Sunday, July 6, 2008

Textures

While in Harrisville, I was able to take some time to walk around and shoot in the land surrounds my father-in-law's house. It's a fairly sizable bit of land with quite a few areas to shoot around in. Along with wild flowers and grasses, there were plenty of opportunities to shoot textures to use in images later on. I'll start with one image that didn't really require much development work.


I found many trees on the property that produced some really neat textures that I used in some other images taken around the same time. Two of my favorites are below.

The bark on a birch (I think). I love how the outer layers just peel away from the inner layers.

There was also some moss on the ground that looked to be good for use as a texture file.

Moving right along to actually using the texture files. I must thank Jared Carpenter from POTN for providing a basic tutorial that got me started working the textures. For brevity's sake, I won't show the original images. What I briefly did was to open both the background and texture images in Photoshop and drag the texture image onto the background image. To get more of a transparent effect, I selected "Color Dodge" and then set the transparancy to around 43%. I then desaturated the texture image a little bit. I'm being vague in the description because each image required a little different approach.


This last image was one of my favorites. I really liked it before applying the texture image. However, after adding the texture of the birch bark, it became an image I think will be printed and hung in the house.

Firecrackers at the Breitmeyer's

Since Harrisville had it's fireworks show on the 5th of July (see previous post), we had to shoot something of a pyrotechnic nature off to celebrate the founding of this country. My wife's little brother was the master of ceremonies lighting the majority of the firecrackers. Below are the results of the explosive display.



This last image was a long exposure (3.2 seconds at f/10). My sister-in-law was playing with some sparklers. Really neat effect.



Stay tuned, artsy-fartsy photos coming up next.

Fireworks in Harrisville, MI

The fourth of July was spent visiting my father-in-law and his family in Harrisville, MI. The fireworks, which took place on the fifth was a very nice and surprising event, given the length and amount of fireworks that were shot off. Below are a few images with a collage of some others. All of these images were taken at ISO 100 or 200 with an aperture of f/11 and shutter speed of 0.6-2 sec with the camera mounted on a tripod. I used an EF 17-55 f/2.8 IS with the stabilization turned off. There were other images taken over the weekend, which I will chronical later on.









The collage of fireworks. It's small, but I think it gets the point across of how many fireworks there were on Saturday (click to see a larger image).
This last image was caught by sheer luck on my part. I just happened to press the trigger button when I started to see what the firework started to look like. It's one of my favoites from the weekend.
Kanu is also eager to get back to reviewing baby stuff after his weekend off. Look for the return of the reviews soon, too.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

The most dangerous review ever.

Kanu decided to try out the baby iguana bathtub (which we received from a childhood friend of the egg layer) tonight (cue foreboding music). There are some warnings that Kanu wanted expressed before we continue on.

1. Do not leave baby iguanas unattended in these tubs
2. Do not use overly hot or cold water when bathing baby iguanas
3. Do not use the included toys to taunt the happy fun baby iguana (or the cat)
4. Before bathing baby iguanas, please check your life and health insurance policies to make sure they are both up-to-date.


Kanu first wanted to test out the hammock attachment of the bathtub cattub. He liked the sensation of floating on air even though there was no water in the tub. He imagines that the iguana will like this too. As with other items tested so far, he was very disappointed with the lack of a hole for his tail. In the future, Kanu hopes that the manufacturers of these items start taking the anatomy of iguanas into consideration. The toys (not all seen here) are especially fun, especially to use as a weapon to squirt water into his owner's face.

Kanu also feels that this is the perfect thing for just lounging around the house on a lazy afternoon.



While preparing the tub for Kanu's bath, Roxy, the 15 pound beast decided to check things out. Instead of seeing this as an cattub, she saw it as a big water bowl. Kanu was very upset with her for drinking out of his freshly drawn bath. He will retaliate by licking her butt later this evening.


Kanu normally loves the water. Being the true actor that he is, he attempted to wiggle around like a baby iguana just for the sake of accuracy. Not all baby iguanas like their baths and Kanu wanted to provide as realisitc bathing scenerio as possible. The image below doesn't specifically show him wiggling around, but please believe me that he did wiggle around.


Kanu almost in for his bath.


Right when Kanu was forcibly removing his owners' limbs and eyes without remorse getting all lathered up and clean, the camera's batteries died and I ran out of memory on the card. Who knew that blood could splatter so much that it made photography impossible 10 photos could fill up a 4GB card?

Kanu was very pleased with the construction of this tub and gives it 4.5 paws out of 5. He feels that the baby iguana will get many hours of good clean fun out of this. If there is anything wrong with it, it doesn't have restraints more toys to use as weapons against his owners.

Kanu will be taking the weekend off from reviewing baby items so his owner's wounds will heal he can properly celebrate the 4th of July.

He wishes everyone a happy 4th of July.

Kanu reviews more iguana gear.

One of the first iguana gifts we received was the Baby Einstein Musical Motion Activity Jumper from some very dear friends in Wisconsin. Kanu was very excited to test this toy out to make sure it would provide the baby iguana enough stimulation and fun. He had no problem getting in the toy, but was a little concerned that there was no hole for his (or the iguana's) tail. The first image shows Kanu comfortably in the seat ready to play.


He enjoyed the mirrors, toy frogs, and other bits and bobs associated with this item. However he did get freaked out at some of the noisier items on it. He commented that the frog was his favorite piece of the toy. He could bat at it for hours at a time without getting bored, as he's sure the baby iguana will do as well.


Here, Kanu is contemplating his burgeoning music career. He was annoyed that his slacker owner didn't put any batteries into the piano-type device. Kanu was very disappointed that he wasn't able to play chopsticks on this piano-type device though. This will have to be revisited later on when batteries have been purchased. He feels that this will provide hours of amusement to the baby iguana as well as making his owners want to find a padded cell to get away from the noise.


Overall, Kanu is very pleased with this toy and will give it 4.9 paws out of 5. The only thing he doesn't like about this toy is the lack of a tail hole. He feels this will be a bigger problem for the baby iguana as he thinks iguana tails aren't as movable as his is. The only other problem he encountered with this was the lack of batteries in the piano. He places blame for this oversight on his slacker owner and will seek his revenge at 3 in the morning by jumping on the slacker owner as hard as he can. He may also seek the assistance of Roxy, the 15 pound cat in this endeavor.

The Iguana's bath tub will be the next item reviewed as soon as the owners recieve their Kevlar full body armor.