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Photo of the Day

As I said yesterday I am finally attending my first pro baseball game of the season today. It is very odd that it has taken me this long to attend a game. I guess that I am making up for that fact by attending two today. I have wanted to do the Wrigley/Cell double for a while now. The dates have never really lined up, and you usually only get one chance a season to try it. This year a couple have already gone by, and of course today showed up. August 25th is a big baseball day for me anyway so why not celebrate it in style. I am sure that I will have a few pictures from the day, but just in case I can’t get around to posting them I thought that I would post this one to have something up on the blog today.

I took this last season on Opening Day in Cleveland. I have been to a few Opening Days, but never one on the road. After some brutal weather days the sun came out, and it was a great day for baseball. I had fun exploring the stadium before the game getting some shots. I liked this one from just off center behind the plate the best.

Technical Data

This is a three shot panorama that was stitched together in Microsoft Photo Suite 2006. I really needed to update my software last year as you can tell. I didn’t use the program for much, and it really did a great job making panos for me. To get this on the site I opened it up in Photoshop in order to run it through Topaz Adjust 5. I really liked how the dramatic preset made this photo pop a bit. I am a preset junkie so I kept it how it looked. It is a bit overcooked, but I like the effect. My only question in posting this shot was whether or not the scale of the picture would allow it to be viewed properly. Thankfully now I have the wide angle lens that will allow a shot like this to look a little cooler.

Other News

As I said I will be at both Wrigley Field and U.S. Cellular Field today to catch ballgames. I would like to have a post for each game with a nice shot. I assume that I will have at least one bonus picture for today. I also plan on trying to catch the sunrise so I may have a couple bonus pictures. As I write this a few days beforehand I can only guess, but if I could see into the future I would say that I will get some good shots for sure.



You Are Suspended

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Photo of the Day

This was a picture that I really never thought would see the light of day. The picture is of the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge in Cincinnati. This was an afterthought as I was in Cincinnati in 2009 to watch the Civil Rights game that the Great American Ballpark. I don’t really remember the specifics here, but I think I shot this bridge from my parking garage just as I got into the city. I thought it looked cool, and I wish that I had taken the time to go near it to shoot it. In the end though I have something to look forward to when I get back to Cincinnati.

Technical Data

I started this process off by taking my jpeg and running it through On One Perfect Photo Suite’s B&W Effects 1. I am still trying the demo, and I wanted to see if I could get some decent results with it. I liked the general look of the modern straight setting so I saved the file and sent it back over to Lightroom. From there I brought back the shadows a bit, increased the highlights, and added a touch of clarity. I still don’t know if I love this shot, but it was a nice little detour on my trip. I need to go back someday and shoot this bridge properly.


Opening Day Is Here!

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gab flyover

Sports Photo of the Day

Today I thought that I would honor a great tradition and talk about the opening day for Major League Baseball. This is a great day that is celebrated all across the country today. No city does it better though than Cincinnati. Until TV got its way they always played the day before the rest of the league. They have the parade that comes close to shutting down the city. They are still the only team that opens at home every year. I think that it is a great tradition that I would love to be a part of some year.

This picture was not taken on Opening Day. It was taken in June just before the start of the Civil Rights game that they hosted. The scene did have an Opening Day feel to it though so it get to be on the site today. A side note about the picture is that this was the first picture of mine that was published. The group that flew over the stadium used it in their newsletter. I think that I was very lucky here as the planes appeared in the right location so that I could have them both in the sky and on the jumbotron. My lucky seat location helped me out quite a bit here.

Technical Data

This was a picture that I wanted to get right without the help of a preset. I spent a lot of time working on this photo using the sliders in Lightroom. I ended up performing a small crop, and then sending the photo to Topaz Adjust. I used the dramatic filter to get the look that I wanted. I then brought the photo back into Lightroom to finish things up. I brought back as much of the shadow detail as I could so that the field was not totally dark. The late afternoon shadows really were killing me. I also upped the vibrance a bit so that the red would stand out a bit more. I really like this picture, and I am glad that nearly three years after taking it I can show it off on this blog.


Throwback Thursday: Remembering a Legend

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jackie jersey

Musical Post

One of my favorite baseball songs is embedded above. Count Basie came up with this fantastic song for Jackie in 1949. For the classic Ken Burns documentary Baseball Natalie Cole put her vocals to the tune. I thought that it could make for a good background to the post. Although don’t let Yogi Berra hear the portion about stealing home. He still denies that it ever happened.

