Bananas and Apples in Sepia tone.
Category: Project 365
One thing I really enjoy when visiting the Ogemaw County Fairgrounds, is the Historic Villiage. This is The Little Church in the Woods located in the villiage, right as you enter it. I was able to go inside the church and shot a couple photos of things that caught my eye. I arranged them into a montage in Lightroom 4. I really like this effect, as you can tell with some of my other posts. This church is constructed from logs, and really is a nice place to worship our Lord. Nothin fancy, just a few pews, an organ, a pulpit/podium, a piano, and the presence of The Lord. That’s all we need right?
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Day 204 – Vintage Revisited
I posted a Vintage shot featuring a 57 Harley titled Vintage. I printed an 8×10 and framed it and put it on display. Well, a gentleman stopped by and was commenting me on the photo and asked if I was willing to sell it. It was his bike and he thought the photo was really cool. He said if I had any more photos he would probably want to buy them too. He stopped by later and we looked at the shots I had taken of the vintage bikes. When we passed by a couple of shots of a gold Harley, he said, “hang on that’s my bike too”. So I worked with him to arrange the shots in similar fashion to go along with the other 8×10. It was a really good feeling for me to know that the owner of the motorcycles appreciated the work I had done and was willing to buy it. In fact, he sent his wife down to have her photo taken on the black Harley, and his brother also came down and asked me to photograph his 75 Harley. I am not a biker and do not know very much about motorcycles, but I had a great time shooting the bikes and bikers during the Ogemaw Hills Bike Week 2012. I shot over 3,800 pictures during the week including the Hill Climb, Flat Track Racing, the Ives Brothers Stunt team, Super Moto, and the bands including Jedi Mind Trip, Big Gun, and Ernest Entertainment. If your interested visit my website, www.richlewphoto.com, and check out some of the Bike Week 2012 photos. I have a lot more to upload. I’ll be editing the gallery this week.
We love coffee in this house. We like our coffee black, and we like it bold. We drink a lot of coffee in our house. Each morning is a routine, I’m sure like many others out there, we start the coffee before anything else gets started. We have a grind and brew coffee maker, that grinds the whole beans and then brews the coffee into a thermal carafe. Our coffee of choice is Starbucks. We are drinking “Tribute” this week and loving it. We have become hooked on Starbucks and really enjoy the bold flavors. Our favorites include; Italian Roast, Espresso Roast, and Sumatra. Coffee gets us going, that little jolt from the caffeine, the smell of the fresh ground beans, and the aroma of the coffee as it brews. Black coffee… I remember when I was a young boy, my dad would order coffee, “coffee, black please”; and I would watch him sip it, and savor the taste. My dad was and still is a coffee lover. It must be in the genes. Like father, like son.
Experimenting with back lighting, I set up three of these hurricanes with lit candles in them. I used my softbox as the back light / background. I like the cascading effect of the hurricanes due to their increasing distance from the camera.
When the kisses get this low, it’s time to go out and get some more. We do love our chocolate in this house!
The assignment this week on Digitalphotographyschool.com is to take a photo using available window light. I set up this still life, fruit in our “fruits of the spirit” bowl. The verse is from Galatians 5:22-23…
the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control
Today was another beautiful day. I just love it when the sun shines on the freshly fallen snow. Because of the snowstorm yesterday, the schools were all closed. It came down very quickly during the early morning, but when it was all said and done, we only had about 4 inches here in Frankenmuth. The weatherman on the news said it was only 2 inches, but I measured in my yard, and it was 4 inches. Today, the sun was shining and the sky was a beautiful blue with white puffy clouds. I spent the morning cleaning off the driveway and used the snow blower for the first time this year. Afterwards, I journeyed down to the Gugel Bridge, yes the same bridge from Day 14. This time I focused on the Cass River, as it shimmered in the sun. This is another HDR photo, I set my camera for 7 shots, you can tell by looking at the clouds, they are a little fuzzy, due to the wind. There aren’t too many days of winter, but in Michigan, we usually will have one or two big snows in March. It has been a mild winter with less than average snow fall. I don’t really mind this year, our heating bills have been a lot lower. Now I’m ready for spring, the Tigers players reported for Spring Training this week, so we know Spring is on the way. I also saw a Robin yesterday; another sign that Spring is near. I’m ready!
If you like the photos I’ve been posting, you may want to visit my website, richlewphoto.com, and go to the Portfolio page where you can view galleries of photos. I also publish this Blog on my website.
Thanks for visiting my blog!
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Day 55 New Lens
I am excited, my new lens arrived yesterday. I purchased the Tokina ATX116PRODXN wide angle lens from B & H Photo. The lens arrived yesterday, after I missed the UPS delivery on Wednesday, by about 20 minutes. I was unable to do anything with the lens, other than to open the box and ooh and aah over it, chomping at the bit to get out and shoot with it. We had Bible study after work and then had to run home and help Vicki get packed for her weekend in Chicago. Needless to say, there was no time for photography last night. I was glad I was able to get a few shots in the morning yesterday, see my depth of field post. Now today, I drove Vicki and her coworkers to the train station early this morning, through the snow storm, and then worked all day, with the Tokina calling me. Finally, the work day was done. I ventured out into the snow once more to rustle up some grub for Justin and me, a trip to the Dead Creek Saloon for one of their awesome Dead Creek burgers. You guessed it, I took my camera with the new lens mounted on it. I knew I wouldn’t have much time, maybe just a few quick shots.
There is a little old one room school house, The Hart One Room School House, right across the street from the Dead Creek Saloon. The day light was fading fast, so I ran in the saloon, paid for the burgers then jumped in the car and drove over to get a couple of photos. I love the old weathered rail fence, so I wanted to focus on it and show the school house in the background. I shot with a wide aperture down the fence line and kept the school house in the right side of the frame, between the fence rails. You can see the grain and moss growing on the rails. The white snow adds a nice contrast. The photo below is a shot of the school house zoomed out so you can view the other elements on the property. I really like the the way the old schoolhouse looks with the wood fence in the foreground, the fresh snow all around, all framed by the leafless trees.
The open gate invites us to, “come on in”.
I am very pleased with the Tokina so far. I have had very limited experience with it, but I love the way it feels on the camera. I had read many reviews, all of them giving the lens high grades. The only negative comment I’ve seen, was that it was very heavy. I don’t think it feels heavy at all. It does feel solid and it’s not plasticky (is that a word?). I am looking forward to shooting more pictures with this lens. I will be sure to share them here and also on my other site, richlewphoto.com.
I was experimenting with depth of field this morning. We had a light dusting of snow and it looked as though it came down when the temperature was above freezing, started to melt and then froze again. The small branches on the trees had ice crystals, mixed with a thin layer of icy snow. Over on the clothes line there were clothes pins which also had the snow and ice coating. I liked the way the snow and ice crystals looked on these weather worn clothes pins. I shot this at f5.6 at 1/50th. The resulting depth of field was shallower than I expected and I really like the effect.
Getting to Know The LORD 