The Unknown Singer

I just got around to looking at some of the photos I took last Saturday evening at the Festival Of The Horse.  There was a pretty decent band playing and I took some pictures of them. I have no clue what the band’s name was nor the name of this singer.  Hence the name of this post, the Unknown Singer.  But anyway, I really liked this photo so I am posting it here.

Photo Wall

As I mentioned a few weeks ago order some 11x14 prints of  my infrared work.  Well I finally got around to framing some.  Here are 5 of them.  I have room on the wall for at least 9.  I just need to get some more frames.  Excuse the poor photo but it was night and I was trying to get a picture with a flash.  Very hard to not cause flare off of the glass covering the picture, so I took the picture at an angle.

B&W, Sepia, and Duotones

I spent some time reading yesterday evening and tonight about black and white, sepia and duotones.  According to the book I am reading, “The great strength of duotones for the digital photographer is that it combines the great dynamic range of colour with the emotional power of the black and white.”  I must confess that I don’t have a big clue as to what all that means, but I did take a color picture and played with it (converted to B&W, added a black vignette, added a sepia filter,  and then added some noise to it) and I like the resulting image much better.  It really focuses in on the little girl.  I liked it so much that I ordered an 8x10 of it from MPIX.  Hope it turns out as nicely in print as it does on this screen.

Regional Invitational Art Show

On October 1st 2005, there is going to be a regional art show at The Black Barn at Cardome. I plan to enter some of my photographs.  For photography, here are 3 classes, (a) Color, (b) Black & White, and (c) Digital.  I have no idea how digital is different from (a) and (b).  I am going to call and find out tomorrow.   October 1st is going to be a very busy day, with this art show, Steps for Pets, and Babes In Arms all happening the same day.

Festival Of The Horse

Each September Georgetown has a celebration called Festival Of The Horse.  Last night was the kids parade.  The picture in my Cross Processing post from yesterday of Emily was taken during that parade.  Saturday evening, there is a parade which celebrates horses.  Here are some pictures from that parade.

Emily was in this parade riding in a horse drawn carriage.

This year, it seems like there were many more horses and people were more elaborately costumed.  Here is a  sampling of some of the photos I took.

First a trick rider standing on the back of a couple of horses.

Next a horse with the longest main I have ever seen.

I thought this horse had a pretty mane.

A zorse?  A cross between a zebra and a horse!

I liked this horse a lot and this lady’s outfit.  I am guessing this is some kind of Spanish horse.

The horse on the left below had the longest tail I have ever seen.  

This little girl gets my vote for the cutest in the parade.

Whenever Melissa saw a dog, she had me take a picture of it.  The dog on the left is riding in a wagon.

I liked this ladies outfit.  Very regal.

This is just a VERY small sampling of the horses in the parade.  It was excellent.

 

My work is getting noticed...

I received a couple of comments on my Second Curtain Flash Fun blog entry.  Both comments are from insanely awesome photographers.  One is from David Jay and the other is from Liana Lehman.  I really admire both of their work.   If you click on the David Jay link, you will see the most awesome photo movie I have ever seen.  It is truly amazing.  Check out his site.  It is very well crafted.   If you click on Liana’s link, you will be taken to her blog.  Check out her Sunday August 28th, 2005 post, Will dance for ice cream.  Those set of engagement pics are unbelievable. Just gotta love her amazing ability. How they do it, I have no clue, but I am diligently trying to learn.

There are several other photographers who I really like their work.  One of them is Gino Lucadamo.  Click on his name to check out his site.  Again, amazing photographs. The reason I brought up Gino, is that in November I am going to be flying to Phoenix to attend his photography bootcamp.  I am hoping to pick some of his fine art techniques.  I just hope my brain can hold it all.

 

Cross Processing Effects

I took a bunch of pictures of this evenings Festival Of The Horse children's parade. Here is a picture of Emily Heflin, Miss Scott County Fair Sr. Pre-Teen 2005.  I played with a few home grown cross processing effects on her.  I am thinking about making a script to automate some of these. 

