76. Thankful - November 23-29, 2014
Paul-
To say I am thankful for the printed word and the reading of it is a little self-limiting. I am thankful for the manner in which wonderful writing (and even some not-so-wonderful writing) feeds my imagination, shakes up my sensibilities, or just reminds me how much more there is to understand, to learn, to appreciate. While I do not suffer fools who assume librarians read books all day and have voluminous encyclopedias where their brains should rightfully be nestled, it’s hard to shake this view entirely when your grandfather was a Russian scholar, your father was a librarian, and you started your own career that way too. My friends are like my books (or is it the other way around?): They entertain me, they challenge me, I laugh when I am around some of them, I am humbled by what many contain, they let me know I am not alone, and I try and come back to the best of them again and again because of how precious they are to me. I don’t mean to sound so saccharine. Really. But that which we are thankful for defines a lot of who we are—and what we might be able to offer others. The next time you take some real satisfaction from a book (or letter, magazine, journal, chronicle, newspaper, sacred text, diary, email, lyrics, personal note, blog, poem, script, or set of instructions written in Chinese), stop for a moment and place a bookmark there--real or otherwise—and be thankful for the connection.
Because everything wonderful has one…
Our story so far…
He put down the Olympus E-500 fitted with a 14-45mm lens (set at 14mm), dialed in to ISO 1600, and a shutter speed of 3.2 sec. at f14, slid a great book off the shelf, and started to read.
To say I am thankful for the printed word and the reading of it is a little self-limiting. I am thankful for the manner in which wonderful writing (and even some not-so-wonderful writing) feeds my imagination, shakes up my sensibilities, or just reminds me how much more there is to understand, to learn, to appreciate. While I do not suffer fools who assume librarians read books all day and have voluminous encyclopedias where their brains should rightfully be nestled, it’s hard to shake this view entirely when your grandfather was a Russian scholar, your father was a librarian, and you started your own career that way too. My friends are like my books (or is it the other way around?): They entertain me, they challenge me, I laugh when I am around some of them, I am humbled by what many contain, they let me know I am not alone, and I try and come back to the best of them again and again because of how precious they are to me. I don’t mean to sound so saccharine. Really. But that which we are thankful for defines a lot of who we are—and what we might be able to offer others. The next time you take some real satisfaction from a book (or letter, magazine, journal, chronicle, newspaper, sacred text, diary, email, lyrics, personal note, blog, poem, script, or set of instructions written in Chinese), stop for a moment and place a bookmark there--real or otherwise—and be thankful for the connection.
Because everything wonderful has one…
Our story so far…
He put down the Olympus E-500 fitted with a 14-45mm lens (set at 14mm), dialed in to ISO 1600, and a shutter speed of 3.2 sec. at f14, slid a great book off the shelf, and started to read.
Jerry-
Hi WPOTMites!
A strange greeting, kind of old testament?! My thankful photo is one of our family while at my brother Jim's for Thanksgiving. Might work for a Christmas card.
D5200 with 16-85 at 28mm, f11 @ 1/60 on a tripod, iso 200, used the built-in flash to fill.
Hi WPOTMites!
A strange greeting, kind of old testament?! My thankful photo is one of our family while at my brother Jim's for Thanksgiving. Might work for a Christmas card.
D5200 with 16-85 at 28mm, f11 @ 1/60 on a tripod, iso 200, used the built-in flash to fill.
Kevin-
I have so much to be thankful for like my wonderful wife Michelle, our adorable little Squirt, my WPOTM friends, to the fact that I get to spend most of the winter in Palm Springs practicing my favorite personal passion that I am thankful for, photography.
Before I made the trip I knew what I wanted to do. Capture the mountains in the background, hopefully a few white fluffy clouds in the sky, while in the foreground I would have a Nikon t-shirt hanging on a clothesline. Wonderful idea, but I couldn’t execute it the way I was hoping. I got a piece of clothesline and some clothspins, figuring the clothesline would be attached to a couple of light stands. I wet the t-shirt first, but the stands couldn’t support the weight and everything tumbled to the ground. Take the t-shirt home, wash it and dry it, go back and tried again today with a now dry t-shirt. But the wind had picked up and it was still all I could do to keep everything from tumbling over again. You can see how much things sagged. I needed sandbags to weigh down the stands. Plus, if I had brought my flash units this week I would have done a -EV on the camera and added strobe light on the shirt with the flash sync set to rear curtain, a slow shutter speed of 1/8 of a second, so the shirt would have been “frozen” with a a little bit of blur behind it. But…oh well.
