting together my photography book from 2013.  I've learned a lot doing the 365, but I'm forced to admit that the cost/benefit of continuing is no longer in my favor.

Now, I hate quitting things. Always have, always will. I'm wired that way. But continuing to do something just for the sake of completion, at the expense of other opportunities that have a much higher pay-off is irrational and counter-productive. From an economist's perspective, the "sunk costs" (in my case, the time investment I've already made in the 365) are not relevant factors to consider in decisions regarding current options (whether or not to continue the 365 or invest the time in something else). This runs counter to what we're taught as children, and what we teach our children ("Winners never quit and quitters never win!"). But it is true that knowing why and when to quit, and acting upon it decisively, actually helps you be more successful by opening opportunities that could otherwise not be explored. (I struggle with that concept, but this podcast really helped.)

So, I sincerely thank you for paying attention to my little project and I apologize for ending this prematurely. But it's the right thing to do. I will of course be posting tons more photos at my regular site, but I will go back to my old way of just posting the pictures that I believe in and for which I don't have to feel apologetic.

More signal, less noise.

Love you guys, David

99 - Hamer Time

This weekend I shot my Hamer Special FM. The Special FM is no longer made, but it's basically a slab-cut Les Paul. It has the classic Les Paul formula of dual humbuckers, mahogany body and neck, and a maple top. It varies from the formula with a double-cutaway shape and a control configuration of two volumes, a master tone, and a 3-way toggle placed on the lower bout. US-made Hamers are great instruments with excellent woods, top-shelf parts, and superb fit and finish. The thick maple top on this one is PRS-pretty with an amber finish.  I bought this guitar 20 years ago and it's still in fine shape. It has a few surface scratches and the pickup covers have a fair amount of corrosion (one of the drawbacks of nickel-silver covers). I swapped out the original pickups for Duncan Seth Lovers, which are particularly authentic reproductions of '50s era Gibson PAF pickups. They're low in output and very warm sounding, with just enough bite to be articulate. All of which adds up to a vintage Les Paul sort of sound. I used this guitar for some of the rhythm tracks on my first CD and they ended up being the songs that had the best guitar sounds on the record. The only real criticism I have for the Special FM is that the short upper horn makes the guitar just a bit neck-heavy when balanced on a strap.

I've reached a crossroads with my guitar photo series. I have several photos left to post-process, but beyond that I'm trying to decide if I want to continue the series or not. I've learned a lot and of course there's always more to learn, but I think I could advance my cause more by moving on and finding some new challenges. On the other hand, the series has gone very well and has generated a fair bit of traffic to my web sites. Most likely, I will at least take a break from photographing guitars for awhile and maybe return to it in the future when my enthusiasm for it has recharged.

98 - Big Wheel

This truck (I think it's a Unimog, but I'm not sure) was sitting outside a barbeque restaurant in Brenham, Texas. I went over to get a picture of The Punisher logo on the driver's door, but then I noticed that the tire was as big as C and decided to get that photo as well. We stopped at the restaurant to eat while driving through the area looking at bluebonnets and other wildflowers, which are currently in season.

This photo is a pretty good example of shooting on an overcast day. This was taken when the sun would have right over head, which would cause very harsh shadows on a clear day. But on an overcast day, the clouds acts as a giant softbox so C's face has a nice even lighting and even the shadows under the truck are soft. Very nice light for portraits, as long as you don't let the sky itself dominate the shot.

97 - Lavender

96 - Bridge Orb

95 - Bad Egg

94 - Orchid Redux

I'd taken a picture of some of my wife's orchids before, but I wanted to do it again. First, they've bloomed a lot more since the first photo. But even more, I felt like there was a lot better photo to be had. I did both color and black and white versions of this photo. They both looked good in my opinion, and the color version had a lovely classic still life painting aesthetic to it. But I went with black and white because it made the simple composition even simpler.

