The local cemetery is huge in ways it's hard to describe. The maps don't do it justice and every time I visit I find some new areas.
The evening photography class I take on studio lighting has a truly terrible book. Everything in that book is out of focus. To be more precise, the Depth of Field is far too shallow for the subject matter. It's like the author of the book got ahold of an f/2 lens and shot wide open for everything.
I've been bouncing back and forth between C41 process films, from Kodak 400CN B/W to Ilford XP2 400. Currently I'm using the Kodak, mainly because it's readily available and I can buy three rolls of Kodak for the price of one roll of Ilford.
One of the cool things about the 50mm is the ability to shoot at an aperture of 1.8 (in other words, wide open) allowing for extremely shallow depth of field, as shown here on this ground maiden figure.
I bought a 50mm lens the other day with some Christmas money (thanks Dad!) and had an occasion to try it out. Here is one of the results at wide open (f/1.8) with local drug store B/W film. I love the look!
One of the many interesting things about the Nikon F4s film camera, is that the DX lenses on my Fuji, give me a wider view than designed for. This, for example, is the 17mm I use. It's designed for a dSLR and as such, is actually about a 15mm on a film camera. Suits me fine, allows me to get lumbering behemoths like this rhino on film. Still not all of it mind you, the rhino is just too big, but better than on the Fuji.
Naturally, with my love of old things, I still shoot film. In this case I've gotten my hands on a pristine Nikon F4s and ran a roll of film through it.
The saturation here was toned way down, otherwise nothing was done to the image, I felt it conveyed what it needed to as is.
Somewhere down the journal is a near idental shot with normal colouration. Feel free to compare and contrast.
Again, being unseasonably lovely weather this weekend, I went to the big cemetery here i town. I've been here before and got plenty of great (ahem) images so I didn't want to rehash what I'd already taken but instead further explore the emotions these images could evoke.
Odd that this ornate ironwork coach wan't a weathervane, but it made for a great image all the same. I used my 17mm on this one, to get a bit of the background farm and area in the picture.
As luck would have it, on the same farm as the tractor, was an abandoned BMW. I'm not a fan of BMWs (with very rare exceptions) but this one just seemed to belong where I'd found it. Some surface rust but it looked ready to tackle the open road once again, if only someone would.
This was the tractor in its original colour, the nose logo too faded to be a detail properly, but the overall impression still worked. The keys were still in it, as it waiting for the owner to return it to use soon.
I love old decayed things. They have a sense of history about them, a presence that isn't equalled in the modern age. Thus I'm always on the lookout for wrecks, ruins or abandoned things on my photography jaunts. I was especially lucky with this tractor and made several shots and several scenes with it.
Some weekends ago, with a nice day, I went in search of something to shoot and chanced across a series of small farms. The next few images are from those farms.
A Rhino, if it wasn't obvious. Rhinos are big, very big. You see them on nature shows but until you get right next to one in person, it is difficult to convey the size of these animals.
Penguin detail. Unlike most of the animals there at the zoo, you could get almost nose to nose with the penguins. They didn't seem to mind, and indeed, several 'posed' for the camera. Unfortunately I'd run out of space on my memory card, so one shot of a penguin was all I got, but it's a pretty good one in my opinion.
I think these are gophers, but I'm not positive. In any event, just inside the zoo is a large collection of them, and a feeding station where you can buy food pellets to give to the gophers. 
The weather is been great for this time of year, these past few weeks, so I have been out with the gear. My internet connection has been broken at home (more correctly, absent) so I've not had a chance to upload things until today. 
A dramatic sky can take an ordinary image and turn it into a memorable one. 
Playing hopscotch on the rocks allowed me to get fairly far out in the river. I found a good flat(ish) rock to set my camera down and do a short timelapse shot of the riverflow.
The Depth of Field isn't what I wanted it to be for this shot, but I'd stupidly left my tripod at home and with the light fading, handholding the camera became something of a challenge. 
Same bridge, different angle and adjusted differently as the clouds were sporadic and the light was much stronger for this scene. Lots of ducks added to the overall tone I was aiming for.
This image is not from the Pony Pasture, though it was taken on the same day. This is a bridge that I go over on the way to the Pasture. The sun was fading from view as the clouds rolled in, but enough was left to make for an interesting scene.
The following set of images were taken on the spur of the moment one cloudy afternoon. It had started off warm(ish) and went downhill from there. The river and rocks are from a place called Pony Pasture, though there are no ponies anywhere. Go figure. 
