Day 324: Horribly Misplaced

This is a palm tree in the middle of Kansas. It is one of 5 behemoth wood-and-metal palm trees that mark my favorite rest stop in all of Kansas. That's because in Kansas it doesn't take much more than a Starbucks and a clean restroom to qualify for my favorite rest stop!

Day 323: Ice Drops

This was taken in the car during and ice storm. It's pretty cool what happens when multitudes of snow get blown at a car with heated interior, and thus heated windows. all the meltiness (that's a scientific term) provides a lot of water to make these little drops, and our car was covered with them. It looks very trippy from inside, but the zoomed in pictures turned out very zen looking... I think for once this POTD might actually be my new desktop wallpaper :D I like that you can actually see one of the little ice chunks in the right side of the picture.

Day 322: Glassical

I suppose that was a pun on "Classical" although, I'm not really sure...

I love this picture. It was taken from the Dock of my Aunt and Uncle's house on the lake in the middle of night. The bright burst of light on the left side is caused by the Kansas city lights to the north. The lake was perfectly still that night, so I ran out to get my tripod from the car and rather alarmed the family when I didn't return inside for 20 or so minutes. By the time I was done taking pictures, they were out looking for me :P (I was under the impression I had told someone... apparently not) So for the limited time I had, I got a few good shots, and this is the result of two of the best stitched together.

Day 321: Road Trippin' Again

It's like a countdown! 3-2-1! I can't believe I have less than 2 months left on my blog. Insanity I tell you! I'm almost there! Keeping it up for a whole year has been fun so far, I guess it's time to finish out strong.

For thanksgiving we're driving out to Grandma's house in Kansas City. My Grandparents and my Aunt and Uncle live out there, so thanksgiving should be fun. I'm a little disappointed, as I planned to update my blog a little this week, but I'll be gone from my pictures all week, so I won't get that chance till later (Note from "later": uhm, December 29th actually. Haha) Anyway, I think this picture pretty well captures 100% of the essence and excitement of Kansas as a state, and pretty well encapsulates the whole drive. You too can feel like you've driven across Kansas! Just print out this picture, sit in a mildly comfortable seat, put on a choppy radio station, and stare at your printout for 10 hours. While you're at it, admire the tumble weed which I was so fortunate to capture in this frame :D

Now for this thanksgiving, you all can be thankful you didn't have to make that drive ;)

Day 320: Methane Bubble Day

Today was grandparent's day at school, so all the teachers to fun things to help kids and their grandparents have fun. Chemistry class of course had the best part of the day, with the Methane Bubble Experiment... which involves filling soap bubbles with methane and lighting them from kid's hands. It only feels a little hot, so it's pretty safe. That of course didn't keep mom from freaking out once I told her about the activity. ;)

One of my other photography-involved friends and I brought our cameras today, and we both ended up with some pretty great pictures of the events. This is one of my favorites featuring the methane. I really like it because on the bottom of the picture, the little fire-shape kind of looks like a small person summoning the bigger blast... which I just thought was awesome.

Day 319: Evergreen Skyline

This was taken before school one morn' and I was so impressed with the sunrise that I just had to go up to the rock and get a few pictures. I tried to make an HDR out of the whole thing.... but I don't have the right software I don't think, which is a shame. HDR's are so cool. haha

Day 318: Capt'n Goes Down with T'Ship

That was a reference to sinking... which applies because my phone is "syncing"... get it? It's a pun!

Anyway, this was just taken as I updated my phone to the new 2.2 firmware. It's pretty cool, but it takes forever to update and jailbreak the thing, so I took photos while I waited.

Day 317: Airborn Special Effects

I suppose I took this picture in kind of a hurry, so none of them turned out particularly great, but with a little help from Microsoft Digital Image Pro 10 (my poor law-abiding person replacement for photoshop) it looks ok. I used one of those artistic filters again too...

Day 316: Remembering a Life Well Lived

I did a neighbor's funeral today. Well the photography for it. Their family had an at-home funeral, so I had to walk down the street to do it. It's nice because their family, especially the wife who's eye sight and hearing are dying, will have a permanent video and photographic record of the event to review whenever. I don't believe funeral photography is that common, but it was an interesting experience to say the least. :)

Day 315: Violet And Rime

Yet another uncommon word in the title. Maybe Tom doesn't know what "Rime" means? It's ok if you check out the definition (I didn't know it either...)

Anyway, this was taken this morning before I left for school. I'm surprised how unique it turned out. I was in such a rush I didn't have time to appreciate the environment before I had to split to make the bus... I love the purple/pink tones, and the new ice rime on all the trees.

Day 314: Missing from a Haiti Bracelet

These are beads that will eventually adorn a Haiti bracelet which I'm trying to finish. I've had at for a few weeks now and never really got around to finishing it up... Either way, Haiti Bracelets are a sort of fund raiser at our school for our Haiti Missions team, who's website you can check out at Delmas31.com

And for those of you wondering, the beads are sitting on my closeup filters. I don't really know why I did this. I suppose I thought it would look cool. It turned out ok.

