Well Finally! {Project 365}

You may think I've slipped on my project, but you would be mistaken! I've been unable to log onto my Blog for a couple of days and I'm finally able to get in to share with you the image I took on Saturday. I took the family to see The Hobbit and then we hit Fuddruckers for some wholesome crane game fun (and a burger and fries).

We would have liked to go home with that silly crocodile that looked so easy to get, but $3 later we gave up.

I'll upload the next 2 in my project shortly!

Lisa On Location Photography

Santa's Lap {Project 365}

Yesterday's photo of the day is my boy with the big man himself. Only he's resting assured that it's not actually the real big man himself.

The Boy is scared to death of the real Santa because he's convinced he's on the naughty list and lives in fear of Santa's horrible retribution.

So the only way I could convince him to pose for a photo with "Santa" was to assure him that this was not the real official Santa, but that Santa was very busy this year with so many good children that he couldn't make it to his school for Santa photo day.

Is this the real Santa and I was just telling a story to my boy to get this photo? I'll never tell.

Anything for a good photo, right?

Lisa On Location Photography

Would you like a cookie with those sprinkles?: {Project 365}

Yesterday's image speaks for itself. It was taken at the Cookies With Santa program at my boy's school.

They fussed at me for letting him use too many sprinkles. But he looks so happy.

Lisa On Location Photography

The Face of Joy {Project 365}

I bought a really cute pink Santa hat yesterday to wear to the elementary school tomorrow to take Santa photos of the kiddos. And since the boy is much like a pet dog or cat in that he has to sniff and inspect every new item you bring into the house, he was the first to try it out.

He asked me to take a photo of him practicing his new smirk so I am presenting it to you in all its unedited glory. Notice the chocolate still stuck to his face. I have no idea what he ate. This is how he looked when I picked him up at school. But I guess it was good enough to save some for later.

Forty-one days down, 324 to go.

Lisa On Location Photography

365 / 40 {Texas 365 photo challenge}

Editors note: This is Jayme's hairy leg, not Lisa's.

So, remember how I mentioned in yesterday's photo that I'm a huge fan of passion flowers/passion vines/passion fruit? Well, one aspect of growing passiflora is the fact that several species of butterfly lay their eggs on it, and their larvae eat the passion vines as their only food source. Passiflora generate a natural form of cyanide in their foliage as a protection against being eaten, but these caterpillars have evolved to absorb that poison and use it as a defense mechanism to prevent them from being eaten. They've got little black spines all over their orange bodies to drive the point home. Normally, they're harmless. Just brushing or touching one isn't harmful (unlike bushing an asp/puss caterpillar, which is excruciating). However, if you happen to bump into a fritillary caterpillar with any force, and those spines are actually jammed into the skin, well, the effect is not pleasant. This is my leg today, after an encounter with a caterpillar two days ago. You can still make out the puncture marks where the individual spines impaled me. So let me serve as a lesson to you: Don't try this at home!

Camera: Canon 7D
Lens: Canon EF 100mm 2.8 macro

Lisa On Location Photography

365 / 39 {Texas 365 photo challenge}

Yesterday, after sorting through the issues surrounding my eldest daughter beating up a misogynistic boy (see previous 365 post by Lisa) I went outside to bring in several passion flower vines. Passion flowers are something of a hobby of mine, and most around the Blaschke house are native or hardy species that live in-ground throughout the year. But I have several that are cold-sensitive. Two are passiflora edulis the tropical species grown commercially that passion fruit juice and fresh passion fruit come from. They'd grown up into a large pomegranate bush on the side of our house, and I had to prune the passis back to get them untangled. As I was doing this, the big, green fruit in the image below dropped to the ground. A nice, fat, passion fruit. I hadn't realized any of the sparse flowers that bloomed this year were pollinated. It's a shame, because given a few more weeks, this one would turn deep purple and be delicious. As it is, the fruit is unripe and actually poisonous. Then, I happened by the pecan tree in our front yard, where another passion vine grows. This one, "Incense," is a hybrid that stays out all year. Despite several attempts to hand-pollinate it over the years, the few fruit it's produced have been uniformly hollow and small. But I found this small yellow fruit lying on the grass, and it felt unusually heavy. I tore it open to find it full of seeds. I figure the Edulis provided the pollen, rather than one of the other species (as they haven't flowered much this fall). I'll pot the seeds to see if any interesting hybrids sprout.