Yeah yeah, been late with pics. I've been in evening classes recently and that's been my main concentration. In addition, Summer is over, and so is my desire to go outside (I dislike any weather below 80 degrees) but this image captured my desire to stand outside for more than five minutes.
I've always admired architects that can seamlessly blend different styles together into one building. 
You can see here the sky was in full threat mode, but the sun was still showing through in certain parts, thus ensuring certain buildings were illuminated while others were muted by the clouds.
Here you can see the low rolling clouds. Just a brief, but strong, rain. Given how hot it was that day, the rain helped things.
I have always loved U-Boats. At the Inner Harbour they had an American one you could tour. Was a bit of a trick to photograph it (indeed, all of the Inner Harbour areas) without people around. Patience paid off though. I love this shot.
For the first time in a long time, I took a small vacation. Went to Baltimore's Inner Harbour to try my hand at some landscape (okay, buildingscape) shots. I must say I was very pleased at how they turned out, here is one of my favourites.
Why yes, I have been playing with digital colour settings, how can you tell?
This area would not be out of place in a high end eatery. Except there were no waiters, no food, and of course no people. 
Initially I thought this was some ornate clock at the train station, but obviously I was wrong. I have no idea what it is, or what it might represent. It looks like a prop from the film Dark City. Reading the letters in standard left to right fashion, it spells out SLA Service Level Agreement? I don't think so. Backwards it's ALS, or Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, so that's not it either.
A shot from the waiting room, the outside light was partially filtered by some beautiful wooden slats, and gave the interior a warm look about it. Dark mahogany row seats with leather and brass tacks added to the look. Marble everywhere I looked. Can't wait to go back again.
We have a train station that is virtually unused in the city. The history of the building is long, and amusing. In the 60s it flooded, the was rebuilt, then flooded again, then rebuilt, then burned down, then rebuilt, then flooded again, rebuilt, re-used as a mall(?!) which failed, rebuilt again as a train station, just as the trains quit coming to the city. 
I was invited to a club to shoot some models there. I'd never worked with on-camera flash (preferring remote strobes) and I was unsure of what I'd get.
Just a bit of whimsey on my part. I belong to a photography forum where a new topic is posted weekly. It's supposed to encourage us to go out and shoot something we don't normally do and this week's topic was "candy."
Visited some great friends for July 4. Brought the Fuji just in case. Didn't get much in the way of fireworks, being in a heavily wooded neighborhood, so with a stack of glowsticks, I made my own lightshow.
Got a new lens for my birthday. It arrived two days early which was great so I had to go out and try it today after work. It was a perfect sunny day too.
Believe it or not, this is a real flower. It's from something called a "passion flower" or as I like to call it, "The Plant That Ate Sheboygan"
This is a detail of one of many butterflies that were on display at the local botanical gardens this weekend. I was using ambient light, which while good, was filtered through heavy plant growth and in an effort to make sure I got the shot before the butterfly took off, I used too shallow a depth of field (as evidenced by the top of the picture) but I did get the eyes and mouth in focus, which helps offset the top somewhat.
Nothing will tax a camera system like trying to capture butterflies, especially in motion. Their Brownian motion in flight is all but impossible to predict and capture, at least with the gear I have. But as they land, things change. Here is one of the better ones I caught this weekend. 
As you can see, the colour profile issue has been fixed. I was partially correct in my assumptions about what was wrong, but with the help of some kind people, fixed the underlying culprit, Adobe colour profiles. By default Adobe uses some advanced profiles (for professionals of course) and programs like Internet Explorer cannot handle them. So without losing too much data, the profile is converted to something that IE can handle. And thus the images turn out like i took them.
This is not what I shot. Well, the flowers are, but the colours are not. I've been shooting in RAW recently, which captures each colour channel individually and allows me to work with each one.
Had gone to the mall to get some new batteries, and while I was there, had a serious jonesing for some fried rice. Once I had the fresh batteries I thought I'd try them out on something simple, hence this pic. First time shooting real food (chocolate doesn't count) and I thought it turned out okay. Wish I could say the same for the food. The 'bourbon chicken' was terrible.
This is the same image as below, run through PhotoShop and cleaned up as best as I can.
A very nice friend of mine gave me an old film camera. A Minolta Maxxum 7000, along with some lenses and a high-end flash unit. In the case, was a roll of Kodak 100 Gold film. Age unknown, but unused. 
