Woke up this morning to rain clouds and wind gusts unto 50mph! When I got in my car to head out I opened the cover on the sunroof and found these cool water drops on the window. If you look at the larger sizes you’ll notice the reflection of my neighbors palm tree in the drops. I was tempted to covert this to B&W, but decided against it as I kind of liked the hint of color from the palms.
ISO 1000 ƒ/8 T 1/320 and initially about 2 stops underexposed
Here’s the saved jpg from the RAW file:
It’s a bit drab and dreary and I didn’t check the histogram in the camera and the LCD on the ancient Canon 5d is horrible. It’s so bad I really don’t use it much, mainly just to check composition and then use the histogram to verify exposures.
So here’s the initial edits in Aperture:
This was pretty good and what I was looking for but decided to play around in Perfect Photo Studio from OnOnesoftware.com
I added a bit of Glow to the drops.
My son got out of school today at noon, so off to the field to kick the ball around. This is one of R’s buddies that joined us for the fun! I liked the framing of this capture and the intensity of a 6 year old.
ISO 1000 ƒ/5.6 T 1/250
Here’s the saved jpg from the RAW file:
I don’t usually crop a whole lot preferring to keep the resolution as high as possible, and then there are times like today that it only enhances the image to get rid of the extra room. Here are the edits in Aperture:
Which led to this image:
I then dropped the file into Snapseed from Nik Software for the final processing using the Drama Dark filter for the final image.
Yep, an onion for today post.
ISO 1000 ƒ/5.6 t 1/60
Black and White conversion done with Snapseed for Mac by Nik Software
Found this Red Tulip by the kitchen sink tonight. I think by tomorrow they will be gone. Not usually a fan of flash flares, but I liked this one. I placed an off camera strobe to the right and below the flower. Set on Manual at 1/64 with a paper towel over the top as a diffuser!
ISO 1000 ƒ/16 t1/100
So here’s the original saved jpg from the RAW file:
It’s not too bad, but a bit washed out i think. So a few edits in Aperture:
And then into OnOneSoftware’s Photo Suite 6 for some special effects. I’ve really enjoyed dabbling with textures of late. For this one I used some rice paper:
I then saved it back to Aperture where I slightly dodged the center of the flower and removed the black dots on the petals.
Edit: I just downloaded Snapseed, http://www.snapseed.com/Mac App Store; and reprocessed this file to this:
Which one do you like better?
So today’s challenge was a box of crayons. My son just recently organized this box in its color rows. So I asked him for a description of his ordering system.
Blue is in the top left corner.
Green is to the bottom left corner.
Pinks are in the bottom middle.
Purples in the top middle.
Orange/Yellow are in the top right corner and Brown/Black are in the bottom right corner.
ISO 1000 ƒ/2.8 T 1/40
I did some levels and exposure adjustment in Aperture and added some sharpening and a texture filter with Perfect Photo Studio, sorry no time today for screenshots.
So once again I come home on a Monday with no photo from today. I did take some portraits at work today, but nothing I wanted to share in my project. So I found these two Pomelos on the kitchen counter. So I wondered if I could come up with a unique image of these Citrus fruit originating from Southeast Asia. It was really just a guess that these are Pomelos, so I checked Wiki, and sure enough they are.
Pomelos:
ISO 1000 ƒ/3.5 T 1/60
Here’s the saved JPG from the RAW file:
Really didn’t like the yellow cast from the tungsten lights on my dining room table, I know I really should fix this in the camera, but I admit I’m lazy and then forget to set the white balance the next time I shoot. So here are the edits in Aperture(Mac App Link) fixing the white balance and the exposure a bit.
Much better, they actually look the right color now. I wanted a final image that displayed the texture of the skin a bit more so into Perfect Effects 3:
I ran the image through a Bleach Bypass, I really need to look up how the bleach bypass worked in a real darkroom, because I really liked what it did to my Pomelos. Got rid of the brown background and helped highlight the skin. I did save this back to Aperture one last time and used a brush tool to sharpen the stem area. Overall I like this image and I learned more about Pomelos. Especially that they aren’t spelled Pomellos,
When you’re 6 years old life is all about motion. Every waking moment is spent thinking about what to do next or so it seems. So on weekends we play.
This is a fairly simple photo, but of all the ones I took, I liked this image. Here’s the saved jpg from the RAW file:
And here are my edits within Aperture(Mac App Link):
This is one of the reasons I like taking a picture a day. If you don’t have your camera with you you aren’t able to grab simple captures. I think the vignette helps setoff the soccer ball.
In December 2011 I found this post on the Glutenfree Goddess blog by Karina Allrich for Gluten Free Chocolate Gingerbread Cake. I made it twice over the holidays as it is delicious! About a week ago my wife mentioned that she would really like a moist Lemon Cake. So I wondered if I could turn the Chocolate Gingerbread Cake into a delicious Lemon Cake, and well this is it. I used most of Karina’s Recipe with some edits.
The easiest way I can think to document this cake is to display her recipe with my edits…
1 cup brown rice flour or sorghum flour
3/4 cup almond meal
1/2 cup cornstarch or potato starch- not potato flour
1 cup light brown sugar 1 cup organic cane sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg or cardamon
2 large organic free-range eggs, beaten
1/2 cup unsulphured molasses
1/4 cup organic coconut oil-I actually used almost 1/3 cup Oil
4 tablespoons non-dairy milk 2 tablespoons of milk, non dairy
2 teaspoons bourbon vanilla extract
3/4 cup of fresh squeezed lemon juice-about 4 lemons
2 teaspoons lemon zest
3 tablespoons of honey
Read more: http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/2011/12/gluten-free-chocolate-gingerbread.html#ixzz1jVIRpALf
Combined all ingredients in a large bowl mixed with an electric mixer and placed in a ceramic baking pan lined with parchment paper and placed it in a pre-heated oven at 350 for about 60min per the recipe for the chocolate cake. At about 30 minutes I noticed the top getting quite brown, so I lowered the temp to 325 and allowed it to finish the 60 min and checked it with a toothpick to confirm it was done. I think next time I’ll use 325 for the 60 minutes.
And if you’re Gluten Free and not following Karina’s blog the Glutenfree Goddess, you are missing out! She’s a pioneer, inspiration and friend.
Spent the afternoon outside kicking the soccer ball around and was out late enough to catch the clouds start to change color as the sun went down!
Only edit were auto levels in Aperture and I removed a few dust spots.
I was able to pick my daughter up from school today, which mean that we got to have a photo shoot! She loved her red shirt and wanted to keep it on even though it was her school uniform. I liked the bright red as well.
ISO 1000 ƒ/2.8 T 1/800
I think this image is a good example of why some minor editing is helpful in digital photography. Here’s the saved jpg from the RAW file:
While this image is decently exposed with a histogram in range, a level adjustment and some minor sharpening in post help it out… There was plenty of daylight out but I was messing around shooting at 2.8 for the sake of experimentation. I didn’t realize how hard it was to get eyeballs in focus at 2.8 with a child that is in constant motion. 
So here are my initial edits in Aperture(Mac App Link):
I’m happy with these few edits, but I like to play with other tools as well and see what they do as well, so I added a few Effects in Perfect Photo Studio 6:
Hope everyone had a great Friday the 13th!