Late-season passion fruit are something of a tease. Next year, though, I expect them to produce fruit all summer long.

Camera: Canon 5D mark III
Lens: Canon EF 24-70mm 2.8 L

Lisa On Location Photography

365 / 38 {Texas 365 photo challenge}

Another Picture of the Day, another photo of a lens. This is the Tamron 28-75mm 2.8 lens that Lisa purchased when she made the decision to start photographing weddings. It's proven to be a workhorse for us over the years, and is now the lens that spends the most time on my (Jayme) camera since Lisa's traded up to the Canon EF 24-70mm 2.8 L. The Tammy is an extremely sharp and light lens, and one of the best cost-per-performance lenses we've got. As you can see in the photo, it's not anywhere near mint condition. It's been used, and used a lot. There are a lot of miles racked up on this one, and a lot more to go.

Camera: Canon 7D
Lens: Canon EF 50mm 1.8 mark I

Lisa On Location Photography

About a Lady and a Horse {Project 365}

365 / 37 {Texas 365 photo challenge}

There's a little cactus in a broken pot sitting on our front porch. It was a gift from someone in the family to someone else quite a few years ago. Several other ornamental cactus with it have since died, but this one soldiers on. Today I noticed a tiny flash of color--on closer examination, I discovered it blooming. I felt that kind of perseverance deserved a Picture of the Day spotlight.

Camera: Canon 7D
Lens: Canon EF 100mm 2.8 macro

Lisa On Location Photography

365 / 36 {Texas 365 photo challenge}

The holidays are here in full force, with decorations hither and yon. The traffic circle in downtown New Braunfels is a veritable blaze of lights, so last night I thought I'd try for some long-exposure shots of traffic to get some nifty light trails. Naturally, as soon as I set up, the traffic flow slowed to a trickle. I spent an hour there, camped out on the island, taking a whole lot of photos of nothing. Eventually I got a few decent shots and was able to stack this image. Once I broke down my tripod and packed away my camera, however, it was like the Daytona 500 broke out: I had to wait almost five minutes before a break in the traffic allowed me to escape the traffic island, and as I reached my car, a horse-drawn carriage decked out with thousands of blue-and-white twinkle lights showed up to make leisurly loops around the traffic circle. I will not share the words I used at the time to express my feelings on the matter, but I'm sure you can come up with a general approximation on your own.

Camera: Canon 7D
Lens: Opteka 6.5mm 3.5 fisheye II

Lisa On Location Photography

The Sunset that I Missed {Project 365}

I don't consider myself a speed demon. I tend to stick to the speed limits as much as possible but I frown upon people who drive in the fast lane at speeds slower than the speed limit. Normally it's just a slight nuisance. But today a slow poke driver cost me a sunset.

"How can a slow poke driver cost you a sunset?" you may ask. Well, I was turning onto the road that leads to my subdivision when, wow!, there's this gorgeous sunset right in front of me and just about a half a mile to get to my house, where my trusty 5D Mark iii was sitting on my desk awaiting my arrival.

So I step on the gas, still well under the speed limit, when I come upon a van puttering along at a snail's pace. Crap. There's the sun and it's slowly disappearing and looking so gorgeous. And there's the van, and "whoa, he's up to about 15 mph now." And the sun is dipping lower. And the van is still dragging. Can't pass it, there are cars coming. And then just when I think the view can't get any more gorgeous, the sun is gone, leaving in it's wake a slowly dissipating thread of pink, orange and red. Crap.

Then it's time to turn into my subdivision, but the van turns too. Another right turn, but it turns too. Crap crap! Alas, I arrive at my home and grab my camera just in time to catch the last whispers of color as they seep from the sky.

But it wasn't a total loss. On the way to the field next to my house a roving pug dog decided to follow me for company. When I realized I wouldn't get the shot I wanted of the sun I thought I'd turn my camera on the pug dog for my image of the day. His response to my attempts to take his photo were met with disapproval -- and the view you see here.

