Flaming Pumpkin Festival – Year Three
Welcome the the Third Annual Flaming Pumpkin Festival! It’s always nice to end Halloween with a nice flaming pumpkin…. or pumpkins.
My favorite shot of the night is the one above. He was a very small pumpkin with a very large mouth. Buy prints of him HERE. Makes a great gift!
I added one element to the photography this year. I had a wireless flash positioned to the right of the camera with an orange gel to keep the color nice and warm. I didn’t use it on every shot – see right. I also had a continuous light behind the jack-o-lanterns gelled blue to illuminate the smoke.
The pumpkins are filled with flammable materials and sprayed with generous portions of lighter fluid. – Don’t try this at home.
Year Two
Here’s last year’s victims! More pictures in this post: prestonpro.com/photoblog/2010/11/08/flaming-pumpkin-festival
Year One
My first ever flaming pumpkin. I loved this guy, he was HUGE. Here’s a multi-exposure shot from before the burning: prestonpro.com/photoblog/2010/01/09/great-pumpkin
Happy PI Day – 3.14
Yesterday while brainstorming ideas for PI Day, the main image that kept coming to mind was π shaped bokeh. I had read the concept for creating the light shapes before, but had never tried it. The miniature cutting took a while, but worked great in the end. The lights are Christmas lights strung up over black fabric. The foreground lighting is a flash behind the subjects and to the left of camera with a reflector to the right. I used a Pentax 50mm f2.0 lens at 2.0 for every shot. Click on the smaller images to see them full size.
Salsa!
This is my first attempt at making salsa. I photographed the process with my Pentax 50mm 2.0 and lit with a wireless strobe bounce off the ceiling. It was pretty tasty stuff and fun to shoot while cutting. Click on any of the small photos to see them large.
Tragic Mix
I had my camera with me today when I came to work and had to grab a shot of the audio console while on break. The wireless strobe is laying just out of frame on the console pointing back toward the camera.
On FLICKR
The Blue Period
Above: Bare strobe on floor pointed up at Connor. Color temperature pushed cool and then slightly desaturated.
Below: Full CTO on strobe at eye level. Shutter speed set at 1/6th second to give me time for a quick pan move while shooting. Flash freezes Connor while the deep blue sky washes over him.
Splash!
Trying my hand at splash photography. Flash is below the set firing straight up. The glass is a tasting glass from last year’s Pumpkin Beer Fest and the green object is a mini tiki pencil top. This turned out to be harder than it looked. Both the aim and timing are tough.
Vashon
We finally took Connor to his Nana’s house on Vashon Island recently. It was both his first time on a ferry and an island. I managed to take over three hundred pictures and then deemed over one hundred good enough to be processed. All of the pictures in this post were either taken with my 50mm 2.0 or 24mm 3.5. Click on any of the smaller pictures to see them full size.
Here’s Connor on a Washington State ferry. He has a great time getting help walking up the aisles on the passenger deck by Leah. Below he’s enjoying the benches up front with the great views and hanging out by the emergency life rafts. There was a really good photographer on board that took a great family portrait of us.
Valerie made a great shrimp po’ boy lunch for us. Connor enjoyed the fireplace and crawling on the new floors.
Connor hangs out on the dock and the beach. I really love that wooden sculpture that someone built years ago.
Petting Zoo
We recently took Connor to a petting zoo for the first time. I have a bunch of shots of him looking at/touching the animals, but I thought that these would look more interesting here. That is Leah and Connor in the way out of focus background below.
Valerie’s Garden
I took these shots of Valerie’s garden on our recent trip to her house on Vashon Island. I usually do shots like this with the 50mm, but decided to do the whole shoot with the 24mm for a change of pace and perspective. The few shots here don’t quite do justice to how many cool plants are there, but they’re some of my favorites of the day. Click on the smaller pics for large sizes.
That’s the house up there. The deck and kitchen widows provide great views of Quartermaster Harbor and the other side of the island.
Everett Marina
These shots are from the guest moorage dock at the Everett Marina. Everything here was shot with the 50mm 2.0. I really loved the structure over the dock. It provided some great perception of depth when shooting from end to the other.
Aliens at the Beach
While doing a photo shoot with Connor at the beach in Everett, I took a break to get some landscape shots. That’s when I spotted these three through the grass. I managed to get off a few shots before they were gone.