Throwback Photo

Since I have started really using Instagram to take pictures with my iPhone I think that I can stop using older Blackberry pictures on Friday’s. They will now be used here in the throwback section leaving iPhone Friday’s for just that. I thought that since the movie ’42′ is coming out tomorrow that I would post this picture that I took in Cincinnati in 2009. I was attending the Civil Rights Game at the Great American Ball Park, and of course they had a display honoring Jackie Robinson. It is really amazing to me how this country has behaved in the past. Sometimes that is the case even today. To me though to not have the best talent on the field regardless of race is just crazy. Even when the leagues were integrated it was still not easy for the new players. I am really looking forward to this movie tomorrow. It will be very interesting to see what kind of treatment they give both Jackie and Branch Rickey. Jackie as well as the other men who first broke the barrier had to endure a lot. They could not act when insults or worse were thrown at them. If they had the bigots would have gotten what they wanted. It is amazing that Jackie still played at such a high level with all of the stress that was put upon him. When you see a player today complain about the stress of playing just think back to what Jackie had to do. It was an amazing feat for  sure. If you walk out of this movie wanting to know more Jonathan Eig wrote an excellent book called Opening Day. It was all about that first season with the Dodgers. I read it a few years ago, and I really enjoyed it. It also makes you wonder how things could have existed the way that they did. Things have gotten much better, but the finish line has not been crossed yet.

Technical Data

This was taken with my first generation Blackberry Storm. This phone had a decent camera on it, but the phone had issues where it would lock up, and I would have to take the battery out to reset it. I was never really happy with it. For this photo I had to stand and wait for the phone to boot back up so that I could take this picture. That is not ideal when you want a shot without others in it, and people are waiting on you to get out of the way. In Lightroom I used an HDR preset to make the photo pop a bit more, but with the quality of the photo you couldn’t do much to it.


The Blank Stare

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Photo of the Day

On Saturday I saw a large amount of people going into the Columbus Convention Center from my hotel window. The outfits were very interesting so we decided to check it out. It turned out that it was a horror convention. I paid the $5 to get in knowing that there had to be a few interesting pictures inside. I did manage to see some things that I don’t normally see everyday. For some reason this display was something that caught my eye. I knew that something interesting could come out of it. I loved the blank stare along with the two other mannequins flanking the main one. For a quick picture I thought that it was a good one.

Technical Data

I really wanted something to bring out the bleak look of this scene. I used a preset in Lightroom that I rarely use. It is called Reactor Room by Nicole S. Young. Her presets are very nice, and I was glad to find a use for this one. A couple of slider tweaks was all that I needed before exporting it so that I could post it here.


The Arena District

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Photo of the Day

Part of the fun of visiting Columbus this past weekend was the area our hotel was in. Columbus really has done a great job with what they call the Arena District. This is a great area that was once a penitentiary. It is nice to see that the city took that ground and made something beautiful out of it. Where we stayed in Columbus was very much in the Nationwide area of town. As you can see here much of the scene has Nationwide written on it. What you can’t see is that the road is also named Nationwide. This is a beautiful part of town that I would love to visit again.

Technical Data

This picture was taken on our way back to the hotel after dinner. I was going to take my camera bag with me, but I settled on one lens and my camera. Of course the sky would be awesome on the way home leaving me wishing I had my tripod and another lens. I made the best out of the situation though. I wanted this scene shown a little different, but I turned my camera so that I could at least get the two important components of the scene in it. I liked what I saw in my camera, and I knew that I had a shot for the blog. The main problem here was noise though. Shooting handheld I tried to walk the fine line between the noise of a high ISO, and the need to keep the shutter speed within my handheld range. I shot this at ISO 800 which I thought served to helped me get the picture with the least amount of noise.

I shot three images here with an HDR situation in mind. I often do this, but lately I haven’t been making the HDR image. I find that Lightroom helps me get the metered exposure looking very much like the scene did in real life. Here though I knew that the varying light would be impossible to capture so I would need HDR. The three shots were taken at -2, 0, and +2. I exported the images from Lightroom into Photomatix to get my merged image. I saved the 32 bit file, but I also tried to see what I could do with the tonemapping tools inside of Photomatix. I did get an image that I would have loved a year ago, but it looked a little too fake for me now. I did save it though thinking that I might be able to used some of the texture from it.

I brought the image back into Lightroom to use the sliders there to bring back the rich colors I saw that night. I loved how it looked, but I felt that it needed some more texture to it. I opened up Color Efex Pro to see what I could do. I applied the detail enhancer filter at 100% and the glamour glow filter at 50% to the image. Sending those back into Lightroom I realized that I had just made my noise problem a little worse. I then used another Nik plugin called Dfine2 to get rid of the noise. It is not completely gone, but for the sake of an internet picture I think that my job was done. All of this post processing might have been the result of watching the Trey Ratcliff HDR Tutorials again. For some reason they always make me work a little extra on my photos.

