Monthly Archives: October 2012

Day 303 – Casting a long shadow

I’m sick, but I still put in a full day at work. My camera never made it out my car, let alone out of the camera bag. I snapped this with my iPhone using the Hipstamatic app as I was heading out to my car after work.

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Day 302 – Jump!

A friend of mine has asked me to do a portrait of her leaping so I thought I ought to practice. Also, I got a third wireless remote which now allows me to auto-focus with the remote and fire the camera and flash at the same time without having to use the pop-up flash as a master, so this was practice using those wireless shutter releases as well.

On top of this, Sweetie and I woke up all achy and with slight fevers, so I’m surprised I was able to find the energy to do this. But then, Sweetie went out to fly his radio-controlled airplane, so I guess you could say we both have our addictions.  He stumbled in a little while ago and I fully expect him to pass out in his overstuffed chair.

Please excuse the dorky look on my face. (And this was actually one of the better ones.)  It was quite tricky firing the camera at the right time to make sure my feet were in the air.  Shot at 400 ISO at f/8. 1/200s.

Day 301 – Getting ready for cold weather

The flannel sheets are on our bed, the swamp cooler put to bed for the winter, the dog’s heated water bowl has been plugged in to keep their water from freezing, and today we started working on winterizing their dog house.  I pulled all the blankets and dog beds out into the yard, shook them out and ran the blankets through the washer.   The final step will be to replace the plastic flap doors that help keep out the cold and wet.

Buddy on alert!

Dirty-faced Nina!

Day 300 (!!!) – Morning Coffee

Wow! Day 300!  Just 66 days to go.

About today’s shot. Maralee finally convinced me to try out the NIK software (Color Efex Pro 4) and this is my first experiment with it.  I wanted a shot with window light, so I set up a stool by the front door and started shooting.  This was shot with my 85mm at 200 ISO,  f/3.5, 1/500.  Took it into NIK and utilized the Dynamic Skin Softener filter.  The difference between the before and after shots is subtle, but I like how it gently smoothed my skin tone without making me look fake.

Click on images for larger versions.

After NIK.

Original shot before NIK

Day 299 – Mended Heart

Kind of like mine. Held together with glue and paperclips.

In case you couldn’t tell, I went to the cardiologist today for my quarterly service check.  Looks like I’ve got at least two more years of battery life left in my pacemaker. I wish it was more, but it’s been getting a pretty good workout, so probably not.  Maybe by then they’ll have a pacemaker with a longer lifespan.

Day 297 – Autumn Red

We had our first storm of the season come through overnight, and the foothills around Reno got a light dusting of snow, with much more at higher elevations, but there is still plenty of autumn to be seen.