Nikon D3s, Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 lens set to 44mm, ISO 200, 1/125th of a second at f/11.
I have so much to be thankful for like my wonderful wife Michelle, our adorable little Squirt, my WPOTM friends, to the fact that I get to spend most of the winter in Palm Springs practicing my favorite personal passion that I am thankful for, photography.
Before I made the trip I knew what I wanted to do. Capture the mountains in the background, hopefully a few white fluffy clouds in the sky, while in the foreground I would have a Nikon t-shirt hanging on a clothesline. Wonderful idea, but I couldn’t execute it the way I was hoping. I got a piece of clothesline and some clothspins, figuring the clothesline would be attached to a couple of light stands. I wet the t-shirt first, but the stands couldn’t support the weight and everything tumbled to the ground. Take the t-shirt home, wash it and dry it, go back and tried again today with a now dry t-shirt. But the wind had picked up and it was still all I could do to keep everything from tumbling over again. You can see how much things sagged. I needed sandbags to weigh down the stands. Plus, if I had brought my flash units this week I would have done a -EV on the camera and added strobe light on the shirt with the flash sync set to rear curtain, a slow shutter speed of 1/8 of a second, so the shirt would have been “frozen” with a a little bit of blur behind it. But…oh well.
Nikon D3s, Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 lens set to 44mm, ISO 200, 1/125th of a second at f/11.
Byron-
I'm thankful that we had Ben. He has been a joy to have around from the time he was born up to and including the present. It was fun to teach him things as he was growing up.
We made sure that he was exposed to as many experiences as we could provide. Those experiences included Career choices, vacation areas, sports, family get togethers. There were two areas he didn't master while living at home, cleaning his room and putting away my tools. Since moving out he has mastered both of those. I shot this portrait using my homemade honeycomb snoot. I built it for less than $1 from supplies found at Axeman Surplus. It is a device that slips over the flash and always a circle of light to hit the subject unimpeded. Outside of that circle the light drops off dramatically in a nice even fade. I used a second flash shooting through a softbox to provide even illumination to the rest of subject. It was set for -3 stops. I didn't want a bright portrait. I was hoping for a small highlight around the eyes and let it fade to really dark everywhere else.
It was shot at ISO 100, 50mm lens, f2 at 125/sec.
I'm thankful that we had Ben. He has been a joy to have around from the time he was born up to and including the present. It was fun to teach him things as he was growing up.
We made sure that he was exposed to as many experiences as we could provide. Those experiences included Career choices, vacation areas, sports, family get togethers. There were two areas he didn't master while living at home, cleaning his room and putting away my tools. Since moving out he has mastered both of those. I shot this portrait using my homemade honeycomb snoot. I built it for less than $1 from supplies found at Axeman Surplus. It is a device that slips over the flash and always a circle of light to hit the subject unimpeded. Outside of that circle the light drops off dramatically in a nice even fade. I used a second flash shooting through a softbox to provide even illumination to the rest of subject. It was set for -3 stops. I didn't want a bright portrait. I was hoping for a small highlight around the eyes and let it fade to really dark everywhere else.
It was shot at ISO 100, 50mm lens, f2 at 125/sec.
Deron-
I am thankful for my Uncle Byron and the Nikon D40. If it weren't for his generosity of gifting me this camera, there would be no Weekly Photo Of The Month, there would be no new friendships made and friendships solidified. So, thank you U.B., now, I can't wait until you buy a new car!
I am thankful for my Uncle Byron and the Nikon D40. If it weren't for his generosity of gifting me this camera, there would be no Weekly Photo Of The Month, there would be no new friendships made and friendships solidified. So, thank you U.B., now, I can't wait until you buy a new car!