Lightroom 5

This is the first image that I have worked on using the just released Lightroom 5. I had used the beta a bit to see what the new tools could do, but I did not want to import everything into a beta so I had not used it in a while. While I didn’t use all of the tools that were now available to me I did enjoy the sleeker look of the program. I might have to go back and find some older pictures to jazz up using Lightroom 5.


The Austrian Oak

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Photo of the Day

While walking around downtown Columbus last weekend I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I walked over to an interesting sculpture only to find out that it was of Arnold Schwarzenegger. I couldn’t figure out why there was a statue of him in Columbus for the life of me. He was not born in this country, and his fame was made in California. A little research on my phone told me that he had won a Mr. Olympia competition in Columbus, and he also started his own competition in Columbus called the Arnold Classic. No matter the reason this was a pretty cool statue that allowed me to have some fun with the composition.

Technical Data

This is a three shot HDR image that was processed in Photomatix, and then brought back into Lightroom to work on the details with the sliders there. I really like the way that the sliders give a more realistic look than I usually get in Photomatix. I applied the light sports preset to the 32 bit file that I brought in, and then got rid of the vignette that is part of it. I tweaked some of the sliders to my taste, but the shot was mostly there. I did take the adjustment brush here to get the statue a bit more to my liking. I gave it a look that I really like. I liked the look so much that I changed the picture for this post to the one you see above. I may show another post from a different angle in the future.


Reflections of Columbus

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Photo of the Day

While in Columbus I had some fun trying some new things out with a couple of lenses. During one walk around town I was immersed in the arts. One of the many events happening that weekend was a celebration of the arts downtown. While many of the artists did not want any pictures taken of their work that didn’t mean that I couldn’t come up with a couple pictures from the bridge that the festival was on anyway. At one point I saw a gap in between two of the tents that the artists were selling from. In that gap was a nice view of the city. I was really trying to just use the new 24-70mm lens so I forced myself to compose this shot just using that lens. A horizontal shot was nice, but I had to cut off some of the reflections. I thought that they were interesting so I decided to keep them in. The shot above is the final result of my efforts.

Technical Data

This was an easy edit. I applied a few new presets just to see what they would do. In the end though I used the light sports preset, and I eliminated the vignette. I liked the way that it sharpened the buildings, and gave this a very crisp look. This was after running three exposures (-2, 0, +2) through Photomatix. I think that the HDR process really did not do much for the sky, but it did help with the buildings.



Flexing My Muscles

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Photo of the Day

Today I thought that I would try something new. I thought that I would start August off with one of my favorite pictures from June. I really had a good time photographing this Arnold Swarzenegger statue in Columbus. It look good from so many angles that I just kept shooting it. For this shot though I wanted a different look from the others that I tried. I like the idea of making the statue look a bit out of this world. I will get more into that below.

Technical Data

This was a three shot HDR image that was processed in Photomatix. I used the black and white preset in the program to add a bit of punch here, and then exported the file back into Lightroom. It was there that I realized that I could use a preset on it that I had not used before. I used the Steampunk Afternoon preset that I bought from Trey Ratcliff. I think that it had is uses, but I could never find one. I finally have. I think that this preset looked great with all of the detail that was brought out in the HDR process. I may have to try this technique again in the future.


Reflections on Columbus

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Photo of the Day

Three months ago today we were walking around the Columbus, Ohio area. The trip was not to an exotic location, but sometimes it is those locations that are the best. I had a blast in Columbus. It was while viewing a bridge full of beautiful art that I saw this view of the city. I am a sucker for reflections, and this one was nice to me. The pictures from this weekend are very special to me, and I have enjoyed processing them. I am sure that more of them will end up on this blog in the near future.

Technical Data

I opened this RAW file in Lighroom 5. I wanted a very detailed view of the skyline so I used a Matt Kloskowski preset called HDR Look (Strong) to get where I wanted to be. I then reduced the vignette so that the picture was much more even. That was the extent of my processing on this picture.


Mother and Child

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Photo of the Day

By the time this post goes live I should be a father for the first time. I scheduled this post and a couple of more in the next couple of days so that I can concentrate on what is important. I made this picture this past June while in Columbus with this exact day in mind. I love the idea of the mother raising the child up with the beautiful clouds in the background. I have received many tips and advice in preparation for this moment, and I thought that I would share one quote that I received right now. I thought that it fit perfectly with the picture above.

A baby asked God, “They tell me you are sending me to earth tomorrow, but how am I going to live there being so small and helpless?”

“Your angel will be waiting for you and will take care of you.”

The child further inquired, “But tell me, here in heaven I don’t have to do anything but sing and smile to be happy.”

God said, “Your angel will sing for you and will also smile for you. And you will feel your angel’s love and be very happy.”

Again the child asked, “And how am I going to be able to understand when people talk to me if I don’t know the language?”