Georgetown / Scott County Artist Of The Month For October 2005

Ok, I actually don’t know what it is called and I sort of made that title up. Sounds impressive doesn’t it. I was told what is was, but really I don’t remember.  I am still a little dumbfounded by it all.  So I will be Artist of the Month until I figure out what it really is. Anyway, for the month of October 2005 I am the featured artist at the Georgetown / Scott County Chamber of Commerce.  I get to display 3 of my works there. I am planning on displaying 3 of my infrared pictures. I also get to display one of my larger works in the lobby of the Farmers Bank.  For there, I am going to display one of my Georgetown At Night photographs.  I am still deciding on which infrared to display.  They will be 11x14 in size.  For the Farmer’s bank display, I am going to display a 16x20 framed print of this:

So during October, stop by either the Chamber of Commerce in downtown Georgetown or the Farmers Bank and admire my work. I will be delivering my work on October 3rd.

Blogging Blues

Ok it is pretty bad when my son chastises me for not posting to my blog. I have tons of excuses, but none are very good. But the good news is that I have tons of things to blog about over the next few days. This weekend is the festival of the horse here in Georgetown and that should provide me with plenty of pictures. I am excited.

Infrared Gallery

I am starting to load up a pbase gallery with my infrared photos.  I still have plenty place into the gallery.  But here is what I have loaded so far.  Click on the image to visit the gallery.

Second Curtain Flash Fun

I was playing with a flash setting on my 580ex called second curtain synchronization.  What it does is cause the flash to fire just before the shutter closes. Normally the flash fires immediately when the shutter opens.  So when you set the exposure for like 1/4 of a second, it will fire at the end of the 1/4 exposure.  Now if you move the camera as the shutter is open, you get this nice artistic motion effect.  It gives Happy a ghost like effect. 

Festive Fall Colors Arrives

Melissa’s favorite time of the year is the fall.  She looks forward to the changing tree colors and cooler weather.  But what she really looks forward to is being able to decorate the yard. Of course since this is her pleasure, I let her do it all without my help. But I am very eager to help her in the end by documenting her efforts with pictures.  Here they are!

Antiquing In Georgetown

Georgetown is probably the capital of Kentucky when it comes to antique shops. Today Melissa and I went down town to Lock N Key for lunch. I had a southwest chicken melt sandwich and Melissa had a southwest breakfast burrito.

There was suppose to be live music all day today, at least that is what the newspaper said, but we couldn’t find any. So we decided to peruse the local antique shops. Georgetown has a ton of them. While we were looking around I found several old cameras that were interesting. I had Melissa take some pictures of me with some of them. Since they are old timie cameras I figured an old timie effect was in order.

Gorgeous Sunset In Georgetown Kentucky

Melissa and I went to Golden Corral tonight to eat. Mmmm.. As we headed home and saw the most beautiful sunset we have seen in quite a while.  Having my SD400 in shirt pocket, I pulled the car over to take some photos.  Here is one of them:

 

Mike Needs A Photography Course

As I said in a few posts ago, Mike brought back the SD400 camera from college.  Well tonight I took some pictures and I pulled up the photos into my computer and I found this one that Mike had took and left in the camera.  Mike here is a hint, next time ask her to turn around.

Babes In Arms - Can't Wait!

I just received an email from the maskrafters reminding me that their production of Babes In Arms is coming soon.  If this is even 1/2 as good as Oklahoma was, it is going to be FANTASTIC!   Melissa and I are going to attend for sure.   I am pretty stoked just thinking about it!  I just hope the lighting at Cardome is as good as it was at Scott County High School for Oklahoma so I can take tons of pictures.

Showit Web

I have been playing around with a beta copy of Showit Web.  It is a flash program that permits you to make web movies quickly and easily.  I am pretty impressed with it.  Here is a movie of my infrared pictures that I put together in literally less than 5 minutes!  It is a pretty big movie so be patient and it requires that you have flash installed to view it. Just click on the image below to launch it.

