Where there's smoke...

there is WATER???



Nikon d40
1/20 @ 38mm
f5.0
ISO 400

Every 3rd day I start to panic. Filling with a wonderful nervous apprehension mixed with a giddy excitement waiting to see what Scott is going to do next. I'm not going to lie, I see Scott enough that I have, on numerous occasions, attempted to thwart his lofty plans. I thought about tripping him down the stairs yesterday but decided that was a bad idea. I don't need any bad karma coming at me.
So, I get by and attempt to prepare as best as I can. I keep my camera by me at all times and I look around taking notice of all the little details. Trying to see things for what they could be instead of what they are.
Today, as I was strolling through Target (I know, I know...it's a problem I don't really wish to solve) I saw this box, perched in the clearance aisle with all the pool stuff. The box had all these cool colors and lights on it and a sticker that said $5.69. Like a child I was drawn to it. I don't have a pool so I'm not quite sure what exactly I was doing in this aisle but I had a coffee and no child so I cannot be held responsible for my actions.
Turns out this beautiful box was a lighted, sprinkler for a pool or hot tub.

Hmmm...
water - puts out fire
bright red and shocking blue - colors of fire
spinning wildly out of control - just like fire

I was in business. Home I went. Decided the big bathtub would work best. Filled it up, turned on the light sprinkler and dropped it in. Took a couple test shots and it didn't take a genius to see that I was going to need to darken the room to really get the colors to pop.
Close the blinds in the big bathroom window, closed the door and turned out all the lights.
At first I slowed the shutter speed way down but found that the shocking brightness of the lights just got blown out. Upped the shutter speed until I found the right balance between seeing the colors and the edges and not blinding the photo with the center points.
I took 90 pictures. Some of just the water next to the sprinkler. A few of the few from the top looking down on the sprinkler from about 2 feet up (straddling a wet bathtub is not advisable). Pulled the card from my camera and threw the pictures onto the computer. I needed to see what I had to work with.
Ended up liking the photos shot from above best. But was still a little to slow on the shutter speed and I wasn't close enough to the sprinkler.
Back to the bathroom I went. This time placing my camera as close to the sprinkler as I could without risking water damage, focusing on centering the orb in the frame.
Another 90 or so photos and I declared enough. Time to make a decision and keep one. (Who came up with this one photo only rule anyways??? Oh, wait that was me...)It was pretty hard to pick from 4 of them. Each having their own unique qualities that spoke to me. In the end a rousing game of "Eeenie, Meenie, Miney, Moe" proved this photo the winner.
My point is... and I do have a point... keep trying, keep learning because maybe in the end you'll have too many too chose from.

Let's keep it rolling, Jay'me.

A Rose By Any Other Name...

Canon 30d
Canon EF 100mm Macro f/2.8
Shutter Speed 1/250
Aperture f/11.0
Focal Length 100mm
ISO 100
2 external Alien Bees flash heads and a softbox/tent

I really enjoyed Jay'me and Sere's last posts. I was tempted to go out and get some macro shots of flowers around me. I've done it in the past and I really enjoy looking at flowers through the lens. It's one of my favorite styles of photography. I decided however that the spirit of 3chicks1dude is to push our knowledge and comfort zone and try new things for the sake of learning. With that in mind, I decided it was time to try my hand at capturing water droplets. It's nothing new - it's practically cliche. But I've never tried it!

The story starts with me trying to capture water droplets using hot lights. For those learning, hot lights are essentially really bright lamps that are on continuously. They are called hot lights because they get freaking hot! The advantage of hot lights is that you see exactly what the light looks like before you start shooting. It can make things a lot easier. Additionally, they are relatively cheap, another big plus when you are trying to learn and not go broke.

I set-up my hot lights and threw a bunch of stuff into plates and glasses and had limited success. I couldn't get the motion to freeze. What I needed were my strobes. So I fired off a text to Brandi (she was borrowing my gear for a bit) and next thing I knew, I'm in my kitchen setting up one heck of an obstacle course. My wife was a sweetheart, knowing I can get a little laser focused when camera gear abounds! Off she went to read while I literally fired off over 300 shots! What a blast!!! You can't believe how much fun this is.

The reason you need strobes (or speedlights) is to stop the motion. The duration of a flash is so short the exposure only gets the merest fraction of a second to capture the scene. For those crying about a lack of strobes or speedlights, use your pop-up flash. It is somewhat limiting but I was able to capture several good shots with just the pop-up. Just remember to keep the ambient light as low as possible to eliminate spillover.

As for the set-up, it is a glass vase filled with water. Then I dropped a few drops of green water into the vase (I took pictures of that). I wasn't satisfied with the intensity of the green so I decided to start dropping pure food coloring into the vase. And that's when it hit me! I had just added green. If I drop some red next, I might get a "rose" with the green water being the stem and the red dye being the bloom! Imagine my excitement when it actually worked! I was going to use the water droplets from Sere's flower as my inspiration. But now I was able to use the water and the flower! I told you it was fun.

When I decided this is what I wanted to try, I warned Brandi I might go neurotic and post as late as 11:30. Alas, I may just beat that time...barely. Thanks to all reading this. I hope you're enjoying this as much as we are. Stay tuned for some fun news coming down the pipeline. We (all 4 of us) can't stop thinking of ways to play and improve this blog. Keep the comments coming and be sure to tell your friends about us! Tag Brandi, you're it!

Scott

Summer's Last Hurrah.....

Last day before school begins so we decided to head out to check out some surrounding parks and prayed we didn't get rained on. I packed up my tri-pod and a few lens, flash and diffuser figured it couldn't hurt. So we're walking around on some trails and I've got my camera out just kind of shooting some snapshots. Trying to figure out what I was going to take a picture of for this blog. Sounds like a nice day all around so far.....

Until I went to set my tri-pod up to get a shot of us together using my timer and realized that I didn't have the thingie that connected my camera to the tri-pod. Drat!!! There goes that idea. Then I went to turn my camera back on and CRAP nothing! Absolutely nothing would turn on. So I'm freaking out wondering if I somehow broke my camera, beginning to hyper-ventilate. I'm sure you guys understand this. On top of the fact that now I'm getting upset because I am without camera to use, which is like losing an appendange you get my drift? And then it started to rain. Off we went running to the car. Taking deep breathes I decided that we would go and get ice cream. I WILL not let this ruin our last hurrah of summer before school begins. So we went to get ice cream and then proceeded to head back out to play in the rain and in the stream, sans camera and had a blast. All that to say that I did not get many pictures today, but this is one that I thought might work for today's blog.



Nikon D2x
Lens 50mm fixed
Aperture F5.6
Shutter 1/125 second
ISO 400
I played with this picture in raw format, zoomed in a ton and put a midnight filter on it to enhance the water droplets on the flower.

Oh and by the way it was my battery, camera is alright. The battery which had enough life in it most have been bad because it just died out of the blue. New battery and my baby is like new. Takes deep breath and thanks God.

I'm kind of a portrait photographer by nature so when I saw this picture I wanted to share it with you all as well.



Apeture F1.8
Shutter 1/160 sec.
ISO 400
Did nothing, straight out of the camera.