The World through Wide-open Eyes

Meet my almost-nephew Jacob. The youngest and only boy in a family with three sisters. I can't decide if he has life made or if he's going to be subjected to lots of makeup torture by his sisters. Somehow, I have a gut feeling it will be the former with his dashing smile and twinkling eyes. What a handsome young man - and I'm not saying that just because I'm biased!

Jealousy

Imagine you're 6 years old and it's your 5-year old sister's birthday. She just got the coolest toy ever.

Porsche 356

It isn't every day that you see a Porsche 356 rolling down the highway. I passed this car on my way to Cincinnati a few weekends ago and thought it was very neat. What can I say? I'm a sucker for sports cars, especially German ones.

Alaskan Brown Bear - Columbus Zoo

We spent the day at the Columbus Zoo. The zoo is one of my favorite places to visit. I love seeing all of the wildlife, but parts of me are sad that the animals are in captivity... alas.... Here's my new little (big) friend, the Alaskan Brown Bear.

Wolfie

There are some kids that just make your heart melt every time you see them. Wolfie's one of those kids. Marty works with his dad and when he told me Wolfie would be at the race shop, I knew I could catch the little cutie patootie in action helping his dad. Wolfie was kind enough to stop for a moment and throw me a smile. As a future race car driver with a strong German name, I'm glad to see he's learning to embrace the paparazzi so early in life!

Sometimes, you just have to go urban punk

I'm not even sure what that title really means. I often dream of being able to produce high quality magazine covers or images that a kid wants to tear out and hang up on his/her wall. I think that's how you know you've made it - when you inspire someone to dream by means of your image. Not that this image is at that level, but that's what this image conjures in my imagination. It's somewhere between reality and an alter-ego in dream land. Secretly, deep down inside, hanging up this picture is going to make me a bad-ass BMW driver with a don't-mess-with-me attitude.

Tombstone, Arizona

Ever take a picture and say to yourself, "Yes, that's it!" That's how I felt when I shot this image and quite frankly, I wish I could have that feeling every time I picked up my camera. It's the rush, the level of excitement of your mind realizing that you were able to bring your imagination to life. I shot quite a few images on my trip to Arizona, but this is one of three that just made me giddy. I love this feeling - hope it sticks!

-W

Fun with Photoshop.com Mobile iPhone App

Yesterday, I was bored on my flight heading back to Columbus, OH from Tucson, AZ. To entertain myself, I started taking pictures with my mobile phone and doing some quick edits using the Photoshop.com Mobile iPhone app. I even edited a couple of snapshots stored on my phone. I'm pretty happy with the app, especially since it was free. Overall, I'd give the app a thumbs up. It is easy to use and intuitive so you can start sharing snapshots even faster.

Grand-Am at MidOhio

I have about a bazillion pictures to edit from MidOhio. I'm not sure if "bazillion" can even be quantified, but it means I have a metric crap ton. Again... I digress with my random means of measurement. I had a great time shooting at MidOhio. In my opinion, the 5DMKII is totally up to the job of shooting motorsports. As I've said before, if you can't get it in 3 frames per second, you probably aren't going to get it in 5.

Here's a sample from the day:

Kristen & Ryan

I've been sitting on these photos forever. Like almost 2 years come August. Sheesh. I think I owe it to my besties to get this photo set. Some of the pictures in this series I shot. I was in the bridal party so I handed my camera gear off to another wedding attendee to shoot during the wedding. His shots were about 50/50. He has a good eye and for not knowing how to operate the camera, he did pretty well. I have no idea if this is one I shot or Nate shot, but I think it is the best picture of Kristen & Ryan out of the entire series. It's just so Kristen & Ryan.

Old pictures, new edits

I can't believe I'm about to say this, but editing is turning out to be fun. Wow. Did I really just admit that? I've been neglecting a batch of photos for a long time. I'm not 100% happy with my new edit, but I think it is headed in the right direction. Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Old Edit





New Edit



Revision 2 with color profile embedded

Giant Allium

This is the first full year we've been in our house. It's been an exciting time from a gardner's perspective as the previous owner planted a lot of bulbs. Every few weeks, I'd see something new. At the end of last fall, I decided to add a few more bulbs to the collection. I planted the giant allium (3'5" tall) after seeing some little kid posed next to the flower. Yes, I'm a sucker for great photography on packaging.

The blooms lasted about 3 weeks and haven't disappointed me. I'm definitely glad I chose to grow them as it is something different in my garden.

And we're back....

The past few months have been nothing short of insane. I've been hassled by my fellow photography friends for failing the 365 day challenge after just one day. I admit; that was pretty sad.

While I haven't been posting, I have been shooting and I have a plethora of photos to edit and share. It doesn't do me any good just to keep the digital files tucked away on my hard drive if they are never seen by anyone. So alas, I'm recommitting to sitting down and editing files - a task which isn't my forte and therefore dread. Hopefully, that means this blog will be more up-to-date too. I can't promise it will be daily, but I'll least try for more than once every 6 months. ;)

Since my last post, I've recently acquired a 5D MKII. Yes, the camera is everything I thought it could be and then some. I'm thrilled with my purchase. Unfortunately, you won't see any videos from me for awhile until I do something about this computer situation.

So in the spirit of editing, I've edited a single image in two fashions. I can't decide which treatment I like better or really the mood I'm trying to evoke.

Version A



Version B

Day 1 of 365

Today, I wasn't feeling incredibly inspired. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Somewhere, over the past 6 months, I feel like I've lost all ability to use my camera and capture moments. I'm not quite sure what has happened. Images are exposed wrong, things aren't nearly as sharp as they used to be or I've just plain forgotten how to frame things. Regardless, 2010 is the year I'm reclaiming this skill.

We had a little snowfall this past week and the dogs were having a blast playing in the snow, so I decided to go out and have a little fun with them in the backyard.