Day 313: Best Friends

This picture is a portrait of one of my favorite stuffed animal friends as a small child. I'm pretty sure I spent 80% of my very young developmental years with this guy. His name is Echo, and as you can see he's a dolphin. His dad, whom I adopted about a year after I got him at the same chocolate shop in Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri, is an Orca, also known as a Killer Whale, who's name I do not think was ever assigned. Anyway, I figured I'd just get a good picture of a fond childhood memory for today.

Day 312: Needless to Say, I was Stripes

Haha. I kinda just had this idea spontaneously as I was shooting yesterday's picture. I think I captured the idea pretty well. Basically skunking someone, but with just one pocket. That would be very cool. Oh, and thanks to Trevor for the title.

Day 311: Play the rainbow

Yes people, these are pool balls. I REALLY seem to like photographing billiards of late. What can I say, nothing like spheres of color and a little wireless lighting to bring out the creativity. It's just a pain to get these things aligned. This is my favorite shot from today. I'm really starting to like bouncing flash off the ceiling more often. It's a great defuser.

Not to sound too completely vain, but I really think this is one of my best shots all year. It's very... well it kinda leads the eye down the row I guess. Definitely a favorite out of the recent pictures.

Day 310: Miniature Mini Cooper

This is the close up more-detailed shot of yesterday's subject. I didn't take a picture today. Darn School. This'll do tho!

Day 309: Mini Cooper

I think I'm getting carried away with these simple black (and sometimes white) backgrounds... It's a little over the top, but I'm having fun experimenting with my flash. This is a Mini Cooper remote-control model sitting on a stool. I very well-lit stool I might add, which looks a bit like some sort of rained-on cobblestone street in London. At least, that's what I'd like you to imagine.

I got the Mini Cooper for some holiday a few years ago, the remote for it is actually a wrist watch, very James Bond.

Day 308: Auditory Enjoyment Providers

Yup, that's short for "headphones"
Anyway these are my iPod/iPhone headphones. Most of you don't know this but I have them on me almost every day, along with my iPhone, Wallet, Chap Stick, and occasionally a few quarters... Odd I know, but that's my daily set up. So this was my attempt at some more abstractness with one of most people's every day accessories. Maybe a little bit of a comment on society as well, but I'm not one to talk there ;)

Day 307: FireFox

I'm sorry. That's probably a really cliché title, considering it's what 51% of you are probably using, but it fits right?

Anyway, I was out joyriding around my neighborhood today when I saw this guy walking along one of the roads, unfortunately I was too stupid to think ahead and bring my camera with me, so I ended up having to pretty much race home, grab my camera, and race back out to find him. Luckily enough I did, but most of the pictures turned out blurry because it was nearing the end of daylight hours and I was too thoughtless to crank up my ISO speed I guess... I still like the picture :)

Day 306: Welcome to my Humble Abode

Oddly enough, the first time I recall hearing that phrase was in one of the early Lara Croft: Tomb Raider video games...

Anyway, this is a mouse...er...maybe rat... that Mom found in our garage trashcan today. I spend an hour or so trying to take his picture and feed him some cheese and bread crumbs. He wasn't much for eating so I left him out in the field once I was done. Didn't have the heart to make him spend the night in the trash can I guess... Anyway, some of you may find the picture revolting... Or if you're really scared of mice you may just scream and fall out of your chair, but I thought he was pretty cute.

Day 305: Over the Hill

...and through the woods, to grandmother's house we go! ..wait. wrong song... sorry

Anyway, Today of all days is my own fathers 53rd birthday? Can you believe it? I know. Crazy. This was his cake. I know it's not very artistic, but to be honest I was a lot more focused on eating it than on photographing it at the time.

Day 304: 3 Laws to Rule them All

Actually, I believe that's not how Newton put it, but that's pretty much what they do. This is a Newton's Cradle, and it demonstrates some of those laws which I'm a little reluctant to describe at 1:48 AM.... So I'll leave that up to Wikipedia! (It's a reliable source! Take it from me, and tell you're school librarian to stop with the misinformation, because you know she's just trying to make things harder) Note the cool animation that shows you what exactly this cool contraption does. Te be honest with you all, I'd wanted one of these my whole life up until I got this one. I really don't know where I got it from though, and unfortunately it's a very cheap unbalanced one too. But it works... sometimes, and everyone knows untangling these things is half the fun right?

My fondest memory of the Newton's Cradle is that it was seen in the intro-music-scene to one of my favorite childhood shows, Popular Mechanics for Kids, or PMK for short :)

Be quiet. I know I was am a nerd.

Day 303: Whichever way you put it, it's the same!

303 is such a wonderfully reversible number. I actually typed it backwards in the title, but you can't tell can you!?

Moving on, this picture is of ice. I took the ice bin out of our fridge, ran some cold water over most of it in a light spray to get it to stick, and was able to lift this massive chunk out. I then took it downstairs and proceeded to practice my creative-lighting technique :)

Day 302: Blazing Part two

How fitting that part two is on Day three-oh-TWO.