Thirty-six down, 329 to go.

Lisa On Location Photography

Just for My Jayme {Project 365}

The past couple of days have been draining on me. They've left me tired and uninspired. Jayme knows this. So while I've had a couple of days of not wanting to do my daily project -- even photographers sometimes don't want to pick up a camera -- he's pulling out impressive images of the constellation Orion. He's just mean that way.

So just for you Jayme, because I know how much you love my kitties, I give you Meow Meow Kitty. Love you!

Thirty-five days down, 330 to go.

Lisa On Location Photography

365 / 35 {Texas 365 photo challenge}

Confession time: My interest in photography began with the stars. I've been a nut for space for as long as I can remember, and shortly after I bought my first telescope at the age of 13 (which I still have) I also ponied up some of my hard-earned lawn mowing money to buy a camera adapter for the family's Canon AE-1 so I could shoot through-the-telescope astro photos (I still have that adapter, by the way).

There was just one problem... I was terrible at astrophotography. This was back in the days of film, mind you, so it was very challenging. Add to that the fact that I had no clue about photography, and it's no surprise I burned through a whole lot of film rolls to get exactly zero good images. Fast forward to today. I've learned (with Lisa's help and patience) a great deal about photography. Digital makes astrophotography infinitely easier. Seriously. Unfortunately, despite all that, I still stink at astrophotography, the one photographic discipline I really, really want to be great at. Part of that stems from equipment problems--I've only got a primitive, 30-plus year old clock motor on my telescope mount for tracking, which limits deep sky and long-exposure images. My high-quality telescope mirror got damaged by a company I'd sent it off to for resurfacing, and the replacement mirror I have is not quite as good. But mostly the fault lies with me. I don't have the instincts for it--every little aspect I have to struggle with, while I've seen other comparable amateur astronomers take jaw-dropping images their first night out. Someday I'll get it, but it may take a while. Until then, here's my Picture of the Day for today, a series of stacked images of the constellation Orion taken between midnight and 1 a.m. this morning. And yes, I am indeed tired today.

Camera: Canon 7D
Lens: Canon EF 50mm 1.8 mark I

Lisa On Location Photography

365 / 34 {Texas 365 photo challenge}

There is a field of mesquite trees I pass to and from work every day, one which I love very much. I've photographed it before. Sometime last week I missed photographing an incredible, fiery sunset with those striking trees in the foreground because I had a pressing engagement to get to. I promised myself that if I saw another potentially spectacular sunset, I would make the time to shoot it. Well, this evening's sunset held potential. Alas, it didn't live up to that potential, at least not for the widefield shot I was hoping for. On a whim, I ran back to my car and grabbed the FD 500mm reflex lens, as I had a hunch that lens would frame this particular mesquite tree perfectly. Turns out my instincts nailed it. And there will be other sunsets for the rest of the trees...

Camera: Canon 7D
Lens: Canon FD 500mm 8.0 reflex

Lisa On Location Photography

My New Favorite Tool {Project 365}

Meet my new toy. It's one of many but already it has improved my photography for families and children.

Isn't it cute! It's a tiny little plastic camera. It measures about 1.5 inches long and one inch high. It has sweet little photos of animals inside and when you hold it to your eye and push the shutter, it changes photos.

My boy brought a few of these home from the dentist a few weeks ago and I thought they were cute so I put them in my bag. Then I encountered a challenging child a few days later. His mom asked him to pose for a photo for her. He crossed his arms and said "no".

That moment is the beginning of most nightmare scenarios for photographers. I quickly thought about a bribe and remembered the little cameras. I pulled one out and showed it to him. I asked him if he'd like to take it home with him. He said yes. I offered him a chance to earn it by smiling really big and letting me take a few photos of him. He agreed. He did it, he smiled and posed beautifully so I gave it to him. He left happy. Disaster averted.

I quickly worked my way through the small stash from the dentists office and realized they were the ticket to lots of happy faces. But I was out. I scoured the internet for these things with no luck so I asked the dentist on our return trip to her office yesterday. She showed me the catalog and I screamed with joy. I called the 800 number and ordered 150 of these little charmers.

