Strike!

Happy weekend everyone!
I hope you're all out there enjoying some free time with the ones you love.

Before we get started... You've got one more chance to get your name in the hat for this last Wordless Wednesday. All you have to do is enter your name in the comments section and you'll be entered to win. It's really easy and if you're having any trouble posting a comment just send an email to 3chicks1dudephoto@gmail.com. We'll count that too. Winner will be chosen by Random.org and announced with tonights post.



My three year old went to her first "kids from school" birthday party this morning. It was an absolute blast. The party was held at a Brunswick bowling alley where a group of wild 3 year olds attempted to bowl. Talk about comedy.
When the party got underway the bowling alley went into cosmic bowl mode. If you're not familiar with this, it's where black lights are turned on, regular lights are turned off, music plays, strobes lights swirl and everything glows neon.
This was going to pose a serious problem for taking some photos. Not one to let obstacles get in the way of a good photo opportunity, I tried to do a couple different thing to capture the glowing lights but just wasn't quite satisfied.
I tried working with slow shutter on the moving, dancing, laughing kids but nothing quite struck me.
Came home and went through all the photos and thought I had a total bust, until I saw the original version of this photo (you can see it and another potential post picture here). I thought about an option I had seen in Photoshop but had never played with. An option to make a regular photo neon.

And here you have it.

Nikon d40 kit lens
exposure 1/4sec
aperture f/4.5
ISO 800

Something a little fun, a little funky and of course my build on Scott's photo would be the connection between sports.

Tomorrow guest photographer Justin will be joining us. Stay tuned.
xoxox,
Brandi

My name is Brandi and I hate knees

Let's start with a little 3C1D business because let's face it once you all see the photo you hit the red x and move on. Don't you? Come on now, admit it.
We're not stupid we know you're just using us for our pretty pictures you don't really care what we have to say. It's all about the pretties. Nobody cares about what we have to say. Nobody loves me. *sobs, sniffle, sob, hiccup*

Whoa, sorry. I guess someone has some issues today. I'll try to keep my insecurities to myself next time.

Back to business.
The winner of the extended Wordless Wednesday is Justin!
Congratulations Justin. Send an email to 3chicks1dudephoto@gmail.com and we'll give you further instructions. I promise to make the process speedy and easy.

Another Wordless Wednesday will be coming up with Sere tomorrow. Lucky girl she's gotten it the last two weeks. Make sure you come back tomorrow and enter your name into the drawing.

More business.
I'm working on some revamping of 3C1D. The rules are going to stay the same. The characters too. But you're going to notice some easier ways to navigate, some fun interactive polls and more importantly some new costumes for our little guys up top.
We would love some feedback on what you guys would like to see. We're all about constructive criticism so please tell us your thoughts and ideas. We'll steal them as our own and incorporate them without giving you credit but you'll always know you were responsible. *kidding of course*
Send a comment or an email and tell us what you think we need to change, add or keep.

Stop your grumbling. The business is over and now it's time for the photo. Oh wait, you just scrolled until you saw the photo. You think you're so smart. I don't think so mister. I'm hip to your action.


Nikon D40 kit lens
exposure time 1/250sec
aperture f/5.6
ISO 200
focal length 50mm
spot metered
manual mode

When I looked at Scott's eyeball I got to thinking about other body parts. Parts that are beautiful, soulful and expressive much like eyes. I decided that there really isn't another body part that 'speaks' the way the eye does.
So I challenged myself. I said "Self, I challenge you to pick a body part and make it expressive, soulful and beautiful".
I knew I couldn't pick knees because those are the single ugliest body part ever. Elbows are second and since I was challenging myself I could tweak my 'rules' to suit my needs. I just love when I can do that.
I decided on hands. More importantly I decided on the hands of my husband and my three year old daughter.
To get the emotion I was looking for I wanted black and white. Knowing this I set my camera to black and white and shot off some photos (I love that function). Deciding to play it safe I turned it back on normal and fired off a few more.
I also wanted some type of spotlight. Having to work with time constraints and the attention span of a flea (my three year old does great but that husband of mine he sure does get antsy) I knew I was going to need to get some Photoshop action going on.
I took one of my black and white exposed shots, bumped up the contrast and brightness and then added in a spot light filter that I tweaked to suit my needs.
In the end, I congratulated myself, I made hands look beautiful, expressive and soulful.
Mission accomplished.

See like this

Nikon d40 kit lens @46mm
ISO 200
f5.3
1/640sec
manual focus
natural light

So when Scott posted his photo yesterday I commented that I wanted to see the leaf against the bright blue sky. Here is a different leaf against a different sky at a different time of day but I wanted to see how it would look. In a picture perfect (read cash flush) world I too would have a macro lens and this photo would look remarkably different. Such is life.
Typically I shoot full manual with auto focus. Taking Scott's advice I flipped my camera to the macro setting and snapped off a few. As is typical for my camera it just didn't give me what I wanted. I find I have to 'force' my camera into submission and make it do what I want on a regular basis. I'm just working on understanding all the settings on my camera so I can quickly pin my camera and win the match, making my first shot the best shot. That doesn't come without practice, lots and lots of practice (this makes me happier than I can express).
So for me, for right now, I'm going to keep shooting in manual until I win the war I have silently declared on my camera. This is the lifestyle I have chosen, but as my very best friend is always saying
"my advice only works for me, do what is best for you."
Just keep shooting.