93 - Dog Tired

92 - The Photo They Don't Want You To See From Roswell

91 - Workin' It

My favorite models glamming it up for the camera.

I've had this shot in mind for while. One easy formula to take pretty portraits: Find a pretty landscape, then put people in it. We have several nice little parks in our neighborhood that are great photo settings if the lighting is right. As we were heading home from dinner, it was still over an hour away from sunset but  I noticed that the clouds seemed well-formed for a nice one. So when we got home, I asked the boys to keep their shoes on (they didn't, of course), I slapped together a simple one-light rig that my wife could hand-hold, and I waited until about 10 minutes before I thought the sunset would be at its prime.  Then we went to a nearby park. You have to work fast in a sunset because you have maybe 10 or 15 minutes when the light will be at it's best.

You can really craft the final look of an image when working with mixed ambient and flash lighting. That's because you have independent control over how much the background (ambient sunset light) and foreground (flash) is lit. A camera flash is a very short, but intense burst of light. It's so short that it will fully drench the subject in its light regardless of the shutter speed, up to the "sync speed" of the camera which is typically 1/200 or 1/250 of second on a modern camera.  The shutter speed will therefore control how much ambient light is in the photo, but won't affect the flash at all. Conversely, the flash will have controls to adjust its intensity and therefore the amount of flash light hitting the foreground subjects. Meanwhile the aperture and the ISO speed will affect how much of both kinds of light are in the image.  Between all of these controls you can dial in a custom mix of background and foreground lighting. I went with a somewhat underexposed sunset because that causes the sunset colors to be more rich and saturated.

Now, this works fine with an on-camera or pop-up flash, but it doesn't look nearly as good as it can. Having the flash so close to the lens basically gives you light that is shadowless from the lens' point of view (objects block their own shadows from the lens' view). That is not very flattering light. You get that camera-at-a-party snapshot look, plus it practically guarantees red-eye on anyone looking at the camera. The first way to improve the look is to take the flash off the camera and simply aim it at the subject from somewhere else (which means that you have to have a way to trigger the flash remotely). Moving the flash away from the camera will cast shadows, providing depth and contour to people's faces and other objects. It makes a world of difference. Second thing is to put the light through some kind of diffuser to soften the shadows so there's a smoother gradient between those highlights and shadows you've introduced. In my case, the flash is to the left of the camera. I ran it through a softbox so if you look at, say, the light on the left boy, you'll see a smooth gradient between highlight and shadow on his left cheek and arm, instead of a hard shadow line.  It gives a softer look that is more flattering, especially to people, unless you're deliberately going for a harsh look (like, say, for a sports photo).

90 - Storm On The Horizon

There's a storm headed our way. This was the actual color of the sky about 20 minutes ago. We're under a severe thunderstorm warning and some parts of the area under a tornado warning.

You may have noticed that I didn't post a photo yesterday.  I'm pretty disappointed that I missed a day, but frankly, it was the last thing I wanted to do at the time. I've been sick as a dog the last couple days and yesterday was the worst of it. Got some kind of stomach virus that wiped out the entire family. I'm on the mend now, but my muscles are still all achy and I have a headache.

88 - My Latest Camera

I figured I'd follow up the photo of my first camera with one of my latest. This is my "take everywhere" camera, a Fujifilm X20. It's not my best camera (that would be my Nikon), but it's small, has good controls, and it takes nice photos. It also has this old Leica vibe that's pretty cool.

87 - My First Camera

Today's picture is of my first good camera. A Canon AE-1 from around 1978. I purchased it from money I earned mowing lawns in the 8th grade. Millions of photographers started with one of these. They were good, inexpensive cameras that were easy to use but could be put into manual mode to learn the basics of photography. This one literally traveled the world with me, going to the Philippines, Brazil, arctic Canada, and too many places in the US to name. For the first several years I used it, I just put it in shutter-priority mode (it's only automatic exposure mode) and left it there, except when I used flash. But in college I took a photojournalism class that finally taught me how to bend it to my will and develop my own prints. I still have the camera and it still works, although the light seals need replacing. I dedicate this photo to my life-long friend Richard, who had a camera very similar to this (the follow-on model, called the AE-1 Program).

