Day 31 - Bet you can't guess that this is?!?!

Okay you probably can! That's right, it's more from the Nutcracker! This one was taken during the finale of the last Saturday night performance from the balcony.

Date Taken: December 8, 2007
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 50mm 1.8
Exposure: 0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture: f/3.2
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 3200
Exposure Bias: 1/3 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 30 - Surprise! More Nutcracker

No, I'm not done with these yet. Work, yearbook duties (have I mentioned I'm the yearbook editor and take most of the photos for the yearbook at my youngest daughter's school) and general mom duties take most of my time so I have to process these as I get time. I wish I could just do them all at one time so the processing would be really consistent. I try to do similar processing but I'm noticing differences - part of that is the fact that I took photos from different places but some of it is post processing I'm sure. Anyway, this photo was taken from the wings and shows the Present Dance during Act I.

Date Taken: December 8, 2007
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 50mm 1.8
Exposure: 0.01 sec (1/100)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 3200
Exposure Bias: 1/3 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 29 - Ballet Class

I took my camera to the ballet studio last night and took some photos of my daughter's ballet class through the observation window into the studo. This one is just of some of the girls' feet as they wait their turn to try what the teacher is having them do. I took this in monochrome but then upped curves & contrast, added a brown town and some grunge effects because for some reason I'm into that lately.

Date Taken: January 29, 2008
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Tamron 28-75mm 2.8
Exposure: 0.01 sec (1/100)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 75 mm
ISO Speed: 1000
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 28 - Back to the Nutcracker

Don't be looking for this part the next time you see The Nutcracker performed. During a photo session between shows, the drapes for the Arabian dancer were still down when the Nutcracker Prince and Sugar Plum Fairy came out to pose so the Sugar Plum Fairy decided to go for a ride!

Date Taken: December 8, 2007
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 50mm 1.8
Exposure: 0.01 sec (1/100)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 1600
Exposure Bias: 1/3 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 27 - Another Valley View

Today I'm sharing another one I took yesterday since today I've been busy trying to get ready for classes next week and have had no time to do anything with taking pictures. This was taken looking more to the west and with a higher ISO than the first photo so the sky is brighter to start and I post processed it differently to keep the brighter look. Do you see the black speck in the sky? That's actually a helicopter - if you click on the image and view all sizes you can see it better.

Date Taken: January 26, 2008
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Tamron 28-75mm 2.8
Exposure: 0.006 sec (1/160)
Aperture: f/16
Focal Length: 55 mm
ISO Speed: 800
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 26: Between the Storms

We've been getting a lot of rain the past few days in Southern California. Today we were in between two storm systems so I decided to head up to the Top of Topanga Overlook and take some pictures of the San Fernando Valley. I am not a landscape photographer - my photos never turn out quite how I pictured them but here's an attempt from today that I cropped into a panoramic view.

Date Taken: January 26, 2008
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Tamron 28-75mm 2.8
Exposure: 0.005 sec (1/200)
Aperture: f/16
Focal Length: 54 mm
ISO Speed: 400
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 25: Back to the Nutcracker

I'm back to The Nutcracker. Since this was the only show that I officially attended as an audience member, this shot was taken from about the 6th row of the house and features the Dewdrop Princess from the Waltz of the Flowers.

Date Taken: December 9, 2007
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 50mm 1.8
Exposure: 0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 3200
Exposure Bias: 1/3 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 24 - EXCELlent M&Ms

I had been a stay-at-home mom since just after my youngest daughter was born - okay I did some website work from home and volunteered all the time but officially I wasn't working. This past September I went back to work part-time as the computer teacher at my youngest daughter's school. I teach classes for Kindergarten through 8th grade every afternoon from 12:30 or 1 until 3pm. I have a theme each month and this month it's all about Excel. All the students from grades 3 through 8 are doing some kind of project in Excel with M&Ms. Here a few shots of the M&M project for 3rd & 4th grade.

Date Taken: January 24, 2008
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 50mm 1.4
Exposure: 0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture: f/3.2 (Apple plaque) & f/4.0 (Computer and M&Ms)
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 500 (Computer and M&Ms) & 640 (Apple plaque)
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Oh, and in case you didn't realize, you can click on any of the pictures to see a larger version; this will usually take you to the Flickr photo page and then you can choose All Sizes to see the larger version.

Day 23 - Two Girls & A Cat

My girls and the cat are sick of the camera and especially of the flash but I did manage to get them to cooperate for a few shots tonight as I practiced bouncing the flash in various ways.

