Happy Halloween From All of Us* Here at Third Photography

Well Halloween’s coming up and my costume’s ready, so why not take a photo or two?

…I couldn’t think of an excuse either, so I took a photo or two.

“Who or what am I,” you ask? The RED Engineer from Team Fortress 2, that’s who! And if that answer means nothing to you, This video will provide some answers. “That’s all well and good”, you continue, “but what’s with the cap? Why aren’t you wearing a hard hat?” Well kind interneter, I went with the hard hat at first and didn’t like the way it looked. So I came up with another idea. Mann Co. is the weapons supplier to the RED and BLU teams. The hat is also an item you can obtain for your characters by using the in-game store. (I obtained this one by using the real world store.)

I also thought it might be fun to post about the process of making this photo. So here we go.

First, I collected all the necessary props and set up the shot.

Next I set up my main light behind to get the background a solid black and make everything stick out.

Then I add a reflector to bring out the detail in the shadows.

That’s slightly better, so I hop into the shot to see how it will look with me.

Clearly the reflector’s not enough. I’m way too dark and don’t stand out from the background the way I’d like. I add a fill light and put the reflector opposite that to put some more detail on the items in front of me.

Much better! Now it’s time to adjust the framing a bit and get the final pose down.

Just about ready, but there’s still a problem- The hat. If I had stuck with the hard hat it wouldn’t be as big of an issue. But because of its detail and departure from the standard headgear, that’s important information lost in shadow. So I added a third light with a snoot to light just the hat.

Awesome. Pulling back so you can see, the final set up looks like this:

Adjust the snoot slightly so it’s not so much of an eye light, get into wardrobe and it’s time to shoot for real. And we get our final result!

Happy Halloween everyone!

* “All of us” = Me.

A Farewell to Nice Weather

I took yesterday afternoon off to wander around shooting and enjoying the weather. It won’t be long now until everything’s dead and covered in snow, so better get out there and take some photos while you can.

I’m doing Photography and I’m Still Alive.

Well it’s been what, 19 short months since my last post? I suppose I could gather some things and put together an update or two. The point was raised that having a blog that is attached to my website and never updated makes it seem as though I don’t shoot anymore. Not the case! A lot’s happened in the last year. Not the least of which is I picked up a new camera- the Canon 7D.

Oh how I love it.

I’ve been shooting up a storm with it and it would be criminal not to share, granted I still believe most blogging is just pissing in the ocean. However it’s a lot better than just uploading my photos to Facebook. I feel as though I’m breaking a taboo by uploading anything that doesn’t fall into the categories of “Cats doing things” or “My outstretched arm taking horrific pictures of me and my friends holding alcohol whilst making duckfaces”. Thankfully, the photo thing has never been so bad that I’ve had to take any of the latter.

Anyways- Photography. Here are some star trails. I just bought a remote trigger for my camera and I’ve never tried including the ground in one of these, so I decided to test out both before it got too cold outside. These were taken on two different days since summer is indeed over and it gets chilly rather quickly out there.

That time between Winter and Spring where everything just looks Crummy

In an attempt to get back into the swing of shooting, I wandered around my neighborhood with mah trusty ol’ 30D.  Not much around besides a pair of geese and a lot of dead fish, so I took a 360 shot to illustrate that.

Hopefully everything gets less dead soon.

Update!

Well it’s been several months, so I think it’s just about time for a new post. A little while ago, I decided I should get a personal website going so I can get my organized portfolio on the web. The problem was I had never even written a single line of HTML before, so I’ve been hitting the books in my spare time to learn html, css, and javascript. I plan to also learn some more advanced stuff later, but for now the basics will do. It’s coming along well and should be done soon!

In other news- I got my new monitor today! It’s a Samsung P2370HD.

• 23″
• 1920 x 1080 Resolution
• 5 ms response time
• Built-in TV tuner

Good looking monitor, though I’m still on the fence about Samsung’s “Touch of Color”. Also the stand on the P2370HD is just a quarter of an inch taller than the P2370, so the screens don’t line up as perfectly as they did in my dreams. Otherwise- so far so good! The thing has a ton of inputs, so it’s gonna act as my TV in addition to being my second monitor. Anyways, I took some shots of it for fun.

An update about the lack of updates

Well I’m still in the middle of getting these portraits done. The editing of those is taking up a lot of time so I haven’t been able to really get out there and shoot some more.  But  all of that should be completed in about a week.

The second thing is the animation. Which I still plan to post! The thing is I guess you need a video upgrade to post that type of thing here. Since I don’t do enough video work to justify the upgrade, I suppose the next step is to post them on YouTube instead and embed them here. And to do that I need to change their current format, which takes a while.

Until then!

Sox Vs. Athletics Part Deux

Voilà- More photos from a game better forgotten. I didn’t take any tailgating shots this time because Watson and I were too busy either dominating in bags or destroying some hot dogs.

I’ve also decided this site needs a new layout because the horizontal shots have to be crappy-small to fit. And I hate that smiley!

(pop -up)

Comiskey Panorama

(Empty lines so the linkless links column doesn’t cover the picture)

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That should do.

A few friends and I went to the Sox game the other day against the A’s. Unfortunately, it was the game where we got rocked 11-3. But we were on the lower deck and ended up spending most of the game on the fan deck out in center, boldly going where I’ve never gone before.

So I thought I’d try my hand at a panoramic shot. I mean, literally- I didn’t have a tripod with me.

Anyway, here it is. I’ll post more pictures from the game another day. Tomorrow’s going to be an early morning.

Chicago Fire

Our Father’s Day gift to my dad this year was a Chicago Fire soccer game. However, due to scheduling issues, we only just went to the game this past Sunday against the Colorado Rapids. The first half went scoreless… then the Rapids scored relatively early in the 2nd. Twice.

But the Fire somehow managed a comeback, tying it up very late in the game and then scoring the winning goal in stoppage time for a 3-2 final. It was pretty exciting to say the least.

I’d also like to note that lenses over 6″ long are not allowed in Toyota Park for whatever reason. They have a very scientific process of measuring the lens by holding their hands to it. My 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III USM was put under review and was given to someone else to be “measured”.  Though her hands were smaller than the first guy, the lens was allowed to enter.

(It rains red confetti before the game and every time the Fire score.

(The family with something to smile about. Don’t like these kinds of pictures, m’self… but family outings… what are you gonna do?)

(after scoring the winning goal)

Sox vs. Royals

Quick Note: My laptop screen is in need of calibration, so the colors are a bit off at the moment.

On Monday a couple friends and I went to the Sox-Royals game in Chicago.  Once we got on the road, we realized we forgot the tickets so we had to turn around. We were afraid we were going to miss our chance for some quality tailgating, but (and I never thought I’d say this) luckily there was a rain delay which allowed us a couple batches of hot dogs and a few rounds of bags. And we still made it in time for the first pitch.

And better still, the Sox won 8-7

(And the Lord smiled on the White Sox, allowing them to win even though Scott Linebrink blew a three run lead with 2 outs.)

(Our seats were some of the best of the worst in the house)