86 - Java

85 - Cow Noir

On the drive back from the Lexington, I stopped to get a couple photos of cows grazing in the mist under this fine-looking oak tree.

84 - THBBFT!!

We spent Saturday night on the USS Lexington, an Essex Class aircraft carrier built during WWII and in commission all the way until the early '90s. It was Cub Scout event and a highlight of scouting here in Houston as far as I'm concerned. The best word I can come up with to describe the Lexington is magnificent. It truly is. The overnight event is a special way to see it because at 5PM they send all the other tourists home and you get the ship to yourself for several hours. For a history buff like me, that's heaven. They also let you into areas of the ship that are generally off-limits, and of course you get to sleep and eat on the ship. You sleep in one of the enlisted bunks, which are essentially cot-size bookshelves, stacked three units high. Not exactly Ritz-Carlton, but more comfortable than camping and hellaciously cool.

The photo above was taken on the trip to Corpus Christi where the Lexington is anchored as a floating museum. It was kind of a dreary day, but the light fog made for nice atmosphere and the wild flowers give a nice splash of color in the background.

83 - Lean On Me

Lean on me, when you're not strong
And I'll be your friend
I'll help you carry on
For it won't be long
'Til I'm gonna need
Somebody to lean on

82 - Renaissance Man

My older son's class had a "living museum" today where students dressed up as, and educated other students about, influential people from history.  D played Michelangelo and my wife put together a costume for him.  I'm biased but he's gotta be one of the cuter polymaths I've seen, and he makes the beard just work.

81 - Discipline

80 - Possibility

79 - Looking Through A Glass Onion

78 - Cherubs

Sometimes angels can be stinkers.  ;-)

I had intended to do a portrait of one of the boys using a "soft clamshell" lighting - an overhead softbox and a reflector underneath to lighten the shadows. The original idea was to place him in the middle of a room and nuke the ambient light by using a faster shutter speed so the background would be black. But while I was setting up, I saw the print of Raphael's  La Madonna di San Sisto (actually, it's a portion of that famous painting) that we have in our bedroom and the idea struck me. I got a kitchen chair for D to stand on to get him to the right height. The juxtaposition of his mischievous grin with the angel's innocent expression was planned, but the placement of the angel wings was just a fortunate accident.

77 - Midnight Gazebo

76 - St. Anne's

My boss took a vacation week for spring break. However, on Friday he called me and asked for a favor. He bought some furniture from somebody off Craigslist and he needed help moving it. (No, he wasn't taking advantage of his position - he's also a long-time friend, so it was completely appropriate to ask and I was glad to help.) On my drive back from helping him, I saw a very nice Catholic church, St. Anne's. So, not having my photo for the day I stopped and took some shots. It's a lovely church and I imagine it looks a lot better in good light (it was overcast) and with the foliage in season. Another place I'll need to re-visit come spring.

75 - Cobalt

74 - True Detective

The wife and I watched the finale for True Detective last night. Great show, I really liked it. It was dark, brutal, and nihilistic, but I'm a sucker for long story arcs, intricate plots, complex characters, and lots of little mysteries that reveal themselves over time. True Detective had tons of all that for sure. But I have to say that the story was so complicated and there were so many characters that I didn't really feel like I understood everything. So I spent a half hour during my lunch break today reading through online episode synopses and drawing a mind map of all the characters and things that were relevant to the main murder mystery. The exercise helped; I think I have a very good grasp on it all now.