They'll be here in a few days and then I'll be packing! I'll be ready for the stubborn kids and the potential nightmares. Bring it on!

Thirty-four days down, 331 to go.

Lisa On Location Photography

Day 33 Brings Bubbles {Project 365}

Today I wanted to photograph my boy in his busy little world of play. At first he had his soccer ball and I had a vision in my head of the shot I wanted to try with him and the soccer ball. But just as soon as I had it set up and ready to add him and his ball. He changed his mind and lost interest in the ball. "It's dirty and I really don't want to pick it up," he told me.

He did, however, pick up his brand new bubble blower that he got in his magic Christmas calendar this morning. -- And I'd like to make a special shout out to Na-ma who got him this magical little calendar a few years ago. It has a special power to make a new pocket-size toy magically appear in it every morning from Dec. 1 until the 24 in the pocket with the number of that date on it. Just so the boy has plenty of practice waking up every single God-forsaken morning and creeping down the stairs to see what goodies he can find (and God forbid the guilt and trauma that mom feels if there is not a toy magically in that stupid pocket every single freakin' morning.) Once again thank you so much Na-ma for the beautiful magic calendar. Really.

So he discarded the soccer ball and picked up the magic bubbles forcing me to rethink my image of the day. But I did. And here it is. Magic bubbles.

Thirty-three days down, 332 days to go.

Lisa On Location Photography

365 / 33 {Texas 365 photo challenge}

Today turned out to be dreary and overcast for the most part, a little drizzle here, a little fog there. Nothing dramatic, weather-wise. I hadn't used Lisa's manual fisheye lens to any real extent--she's kept a pretty short leash on it--so I borrowed it and stuck it in my camera bag, planning to experiment with it a bit if the opportunity arose. Opportunity presented itself in the form of a train parked on a railroad bridge spanning the Blanco River. The colors, lines and textures appealed to me, so I squeezed off a few shots before getting out of there before the train decided to start moving.

Thoughts on the lens: It's a decent buy for the price, and this newer version, with the removable lens hood, is preferable to the original with the fixed lens hood. Corners were definitely cut, though, to keep the price down--in addition to having manual focus and aperture, the aperture ring doesn't even have a setting for f/4. Believe it or not, it skips from f/3.5 right to f/5.6. Bizarre. The stated focal length of 6.5mm is bogus as well: I'd say it's closer to 8mm, as the wide field views it gives aren't that much more expansive than my EF-S 10-22 (although the fisheye distortion is obviously more pronounced). Finally, I noticed some significant chromatic aberration in the images, which is not unexpected with an inexpensive lens like this. Fortunately, CA can be corrected to a great extent in Photoshop.

Camera: Canon 7D
Lens: Opteka 6.5mm 3.5 fisheye II

Lisa On Location Photography

365 / 32 {Texas 365 photo challenge}

I've always liked pomegranates. The seedy arils make great tart/sweet additions to breakfast cereal, and are a bright, fruity addition to countless recipes. Plus, they're pretty good to snack on straight. But I think what appeals to me most is the fact that when you crack one open, it's like a fruity geode, filled with glittery, juice-filled gems. What's not to like?

Camera: Canon 7D
Lens: Canon EF 100mm 2.8 macro

Lisa On Location Photography

Finally, The Photo You've All Been Waiting For {Project 365}

I think you probably thought I was joking in that first blog when I started this project about photographing my big toe and using it as my photo of the day. You didn't think I'd do it did you? Well guess what. Today I had a pedicure so I photographed my toe. I dressed it up with some pearls and made it art by applying some actions. But there you go. My big toe.

Thirty-two days down, 333 to go.

Lisa On Location Photography

A Slightly Different Look at My Girl {Project 365}

Today was another really packed Sunday for Lisa on Location. I had two full sessions and a meeting with a bride. While on my morning session, I took a moment once again to turn the camera to my girl who was holding the light. I didn't intend to use it for my photo of the day because I just used her recently, but then I thought, "why not?" This project is all about me photographing what I want to photograph for me, rather than for someone else. But this time I played a little with her to try to make her look like even more of a work of art than she already is.

Thirty-one days down, 334 to go.

Lisa On Location Photography