Day 233: Hydrogen Sunrise

Please excuse the disgusting flip-flopping of tenses in the following description:

This is an oddly named picture I know, but I was thinking this is likely what an H-Bomb explosion might look like from a few hundred miles away. Either way, this is the sunrise on the morning of Sunday, the 31st of August. Also known to most here in Colorado Springs as the last morning of the Annual Balloon Festival. I actually got to attend this year, and I was totally stoked because this was the first time I had gotten to bring my D80 to a special scenic happening other than the 4th of July. I took about 4-6Gb of pictures (well over 800), and I didn't take any more for a week after that (due to a sore right index finger i guess ;) ), so the next eight days, and maybe a few after that will be of the same morning. I hope I won't bore you guys. They are all very different, and in my opinion some of the best I have taken in awhile. You should have seen all the photojournalists at this event, twas amazing. If you haven't attended yet, definitely consider doing so next year. And now on with the show of pictures!

Day 232: Jet Engine

This is yet another picture (I've been really sick) from the B-52 of the last 2 days. This is the engine closest to the planes body on the right wing, one of four on the plane. The sunset was purposefully edited to look extra intense in this picture, just because I can.

Day 231: Tank on Sunset

There's a unique picture title! haha!

This is the fuel tank of the B-52 Bomber at USAFA from yesterday. I love the background colors.

Day 230: Headed North

This is the now-permanently-stationary B-52 bomber stationed just inside the north gate of the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA). From the stories I've heard it was flown in in the 1980's and landed on I-25, and with the help of some large trucks it was transported across the valley to where it now sits. I decided to visit it and take some pictures today at sunset after having to go to the hospital due to the illness shared to me by my fabulous grandparents.

Day 229: Atypical Weather

Note: From this point on I am posting these pictures on or after 10/13/08 (I got way behind in posting :D) so some may be in past tense just to ease the strain on my narration.

This was taken on a day when my grandparents asked me to go to GoG and get a few nice pictures for them to print, frame, and take home. Unfortunately it was cloudy that day, so I couldn't get the usual picture from that spot... but I really like the cloudy look for some reason, it's just so different I feel like looking it over again! It's nice to try new lighting on cliche pictures every once in awhile I guess :D

Day 228: New View

This is probably my new favorite viewing point for Garden of the God's. Tom was kind enough to show it to me on the first day of school this year, and since then I've been back there about 4 times. It's a really cool kind of sloped outcropping of rocks that allows a great view of the peak in one direction and the back of the park in another.

Day 227: Holy Glow

This is a cross my dad got for me when he took my grandparents to the garden of the Gods. He thought that it might have some interesting properties when lit from various angles, and he was quite right. This picture is of the cross set on a piece of glass and lit only from the bottom with one strobe. I'm really liking the effect it caused.

Day 226: Drive By

Yesterday was the first day in my life that I can recall our county getting a tornado warning, but it happened! Therefore, being the smart and cautious child I am, I grabbed my camera and headed to the best view I could find, hoping to catch any twister that might form. Turns out, none did. Which is why you're stuck with this picture of a car driving by in the torrential rain. Yes you heard right. Your asking yourself, "But how did you keep your camera safe from the rain Steve?" And the answer to that is simple: saran wrap. try it!* It really works.**

*Note: I am not responsible for damaged equipment due to following my advice.
**Note: Most of the time...

Day 225: Smoke Rings

Ok, there aren't actually any rings here, but that is smoke! This is what you get when you blow out the wood dowel used in yesterday's picture. I had to wait till it was dark tonight to get it. I'm really happy with the result. I've always been captivated by the amazing shapes smoke makes. There was no coloring done in post processing, the smoke is in fact blue. The picture was lit with my flash about 2 feet of to the left. I strongly encourage you to check out the full view, so click away!

Day 224: Chemistry

The idea for this picture came from the Science Lab we did in Chemistry class today. It involved burning a candle and seeing if the burnt candle weighed less than its previous unburned state. During this, our teacher showed us a cool magic trick where you light a stick, blow out the candle from which it was lit, and then hold the flame over the smoke coming from the candle. The flame from the wooden dowel travels down the smoke and back onto the candle, which is really cool. It's hard to get to work perfectly, and this picture is just a setup picture while I was practicing.

