Day of the Cicada

 

 

  I don’t know what the overlap is between sports fans and fans of this blog, but apparently some Cleveland fans were so happy with the season finale of Basketball over the weekend that some people got Monday off work. One such person was my friend, Alyssa, who invited me along for an afternoon of berry picking and wine tasting. The best part? Every moment of the rural excursion was juxtaposed with the soothing sounds of the majestic cicada. But, the wonder of these creatures was not limited to the auditory. They clung to almost every surface, littered the ground, flew straight at the moving car window, and occasionally tried give us their insect-cuddles . We must savor these moments, as it will be 17 years before we are graced with their magnificence once again.

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The Succubus

Getting back on track is easy when you have a bit of a backlog that hasn’t been posted. You might recognize the fantastic Samantha Novak; she’s becoming a regular on the site. We made the time to do a quick shoot in the cemetery with her new succubus look. Not going to lie, the red contacts caught me off guard when we met up.

Returning To Twin Lakes

I had more yard work to do, but I brought my DSLR this this time so I don’t have to rely on my camera phone. I lucked out, since the birds were feeling friendly. Normally they hang back at the tops of trees and close to the water, but today they stuck close enough to the road that I could get clear shots with my 24-70mm and 50mm.

Of course, I shot more than just the red-winged black birds.

And, because all of you just love toads:

Deer in the Fall

The deer came wandering around the back of the apartment again. Since so many leaves have fallen off the trees, I was able to get some of the clearest shots I ever had of these guys.

Funny story, I accidentally formatted the card with these photos (as well as the Cat Day photos) before I realized that I hadn’t moved the files to the computer. After a mild freak-out, I remembered from an episode of the awesome This Week in Photo podcast, that a formatted card isn’t wiped clean; it’s just set to allow for new data to be written over the old. I went poking around online for some free recovery software. I eventually came across Ease US Software, which did the job well enough, didn’t cost me anything, and didn’t riddle my laptop with with various super viruses (that I know of). And thus concludes all of my plugging for this particular post.

Out For The Evening

Karen and I went out for a walk before I took my friend out for a driving lesson. Don’t forget to check the captions.

New Fawn

I’ve been taking advantage of the summer weather while I still can. As a result, I now have a huge backlog of photos that need to be edited.  These were taken of the new fawn in the woods behind our apartment.

 

A new fawn has been showing up in the woods behind our apartment. It was so fulfilling to watch the little ones grow up last year.

This image, being shot with an off-brand 24-70, came out a bit murky. I did my best to get it all cleaned up, and create enough contrast between the fawn and the forest.

Moth Montage

I decided to take a much overdue photo walk today and noticed, among other things, a group of moths in a flower bush. I took enough photos to experiment with the editing. Normally, I only choose one from a series, but I can’t seem to pick a favorite from these. So, I decided to post them all and let you guys decide. Tell me which one is your favorite in the comments below. 

Dried Flower on the Dashboard Cell Phone Quickie

I gave Karen a Rose of Sharon flower earlier in the week, which had since dried up on her dash board. I snapped a quick cell phone picture at a stop light and sharpened it up real quick in Photoshop.

Six Month Retrospective

Wow, it’s been about half a year since I started this site. So, I thought that a quick retrospective would be interesting, so I rounded up a handful of some of my favorite photos thus far. I have a ton of ideas I want to try, unfortunately, life has a habit of getting in the way. I hope that the best is yet to come.

This is probably my favorite trace design conversion that I’ve done all year.

I tried my hand at typography. I think that the Arabic went well with the design.

Jordan and I got to take over a local Harley Dealership for about an hour.

I wasn’t allowed to take my DSLR into the Lindsey Sterling concert, so I shot what I could on my camera phone and edited it on the way home.

I was inspired while I was juicing to take a stab at some more comedic still-life stuff.

I took this as a nature shot, and ran it through an InDesign filter. I wound up using it on a business card design.

Putting the GoPro on its ‘Time Lapse’ setting and attaching it to my monopod quickly became one of my favorite tricks. This man doing Tai Chi was actually someone I had already met when I was doing a story on a local retirement community being convicted by their new management. I shot this when I was out on a photo walk with some new students when I was helping to run a workshop at the university.

I got more into nature photography over this last year. I feel like there’s only so much I can do with my low-end telephoto though.

I went with my friend Alyssa to the cherry blossom festival. Going to DC and back within 24 hours was a bit of a challenge, but the road trip was worth it. DC is one of my favorite cities to visit.

As I practiced more, I got better with this InDesign trick.

I lost track of how far I walked on the day I shot this. Totally worth it for some of the photos I got that

Another shot that I didn’t think much of, but got plenty of attention.

I shot a lot of photos to help out a music promotions class over at Kent State. The Electronic show was a great place to shoot shutter drag shots.

I didn’t think much of this when I shot it, but it’s been an absolute favorite of my friends and family.

Jordan shows up in a lot of my favorite shots of the year. She’s a fantastic model, great to work with, and I am so bummed that she moved so far away.

My friend paisley shows off one of her corsets.

The quality of what I can do with my cell phone camera continues to surprise me. It’s fantastic to have when I can’t carry my full DSLR.

Cross Against The Storm

I am really enjoying the clarity on my Samsung Galaxy S III.  The fact that I can crop the image down, and still have anything left to play with is really amazing to me. It definitely come in handy on those walks home from work when I can’t have my DSLR with me.