Summer!

I’m pretty happy that it’s summer time. I’ve been getting to spend time with wonderful people just relaxing and having fun.

And Emilie had to go back to France… such a bummer, she was my favorite exchange student.

I got that photo of her the day before she left. It was just a quick 30-second go-sit-in-the-flowers shot but she was so relaxed, that’s why it took so little time.

Then Padmavati and Chloe had some fun on the swing that looks like it’s part of a movie set every sunny afternoon..

(while I played with the Zeiss 50/1.4.. )

Then we hung out on the picnic table..

And then Chloe went exploring in the ferns.

That’s about it so far! I shot a bat mitzvah and a whole slew of newspaper assignments (this week I claimed the front page photo!) so maybe I’ll put some of those up here.

Also, for those of you who ever read these things.. check out this site and tell me if you like it more than WordPress. I’m considering switching because the format just seems a lot cleaner and I’ve found it a bit easier to use as well.

Hope you’re all doing well!

June

It’s June! I graduated from high school.

And I’ve been making photos. Mainly with Padmavati.
We spent an afternoon back in May hanging out in a field of dandelions…

And then I got rid of my goofy haircut.

On Sunday after church we went to Wal-Mart for the first time in ages to spend some of the $25 on the Wal-Mart gift card I won at Project Graduation. I got some pens. Cool, huh?

My sister found a little fawn waiting for its mother near our house yesterday.

And this afternoon I went outside and made some photos with a fairly recently acquired 5D Mark II.

Canon’s 50/1.4 is still soft as ever, even at f/1.8.. And I wish it focused closer.

Check out the sharpness falloff on the left side. Never noticed that before with the 35/2. Maybe I tilted the camera or something?

And that’s about it. I’ve got something coming up this weekend and I’m using the 5DM2 to do some high definition video work for my dad’s business. Might try making a music video with it too just for fun, we’ll see! It’s summer!

The Little Blue Flowers

Every spring the little blue flowers pop up in the yard, and every spring it becomes my duty to photograph them.

Update

To those who may still check up here every once in a while, I’ve been caught up in a lot of things, mainly school, and I should be busy probably until I’ve taken AP exams (some time in May).

I applied to three schools for next year – WPI, RPI and RIT – and each has offered me a $48,000 scholarship which makes deciding that much harder. I’m looking at mechanical engineering or some kind of engineering, but I don’t think I want to forget about photography, which puts RIT in the #1 spot, since they offer a bunch of art majors as well as engineering. I’m just curious about the strength of their engineering program versus that of WPI or RPI (both of which cost more than $10,000 extra per year). We’ll see.

I ski raced this winter for the first time ever, which was a blast, and now I’m a captain of the tennis team. Photography has been put on the back burner for now, as you may have noticed, though I’ve been working on two video projects with a Canon XL2, which has been a great learning experience.

But I’ll get around to posting some of the work I’ve done over the past few months eventually.

I also have a project in the works involving a Mamiya RB67 and color film, but it’s still in the early stages.

So until then..

15.0

Sorry for the inactivity.. My life has become increasingly stressful and I haven’t had time to post anything. I’ll put some old stuff up soon, but first, some images fresh from today, when I decided that whoever invented the circular polarizer should have won the Nobel Prize or something. Enjoy.

14.7

The weather for the past couple days has been almost as ridiculous as my life. Today the sky finally cleared, and while I can’t say the same about myself, I got out and made a few photos in some beautiful light. These are shot with either a 50/1.4 or a 70-200/2.8, wide open. I need to find a focus amid my cluttered life, and I think what you see here is an attempt to visually explain that to myself. I hope they make more sense now.

14.5

Some old stuff.

14.2

Some images from the school’s Mamiya RB67, “scanned” with an enlarger head and my digital camera. It took approximately forever to get rid of all the dust in Photoshop.

And a couple 35mm shots..

14.1

Session today with Andre. Fun times.

14.0

Some stuff from today.. My life has been kind of nuts, hence the inactivity. If I ever get around to scanning some negatives (some 35mm ones and also some from the school’s Mamiya RB67) I’ll get those up at some point too.

And just a couple images from last weekend with my wonderful girlfriend!