Day 223: Liquid Gold

This is the coolest picture I think I have ever gotten regarding any form of liquid. This is the best iced tea on earth, made and poured by my very own authentically southern-raised mother. Thanks Mom!

Day 222: Thinking Green

This was taken last night. Another brilliant attempt at abstractness by Tom. I think this really works for the whole Al Gore revolution. No editing whatsoever.

Day 221: A Shoebox

Disclaimer: If you don't want a full description of my day, just skip to the last paragraph for the pic info.

Today was the first day of school, and possibly one of the best days of my life. Surprising combination, I know. Let me elaborate. I got up at 5, had 2 hours to chill out before I drove down to school (which won't happen often. because of gas prices the bus is mandatory). I got there an hour early and decided to go to McDonald's to get 2 apple pies for a dollar. Good stuff, so then I got to school, hung out with a friend all morning till class started. I found out as the day went on that I have the perfect schedule, with friends in every class. That doesn't happen often. Heck, I even have lunch with friends too this year! Anyway, the day ended and I followed the gang to Chipotle (where I ate nothing due to lack of money) and then to staples, and finally Garden of the Gods. I headed home after a great rap-up to a grand half day, and planned to come back for the Student Ministries movie night at 7.

At home I wasted my 5 hours of nothing-to-do with the tedious task of making my very first duct-tape wallet. It turned out fairly well, but it's just a tad too bulky to carry around daily :( At 6 I left subway, where I had finally had something to eat with my mother, and drove back down to school for movie night. A bunch of friends and I hung out around the school till the movie started. The movie was projected on the side of the gym wall outside, and was really pretty cool. We only made it through about half of Lion King till I suggested that Tom, Rach, Gabe, and I go down to a nearby church parking lot and take some pictures with all the camera equipment I brought. We spent upwards of an hour down their, and I don't know about them, but I had a blast. That may be just because I'm a complete photography nerd... but I think they enjoyed it too. The final count was 218 pictures. I wanted to pick one that didn't show anyone's face to put up for my POTD, and this one really caught my eye.

Actual picture info: This is Tom holding the shoebox that we used to light all the pictures that night. There is a Vivitar 285HV taped to the inside, and it basically turns the shoe box into a sort of light diffuser that is reasonably efficient. His face was lit by the shoebox, and that light reflected onto his shirt, which is why he is lit somewhat despite the light source facing away from him. Shoe boxes are surprisingly light-proof and leak-free, so if anyone out there is looking for a cool way to tote around a portable diffuser, go by an on-sale pair of Airwalk shoes from Sears. This box (and the shoes in it) cost me just $5!

Day 220: Flying a Kite

Today is my last day of summer. I finished up all my summer reading work 1 day ahead of time so I could have today free. This morning I realized I didn't know what to do. I asked mom if she wanted to go bike riding and she agreed. As I was in the garage washing off dusty bikes, filling tires, and fixing bells with WD-40 I noticed the old kite that my late uncle used to fly all the time when I was really young. Some of my fondest memories are of being down in the empty lot on our road and flying kites with him. Anyway, events with the bikes got a little complicated, things weren't working out, so instead I decided to take the kite out and see if I could get it to fly. The thing about this particular kite is that it was purchased at a kite convention back in the 90's and it flies REALLY well, so pretty much any wind whatsoever will get it up in the air. A fast-paced walk is enough to keep it floating most of the time. It's really cool. Unfortunately it broke a few times during the day due to the old rotten-ish wood in it, but nothing a little resourcefulness and some duct-tape couldn't fix. I spend about 80% of my day out flying the kite, and had a blast. I got it to stay up for over 1 hour at least once... and that was when I got this picture. Unfortunately, the day ended when in my effort to keep it in the air while walking up the driveway, it got caught in a neighbor's tree. That was destined to happen. Oh well, at least I had the picture perfect last day of summer :D

Day 219: Flower of the Sun

This is the naturally growing Colorado version of the sunflower. It's about 1.5 inches across. I accidentally stepped on this one when I was out taking pictures today, and I felt like it deserved to be POTD'd (which is ironic, because if you pronounce POTD it sounds like "potted" haha). Pretty cool sunflower. I'm growing my own sunflowers as well and looking forward to when they bloom, which should be within 2 weeks.