Looking at this you might ask (I certainly did), "What the heck is the appeal of a show that requires so much effort to understand it?" I guess the answer is I don't mind entertainment that's high effort as long as it's also high reward. The challenge with this sort of show is that so much of the reward rests on the finale! It can ruin the entire experience if the writers screw up the finale (The X-Files comes to mind).  Or worse, if they don't make it to the finale (see American Gothic, Flash Forward, or the reboot of V). Anyway, I like the ending of True Detective. It wasn't perfect, but it was very good.  I'd give it an A-.

73 - Half-Pint Lotus Position

72 - The Orchid Thief

The wife bought some orchids today for the kitchen and I stole them (temporarily) to use as a subject for today's photo. I don't take many flower pictures mainly because there are so many photographers out there who specialize on them and they're really good. But this did give me a chance to practice on lighting a bit. This one was a little tricky because I was shooting white flowers on a white background and that can make it tough to get separation. I lit this one with a shoot-through umbrella on the flowers (camera-left from above) and a bare speedlight on the background which is a white reflector.

71 - Galactic Titan

After the skating rink, we went back home to celebrate my older kid's birthday. He went with a slightly lower key affair - he just invited one friend over and we took them to Chuck E. Cheese's. Of course, they had a blast. Then we came home, had cake and ice cream, and opened presents. We bought Dylan the "Galactic Titan" Lego set which he built this morning (it was getting late on Saturday and he didn't have time then).  After he was done, he wanted me to take a picture of it for posterity.

70 - Their First Set Of Wheels

It was a birthday party weekend. First we went to a friend's birthday party at the skating rink. I had forgotten how hard it is to learn to skate! I figured the boys would take right to it but it took awhile. As I was helping them and watching them struggle, I remembered: When you first get on skates you try to walk. And because you're on wheels, walking is incredibly precarious. So you try to walk carefully which makes things worse. It's not until you decide, "Screw it, I don't care if I fall" that you really make progress. Then you start letting yourself roll more freely instead of trying to control it so much. That's the way it worked for me anyway. The boys were really struggling with it until we rented some "walkers" for them. We didn't have those when I was a kid but it's a pretty brilliant idea. It's a walker on wheels. It keeps them from falling over but at the same time it gets them used to the feeling of being on wheels. By the end, my youngest one was letting go of the walker and letting himself roll. I think one more session (if I don't wait too long for it) and they'll have it down.

69 - Life In The Bayou

Today I'm enjoying a day off. Originally, the plan was to spend a good portion of the day at my kids' school where they're holding Spring parties for the various classes. But that activity was cut short by my older son getting sick yesterday. Still, I did spend some time at the school with my younger son. Afterward, I took a drive looking for my daily picture. This photo is of a really nice little pond near the jogging trails not far from the school. There are several spots like this in my neighborhood, which is obviously very pleasant. Lest you start feeling too at peace, however, every one has signs warning you to watch for alligators and poisonous snakes! I've never actually seen either in the neighborhood ponds, but it's still makes this desert boy a little uneasy when I get near the water.

68 - Under The Weather

The school called today.  My older boy threw up and was in the nurse's office.  Par for the kiddie course.  But unfortunately his school is having a celebration of some kind tomorrow that he won't be going to.  And worse, his birthday party is this weekend and he may not be ready for that either.  We promised him that we would make sure he had a proper birthday celebration next weekend if necessary.

67 - Form, Texture, and Tone

Today's photo subject is a vase that the wife and I got in Ruidoso, NM many years ago.  It occurred to me while looking around for subject matter that it might make a cool photo because of its graceful curves, mixed with the overlaid textures of soft feathers and crackled glaze.  I lit this one with a single, small softbox on the left-hand side of the photo, trying to emphasize depth and shape.  You can see the reflection of the softbox on the vase.  I added a bit of fill light by reflecting some of the light onto the other side of the vase using a piece of white cardboard.

66 - Frozen Bud

We had some frozen precipitation last night.  We've had two days this year where they've called off school when there was no snow or ice to be seen, but today when we actually get some, school is still on.  I think they've used up their scheduling slack and don't want to have to figure out how to make up any additional bad weather days.  In any case, some of the bushes in the back yard were covered in ice which always looks interesting.

