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.

The Day Before

Tomorrow's the big day! Super Bowl XLI! Chicago Bears vs Indianapolis Colts, just in case you've been living in a cave the last 3 weeks. Dad's coming over to watch the game with me. I was invited to a Super Bowl party, but since I have to work tomorrow night, I opted to stay home. I'm also happy to spend some time with my Dad, even if he is a Packer fan. Work has been interesting the past two weeks. There are a lot of people who hail from Indianapolis, so a lot of smack talk has been thrown back and forth. It should be a whole lot quieter on Monday.

Holy crap, it's cold today. When we were in Rockford around 8 pm, all the bank signs read -5° or -6°. I'm pretty sure the wind chill is pushing -30°. We've had the thermostat set at 68° all day, but it hasn't even reached 64° yet, it's that cold. It doesn't help that our house is over 100 years old, and very poorly insulated.

Lofty Perch

I know I promised not too many "cat shots", but these two were just begging for it. They never sit still this long. Surprisingly, this shot was very challenging. I took approximately 20 shots before I got this one. The lighting situation was very poor, so I had to use a flash. Normally, I use a technique called "bounce lighting" or "bounce flash" for this kind of shot. You aim the flash to reflect off the ceiling, and it softens the light and gives the subject a very natural look. That way you avoid getting the very hard shadows directly behind the subject.

In this case, since Punkin was in the top of the shot very near the ceiling, so he was getting much more light than Cotton at the bottom. I was having difficulty lighting everything in a uniform way. In the end, I managed to get just the look I wanted with near-perfect lighting. I did get a slight shadow in the upper right corner of the shot, but overall I'm happy how it turned out. I'm really pleased how this blog has forced me to think again about composition, lighting, and all the other technical aspects of photography.

I know, a cat shot coupled with come technical nonsense.... Pretty riveting stuff, right?

Bean Burritos Baby!

This is what I generally eat when I get up late and I'm feeling a bit lazy. Coincidentally, this is also the type of photo I post when I get up late and I'm feeling a bit lazy. I really dig Mexican food. Even pseudo-Mexican food like this or Chipotle, I love it all.

Well, today is February 1st, and the year's looking like it's going to be a long one. I can't believe I've been doing this for a month already! Once again, I really appreciate all the great feedback I've received from everyone, and all the great comments. I'm looking forward to the next 11 months!

Third Shift Annoyance #3: Only Wal-mart is Open at 6 am!

I hate Wal-Mart. I really do. Unfortunately, when you get off work at 7 am, there is no other option. I did, however, get a kick out of this creative display that greeted me as I went in this morning. Made of milk crates and suspended from the ceiling, this display of Bears Pride really brightened my morning.

We had another loooooooong night. I literally sat from 3:30 until 6:00 without touching a car. Some major breakdown in the Body Shop sent a 3 hour gap through the assembly line. Kinda nice to do nothing and get paid for it, but being the fidgety dude that I am, it was certainly a long night. They finally sent us home an hour early, at 6 am.

Procrastination

pro·cras·ti·nate [proh-kras-tuh-neyt]
–verb
1.to defer action; delay: to procrastinate until an opportunity is lost.
2.to put off till another day or time; defer; delay.
Ex. Jason procrastinated taking over the recyclables.

If you were to open the dictionary right now, flip to the "p" section, and look up "procrastinate", you may see something very similar to this. This is what happens when you add these four factors together:

1. A very procrastinative husband
2. Very cold, harsh, Illinois winter weather
3. People tearing your home apart for 10 days
4. Excessive amounts of cardboard from the 11 new cabinets you just bought

We recycle. Unfortunately, due to high "energy costs", the garbage company does not pick this stuff up for recycling purposes. No problem, right? We have a recycling bin right down the street! Yeah, no problem in the balmy months, when the most you have to worry about is a gentle spring rain. Well, the winter is another story. I tend to procrastinate a bit more when it's 4° with a -16 ° wind chill. That's not taking into consideration the blowing, stinging 2 1/2" of snow we got last night. Enough excuses, right? In my defense, the majority of this stuff is from the kitchen cabinets, and we wouldn't have had so much other cardboard if we weren't forced to eat frozen dinners exclusively for 10 days. Meh. I'm ranting. There is a moral here, and I'm sure once my brain thaws out it'll come to me....

Cracked!

What you're looking at is a DS Lite, the latest handheld videogame system by Nintendo.
Now what you're looking at is a cracked hinge on said DS Lite. This is the second time this has happened to me. I wasn't too upset this time, since I was just going to return it, and now I can get a black one. Unfortunately, you can't find the freakin things anywhere! Much like the Nintendo Wii, the DS Lite is nearly impossible to find. Being the Nintendo fanboy that I am, this is great, but I really am annoyed with these hinge problems.