This whole thing works because when you break a bulb's outer casing off it burns out a lot faster. Filaments oxidize as they burn, and become weaker. To combat this there are special gases in each bulb that slow the filament's degradation. When you remove the casing, by the methods which I detailed yesterday, it just gets really old really fast, and basically burns out in about a second or maybe two depending on the thickness of the filament, which is directly proportional to the wattage of the bulb. There ya go, this science lesson brought to you by SM Photography. Thanks for tuning in, and make sure to check back next week for a special editorial piece we call "Why is Steve so behind on his blog?"

Day 301: Blazing Ideas

I actually googled "fire cliches" for that title. I'm loosing my edge I think.

Ok, so here's how this works. Disclaimer: I say "you" in the upcoming instructions to refer to the experimenter. Please do not take this to mean you should try this at home, I am a trai-...er...well-studied professional, and you're not. So don't do it.
Here goes:
You take pliers and squeeze the glass nearest the metal part of the bulb, preferably in a plastic bag. It'll implode and you'll get glass everywhere if you're not careful. Then put the base, with filament hopefully in tact (if not try, try again). Then take you're power strip and flip it on and if you've hooked everything up logically, the light should flip on and you can go off taking as many pictures as possible in your one second. If you have a slower camera, or if you want to try something different, I have been told that if you flip the power on and off very fast and take the picture some time in that process or shortly thereafter, you will be able to see the filament better, and the smoke will be prettier. I think it's all about luck and timing in terms of the smoke, but you can find out for yourself. By that I mean, "please don't tell anyone I was the one who gave you this idea, and for gosh sakes don't set your house aflame."

The reason today and tomorrow's pictures have more visible filaments is because they were taken as the filament burnt out and broke.

Day 300: It's Back

Wow. My third Century mark! That's what the title was referring to, how the century is back...of course I completely spaced and did nothing special for it. Great. Well here's that other bulb picture I referred to two days back. This was my second choice for what I planned to enter in the challenge. I checked with Maddie and Trevor, and I think they both said this one, but I went with the other anyway, which you can see here. It secured my highest score yet on DPChallenge, and got 21st place in the challenge, which is also an accomplishment in a competition of 105 other photographers from all over the world, so I'm quite happy my efforts payed off. I'd encourage other photographers to join in the fun of DPChallenge, it's a great way to find inspiration during those times when you just can't think of what to photograph.

Day 299: Betrothal Band

That means wedding ring in "Alliteration," which is a language English teachers like to quiz you over on a final exam that was just stupid. Wait, I digress.

This is my mother's wedding ring to be quite specific, and she loaned it to me for the "Elements of the Periodic Table" challenge on DPChallenge.com, which was very generous of her. Anyway, my idea of fading into the background for the ring did in fact work out, but because I had to use my one light source for the background, I had nothing to light the front of the diamond with to make it sparkle, which gives the image a very unique and uncharacteristic flat, un-shiny diamond feel. It's still pretty though. I cranked up the contrast to get as much life as I could manage with out damaging the picture too badly. It didn't work.

Day 298: A Bright Idea

That's a pretty predictable title huh? And it's punny too! Well, anyway, around this time in good 'ol November, I got to thinking about the fact that I've had a DPChallenge.com pro account all year, and haven't used it much. So I looked at the challenges available and whadya know, a smoke themed challenge in progress. So I whipped out my trusty lamp, power strip, and boxes of various cheap $1.89 per set of four 100 watt light bulbs and got to work! It's a method I'll explain fully later, but for now this picture was taken with the original clear bulb from the lamp still in-tact. It's a little dusty because the bulb is some years old now, but it made for a very cool picture with the help of my trusty off-camera flash...

Day 297: A Big Bite

This is actually a pretty small bite, out of a Lunchables burger, but if I hadn't told you that you would have had to think that up all on your own. Which you never could have done because this picture kind of sort of looks like a normal sized burger! Take note of the hour I'm writing this: 1:02 AM

I'm getting a little loopy. I've done far too much sifting and editing today.

Day 296: On a Pedestal

I'm having a lot of fun with light lately. This was an experiment in having a big diffuser off to the side and playing with angles and odd shapes... it was kind fun, but didn't exactly turn out as I had planned. Of course, when does that ever happen with photography?

Day 295: Chipotle Sack

That's a pretty self explanatory name, and to start my updating process off, that's just what this picture is. It's a Chipotle sack, in exquisite detail! Check out the full view and be amazed.

So here's the deal, my updating begins now, and to be quite honest with you all, I missed 13 out of the last 54 days. Thankfully some days I took extra subjects because I knew I was behind, but that only brought the missing-count to 8 days. So today, the 23rd of December, so near to Christmas, I went all-out. I took all eight POTD's today... so I'm fairly tired, but they turned out well. I'm not going to let you know which ones they are... except for this one of course. So everything will be perfectly normal henceforth. I look forward to posting more as I get more of my act together tonight and tomorrow.