Posts from — February 2008

I know I’ve only barely just started my year long photo project, but I’m already thinking of the end. Namely, I’m thinking I am going to self publish the entire collection as a book. I know there are a ton of outfits that will do this, so I’ve started looking around. I know one of the professional photo labs I use offers some album services mainly for wedding photographers. I have a little bit in mind of how I want the book laid out, though I may enlist the help of some of my creative contacts in the overall design. I do know I want to do a hard cover book and I want it to be professional looking, so I’m ruling out places like snapfish and the like.

If you’ve done a photo book and had a good experience with a particular printer, let me know in the comments below. So far I’ve looked at what lulu.com and blurb.com have to offer, but I’m really open to anyone.  Given the book will be 366 pages or more, I’ll probably start on the layout before the project is complete, otherwise it would take me forever to do it all in one sitting.

Photo by Melanie Burger (a/k/a Smellyknee)

Classic shot I know he’ll hate us for later in life.  My wife spiked his shampooed hair I ran for the camera.

My son at soccer clinic.  The light at this place is not conducive to shooting - it’s all mercury vapor and the color is hard to balance.  It’s times like these I wish I had an Expodisc.  ACR didn’t do too bad with it’s auto attempt.

This was the best shot I got all night, which isn’t saying much, though I was chasing my 16mo old around as well.

Somehow these never gets old to me.

I’ve never seen an instrument like that - 11 string bass.  Weird looking, but sounds cool.

The project is starting to wear on me, or I’m hitting my first low point.  I was totally uninspired today, so this shot is of where I hung out all day - our kitchen table.  I’ve been pretty much heads down on working on a new version of a web site I help manage. Still in the early stages of getting my head around the content management system I’m using. I spent most of the day wrestling with it.

To amp up what would be (ok… is) a pretty dull shot, I put my SB-24 on the floor and gel’d it with a CTO to balance against the tungsten coming from above.  That is where the glow under the computer is coming from.

I waited until almost bedtime before making today’s photo.  This is our piano (bought it from our the house’s previous owners) lit with a flashlight.  25 second exposure, I highlighted the logo and the keys.  Took a few tries to get the exposure right.

This is pretty straight out of the camera - minor level tweak and some sharpening.

Can you guess what it is?

Our youngest came down with a double ear infection this past week and got put on antibiotics. We got the prescription filled at Target where I constantly amazed at how serious they take design.  This is the medicine container - it comes with a graduated syringe for dispensing the medicine.  You stick it in a special hole on the top of the bottle and flip it over and draw up the correct dosage.

I’ve talked about Target’s prescription medicine containers in the past since they put a lot of thought into the design of of them but that was about the bill bottles, this blew me away.  Walgreen’s will give you a syringe, but it isn’t long enough to reach the bottom of the bottle. After a period, you can’t draw up anymore medicine. With this bottle, that isn’t an issue.

One more reason I like Target. Beyond the clear label, they designed a medicine bottle that works.

Lighting info: This is lit with a SB24 @1/4 power through a white shoot through umbrella.

Are you still searching for a gift idea for your significant other?  According to iRobot, makers of domestic “robots” there is still time to give a cleaning robot to your Valentine (click the image to the left to see the email I got)!

Give me a break, I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m smart enough not to give my wife a vacuum for Valentines Day.  Sure, it vacuums the floor for you, saving her from the toils of domestic labor… but it’s still a vacuum. I sure hope they include a blanket and pillow with the purchase because that will come in handy when you’re sleeping on the couch.

Beside, we already have one, so that idea was out before I got the email.

We officially got a metric ass-load of snow today.  This was the view out my front door.  That black spec near the base of the gas lamp is our mailbox.  I also got a shot out behind the house showing just how deep the snow was:

On Tuesday, a couple co-workers bet lunch that the forecast was all hype.  The over-under was 8″ with multipliers at 50% and 100%, meaning if their was under 4″ or over 16″ it meant two lunches.  Looks like Jason’s got two lunches coming his way.