I ordered a light tent kit so I could try to improve the photos of my handmade jewelry. I don't know what I was thinking, but the tent ended up being ginormous....way bigger than what I needed it for.  I thought about returning it, but then I had way too much fun using it as a mini studio to take pics of Dingo, my chihuahua!  Here's the best shot of the bunch,  though keep in mind that this is my first time playing with lights, so I don't know what the heck I'm doing yet. I can't seem to find a good balance...the pics come out either too dark, or washed out with too much light.

 Dingo 

...doesn't everyone sweep the leaves?

lost most of the images I shot this year in a double computer/backup whammy.  Most of the stuff I won't miss or is re-shootable but I lost a lot of images of the grandkids that I can't get back.  We just returned from a trip to St. Louis and I lost tons of shots of the zoo but luckily my daughter was with us and she shoots a lot so we have plenty of kid shots.  I did lose some awesome gorilla portraits but Jaryd had a blast (me too) so it was a good trip even though I have nothing but memories to bring back.

Just wanted ya to know I'm still lurking... so don't be talking about me behind my back... and still shooting.  Though, lately, I been doing a lot of portraits of the family.  My daughter is talking about starting a studio and so I've been interested in that recently...plus I want to replace some of the snapshots of the kids I lost.  This is a snapshot of the number one grandkid that I shot a couple days after the computer meltdown...

 Jaryd -May09

 1 portrait   2 portrait   3 portrait 

                4 portrait  5 portrait 

 6 portrait   7 portrait 

 1 p   2 p 

    3 p 

  4 p   5 p 

  man 03   man 04 

    little girl 01  man 05   man 02 

still working in this age carrying goods  portrait1 still makes stuffs from copper here at front of his shop  art on stones   this worker  more stones  and this  barber and  erqsous vendor1  we in visit to furniture store and a  farmer in the village

Two of Bailey for the b&w challenge.

Bailey

MMMmmmmmm.... Lunch

Thanks for looking!

My parents use to take lots of photographs.  They mostly shot slide film and would have slideshows of their pictures for friends and family to see.  I got to use most of their lenses with my old yashika, but recently I found out they had a nikon...  And I found their f1.8 50mm lens.  I slapped that baby on my D200 and gave it a whirl!

Of course, cats are of abudance around my house so I snapped a shot of Shinigami to see how well it did. This past weekend, I got to really give it go when Bailey, Micheal's niece, came over to help out with rennovating his new house.

Picture Perfect Frame     Growing like a weed     Counting: 1...2...3...4...5...

Comments and critiques are always welcome.  Tomorrow two more from my bailey shoot for the challenge!

Now when I first decided I wanted to do an editorial shoot with leaves I was discussing it with my photo buddy Jenna.  She's been in all my classes and has seen my obsession with leaves and was super excited about it so volunteered to by my model.  After I knew who my model was, I knew I wanted to take some digital and color transperancies.  So that's what we did.  I shot with three cameras, my D200, the hasselblad and my diana.  I'll save my diana ones for tomorrow, but the others are here for your viewing pleasure!

Digital:  Jenna     Jenna 2     Jenna and Courtney  

Hasselblad:    Jenna      Jenna and Courtney

Thanks for looking and for any and all comments!

Along with shooting a few frames with my DianaF+, I also shot 36 frames with my 35mm.  With the whacked-out-ness of the diana, I didn't want to take too many chances with not having a good shot to turn in.  Now I believe I'm faced with too many choices!  I haven't printed for class and will later this afternoon and it's going to be a tough choice!  I just need to choose 3...  

Hannah and I had so much fun.  When I cast her to be my model I told her I wanted to do something different.  She's a fellow photographer and she actually just switched her major from photography to art education (hasn't decided if it was a good decision yet).  But the photo building missed her and she missed it so she jumped on the opportunity to play with the editorial layout she wouldn't get to see otherwise.  She came prepared with a bottle of water, shampoo, a bar of soap and some bubbles.  It was different (even though the assignment hasn't changed:  B&W headshots/upperbody) and boy was it fun!

 A fun model 

Shot with Ilford FP4, iso set at 100 (rather than 125), at f11-f8 and 1/60" and one umbrella.

... and the surprises you get when you shoot in an editorial setting with a DianaF+.  This week for my editorial class i decided to take my DianaF+, the hotshoe flash adapter and a lot of gambling on whether or not I could get the transmitter for the strobe to work with the diana.  It did and my model and I had tons of fun shooting with it and my 35mm camera.

Today I'll show you the diana fun and maybe later the shots I got with my 35mm.  Now I'm going to enlighten you guys a bit about the diana.  These are not the sharpest crayons in the box, thanks to the wonderfulness of a plastic lens.  And they are not the most contrasty negatives you'll ever see.  So the results I have are the best that can be done without completely blowing out the highlights.  Also, the vignetting at the edges are natural on the film itself.  That being said, I hope you enjoy my Diana Fun!

Shot with Ilford 120 HP5 ISO 400 film.  I had to have ISO 400 due to the fact that diana's only have three f-stops (f22-f11) and two shutterspeeds (1/60 and bulb).  These were all shot at f11 at 1/60" with one umbrella strobe for lighting.  Negatives scanned in at school, levels and contrast in CS2.

This time with a southwest buddy:   Brittany

Same deal as the last one.  One hot light, ISO 400 (ilford hp5 film), 1/60" at f6.7, negatives scanned at school.  One thing different in the ones zoomed out, I was using a nikkor 17-35mm lens that I borrowed from the photo-j department.... I may have a hard time returning it.

Comments, critiques and criticism of all kinds taken with a smile.  I may be gritting my teeth, but it'll still be a smile :-)

And in my case... Black and White or Color?!?!?!?

So far out of ALL the people I've asked I still have a freaking tie between the two shots!  I just don't know which to do.  I need to choose one, and soon.  I'm going to enter one of them in the county fair this weekend along with a few more shots from the southwest that I've already narrowed down.  I just can't seem to make up my mind on this one.....

Thanks in advance for feedback!  I'll let you know monday what all I put into the fair -- we're allowed up to 6 pictures so long as none of them overlap smae division (digital or film) and category (portraits, animals, etc.).