God said, “Your angel will tell you the most beautiful and sweet words you will ever hear, and with much patience and care, your angel will teach you how to speak.”

“And what am I going to do when I want to talk to you?”

God said, “Your angel will place your hands together and will teach you how to pray.”

“Who will protect me?”

God said, “Your angel will defend you even if it means risking it’s life.”

“But I will always be sad because I will not see you anymore.”

God said, “Your angel will always talk to you about Me and will teach you the way to come back to Me, even though I will always be next to you.”

At that moment there was much peace in Heaven, but voices from Earth could be heard and the child hurriedly asked, “God, if I am to leave now, please tell me my angel’s name.”

“You will simply call her, ‘Mom.’”

Technical Data

This picture was processed in Lightroom using one of Matt Kloskowski’s HDR in black and white presets. I tweaked it a little from there, but that was really all that was done. I love it when a shot is this easy to edit.


My 13 Favorite Still Life Photos of 2013

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Over the next few days I will be looking back at some of my favorite photos of the year. To start things off I wanted to do some of the photos that did not make it into any of the other categories. I had a hard time coming up with a name for this one due to the fact that it was such a wide range of topics. I guess still life kind of fits here. No matter what it is called here are my 13 favorite shots without people from this past year.

13.) The first photo here was taken at the Purdue Memorial Union just before Christmas. They have a gingerbread house competition between all of the dining halls. What comes of the competition is really something to see. This gingerbread house showing a scene from the movie ‘Elf’ was one of my favorites.

12.) The ‘Elf on the Shelf’ has become a great tradition in our house. Every year Nobow shows up after Thanksgiving, and leaves with Santa on Christmas Eve. He always surprises us with his hiding spot every day. Sometimes he even gets into our food. Here he is seen eating some icing from our gingerbread cookies.

11.) At the Purdue Memorial Union they have busts of all of the former presidents of the university. This Christmas one extra bust was added. I like the way that they fused the tradition of the Union with Christmas here.

10.) This statue of Laurel and Hardy was given to my father this past Christmas. There is something about this picture that I really like. It is for pictures like this that the title of the post is not my best of this past year, but my favorite.

9.) This photo has appeared twice now in a week. This is an out of focus picture that is something that I love. The bokeh of the Christmas Tree lights really does look great. This is the time of year to make some great portraits in the house. With this as a background how can you go wrong?

8.) Here is another image from AT&T Park. I really loved going to the park, but I took just a few minutes to explore the outside of it before going in. I knew that I wanted to see the Willie McCovey statue located on the other side of the cove that bears his name. There are some nice photo opportunities here, but I liked this one with the Bay Bridge in the background the best.

7.) While traveling along I come across some pretty interesting signs. For some reason this sign in Tipton, Indiana really stuck out to me. This is a place where you can fill your car and your stomach. The way that they have worded it though kind of makes you think that the food will not sit well with you. I had to pull off the road to make a couple of pictures here.

6.) Last February I was in Milwaukee for a couple of days. One of those days saw us at the Children’s Museum. Just outside of the museum is this great statue of kids saying the pledge of allegiance to the flag. In a world that doesn’t see the need to do that anymore this was a very cool gesture.

5.) One of the symbols of my hometown of LaPorte is this indian. This statue has always been near the courthouse in some capacity. I think that its current location just feet from the courthouse is a good one. Oe cold day last March I made this photo of the statue.

4.) This was my first real attempt at light painting. I was sitting in a dark room in the basement with only an old flashlight in my hand. I would then ‘paint’ the light onto my subject while the shutter was open on my camera. It was fun seeing the many ways that I could change the look with just a few strokes of my flashlight. This was a very fun experiment that gave me a desktop background for a few days.

3.) One of the highlights of this past year was going to AT&T Park to see the Giants play the Rockies. I have wanted to see this park for some time, and it was everything that I thought it would be. Seeing the Willie Mays statue in front of the park is a must. It is a great statue that can be photographed from many angles. This is a great memory from a much needed trip.

2.) This photo was taken during a horror expo in Columbus, Ohio. We were in town to get married when we saw that a few things were going on in the convention center. One was a horror convention. I really don’t like this kind of stuff, but I thought that it would make for a good picture or two. After having a fake zombie try and scare the pants off of me I came across these dummies. For some reason I have liked this layered shot of them since I took it.

1.) With the crazy processing that I applied to this photo I think that the Arnold statue takes number one this year. I really like how everything came together here. I knew that I wanted a different look, and I managed to do it. Of course the top two pictures come from a short weekend in Columbus. Maybe I need more time there to see what else the city has to offer.


My Favorite 13 Landscape Photos of 2013

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With the year winding down it is a good time to reflect on the year that was. I was fortunate enough to visit some pretty great places in the past year. Most of my travel was near the beginning of the year this year. Here are a few photos that I like that remind me how fortunate I was in 2013.