Water...But Different

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L
Shutter Speed 1/3200
Aperture f/2.8
ISO 100
Aperture Priority
Natural Light

I knew when I saw Jay'me's post that I wanted to do something with water. I've had a lot of fun shooting water and I figured it would be easy to lean on what I've learned so far. For this shot I decided on my way out of work to shoot a friend of mine's car (Isn't it great that I can talk about shooting stuff and be completely serious?). It had all these water droplets and it's a sexy sports car so no problem, piece of cake. Well, it's not easy getting a shot with interest of a parked car, I don't care how sexy it is.

I ended up looking for close up details that might photograph well and this is what I came up with. I though it gave a sense of power and sleekness, and that's something that's difficult to capture without motion. The water adds depth and the headlight added a lot of interest and focus. I tried several without the headlight on but the shots were just flat.

In post process I added a ton of contrast, blew out the highlights and accentuated the shadows. I like the edgy feel it gives. Normally, I'm not a big "radical edit" fan but every once in a while I do a bit more. With this shot I really think it adds without completely destroying the original image.

That's it from me tonight. I just spent several hours getting punished at a bowling alley and this kid's ready for bed. Stick a fork in me. Till next time,

Scott

Still More Light Shows!

Canon 30D
Canon 24-70mm f.2.8L
Shutter Speed 1/2000
Aperture f/6.3
Focal Length 30.0mm
ISO 100
Natural Light...LOTS of natural light!

In response to Jay'me's awesome fire pic I decided it was finally time to post a wake boarding shot. I say finally because I have literally taken more photos of wake boarders than anything else. I have probably taken 5000 shots of wake boarders and I honestly haven't had a good one to show until now. It's remarkably difficult to get a good action shot that has interest, unless of course the target is your child or some other loved one. This time out was different.

First, I had tremendous backdrops, full of fantastic clouds and forest vista's. Second, the light was really harsh but plentiful. Furthermore, it often was coming from dead straight ahead and behind the subject, something I'm still learning to deal with (but it certainly was plentiful!). And lastly and most importantly, I had taken 4500 shots before this and managed to learn about a teaspoon of technique. So off we went down the Fox River early in the morning and off I went shooting 5 frames a second in a desperate rush to fill my CF card!

Once I had the images ready for editing, I was immediately drawn to the patterns in the water. I had 4-5 shots that were just begging for some attention. Before I dive into the editing I should share a bit more on the techniques and equipment I employed. Probably the single most important piece of equipment I used was the lens hood. The purpose of the hood is to minimize flare, which happens when stray light (non-image forming) hits the lens and creates artifacts in the image. Sometimes you want flare. It can be a fantastic artistic tool. Other times, you'd rather avoid it because it has a tendency to de-saturate images. I wanted to keep as much detail as possible so the hood was a must. The lens I used has a particularly large hood and top-notch optics, 2 things that I absolutely adore.

The second technique I used was to always keep an eye on the horizon to ensure a level shot. It really chaps my hide when I get a great shot but the image is skewed. You're only option it to straighten and crop and that sometimes leads to unwanted composition. It's just plain best to get in the habit of checking the horizon, and that's especially true on a boat.

Third, I set-up my camera for auto-shutter (5 frames a second) and set the focus to manual. The action happens so fast you just can't time it perfectly. As for the focus, it may be hard to believe, but it's much easier on manual focus for something like this. And it's easy to understand why. The rope is a fixed length and as long as you sit near it's anchor point, you will always be the same distance from the subject. So, focus once and forget about it. And you completely avoid the headache of your camera choosing to focus on background subjects and blurring the foreground (in this case the wake boarders). It's odd to mention this in light of the above picture as I clearly focused on the water. But I only took about 3 of these and the rest were focused on the wake boarder.

Lastly, I had to constantly adjust exposure as the lighting was constantly changing. The in-camera metering is only so good and when you have the sun blazing right into your lens you have to compensate and over expose a bit. It's something every camera struggles with and it's crucial to good images when lighting is tough. I just used the exposure compensation function on my camera and shot in aperture priority. This allowed a certain amount of control but left the shutter speed up to the camera. The conditions were just changing too quick for me to shoot in full manual.

Okay, so on to editing. The back lighting proved vicious in it's intensity and yet the patterns it created in the water were stunning. I knew I had to over expose while shooting but that meant compensating for contrast while editing. So, the first thing I did was convert to black and white. I find blown highlights can be quite dramatic and B&W really emphasizes that for me. Next, I overdid the contrast to bring out the patterns in the water and obscure the detail on the wake boarder. The boarders name is Jim and he's a great guy. But for this image, the star is the water (sorry Jim - next time it's you buddy). After getting the contrast right I sharpened more than I normally do. This works because the water is so complex and fluid (pun absolutely intended) and the artifacts sometimes created by over sharpening get lost. Still, you always have to be careful not to overdo it. Once that was done, I saved it and edited several others. This is the image you get. If you want to see the others, drop us a line and I'll gladly share.

So now, I get to wait 3 days and see what the Chicks' have lined up. Isn't this a blast? Time to rock out Brandi! Thanks for all of you checking out our humble little spot on the web and keep giving your feedback. We just love hearing from you.