Photogeek Talk:  Bokeh is a term for the subjective beauty of the portions of a photo that are out of focus.   The word is a phonetic spelling of the Japanese term boke, which means blur.  The optical characteristics of a lens determine the quality of its bokeh.  There are several specific things that photographers look for in judging bokeh, but the simple version is that good bokeh looks smooth and creamy while bad bokeh looks jumbled and jittery.  Like I said, this is a subjective thing.  Anyway, this photo has a shallow depth of field from a combination of proximity to the subject, a relatively large aperture (f/4), and a relatively long focal length (70mm).  Bokeh is key in a shot like this because so much of the image is outside the focus area.  Most of my lenses have reputations for good, but not great, bokeh ("cream machine" lenses tend to be very expensive).  That said, I'm very pleased, and frankly a little surprised, by the blur in this photo.  It's quite nice, if I say so myself.  Looks more expensive than it is.

65 - Goodnight, My Angel

Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)

Goodnight, my angel
Time to close your eyes
And save these questions for another day
I think I know what you've been asking me
I think you know what I've been trying to say
I promised I would never leave you
And you should always know
Wherever you may go
No matter where you are
I never will be far away

Goodnight, my angel
Now it's time to sleep
And still so many things I want to say
Remember all the songs you sang for me
When we went sailing on an emerald bay
And like a boat out on the ocean
I'm rocking you to sleep
The water's dark
And deep inside this ancient heart
You'll always be a part of me

Goodnight, my angel
Now it's time to dream
And dream how wonderful your life will be
Someday your child may cry
And if you sing this lullabye
Then in your heart
There will always be a part of me

Someday we'll all be gone
But lullabyes go on and on...
They never die
That's how you
And I will be 

- Billy Joel

Photogeek Talk: I really like the lighting on this one - the way it makes C's face glow from the bottom. This is hillbilly lighting at it's finest - no expensive strobes, just an LED flashlight that I held in one hand while taking the picture with the other. The trick was not to shine the light directly on the subject. I did that at first and it was very harsh and gave the whole thing a creepy voyeuristic vibe. So I shined the light on the bed sheets just out of the picture frame on the bottom. So C is getting the light bounced off the sheets, which makes lovely soft shadows and a pretty gradient on his face. A flashlight, especially bounced, means I was working with very low light levels so the photo is kind of noisy. But in black and white the noise adds character in my opinion.

64 - Rocketeers

I had picked out an interesting activity from The Dangerous Book for Boys to do with my kids this weekend - making marbled paper (the swirly printed paper they use to line hardcover books). Unfortunately Hobby Lobby didn't carry marbling ink, so I had to figure out a Plan B. Browsing around the store, I found a kit for a water bottle rocket.  I've seen instructions for making your own but this kit had all the parts and it looked easy, so I picked it up for $20. Too often, cheap toys that sound really cool on paper end up being a disappointment. But this rocket greatly exceeded expectations. It worked exactly as advertised, soaring up to around 90 feet. The boys loved it and so did I. We mixed in a short lecture on air pressure and the physics of action and reaction. But mostly, we just loved launching the thing.

63 - Send In The Clones

Another Saturday, lounging in the living room.

62 - Brain Coral

61 - Meno Mosso

60 - Principles Versus Pragmatism

This morning I had to take a different route into work and I saw this kidney-shaped building on the drive in.  It looked pretty cool so I stopped to get some pictures as I'm wont to do.  It took me a few photos to get the proper exposure and since I was on my way to work I didn't have time to take any more.  However, moments after the keeper shot, a security guard came walking up to tell me I had to stop taking photos of the building.

