From point A to point B

I had some fun this morning setting up and doing some lighting tests in the studio for a photo shoot later this week. We are going to photograph a baby holding a milk container, looking as if he’s playing in a puddle of spilled milk. To make the “milk” we mixed up some Gloss Gel Medium and white acrylic paint. We poured the acrylic mixture onto a piece of clear plastic in the form of a spill, and let it dry over the weekend. Then this morning, I cut away the plastic sheeting, and set up my lights. With a little bit of adjusting the highlights and shadows, it looks pretty convincing:

As I was working in Photoshop on minor adjustments, this idea popped into my head. Could be a good image for a milk campaign.

Nothing too extraordinary about this shot… It was captured with the camera on my cell phone. Of course, THE event that I SHOULD have had my high-performance camera… It was in the car. Nice.

Ironically, I do like the low-res quality of the shot. The lights become the important element in the shot. Everything else is just a blur. It’s also interesting how the light is blown out in the middle of the ring. You can’t tell, but there’s a guy juggling flaming torches. It was a great circus this year.

We’ve been living on Gilligan’s Island since Easter, when our girls received the entire 3 season series collection on DVD. Every chance they get, the girls sneak in an episode or two. Today our youngest, Gracie sculpted these little guys. C’mon, you recognize them. It’s The Skipper, his Little Buddy Gilligan, and The Professor! I couldn’t resist taking a couple snapshots of these guys on their “set”. I think they’re adorable.

Nothing like cute creativity to interrupt the flow of “Lines” and “Angles”. I couldn’t be happier to have the series interrupted.

I must be itching to do some graphic designing. Yesterday it was lines. Today it’s angles. I seem to be noticing more basic graphic design principles in everything. I found this one while driving through main street in Tea, SD. Of all the mundane things… It’s a basic telephone/cable junction pole.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll start a Gestalt-based photo theme.

Coming back from lunch today, I pulled up next to our building and looked up at the bright blue sky. I like how the sharp angles and lines in the building, along with the telephone lines slice into the smooth blue sky. After downloading the photo, it reminded me of a cover shot for a magazine, so I added the “Lines” copy along the right edge.

I’ve been a little remiss about posting to this here blog. It’s been over a week since my last post. I write this as an apology to myself. This blog’s only purpose is to prompt me to look for interesting things as I travel from point A to point B, pick up my camera, and shoot a picture every day. This blog gives me someone to answer to. I’ve neglected this goal recently.

My day job is divided primarily between photography, design, web site design/production, and a little video production thrown in for flavor. Normally, these 4 disciplines weigh themselves out, and I get a nice balanced mix of tasks. However, for the past few weeks the web production piece of that pie has crowded out the others. So, instead of looking through the lens of my camera, I’ve been staring at lines of code. Considering this, it came to me that the lines of code create a rhythm that is interesting. It’s all too easy to get wrapped up in looking at the “facts” of web code, and forget to step back and look at it with fresh eyes. Once I realized that, I picked up my camera and shot this image on my computer monitor.

OK, OK, I admit it. This is a sorry post. This morning I had a photo shoot for Burger King, and this is one of the shots from the session. I don’t normally like to post these types of shots; not the most creative for an “Art by Accident” themed blog. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a great looking ice cream cone. And it’s going to look great on the in-store posters and signage for Burger King. But there’s only so many ways to photograph an ice cream cone before it melts.

That said, I do like the “floating” effect of the cone over the white background. Kind of surreal. And, if anything, it makes my more creative stuff seem really edgy.

This is a shot of Truck 7 at the Tea Volunteer Fire Department. The image is a composite of 9 separate shots. The only light used to light the truck in each shot was a hand-held flashlight. Interesting effect…

After family dinner, I took a stroll with my camera and found this little guy having his own Easter feast.

I got some new software today, to process HDR Photos. This is the result of an image accidentally getting placed in the HDR-mix. It resulted in an interesting image that I’d call a “Happy Accident.”

This is a detail view from one of the lockers at our fire department. Many of the fire fighters on our department have small personal mementos in their lockers that personalize their space, and let everyone know what they stand up for.

Friday’s post was reflective of the anticipation of Spring. However, over the weekend we experienced a let down.

As the weekend ends, we keep our hopes up of a new, warmer day.

Today seemed like a good day for a conceptual series. These are scenes from a park, where the feeling of anticipation of the warm sunny days of Summer are in the air.

While out for lunch today I stumbled across this unique perspective.

I haven’t posted anything since the weekend. I put my camera bag back in the house over the weekend, and it hasn’t found its’ way back into the car with me this week. And of course, because I haven’t had my camera with me, I’ve seen all kinds of photo opportunities!

So, here’s an interesting view of some rolls of printer paper. Normally, they are fairly mundane objects just sitting around the office.