13.) The first picture on the countdown was taken from my hotel windows in Sacramento this past May. The Tower Bridge is an interesting structure, and the sun setting behind it makes for an even more interesting structure. The boat went through the frame at just the right time. This was one of those photos where everything seemed to fall into place. 

Sand Mountain in the morning

12.) Here is the first of a few photos from my Colorado trip last year. I really love the landscape out there, and I think that I could have filled up this countdown with a photos from the trip. This photo was taken on my last full day out there as I was eating breakfast. I kept seeing this scene out the window while I was eating. I excused myself from the table, grabbed my camera, and then walked out to make the picture. I then went back to my breakfast. I am sure that most people on the outside think that my behavior was pretty weird. I just saw it as a time to capture the scene while it was there.

11.) This is the first of three pictures taken in one morning at the Marin Headlands. I had a great time photographing the Golden Gate Bridge at sunrise. I decided to see what was on the backside of the hill that I was shooting from. You have to walk through an old bunker to get there. Once through though a small clearing appeared. I thought this was a nice little scene. Something about what man has done to a great landscape. The beauty combined with the ugliness made this one of my favorite pictures from the trip.

10.) This picture was made just for the family that we were staying with in Colorado. I thought that the street sign in the middle of nowhere was pretty neat. Something about the picture spoke to me though, and it is one of my favorites from the trip.

9.) Here is another picture from my morning at the Golden Gate Bridge. After the sun had come up I moved over to the battery to make this image of the bridge. It is an iconic shot of the bridge so I used a little processing to make it more by own. This really is a beautiful structure, and the pictures just take themselves.

8.) Every trip to Steamboat, Colorado had to have this iconic barn in it while I was a kid. I was very excited to see the barn now as an adult with my current camera gear. The roof of the barn does not show it, but the snow was very deep that day. I was sinking in up to my hips with every step, but I made my way out to where I wanted to be to get this shot of the barn with the ski resort in the background.

7.) In February we went to Milwaukee to see some roller derby. To start our trip though we went to the Milwaukee art museum. This bridge connects the two buildings, and it is very photogenic. When the building is ‘open’ it is even more so, but I never saw that while I was there.

6.) This is the most recent photo in this countdown. I helped my brother move into his new house this past August, and decided to stop by Cataract Falls on my way home. The sky was very high, and I didn’t think that I would get any good pictures out of the trip, but at least I could scout the location. I ended up making some nice pictures that I was proud of. I really need to get back here again.

5.) This shot may not really be in my best 50 shots of the year as far as landscapes go. It was taken by me just after getting married though so the emotion of the picture vaults it into the list here. I was on a bridge in downtown Columbus, Ohio viewing art of all kinds. I saw the skyline reflecting off of the water, and I wanted to make a picture. I moved in between two photo tents to do so. It is a nice memory of a great weekend.

4.) While on our yearly trip to Ocean City this year I woke up early a couple of days to try and capture the sunrise on the famous pier. My first day I was shut out, but I made some interesting long exposures of the water. The next day though I was rewarded with a glorious sunrise. The interesting fact about this picture is that it was made with my point and shoot camera. While my main camera was taking a bracketed series on a tripod I went down to the water with the point and shoot to see how that view looked. This ‘test shot’ ended up being my favorite.

3.) This photo happened more by accident than anything else. I was out trying to capture the Milky Way with a camera that I had rented. I drove away from the city to have a better chance. The only problem with that is the fact that I didn’t know any of the ground I was now surrounded by. I had a few decent pictures, but nothing that I would publish. I decided to try a different way home, and that is when I came across this barn. The fact that you could see through it seemed to make it the perfect object to place in the foreground. I made my exposure, and I was thrilled with what I accomplished.

2.) Watching the stars out in Colorado is really something. I had never really tried an extremely long exposure photography before. The above picture was a half hour long exposure. I love the way that the stars circle my favorite mountain in Colorado. The cabin we stayed in also looks great off to the side. This was a trip to remember, and I would love to give it a try again.

1.) The Golden Gate Bridge at sunrise was probably the highlight of my year as far as shooting a landscape was concerned. In just a short period of time I was able to capture many images of this iconic bridge. This image though taken just after I arrived is by far my favorite. All of the colors seemed to blend together in a really fantastic way. When I thought of this list I immediately thought of this photo as #1.


Time to Say Something

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Photo of the Day

This is a photo that I took in Columbus last summer. For some reason I really liked how the sign was just big and bold and in the middle of a beautiful bridge. I thought that it made for the perfect piece of foreground interest for my photo. Sometimes while trying to take all traces of modern life out of the photo you decide to leave a little in. Here I thought that it was a photo that asked a couple of questions.