I should mention here that photographer rights are a really big topic right now in photographer's circles.  A lot of businesses, institutions, individuals, and even governments have been trying to clamp down on people taking photos, including situations where the photographer has every legal right to be doing so.  I've been fortunate that I haven't ran into this much, but today I did.  I sympathize with the non-photographer side of it.  A lot of photographers are jerks about what they're doing, disrupting people, trampling on grass, disregarding reasonable expectations of privacy, and taking photos when they should be rendering aid to people in need.  On the other hand, in many situations the photographer is completely within legal rights and accepted ethical standards.  That was my situation:  I'm in a public place.  I'm not on the property associated with the building, I'm in a Waffle House parking lot next door.  The building's owner has no reasonable expectation of privacy for the exterior of the building as it sits in a public place.  I'm not even aiming my camera at people and I'm in no way disrupting people or business at the building.  My photography falls under the category of "fine art" from a legal standpoint; it's not for commercial purposes.  Bottom line:  I have every legal right to take the photos, and I'm not even being inconsiderate about it.

When the security guard approaches me I know what's going to happen, and I handle it my usual way:  I'm very, very friendly and open.  I explain that I just thought the building looked cool and I wasn't spying on anybody or anything, and even show him the above photo to reassure him that I mean no harm.  He sheepishly responds that he's been instructed by his manager to tell me that unless I'm hired by their marketing group I'm not allowed to do it and that I need to stop.  I can tell he doesn't really want to be doing this, but he's compelled to by his over-reaching manager.

Okay, now I have a choice.  Do I stand up for my rights, or do I comply? On one hand, as a matter of principle it does bug me that these people think they have some kind of sovereign right to govern the direction that people point their cameras on property that doesn't even belong to them.  On the other hand, I have my photo and I need to get to work.  I really don't have the time or the pragmatic need to take a stand.

In the spur of the moment I said, "Sure, no problem.  I'll stop."  I knew he wasn't going to attempt to confiscate my pictures.  I would have certainly drawn the line at that.  ("Hey boss, I'm going to be a little late getting into the office this morning...")  The security guard got out of an uncomfortable situation.  The building management ran that pesky photographer off.  And I got my picture.

My stand on this issue, if there's ever going to be one, wasn't today.

59 - Looking for a Town Mouse

I saw this hawk keeping watch over a field near my office on the way to work this morning so I stopped to snap a picture. Not my finest picture, but it was still neat to capture the moment. Ironically I debated taking my good camera with me this morning but decided to forgo the hassle. One day I'll actually listen to that little voice in my head. He knows things about things.

58 - Story Time

57 - Just Sleeping

56 - Winner's Circle

He was very excited.  "This is my first award, on paper!"

55 - Crystal Decanter

54 - Gentlemen, Start Your Engines

This weekend is my kids' (and my) first pinewood derby race with the Cub Scouts.  It's going to be a photo finish but we should be ready to roll in time for the weigh-in on Saturday.  We waited a bit too long to start on the cars so I couldn't go as elaborate as I would have liked, but the cars are turning out okay.  On the other hand, the car my neighbor put together with his son is a bloody work of art! I'm glad my kids haven't seen that one yet!  ;-)  Next year I hope to be a little more ambitious with the design.

53 - Where The Heck Did I Put It?

It's true -  he does in fact lose his head when it's not screwed on.

52 - The Birds

In the parts of Texas where I've lived, there are very large populations of Grackles.  The flocks are so dense that they can be quite spectacular - huge black swirling clouds of flapping feathers.  It's literally like a scene from The Birds.  My photos here don't really capture that unfortunately (I couldn't get them all to fly at once). 

Grackles come in such numbers that they're commonly considered a nuisance.  I remember in Austin the Grackles were so bad on the University of Texas campus that their poop on the sidewalks would turn into a nasty, smelly slipping hazard when it rained!  If the fall didn't kill you the smell would.  They tried all kinds of things to drive them off campus, and what finally worked was firing off blank ammunition rounds all around campus in the evenings for several weeks.

They get quite brazen too.  I've sat on restaurant patios and have had Grackles swoop in to steal food off my table!