Friday, September 11, 2009

remember...

Eight years ago today, the world we had lived in vanished in an enormous cloud of smoke thundering down the streets of Manhattan, chasing innocent bystanders like a scene from an old Japanese monster movie. Where the scene differed from those movies, in addition to the fact that it really happened, was in what you saw before it happened. In those movies, you rarely saw more than one or two heroes who dared to run towards the monster that threatened their lives and the lives of those around them. But in our surreal-ish reality, there were hundreds who stared into the gaping throat of the monster and lunged without regard for their own safety to rescue their unknown brothers and sisters of the human race.
On that day, I prayed with all of my heart for those true heroes of American history. It still turns my stomach to remember. As the son of a volunteer firefighter who died in the line of duty, I know better than most the ache of loneliness that those children will feel for years and decades to come. It may become more bearable, but it never goes away. I didn't know the number, but I knew many would likely not make it out. Still, each day after September 11th became progressively harder, short term, as it became apparent that survivors would be rare.

343....
That was the final tally of firefighters who gave their lives doing their job.
May God's peace be with the families of the 343 today and always. And may his mercy be with the souls of those who left this world in preparation for eternity that day.
Whenever you see flashing lights or hear sirens wailing away, let it serve as a reminder to pray for God's protection over the lives of those men and women who are willing daily to sacrifice all they are and have to keep our communities safe.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Inspiration through Insomniatic ADD

So I woke up this morning at about 4:10. I decided that after a few solid weeks of rain, I wanted to stay up for the sunrise. I also decided that I didn't want to watch the sunrise from the front yard, looking out over Prout's Neck like I usually do. Instead, I took a 10 minute drive and was transported to another world. This bridge stands at the entrance of the Scarborough Marsh. Beyond it lies a diverse ecosystem of flora, avian life (birds) and sea life. It was low tide when I went, so part of the marsh bed was exposed. I was, as usual, content to watch the sunrise, when my wife told me to look at the snails. "What snails?" I asked. She pointed along the rocks, where dozens of snails were sticking to the sides and tops of the rocks. We also saw a small crab, no more than 2 inches across. Pictures will be up on my website, http://engine3photo.smugmug.com
I was very pleased with the way some of them came out.
Just goes to show you a taste of what the rest of the world is missing when us insomniacs wake up and stay up at 4 AM.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

It's about Redundancy, noob...

It's a term you don't think much about until it walks up and smacks you in the back of the head.
Take this morning, when I woke up at 4 and went out to check out the sunrise from a different perspective. Over the years, I've gotten some beautiful sunrises from the front yard on Scollard Road. Today I walked down to the West Grand Ave side of the Pier to photograph a different view of Saco Bay. As I composed my first shot, the camera shut down on me. I tried to turn it back on, but the batteries were dead. I swapped them out, not realizing that the rechargeables I had in the bag were also dead. Thus, I packed up my gear and began the walk back to my home to a growing palette of yellows, oranges pinks and blues. As I continued my walk, I watched as an entire flock of Canadian Geese, in v-formation, flew before my eyes ( apicture I will watch patiently for in the coming weeks). The cloud cover this morning was made of appoximately 10 horizontally banded streams in what can best be described as an opened clutch fan held before you at about a ten degree angle, with the convergance point to the right of the skyline. It was a beautiful sunrise.
From it, I learned to have a backup of a backup with regards to my batteries.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

The Green Box and Presets: Unleash your art...

Many people live their lives in a number of boxes...the work box, the church box, the family box. Many snapshootists, shutterbugs and photographers spend their lives in the Green box, the face box (portrait mode), the sports box (sports mode) and so on and so forth.
My challenge to you, as a fellow artist, is to unleash your art by not allowing your camera to tell you how to take a picture and what settings to use.
I offer a brief illustration; The following pictures were taken the other morning. On this shot, I decided the white balance, iso setting, shutter speed and aperture opening. Afterwards, I tweaked various elements in photoshop, but not by much. I did a simple levels adjustment to darken the entire image slightly, followed by +20 bumps in saturation levels in the reds, yellows, blues and cyans, to really work the definition of the shot.



This shot was taken using the camera's landscape mode with no post processing.

This is the same image, post processed in a similar manner to the first.

While I like the look of what the camera presented for settings, I just feel the composition I got by switching to manual mode and working all the elements worked with more dramatic lighting elements. Again, I encourage you to unleash your art and learn how to work the entire dial on your camera, not just the presets. They give you a safe picture, but not always the one you wanted.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Been hectic

So Spring is nearly over and I'm getting ready for the summer. Means prepping rentals for the 10 week season. I haven't left photography, but I am going in a slightly different direction. I'm hoping to make a side business out of it eventually. I now have both a flickr and smugmug site, though smugmug will be the one seeing regular updates. I'll try to keep blogging here longterm and will likely be restarting midway through the summer, after I've upgraded my equipment.
Speaking of which, someone might appreciate the thought process I'm going through. I'm looking at obtaining a professional digital SLR by mid-july. The one I'm planning on is the Canon Eos 1D mark IIn. The camera originally retailed for over $4000. I'm hoping to get one for $1400. I know it seems like a lot, but you can take pix in bad weather because everything is sealed. It also has redundancy, writing to 2 cards simultaneously, and can fire off 8.2 frames per second. It's overkill until you think about shooting sports, and I plan on attempting to shoot the Portland Pirates on a regular basis.
The past few days, I've been working on the preliminaries of my brand work. Below is my color and text scheme as shown on what will be my business card. I'm really beginning to enjoy graphic design through Photoshop. Don't expect much on here in the next six weeks, but after that, hopefully I'll be updating regularly both to this site and to my engine3photo.smugmug.com account. Hope life finds you well as you read this. God bless

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Watermark


This is my design idea for the watermark for my photography. Its the Mack Dog from the front of engine 3 in Old Orchard, photoshopped to make it less intrusive in my photos. The final version will be placed as a cover layer at 50% opacity (semi-transparent on the picture).

Friday, January 16, 2009

Part of the Family


This is our recent addition to our family, Zeke. We got him from Smiling Hill Farm in Westbrook in late September. He's almost six months and we care a great deal for him, even when he goes berserk at eleven at night.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Lights at Christmastime


Retail doesn't affor much time to stop and enjoy the season, so I had to make due with after Christmas. This house is near my apartment and had some striking lights. Enjoy, and watch for more posts this weekend.