Technical Data

This shot really had a large range of light in it. To expose everything in the foreground correctly I lost the sky. That is not a huge deal, but a beautiful sky like that should not be lost. I decided to make the image black and white to even everything out. I really upped the clarity and contrast to add some punchiness to the photo. I also cranked up the blacks to add even more. I thought that this looked good a little crunchy.

One Year Ago Today

One year ago today a man that I never had met before came to my house and fractured my skull. The day started off great as we went to the doctor to see the ultrasound pictures of my first kid. It was there that we learned that we were having a baby girl. It was a great day, and the proud papa was in the middle of placing the photos into Dropbox to share with the rest of the family. It was then that the man came to the door under a false pretense. I knew who he was, but I had not met him before. Before he left I had a fractured eye socket, and the knowledge that literally anything can happen at anytime. The past year has been very interesting as the man really has not left me alone. In fact for a time he became one of the most frequent visitors to this little blog. The web hits were nice, but the knowledge that he was stalking me was very creepy. This site used to be a much more personal look at my life, but when you have a stalker reading every word it really changes how you write. The thing that you find out in a situation like this is how slow the justice system really works. One year later, and an arrest has still not been made.

The only good thing to come out of this is the current videos on this site. I had to buy the GoPro to film everyday events that he would appear in. If you have access to my private YouTube account you can see those videos to understand just how crazy this person is. I decided that I had to use the GoPro for something good as well so I started making some content for the blog. Hopefully by the two year anniversary of this incident I will have a better outcome to talk about. For now I just have to rely on the system to do what it is there for.


Under the Arch

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Photo of the Day

One year ago today I was married in Columbus, Ohio. It was a great day that we were both looking forward to. The photo above was taken during the weekend while walking around town. I loved how they had made the new sports district downtown. They had made a great area in a part of town that was left for dead. I did not make all of the photos that I wanted to make in the short time that I was there, but I was on my honeymoon after all. This arch I thought was an amazing addition to the district that really stood out.

Technical Data

For this photo I had a little fun. I edited this photo right when Lightroom 5 came out. I used the perspective tools in the program to give this photo the look that it would have had if I was using a tilt shift lens on location. I also used the strong HDR Look preset to give it the look that I have been liking. A few tweaks to the preset and we were ready to export it to SmugMug.

Photo Sale!

Over at my SmugMug site I have cut the price on all of my photos for the summer. If you visit my site at pinolaphotography.com you can order any item that I sell for 50% off from now until Labor Day. Just use the coupon code ‘summer’ at the checkout.

50% Off



The National Performs at the Music Now Festival | Concert Photography

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Matt Berninger of The National performs with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra at the Music Now Festival in Cincinnati, Ohio

Seeing The National Perform Live Again

This weekend I am in Cincinnati to see The National perform at the Music Now festival. This is a great festival that is much bigger than just the one band, but it truly was The National that brought us here. This is the tenth year of the festival which was started by Bryce Dessner who also happens to be in the band The National. I will get more into the festival in a future post. This one will just deal with the second half of last nights show when The National played with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. When The National came out after the intermission we had already seen some great music. It would have been a great show already. One of my favorite all time shows was the Metallica collaboration with he San Francisco Symphony. There is just something great about rock music mixed with the symphonic sound. I had built up this show to be great as well in my mind hoping that I didn’t set too high of an expectation. I was not disappointed. The National came out and had a great show. The highlight for me was the playing of Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks. I like their music, but that song stands out to me. I thought that it would be perfect for this show, and it was. Of course we knew going into the show that it would not be a normal length show, but they really did pack a lot into the thirty or so minutes they played. This was well worth the money, and I can’t wait to see what surprises we have in store for us at night two of the festival.

Shooting With the Canon 7D Mark II

Before I left West Lafayette to come here I used the power of Twitter to see what kind of cameras were allowed in the hall. I was thinking that I would be shooting with my Canon G16 again as I do most concerts. I was shocked when they said I could bring anything that I wanted in as long as I didn’t use flash or have a screen lit up. I am shooting a baseball game today so I have my gear with me anyway so why not bring something good into the show? Had I been closer to the stage I would have picked a different set up altogether, but since I knew I was thirty rows back with a balcony above I chose the Canon 7D Mark II with the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 II lens on it. That basically gave me more than the reach of my 300mm lens when you factor in the 1.6x crop. I really did not shoot very much at all during the show. I was just enjoying the music. There were a few times though when I picked up my camera to shoot. This camera performed perfectly for me. I put it in silent mode to stay a little quite, and it was very quiet. I am sure that not many people even heard it when I pressed the shutter button. This really is a great little camera.


