Dinner at the In-Laws

Wow! I almost missed the deadline!

Steph and I went to Pecatonica today to have dinner at Melanie and Joe's (Stephs Sister and Brother-in-Law). We usually get together this time of year to celebrate Joe's, Dan's (Steph's Brother), and my birthday. It was a good time, but unfortunately I was really tired all night. I think I only really slept about 6 hours today. Yup, that will do it. This is a really good shot I took right before we were leaving. My Niece Juliana was reading to Stephane, and laughing the whole time. It was really cute! They have two really great kids.

Pit Stop

For some reason I'm always tired on the weekends. It never fails, no matter how late I sleep or how early I go to bed, when I'm not working it's like I'm sleepwalking. Every Saturday night (I'm not working Saturday this weekend so we went tonight), Steph and I run our errands. We get groceries, we go to Target, sometimes we go to a couple other places as well. By the end of the night, I'm usually falling asleep on the way home. I decided tonight to make a pit stop and get some kick-ass coffee to keep me going. I think it's because I'm not used to getting right out of bed and leaving. I guess this could've been included in the "Third Shift Annoyances" series!

On a side note, I've decided this will likely be the last cell phone shot I post here. The quality is just terrible. It's always painful for me to look at these shots, I can only imagine how painful it is for you.

Sometimes I Hate Illinois

This shot's for Kathie. She was telling me how she especially enjoyed the snow/winter shots, so here's another. Kathie moved to California some years ago, and apparently has forgotten how freakin cold it gets here. When I left work this morning, it was -3° with a wind chill of - 21°. STAY IN CALIFORNIA!! You now know what you're missing.

Another slow one at work tonight. We've been sent home early 3 out of the last 4 nights. Normally, I wouldn't mind so much, but not working this Saturday will put a serious hurting on my check. Well, it could be worse.

Breaking Rules

In the composition of photography, and in composition in general, there is something known as the Rule of Thirds. This is a basic fundamental of photography, and many believe that in order for a photograph to be a good one, this is a rule that cannot be broken. To hell with that. Looking at this shot, you could say that vertically I'm following the rule, but I did a couple of things that normally shouldn't be done. The subject is centered in the the shot, and the corner of the wall is directly behind it, seeming to sprout from it's head. Following the theme of yesterdays post, here's what I was thinking as I composed this shot.

I wanted to create a lot of space above the subject to make it appear small and insignificant. At the same time, I feel that having the straight line "emanating" from its head makes me feel like this is a holy icon. The centering of the subject gives it importance and balance.

One thing important I took away from the few photography classes I took was that sometimes you need to go against the grain and break the rules.

Behind the Scenes

I've decided to give you guys a look at what is sometimes required for even the simplest shots. This is a basic overhead shot of an open sandwich. I could've spent a ton of time on this just eliminating the shadows, but decided to go the quick route since I have to leave for work in an hour or so. You see the shot, now this is what it looks like when I'm shooting it:As you can see, it's not quite as simple as "1. Hold the camera, 2. Press the button." Often in these situations, a tripod is essential due to poor lighting. The temperature of indoor tungsten lights is much lower than that of sunlight, so it takes a lot more of it to light the subject. The camera compensates for this by letting in more light. This can be done two ways. The first is by opening the aperture, the second is by slowing down the shutter speed. (You can actually increase the ISO as well, but digital noise is not pretty to look at. I always shoot at 200 ISO unless I'm forced to change it.) The aperture was all the way open, and when you have very slow shutter speeds, if you are not using a tripod, any movement of the camera will completely blur the entire shot. The white thing in my right hand is actually a flashlight. I was getting a really nasty shadow on the right of the shot, so I wrapped a flashlight in a paper towel and used it to add to the lighting. The paper towel diffuses the light to spread it evenly on the subject, and it eliminates a spotlight effect that you normally get from a flashlight. There are obviously far better ways to light a shot than this, but you gotta use what you got! Photographic lighting is very expensive.

In Hibernation

This is where I chucked my hat after the game yesterday, and this is where it will stay until late August. The shirts will slowly be pushed to the back of the closet, and my Sox stuff will slowly make its way forward. I had a lot of people asking me at work today, "Where's your Bears' hat now?" I just couldn't bring myself to wear it. In retrospect, I really am happy they made it as far as they did. It's not often your favorite sports team makes it to a championship level. It just seemed so one sided! If they hadn't come out and played so badly, I wouldn't feel so bad. Losing a close game is one thing, but when the only bright spot happened 15 seconds into the first quarter and the rest was downhill, it's pretty frustrating. 44 days until Opening Night!

Grossman Sucks

Need I say more? Obviously, I'm a little salty. The Bears just got dominated, and Grossman is to blame. I've defended this guy all season long. That's over. He was horrible in the most important game of his life. I can't wait to go to work and listen to all the idiots chirp all night....

This is going to be a short post, because frankly, I'm in no mood to be doing this. This is me and Dad, and as I said yesterday, Dad's a pretty big Packer fan. This was obviously taken before the Bears took a massive nose-dive. How the heck did he find new Packers garbage the day of the Bears' Super Bowl? Unreal.