I may have created a monster

It all started out with my suggestion to Mike that he start a blog about his freshman experiences.  That turns into him needing a camera to take photos to augment his blog so he took my SD400 to school with him.  This last weekend he came home and informed me that the SD400 isn’t good enough and he needs to take one of my good cameras.  In a moment of weakness, I relented and said he could take my Canon 10D with the 28–135MM F/3.5–5.6 IS lens.  He took back on Sunday and Monday evening he has informed me that my camera is AWESOME.  I think that means he is never going to bring it back!   How do I get myself into these situations.  Oh well, at least I have my SD400 back! I missed that little baby.

More On The IR Photos I Am Printing

I ordered the prints tonight from MPIX.  I selected 11x14 in size to see how well the old Powershot G1 will scale up.  I am expecting the pictures to look fantastic.  I will know in a few more days.   Here are a few more of the photos that I printed.   In case you are wondering, I didn’t print them with sloppy borders.

Printing IR Photographs

Today I went to to the Yuko-en around noon and took pictures in direct overhead sunlight and they turned out great.  I think what I learned by this is the more sun the better for IR photography which makes sense to me.  I am going to print some of my IR Photographs and see how they look in print.  I am going to send off some to MPIX and print them 14x11.   Here is one of the pictures I took today and one I am going to print.

Japanese Garden

I took one of my infrared pictures and applied a textured background to it in Photoshop. It really makes the photo turn into a painting. If I could only really paint this good!

Infrared Yuko-en

Here are some more photos that I took yesterday at Yuko-en.  Yuko-en is very pretty and serene place to visit.  While the regular photos are very pretty, I really like the photos taken with an infrared filter.

 

 

Katrina is a disaster for animals as well

From the Humane Society Of The United States Katrina disaster update September 8th, 2005:

After initially being blocked from entering the most devastated areas in Louisiana and Mississippi, HSUS Disaster Animal Response Teams (DART) have been working around the clock to help save stranded and sick animals. 

What we are finding is truly heartbreaking – animals trapped in flooded houses, caregivers wandering the streets desperately searching for their beloved pets, and nearly destroyed animal shelters where the surviving animals have spent days keeping their heads above water in their cages.

But this is why we are here and why we are counting on our supporters to help spread the word about our disaster efforts on the Gulf Coast.

Block after block, our teams are entering homes and apartments, sometimes forced to break into them, searching for stranded animals. Yesterday in Mississippi, one of our DART teams rescued a dog who had been washed into someone's attic; the storm surge had stranded the animal. The woman who owned the house was elderly; she had slipped some food and water into the attic for the dog, but hadn't been able to go upstairs to carry him out.

We are finding and rescuing more animals as each hour passes - more than a thousand so far - but with many more thousands needing our help. In the past two days, we've focused on these activities: 

• Marshalling all of our resources to provide relief for these animals.  We have 125 people and 39 support vehicles in Louisiana, and more than 10 emergency personnel and 17 support vehicles in Mississippi.  The call is out for many more rescuers to converge on these two states before it is too late.
  
• Calling on ALL federal, state, and local responding agencies to help provide animal rescue assistance immediately. Even though we've been able to put hundreds of people in the field, we worry they may not be enough.
  
• Logging thousands of telephone calls through our HSUS call center, as well as responding to thousands of emails.  Staff members in every section at headquarters dropped their normal duties to assist in the response to Katrina, searching for boats, trucks, crates, carriers, supplies, food, and other essential items for transport and operations in the impact zones of Louisiana and Mississippi.
  
• Establishing our online Disaster Center at www.hsus.org featuring critical updates on our relief efforts, video and slideshow footage, and ways that individuals can help us save even more animals affected by Katrina. We’re encouraging all our supporters to visit the website often and take a moment to let others know about our emergency response.

In the days ahead, we will be expanding our large-scale rescue of the animal victims of Hurricane Katrina. In light of the devastation we have witnessed, our rescue efforts cannot come fast enough. Again, thank you for your recent donation and please take a moment to tell a friend about our efforts.

Sincerely,

Laura Bevan
Incident Commander
HSUS National Disaster Animal Response Team
Jackson, Mississippi

For more information, visit: http://www.hsus.org/index.html

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