Halo Wars!

It was rather cold here today and fortunately I didn't have to be out for too long running errands!  I did, however, manage to assemble some Mega Bloks Halo Wars themed character sets.  The battle that ensued was quite the spectacle and there was much loss of life!

Snoopy & The Snow Flake Bokeh!

The challenge in this series was to cut out a shape in a piece of card stock - black - cover the lens with it so that the focal point for the subject went through the cut out.  I used a snowflake shape that my wife had - she made the cutout for me and helped me to figure out how to secure it to the lens.  The lens was set to the maximum aperture (f1.8) and the shutter speed and ISO adjusted to the correct exposure for the desired effect.  This was way more troublesome to accomplish than the simple description suggests but none the less I got some usable results...

Every King must have a Queen!

How Deep Does the rabbit hole go?

I had a choice - red pill, blue pill.  I chose the red pill!!

Simba chose to take a nap on top of the DVR!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Violence

Powerful men are well advised not to use violence,
For violence has a habit of returning;
Thorns and weeds grow wherever an army goes,
And lean years follow a great war.

A general is well advised
To achieve nothing more than his orders:
Not to take advantage of his victory.
Nor to glory, boast or pride himself;
To do what is dictated by necessity,
But not by choice.

For even the strongest force will weaken with time,
And then its violence will return, and kill it.

-LaoTze-

Photo Restoration

A request from a friend to scan and restore an old photograph, featuring her son, posed an interesting challenge.  I scanned the photo, which was printed on what appears to be regular 81/2" x 11" paper that was folded for years.  It was intriguing to see how well my Photoshop skills would stand up to this project.  I must admit that it was far more laborious than I had envisioned.  However, I believe that the final result is a vast improvement over the original. Take a look.

Before and After

It feels like forever since my last post. Been busy will lots of stuff and lots of nothing. Anyway, I have still been shooting and had the pleasure of shooting a friend and his dog a few weeks ago. The dog, Boris, a red doberman pincer, was recently diagnosed with a heart problem and I thought it would be cool to get some shots of them together. Boris is about 9 years old and his age shows a bit in his fur which has a few bald patches. The night of the shoot he was looking and feeling good as the new medication was doing its thing. However, his bald spots betrayed him. Determined to turn back the clock and show Boris at his best, I used Photoshop to do some creative editing on these shots!  I am happy to see Boris is doing better and look forward to another fun shoot with him in the future!

Before

After

Creativity!

Creativity is defined as the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination.  For me creativity takes a non-traditional route - it happens to me.  When I create I have no specific outcome in mind all I have is a direction in which to start.  The process evolves and takes on a life of its own.  Many times, the results surprise me - I am not sure how it happens but I absolutely enjoy it!  When I create I feel free; losing sense of time and space I become transfixed by the process and have to peel myself away to take the occasional break.  As my biggest fan and biggest critic I am constantly working on new approaches and new pieces and digital media has made it possible to unleash my creativity in the most liberating ways!


In the series "Light's Ballet" digital photography is merged with abstract painting in a unique way (unique to me at least) and I am satisfied with the results.  Check out the slide show below and let me know what you think!