In the first photo, I bounced the flash off of where the wall and ceiling meet basically in front of cat. Oh and it's obvious that the cat just loves to have his picture taken these days isn't it?

Date Taken: January 23, 2008
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 50mm 1.4
Exposure: 0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture: f/2.2
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 400
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Flash fired

The one of my younger daughter was taken with the flash bounced off of a mirror to her right (camera left). I kind of like the lighting on this one but should have dialed the flash down a bit or upped the shutter speed some to avoid blowing out my daughter's right cheek.

Date Taken: January 23, 2008
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 50mm 1.4
Exposure: 0.025 sec (1/40)
Aperture: f/2.2
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 400
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Flash fired

As I was playing, I came up with this alternate crop for the photo above. I kind of like the emphasis on this one though it reminds me more of a product shot than a portrait. What do you think?

Day 22 - More from Florence Henderson

After the big weekend, I've had hundreds of photos to go through and not much time to do it so today we're featuring another shot taken at the Florence Henderson Show taping on January 18th. This was a quick grab the shot photo taken of The Cowsills with Florence after the taping.

Date Taken: January 18, 2008
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 50mm 1.4
Exposure: 0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture: f/4
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 400
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Flash fired

Day 21 - Another from the house concert

Yes, again I'm featuring a photo not taken on the actual day. This is another one from the house concert that I posted about on Day 20. The concert started at 4pm with Jason & Jackie who were then followed by Susan Cowsill. After Susan played, there was a jam session and this photo is from that and features Susan and Bob Cowsill.

Date Taken: January 20, 2008
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 50mm 1.4
Exposure: 0.02 sec (1/50)
Aperture: f/2.2
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 3200
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

And if you haven't ever been to a house concert and someone in your area hosts these, you really should get to one. They are a wonderfully intimate way to see a performer.

Day 20 - Have you ever been to a House Concert?

Susan Cowsill held a house concert on Sunday the 20th and her opening act was the duo of Jackie Jae & Jason Cowsill. Jason is the oldest son of Bob Cowsill and he and Jackie sing at various venues in their hometown of Eugene, Oregon.

Date Taken: January 20, 2008
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Tamron 28-75f2.8
Exposure: 0.01 sec (1/100)
Aperture: f/4.5
Focal Length: 66 mm
ISO Speed: 400
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 19 - More Cowsills

Okay technically this wasn't taken on the 19th but late on the 18th so close enough. On Fridays, Bob Cowsill has a regular gig at a pub in the San Fernando Valley so after the Florence Henderson Show taping, Paul & Susan Cowsill along with Susan's husband, Russ Broussard joined Bob at the pub. This is Paul Cowsill.

Date Taken: January 18, 2008 around 11pm
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 50mm 1.4
Exposure: 0.02 sec (1/50)
Aperture: f/1.4
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 3200
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 18 - Backstage at a TV Taping

The Cowsills taped the Florence Henderson Show on January 18th and I went along to document what I could in pictures. This photo is of Russ Broussard tuning his wife's guitar before the taping. This was taken in the backstage area set up for The Cowsills and their guests.

Date Taken: January 18, 2008
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 50mm 1.4
Exposure: 0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture: f/1.8
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 1600
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 17 - And it's more music!

The next few days are all likely to be music related since this is a big Cowsill weekend in Los Angeles. This one was taken at the Coffee Gallery Backstage in Altadena, CA and features Susan Cowsill.

Date Taken: January 17, 2008
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 50mm 1.4
Exposure: 0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture: f/2.5
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 1600
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 16 - Hey it's not dance!

I am so busy these days I didn't have time to even edit anything so I'm sharing something I took earlier in the month. One of my other favorite things to photograph, other than dance, is live music. I think I enjoy the challenge of capturing things in low light situations. So, here's one of those taken in a very dark pub.

Date Taken: January 5, 2008
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 50mm 1.4
Exposure: 0.04 sec (1/25)
Aperture: f/1.4
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 3200
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 15 - And guess what - MORE Nutcracker!

Date Taken: December 1, 2007
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 85mm 1.8
Exposure: 0.004 sec (1/250)
Aperture: f/3.2
Focal Length: 85 mm
ISO Speed: 3200
Exposure Bias: -1/3 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 14 - And, yes, still more Nutcracker!

I bet you get sick of these way before I'm done processing the 1200+ shots I took. Once again this is from the party scene in Act I. This time it's a shot of Mother Ginger and her Polichinelles.