Day 218: Rainy Day

This was taken this morning, after a continual 3 or 4 days of rain. We haven't had this much in such a long time that it feels great to see it again. This is the view from my bedroom window. Welcome back rain!

Day 217: Non sequitur

I realize this picture is kind of non sequitur for my project 365, but I just wanted to let you all in on the pictures that my parents and I agreed on to print out for our pool room. Billiards room that is... no swimming. Anyway, these are the 4 pictures, each printed roughly about 20x28 and sitting on our pool table awaiting framing. Printing these out was surprisingly expensive, so thanks for being willing to do that parents!

Day 216: An American Icon

This is my Fender Electric Guitar. It's actually pretty nice for the cool $100 amp + guitar price I payed when media-play went out of business. It completely suits my needs, and I really like it. I wanted to get a decent picture of it, and had this idea about 2 weeks back. This was taken in broad daylight (relatively speaking, it's been raining heavily all week so it was overcast) and the flash was used to overpower the sun in my 1/100th of a second exposure. I adjusted the contrast so that the guitar pops a little more, and I desaturated the whole thing to get rid of nasty blue highlights, and make the blue-green pick a little more subtle

Day 215: A Smashing Hit

Mr. Caleb here certainly was a smashing hit at the party.

Sorry, horrible pun. Personally I think he looks a little like The Pacifier in this shot, but my favorite part is Jordan's sister's face. Priceless.
Thanks for inviting me to the party Jordan, I had a great time.

Day 214: Like a Hot Knife Through Butter

This is what happens when I decide to play around. It's one of those cool light-up fans that you see at Disney World and other such places. I got it at a Walgreen's near my grandparent's house, and it cost me $3.99. So don't go out and buy those $15 ones at Disney World, just wait till you get to Walgreen's. Anyway, the lights on this one broke because I stuffed it into my suitcase a little to hastily, but it's still a great fan, so naturally, I put it under a stream of water to see what it would do. What you see is the result, it interrupting only part of the stream. You can see the remainder of the unaltered stream continuing on it's merry way in the bottom of the frame. You can see in the full view, that one blade has already hit the water and left a large "dent" in the stream, and the second is just cutting through it as the picture was taken.

Day 213: Florescent Cotton Candy

This was taken today at sunset. There was no photoshopping other than relatively minor contrast touch up. I love the clouds at sunset, there is just nothing like it. And I personally don't think sunsets ever last long enough. I am particularly fond of the contrast between the blue and orange clouds.

Day 212: Inhabitant of the Mountain

Now this is just cool. This guy was just staring at me for about 5 minutes as his friends (some with big yellow radio tracking collars) crossed the street in front of us. I love seeing all the wildlife on the Peak.

Dad and I Drove up Pikes Peak today for the annual Colorado 14er Amateur Radio Event. I talked to 50+ unique contacts while we were operating from 9AM to Noon. I won't go into the awesome details because many of you have no clue what ham radio is... but I would encourage all of you to look into it and maybe get your licenses. Check out ARRL and start here for more info. getting your license requires reading through a pretty standard manual of various technical things and rules for talking over the air and then visiting your local library on a scheduled testing date to pass the test and get your license and callsign!

Day 211: Finally!

Rays of Sunlight on the Front Range

This is a picture that really means a whole lot to me. It was the first photograph I ever really thought of. You know, when you get an idea and you REALLY wish you could get a picture just like what you saw in your mind? Well, when I was out bike riding with my mom around our neighborhood 5-6 years ago we saw this light falling over the mountains, and I left my disposable camera at home! Ever since then we've been looking out for it, and it's happened maybe twice or thrice... but I can never get to that spot where you can see it in time! It only happens about 2 weeks out of the late July-early August time frame, and those days its usually severely stormy, so the sun can't shine through. Well, Today it happened and I managed to get up to the top of the rock with my D80 just in time, and took this picture. I literally sprinted around the house and up the hill, it was amazing. With a little contrast enhancement it looks astounding! I can't believe I finally got it!!! I really hope you like it.