Vegetarian Delight

Stephanie's a vegetarian, and often spends Sunday night chopping veggies for her lunch throughout the week. Good stuff!

We've nearly got all the little details done in the Kitchen, so I may be posting one more kitchen photo of the finished product. I put the hardware on all the drawers and doors last night, and believe me, it's harder than you would think. We also put up some really nice bamboo window shades. It's funny how motivated we were to eliminate the brown from the kitchen, and now we're putting it right bak in....

Third Shift Annoyance #2: Running Errands in the Evening

I really didn't think everything would fit in that little car! Stephanie drives a Scion Xa, and she loves it. It's a nice car, efficient, cheap, reliable, but I feel a little guilty driving it considering I work at Chrysler. Oh well.

We had quite a night. While leaving Target, we witnessed a police officer shooting a fleeing suspect. We were leaving the store and saw four cruisers sitting outside. We figured it may just be a shoplifter, so we just went to the car. As I was getting into the hatch, I saw two officers walk towards another car, their hands on their guns. I was a little shocked, but thought nothing of it. The next thing I know, the car is speeding down the lane with the cop hanging from the door! I hear three gunshots (maybe 2?) and I crouched down behind the car. I couldn't really see what was happening, but the car came to a stop after hitting another. That's pretty much it. Here's a link to the story in the Rockford Register Star. I guess the guy was killed. Pretty messed up stuff. We didn't stick around, although we probably should have. We were pretty anxious to just get the hell outta there. I wasn't sure at the time if they were shooting at each other or not, so I was pretty freaked out. Everything's okay for us, but it was pretty crazy experience.

Slow Night

Wow. What a night. Of 8 hours, we probably had about 1 1/2 hours down time. That is not good. Well, it's kinda good in the short term, but in the long run, not so much. This is a shot of a couple guys I work with arguing after Todd (on the right) tried to make an illegal move against Geno. It was pretty heated. I think Geno actually threatened Todd with physical violence at one point. Pretty brave, considering Todd is twice his size....

A little after this I played Backgammon with Todd, then with Geno. Overall, a pretty long night, but not too hard. Todd introduced me to a variant called Acey-Deucey, then I played a regular game with Geno. Guess who won? That's right.

Yes, this is a cell phone shot, since technically cameras aren't allowed in the plant. The blue suits these guys are wearing (and I wear as well) are anti-static paint suits. They protect your clothes, and also protect the cars from getting dirty. Very Devo.

Worth the Money

This is one of the few things that when you spend money on it, you don't mind seeing it get utterly destroyed. In case you can't figure it out, this is a scratching post we bought for the cats a couple years ago. It doesn't save the furniture completely, but I can assure you that our couch doesn't look like this. These things may be expensive, but as you can see, they're totally worth the money.

Did I have a tough time finding something to shoot today? You betcha.

Third Shift Annoyance #1: Shaving at Odd Times

There's a couple reasons I took this self-portrait. First, when reading through the inspiration for this project, it said that you should occasionally take these type of shots so after it's all over, you can see how you've changed throughout the year. I think that's really important. Second, I've decided to start a few different "series" of shots, the first being "Third Shift Annoyances". I thought of this while waiting this morning for Office Max to open so I could buy a new router. Of course, it wasn't in stock....

After looking at this shot again, I saw the lurking internet celebrity Punkin somehow managed to get himself in another post.

A Cup of Happiness

God, I love coffee. I am a total coffee fiend. I usually drink Starbucks, but we've also recently bought Stewarts Coffee out of Chicago. It's pretty good, and cheaper, but not nearly as good as Starbucks. If you actually go buy the coffee in the store, they will grind the beans for you to take home. Believe me, it makes a difference when it's freshly ground.

As for the picture, you have no idea how difficult it is to photograph something from the top without casting a huge, nasty shadow! I ended up changing the ISO to 800 so I could actually hold the camera instead of using the tripod. I then had to stand on a ladder, frame the shot, then carefully move my head away from the camera to get a shadow-free shot.

Winter's Chill

There's something quietly beautiful about trees covered in snow. I can't quite figure out why I'm so drawn to them. Maybe it's a simple thing like the contrast between the bright, white snow and the wet, dark branches. Maybe it's more subtle, like how dead and barren everything looks, but inside, you know that life is thriving. Maybe it's the completely random, abstract look a group of branches can convey. Nevertheless, it was a captivating sight. I couldn't stop my eye from wandering all the way home. Just thought I'd share.