Date Taken: December 1, 2007
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 85mm 1.8
Aperture: f/2.5
Focal Length: 85 mm
ISO Speed: 1600
Exposure Bias: -1/3 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 13 - More Nutcracker

This was taken from the balcony with my 40D and 85mm1.8 lens. This is one the shots from the party scene in Act I - meet Fritz, Clara's brother.

Date Taken: December 1, 2007
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 85mm 1.8
Exposure: 0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture: f/2.2
Focal Length: 85 mm
ISO Speed: 1600
Exposure Bias: -1/3 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 12 - Another Day of Scanning

I did take a few photos of album covers and while I had the camera out I tried to get one of the cat. The problem is he's getting to be like the kids and running away when he sees the camera or running toward it to sniff the lens. I did get one but ended up blowing out his right side. Oh well, here it is with some artistic effects added in via Photoshop:

Date Taken: January 12, 2008
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 50mm 1.4
Exposure: 0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture: f/3.5
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 800
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 11 - A no photos day

Today I spent my photo time scanning a bunch of things for possible use on a TV show that some friends of mine are doing next week. The only skill that really requires is the ability to get rid of dust since my scanner seems to suck a lot of that up inside and underneath the scanning bed. So, just to put up some kind of image, here's one of the things I scanned today!

My question on this is why oh why did someone dress them like this?

Day 10 - Snow Queen

More from The Nutcracker - this time it's actually 2 shots of the same people. The one on the left was taken at Technical Rehearsal that's why they're not in full costume and the one on the right was taken at one of the 8 performances. It's interesting to me to see how slight differences in lighting because of where the dancers are on stage and where I was photographing from and adjustments to the exposure to try to get a higher shutter speed can make the difference between blowing out the tutu and not blowing it out.

Click on the photo to go to Flickr and then click on the All Sizes option to see this one bigger so you can read the technical information.

Day 9 - Harlequins

And, yet another picture from The Nutcracker. Since I'm the official photographer for the event, I spent part of my time in the wings, dodging dancers and props, to take some photos. This one is from that perspective.

Date Taken: December 8, 2007
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 50mm 1.8
Exposure: 0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture: f/3.2
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 3200
Exposure Bias: 2/3 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 8 - Waltz of the Flowers

Yes, it's another picture from The Nutcracker - this time from dress rehearsal. With working and after school activities for the girls it's either processing photos or taking them these days and for now processing is winning. Due to the always changing lighting conditions, I tend to take dance photos in P, TV or AV modes and adjust ISO and exposure compensation to avoid blowouts with spotlights and major under or over exposure.

Date Taken: November 29, 2007
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 85mm 1.8
Exposure: 0.005 sec (1/200)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 85 mm
ISO Speed: 1600
Exposure Bias: -2/3 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 7 - The Nutcracker Round 2

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm in the middle of editing lots of pictures from The Nutcracker. Here's one I took during a posed session before one of the shows. The stage director does this annually to get some shots of the show in a controlled environment. I try to take shots from a different angle than he's getting.

Date Taken: December 8, 2007
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 50mm 1.8
Exposure: 0.01 sec (1/100)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 3200
Exposure Bias: 2/3 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 6 - Dance

The first of what will probably be quite a few in the upcoming weeks of what is not a new photo but rather a newly post processed photo. I take photos of the dance events for my daughter's ballet studio and every December the studio puts on a great production of The Nutcracker. This year I took more than 1000 photos over the course of 2 rehearsals and 8 performances and have just started to post process these. So you'll probably be seeing quite a few of them here as I go through these.

Date Taken: December 7, 2007
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 85mm 1.8
Exposure: 0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture: f/2.2
Focal Length: 85 mm
ISO Speed: 3200
Exposure Bias: 1/3 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 5 - Live Music

A friend recently asked me what my favorite thing to photograph is. As I thought about it, I realized that other than taking pictures of my family, I love to photograph concerts and live music in small venues and dance performances. I enjoy the challenge of capturing the event and the challenge of the lighting situations. With that in mind, I took my 40d along to see a friend at a local pub last night. Since he plays from 9pm until 1am, I waited until midnight and started to take some photos knowing I wanted to use one on this blog. The lighting in this pub is minimal at best - a string of Christmas lights around the alcove where the singer is positioned, a few recessed lights behind the singer, lighting in a hall to the right and a few dim lights in the rest of the bar. Since the light was so low, I set my ISO at 3200 and went for it to get as high a shutter speed as possible. I wanted to test out my new 50mm 1.4 lens and play with hand holding it at low shutter speeds since it's heavier than the 50mm 1.8 lens that I'm used to. I also played with the monochrome picture style on some of the shots to see if I liked it at all. I like to shoot and color and convert to B&W myself but thought I'd give this a try. As far as post processing on these photos went, I did some minor noiseware adjustments on a few but mostly just left the grain and tried to embrace it. I generally upped the midtones a bit and added some screen layers and soft light layers at times. On some of the monochrome ones, I used a hue adjustment to add some warmth to the tones and I added some grunge overlays and borders. And here's my favorite of the night all grunged up ...