Magnum
Let’s begin with the shot above. Connor is giving us his best attempt at “Magnum”. I think he’ll have “Blue Steel” down in the next couple of months. These shots are from Howarth Park in Everett. We were shooting with a very bright backlight coming from the high sun. I used my gold reflector to get some of that light onto his face. I’m also a big fan of the Monkey Butt shot down below.
Magnuson Park
These four shots are from a trip that Connor and I took to Seattle’s Magnuson Park by ourselves. We were hanging out while Leah and her mom were attending an event in another part of the park. He had just started crawling at the time and it was hard to keep him in one place to get some shots. Everything was shot with the Pentax 50mm 2.0. I really love the black and white shot from behind. He’s watching some kids playing basketball.
Seattle Zombie Walk Part 4 – Slideshow
Here’s my final post on this year’s Red, White and Dead Zombie walk in Seattle. I just put together a big photo slide-show over at Flickr to use here on my blog. Be sure to hit the full screen button on the lower right! I had a great time shooting this year and I’m looking forward to being there again next year. Every shot was taken with a Pentax 50mm 2.o lens with the Pentax K10D.
Backyard
These shots are from a shoot in the backyard on June 14, 2010. Connor had a great time pulling up weeds and playing with a nice stick that he found. He also really liked sitting in my reclining lawn chair.
Gas Works
This must be how I see Gas Works Park. (de)Faced fire hydrants and out of focus rusted towers. It’s one of my favorite places to hang out in Seattle. Great views of Lake Union and downtown. Not seen here… I used to come here to read when I lived nearby.
The First Eight Months
Connor was born on September 2nd, 2009. That was a little over eight moths ago. Looking through his pictures I can see him grow and change. Here’s a snapshot of Connor’s life so far in the next ten pictures. It’s so hard to choose just one shot per month to do justice to both his looks and personality.
At just a few minutes old, Connor just took his first breaths.
An outtake from his first photo shoot at eight days old.
Almost one month old.
Almost two months old.
Connor’s three month birthday.
Christmas eve in his Santa suit. Almost four months.
Five month birthday.
February 26, 2010
Seven months old. He can sit by himself now. I haven’t seen that stuffed dog in a while.
Almost eight months.
More Connor posts from my Blog.
Connor posts from my PhotoBlog.
More Connor pictures from Flickr.
Beer
Traveling the world and drinking good beer is a good thing. There are so many interesting things to try that are hard to come by at home. Here in Washington State we’re lucky to have a great micro-brew industry, but today we’re going to look at a few foreign beers. My favorite shot is the one above. This is at a bar in Vancouver that specializes in Belgian beers. It was my first ever Hoegaarden. Below left is three half liters of Hoffbrauhaus‘ Witbier. Below right is from a bar in Amsterdam. Click on the small images to see them large.
More beer pictures on Flickr.
Wink
Wink, from Hellboy II, was part of my short-lived toy 365 project. The whole series can be seen on Flickr. All of the Wink shots are here. The shot above is my favorite of the series and was even featured on Seattlest.com. [Screengrab] The building in the background is the Westlake Tower and the image is a five exposure HDR.
Mini Tiki
My set of Mini Tiki pencil tops make a stop at work to be photographed at my workstation. The green guy is lit by a small green led keychain. I’ve used that light in almost all of my toy photography. Shot with a Pentax 50mm @ f2.0.
It’s a Long Way to the Top
Taken on February 23, 2009. This is the most “interesting”/popular shot that I’ve ever posted to Flickr. I shot at 18mm – f/5.6 for 269 seconds.
Connor’s First Christmas
Connor had a great time on his first Christmas. He wore his favorite Santa outfit and everyone loved it. This photo was taken on Christmas Eve while the house was clean and there was perfect light coming through the front of the house. He’s laying on his beautiful, homeade quilt in front of the tree. I love the bit of drool that is almost ready to leave the bottom of his chin. Have a Happy New Year!
Connor – Ten days ’til Christmas
Camera: Pentax K10D
Lens: 50mm 2.0 @ f2.8
Light: Daylight through the french doors on a gloomy northwest December day
Processing: Adobe Camera Raw then Photoshop. Healing brush, High Pass filter, Layer mask and level adjustments on the eyes.