Cincinnati Baseball at Marge Schott Stadium | Sports Photography

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Cincinnati Bearcat Andrew Zellner pitches against the Toldeo Rockets at Marge Schott Stadium

Photographing a Game at Marge Schott Stadium

When I knew that I was going to be in Cincinnati I looked for something baseball related to do during my trip. I had originally thought that I would visit the Cincinnati Reds Museum during my trip. It is a great museum that really deserves a lot of time to go through. I saw that the Cincinnati Bearcats would be in town so I decided to just show up and shoot the game. After contacting the SID for the team I secured a pass to shoot for the Bearcats. I researched the stadium beforehand and saw that it had a few unique features that I wanted to incorporate into my photos. I had a dinner reservation and a concert to see that night so I could not stay for all of the baseball that was played Saturday. That is a shame because they played 20 innings. I am sure that sometime before this summer is over I can have some fun photographing a long doubleheader.

Toledo Rockets pitcher Cameron Palmer pitches against the Cincinnati Bearcats at Marge Schott Stadium

Marge Schott Stadium is a Photographers Dream

This ballpark really is a great one to photograph in. If you are capturing images of the pitchers you have a nice big brick wall behind them to use as a background. When you are photographing the players in the field a nice tall black wall is your background there. You don’t have to worry about distractions in the stands in your photos. The camera wells are also right next to the dugouts so you get a little of the chatter there. I love the backgrounds here, and I would love to shoot another game here. Up in the stands you can get a few unique angles on the game that I normally cannot get. I don’t think that the stadium was built with the photographers in mind, but it sure seems as if it was.

Bonus Photos

Below I have posted a few bonus photos that I liked from the day. Part of my trip was to see Cincinnati Bearcat Ian Happ play. He is a preseason All-American, and he looked the part this weekend. He kept getting on base, stealing bases when he was there, and he also made a great play in the outfield. This kid looks like the real deal. It was pretty cool seeing the Bearcat uniforms yesterday too. As a kid growing up a White Sox fan in the 1980’s I love the design. It is pretty cool to see the old looks coming back in style. If you click here you can see my complete gallery of images from the game.


Cincinnati Bearcat Ian Happ bats against the Toledo Rockets at Marge Schott Stadium
Cincinnati Bearcat J.T. Perez pitches against the Toldeo Rockets at Marge Schott Stadium


More on the Music Now Festival

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Yuki Numata Resnick performs during the Music Now Festival in Cincinnati, Ohio

More Than Just About the National

When I first learned about the Music Now Festival in Cincinnati, Ohio I bought my tickets because of The National. I wanted to see them play with a full orchestra behind them. From the very beginning though you knew that it would be so much more than just the one band. We started off our evening by going upstairs for what we thought was going to be a musical conversation. I guess that is normally what happens before a show there. What we witnessed was some great music. Yuki Numata Resnick wowed us with her violin. She started off the day with a work of Bryce Dessner which is fitting because he is a member of The National, and the force behind the festival. She then brought up her husband Kyle Resnick to play a piece with her. Nico Muhly then joined her to perform “Drones for Violin.” This was an interesting piece as the piano and violin would take turns making ambient noise while the other performs a portion of the piece. The pre show concert was finished with James McVinnie giving a short piano recital. Before the start of the second night Timo Andres performed a piano recital after both Caroline Shaw and Richard Reed Parry talked about composing music. During that composing talk Caroline was distracted a bit by the feedback of her microphone. She thought it made a pleasant noise in B-flat. That kind of struck home with me as I get distracted by beautiful light falling on a person sometimes. It was a cool moment of the little talk for me.

Loving the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

Over the course of the two nights Louis Langree and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra performed beautifully. When they were the center of attention they were fantastic, and they backed the other acts brilliantly. I think that they were best playing the work of Edgard Varese. I had not really known much about Varese before the start of the weekend, but now I have a new addition to my playlist. I hear a lot of Varese in some contemporary work already on my playlist.

Caroline Shaw debuts her piece Lo during the Music Now Festival in Cincinnati, Ohio

Caroline Shaw Debuts ‘Lo’

The Music Now festival is all about sharing the work of artists. Caroline Shaw is the youngest person to ever win the Pulitzer Prize for music, and I think she is one that we will hear from for a long time to come. Her new piece called ‘Lo’ was beautiful. As I did often during the performances I wondered how I would ever find a recording of this in the future. I would love to hear it again. On Saturday night Daniel Bjarnason premiered a piece ‘Collider.’ It was fantastic as well, and I would love to hear them both again. I think that this festival would be perfect to have a CD of down the road. From what I can tell they just issued one CD from of the best performances of the first ten years. I hope that they issue something from just this show with all of these great performances on it.