Date Taken: January 5, 2008
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon 50mm 1.4
Exposure: 0.025 sec (1/40)
Aperture: f/1.4
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 3200
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

If you're interested in the other photos, you can see the set over at Flickr.

Day 4 - The View From Here

Today was an uninspiring day photographically speaking - rainy & cold (and I don't take my new camera out in rainy) and children who groaned "not more pictures" when they saw me grab my camera. So, I'm sharing what I see each night as I sit at my desk surfing the web, uploading photos, looking for inspiration, etc.

Date Taken: January 4, 2008
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Tamron 28-75mm 2.8
Exposure: 0.02 sec (1/50)
Aperture: f/6.3
Focal Length: 28 mm
ISO Speed: 1600
Flash: Flash did not fire

Day 3 - Depth of Field, Shutter Speed & Not Blowing Out the Sky

My daughters informed me today that I can take pictures of something other than them - and we're only on Day 3 of this adventure! They both had music lessons today so while they were busy in their voice and guitar lessons I was playing with my camera.

The first photos are of a fountain in the courtyard at my youngest daughter's school. I've seen examples of people taking shots of water at different shutter speeds so I decided to play with this. In order to get proper exposure I had to adjust ISO and/or aperture as well. I did get differing results and my conclusion is that I'll have to play with this some more when I have more time.

While I was in the courtyard, I also opened my lens wide open and took a shot of a light fixture with the chapel building in the background just to check out the depth of field and bokeh.

Date Taken: January 3, 2008
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Tamron 28-75 f2.8
Exposure: 0.004 sec (1/250)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 75 mm
ISO Speed: 800
Flash: No Flash

I always seem to have a problem blowing out the sky or not exposing the foreground object correctly so I played a bit with that too. I metered off the sky and used some fill flash to expose the tree in this one. I'll have to try this with people but I like how this one turned out anyway.

Date Taken: January 3, 2008
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Tamron 28-75 f2.8
Exposure: 0.006 sec (1/160)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 28 mm
ISO Speed: 200
Flash: Flash fired / FEC -1

The End of Christmas

Once again playing with bouncing my flash - both off of the ceiling in our living room while torturing my oldest daughter and off of the patio cover in the backyard taking a quick shot of my husband as he chops up what was our Christmas tree. I think I need to play with some non-living, non-moving object and just try different bounce angles and FEC adjustments on the flash.

Date Taken: January 2, 2008
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Tamron 28-75 f2.8
Exposure: 0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 400
Flash: Flash fired / FEC -1/3

Date Taken: January 2, 2008
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Tamron 28-75 f2.8
Exposure: 0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture: f/3.2
Focal Length: 28 mm
ISO Speed: 400
Flash: Flash fired / FEC -1/3

So I don't cheat right away ...

So as not to start the year off cheating, here are two photos I took tonight of my daughters. Both of these were taken in our living room with flash bounced off of the ceiling. Due to the combination of bright clothing, lights on in the living room and the flash there were some lovely (not) color casts on these so I converted them to black and white.

Date Taken: January 1, 2008
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Tamron 28-75 f2.8
Exposure: 0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture: f/3.2
Focal Length: 75 mm
ISO Speed: 100
Flash: Flash fired / FEC +2/3

Date Taken: January 1, 2008
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Tamron 28-75 f2.8
Exposure: 0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture: f/3.2
Focal Length: 30 mm
ISO Speed: 100
Flash: Flash fired / FEC +2/3

Based on the short amount of playing that I did, I know that I want to work on:

• Nailing down how exactly my flash works. I've had it for ages and struggle every time I use it either under exposing things or blowing out highlights.
  
• Using custom white balance
• Figuring out the metering modes on the 40d. Since the Canon Digital Rebel picked for me I'm not exactly sure how each of the modes works and which I should use in each situation.
  

Our youngest niece

Okay, so picture #1 isn't technically a new photo but it's very recent.

Date Taken: December 25, 2007
Camera: Canon 40d
Lens: Canon 50mm 1.4
Exposure: 0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture: f/1.8
ISO Speed: 1600
Flash: No Flash