Day 210: Smokestack

I took this picture from the rock because I thought the clouds looked like the smoke coming out of smokestacks... as if NORAD were a factory of some sort. I guess it was the wind, because last time I checked, NORAD was definitely a military base. I love the texture of clouds. So light and fluffy, although sometimes they look heavy and ominous. The Olympics started today, Go USA! Kick the rest of the world's BUTT! Remember to promote peace in the process though!!! haha

Day 209: Ampersand Hearts Semicolon

This is a picture of a rock. A completely random formation of silicates. This shape, commonly referred to by mankind as a "heart" which looks like this: ♥. This is in fact a random occurrence in my back yard. Unless this rock has been molded or in some way affected by previous inhabitants of our house... which I don't think it was. Pretty awesome huh?!?! I upped the contrast a bit to highlight the heart, but no selective editing at all, not even cropped. The heart is filled with water in this picture, as it does after every rainstorm. The title, which is random to some of you and extremely familiar to others (aka every girl with a myspace), refers to how you make a heart on the internet. You can either type < and then 3 which makes <3 or "& hearts ;" which when put together makes this: ♥

Day 208: Question Mark

Well, What do you think it is?

Day 207: Poodle Trees

This was originally an outtake from last nights shoot. Turns out, I kind of like it. The white light in the back is a car, the green wavy stripe is the ready light on my flash as I ran around firing it off. The trees are pretty trippy looking with the light the way it is and they colors are impacting. I like it. Oh, and don't the newly trimmed trees look like they have poodle cuts?

Day 206: Title Unknown

The idea for this was sparked by this post on Strobist, my very absolute favorite lighting blog. It didn't quite pan out like I had hoped for, and that was mostly due to rain starting after only about 8 exposures. Had I had more time, I suppose I could have done better, but I think this one turned out pretty cool none the less. These trees were just recently pruned, and they look pretty odd now. I had the idea to use them for this idea just this morning, and almost forgot until the very last minute. I hopped in my car, drove down to the road (these are literally right in front of my house.)Then it rained. Yay karma! The red in the background is the city light pollution on the (usually white) clouds. There wasn't much editing involved other than crop and the usual contrast and brightness adjustment. To get the "lit from the bottom" effect, I pretty much ran around half bent-over popping the flash at 1/4th power over my head. I'm pretty sure I looked like an angry retarded hobbit to neighbors and passers by.

Day 205: Potted Plants

The title pretty much says it. We've had these planters since we got our new decks back in '96 (the good 'ol days) and they haven't been anything but empty boxes until grandma visited a few weeks back. Gotta give it to my relatives, they sure do like to randomly "improve" our house (KIM!) This time these planter things somehow came up in conversation over dinner... and BAM. 1 day and quite a bit of Styrofoam, pots, and visits to Michael's (like Hobby Lobby) later, we had these! They look nice don't they? :D

I have wanted a picture ever since, but didn't get any good ones till now. The front deck has lively red/yellow and the back has this mellow yellow/purple. They are perpetennials, which are just like perennials or annuals, but perpetual.

204: Monochrome Keys

It's amazing how many people can play piano so well. I always wanted to, and took lessons for awhile but never really got to truly like it. Saxophone wasn't much better, but I love guitar and have been playing for 3 years now.(almost, remember always round up! It makes you sound more experienced :D ) Maybe one day I'll get I picture of my guitar. That would make a great picture!

Anyway, this was taken in a big hurry at the end of the day, just wanted to make sure I had a picture of the day. Cropped and contrast-edited. Lit with about 4 variously placed pops of my Vivitar strobe.

Day 203: The Ladder of Success

It's actually a ladder to a slide in Fox Run Park, which explains why someone so tiny is climbing. I think this picture has emotional meaning of some sort, but I can't really place it. I like the picture just because it conveys motion, and an eventual goal I suppose. Anyway, this is Quinn, Son of a close family friend, Marianne. She was my babysitter for awhile after Nelly. She was 16 then, and now that I'm 16, she's married and has a child who is now 3! Anyway, it was good to see them again, as the last time we saw them Quinn had just been born. I was on a road trip through Colorado with one of my best friends at the time. Quinn has a thing for trains, so my old wooden train set was used a lot today. This was taken during our trip to Fox Run, just before it got too dark to take any more pictures.