Lanzendorf performs during an intermission of the Music Now Festival in Cincinnati, Ohio

Lanzendorf Wows the Crowd at the Intermission

During the intermission Saturday night a band called Lanzendorf performed out in the lobby. Early on in the performance I was still in the main hall, but I thought I recognized the sound. When I walked out into the lobby I saw Scott and Bryan Devendorf from The National with Ben Lanz playing. The light was not good out in the lobby, but I made my way to the front of the crowd and made a couple of photos.

Sufjan Stevens, Nico Muhly, and Bryce Dessner perform selections from Planetarium during the Music Now Festival in Cincinnati, Ohio

Sufjan Stevens, Bryce Dessner, and Nico Muhly Perform Planetarium

The main performance of night four of the Music Now Festival was some selections from Planetarium. Planetarium was the work of Nico Muhly, Bryce Dessner, and Sufjan Stevens. I was impressed with the voice of Sufjan Stevens. He really was the star of this segment of the night. It seemed as if everyone around him was just complimenting his fantastic voice. I have not heard much of Sufjan’s work, but that will change after Saturday night.

The National peforms Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks during the Music Now Festival in Cincinnati, Ohio

More on The National with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

The main draw for us was to see The National perform with a full orchestra behind them. We knew that the set would be short, but in the end it was a little longer than I thought it would be. They played six songs which are listed below:

Runaway
This is the Last Time
England
I Need My Girl
About Today
Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks
Fake Empire (Encore)

Both ‘I Need My Girl’ and ‘Fake Empire’ were performed without the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra backing them. From what I read prior to the show I wonder if they were added to give the fans who came to see them a little more for their money. It was a great show though capping off a great night. The highlight for me as I said a couple of days ago though was hearing Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks performed with the orchestra.

I Even Was Able to Play During the Festival

As we walked into Music Hall Saturday night a young woman with a violin came up to us. She played a little on her violin, and then asked if I wanted to try it. I gave it a go, and I was not quite up to par. I think my chair with the orchestra would have been off stage. It is by far my favorite instrument to hear when they play onstage so it was fun to give it a try. I think that this is a great way to show what this festival was all about though. It was about bringing the music to the people. I walked away with a greater appreciation for the music as well as a desire to come back to Cincinnati next year to see what they have in store for us then.


St. Patricks Day Parade in Cincinnati, Ohio

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Celebrating the Luck of the Irish a Few Days Early

While we were in Cincinnati I went out to make a few photos of the town. The crowds were lined up to see the towns St. Patricks Day parade. Once I was out on the street I realized the lens I had taken to make photos of the cityscapes would not work well for the parade. I did make a few images of the parade though including the one above of the first float in the parade. It was St. Patrick himself making a grand entrance in the back of a Ford Super Duty. The rain may have kept some of the spectators away, but the entrants didn’t seem to mind. They were all in good spirits talking to everyone that they passed. I have posted a lot from Cincinnati over the last few days. Don’t worry that will all end tomorrow. I suspect that you will see a lot from Kentucky over the course of the next week.

Grand Marshall Jim O’Toole

The grand marshall of the parade was former Cincinnati Reds hurler Jim O’Toole. While with the Reds O’Toole started two World Series games, and made one All Star Game appearance. The fact that I liked the most about O’Toole is the fact that he played one year for the White Sox. It was the last year of his career though as he had arm issues. It what nice to see his grand kids carrying his banner down the street though.

Bonus Photos

Below are a few bonus photos from the short time that I stayed at the parade. I had to get to a baseball game so my time was very short on the parade route.



Music Hall in Cincinnati, Ohio | Travel Photography

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Visiting the Beautiful Music Hall in Cincinnati, Ohio

Last weekend we were lucky enough to spend two nights in the very beautiful Music Hall. This is a beautiful building that I would love to get a chance to photograph from many angles with a tripod. I had to rely on my own steady hands as an event was going on while I was trying to photograph the hall. I think that at the right time this could make for a beautiful HDR image inside of the Springer Auditorium. The building is so much more than that thought. You have the Corbett Tower where we saw the pre concert music each night. The main entry way is also fantastic. The exterior of the building as you can see above is also spectacular. This was an event that I was looking forward to for both the building and the music.

More Views of Music Hall

Below I have posted a few more images from Music Hall. I could have saved a couple of these for a future post, but I thought that I would show a few angles of the classic hall. For the last two images I ran three bracketed exposures through Photomatix Pro, and then used the sliders inside of Lightroom to make a realistic HDR image. The Hall had such a wide range of light that it was necessary to bring out the details. Shooting HDR handheld is even harder to shoot than just a regular shot in low light because you have to really be still for a much longer period of time. In the end I think that it worked out just fine.

Sufjan Stevens, Nico Muhly, and Bryce Dessner perform selections from Planetarium during the Music Now Festival in Cincinnati, Ohio


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