Tag Archives: weekly photo challenge

WordPress Photo Challenge

Weekly Photo Challenge: Illumination

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I had thought about doing a photo like this a week ago as my now 10-year-old son was putting together the 3D puzzle he received from Santa last month. But it was the Daily Post at WordPress.com’s weekly photo challenge topic – Illumination – that drove me that final step of making it happen.

Illuminated Globe Puzzle

Canon 60D | 18-135mm lens | 1/6 | f/4.5 | ISO 200 | RAW

I was nervous taking my son’s puzzle apart just enough to fit in my LED Flashmate with it set to full power. I wasn’t really sure how much the light would make it through the seams of the puzzle, but I was pleasantly surprised. My kids even thought it was pretty cool to look it and made for some great photos.

And just like my tag line says, “Photos of – and out of – this world!”

~signed, Carltonaut

Just for fun, WordPress Photo Challenge

Weekly Photo Challenge: Green-Part II

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You know what they say about the green ones? Well, without getting into that in this blog post, I’ll leave it at that and share the photo of some deliciously green M&Ms… (yummy)! Oh….and camera settings, too.

111912 Green MMs

Canon 60D | 50mm lens | 1/25 | f/1.8 | ISO 400 | Flashmate F-198 LED Light | RAW

I was excited to try out my new LED light in a photo tonight, so I gave some M&Ms a go since the WordPress Daily Post Weekly Photo Challenge was green. I should have bought the holiday M&Ms because then it would have been simple to sort out the green ones. Instead, I bought a large Costco-sized bag and then spent 20 minutes sorting out the green ones.

I piled the M&Ms on a black cloth and set my new LED light, pointing it to the ceiling so I didn’t have too much of a glare on the candy itself. I shot in RAW so I could make some adjustments afterward. After taking two dozen shots from different angles, using different exposures, apertures and light intensities, I settled on the last shot I shared above.

I look forward to shooting many more photos with my new LED light. One I am really looking forward to is one of my six-year-old daughter in my wife’s wedding dress. I’m hoping to get that this weekend. Any pointers on how to make that a shot to remember?

~signed, Carltonaut

Black & White, HDR, WordPress Photo Challenge

Weekly Photo Challenge: Green

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Moments after learning about this week’s Weekly Photo Challenge, I was in my car heading to a meeting in downtown Salt Lake City. As usual, I had my camera bag in the back seat, so once my meeting concluded, I took a short walk around Temple Square, shooting things that were green.

My initial idea was to get a great shot of a traffic light sporting some green, but I saw so many other cool shots of green, that I ended up with more than just traffic lights.

111812 WPC-Green

During my quick excursion, I had my 55-200mm lens hooked up so I could get close enough to objects without standing in the middle of the road. I put my camera on AV (aperture priority) so I could have better say in the depth of field.

For a couple of the shots, I tried bracketing a series of three photos so I could merge them together using Photomatix and capture a better dynamic range. Of the four photos above, can you guess which two are HDR? The traffic light, along with the white snow melting in patches to reveal the green grass below.

For the traffic light photo, I converted the three bracketed photos to a single HDR photo, converted it to Black and White using photo shop, then imported the photo in color and used that to make the green light green. I felt that offered more contrast to help the green light pop out a little better.

Green lent itself to so many options, and I still have another idea up my sleeve, which I will probably photograph later today and share tomorrow. Stay tuned for that one.

~signed, Carltonaut

GoPro, WordPress Photo Challenge

Weekly Photo Challenge: Everyday Life

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How many days do you hop in the car and drive somewhere? Is it to or from work? The grocery store? The gas station? The movie theater? School? Chances are, most people’s lives involve driving, either directly or indirectly.

With those thoughts in mind, I share this photo with you as part of the Daily Post at WordPress.com Weekly Photo Challenge – Everyday Life.

091812 Everyday Life

I really don’t have any specs to share on the photo (aperture, shutter speed, focal length, etc.) because I simply opened up my sun roof, held my GoPro above the car and let it snap a few dozen photos. Yes, I was driving on a one-way street in downtown Salt Lake City at the time and was convinced that drivers around me were giving me weird looks. But I promise I stayed in my lane, used my blinkers as needed, and made it safely to my destination. Oh, I hope I didn’t jinx myself for my next drive in the car!

~signed, Carltonaut

Just for fun, WordPress Photo Challenge

Weekly Photo Challenge: Today

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When I saw the email about this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge, I thought the write-up about it makes a great point on photo challenge submissions. I have a pet peeve about that, which I will most likely elaborate on in future post. But for now, I’ll share the photo I shot and am submitting to the photo challenge.

060112 Today photo challenge

I was in a meeting and didn’t have my camera on me when I saw the post. Then it was one of those CrAzY Fridays at work where you’re frantically trying to get stuff done so you don’t have to bring work home with you over the weekend. (Which probably means I shouldn’t be taking the time to write this blog post, but I was eager to get my photo up).

At about 1:30, when I finally decided that I better grab some lunch, since I skipped breakfast and didn’t want to get sick before dinner, I headed out to grab some food. I decided to bring my trusty GoPro along to get a shot that I’ve been thinking of taking for a few weeks now. Carpe Diem!

I put back the sunroof, set the camera to take one photo every .5 seconds, and held it outside of the car. I didn’t expect to get so much of a reflection in the windshield, but I liked the final result. One that I really liked was of a cross walk directly in front of the car, and perfectly reflected in the windshield, but the camera was off-kilter (that’s what happens when you’re driving and photographing at the same time).

So that’s my shot. I’ll rant about my photo challenge submission pet peeves later!

~signed, Carltonaut

Alphabet Photo Challenge, HDR, Travel, WordPress Photo Challenge

Weekly Photo Challenge: Hands

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During a trip to Philadelphia, I wandered around the University of Philadelphia under the assumption that I would be able to find a historic looking clock or clock tower. After a three-mile walk around campus, I gave up and headed back to my hotel.

Why was I looking for a clock? For the CTE Weekly photo challenge for the letter T (Time), but also for the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge (Hands, interpreted as in the hands on the clock). One photo covers both challenges. That saves… time!

The next day I transfered to another hotel closer to downtown Philly and noticed this clock on top of the City Hall building. I thought about photographing it at night, but took the opportunity to take a few shots during the day.

051812 Philly Timeclock HDR

Canon 60D | 3 bracketed photos | HDR

My initial thoughts on capturing T for Time was to do some time-lapse photography of a clock, but my time wasn’t readily available (it was a very busy week). Since I was in Philly, I felt like Time would mean much more than the hours on the clock, but The time that’s written in the past, the present time we live in and the future that only time will tell.

Philly has a lot of history, and I was excited to check out some of the sites – like the Liberty Bell, Betsy Ross’ house, and Elfreth’s Alley (the oldest residential neighborhood in the United States). I wish I would have made it to more sites, but hey… I did get to eat an original Philly Cheesesteak!

~signed, Carltonaut

Alphabet Photo Challenge, People

CTE Weekly Photo Challenge – J is for Jump

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Originally, I wanted to get some shots of my oldest son jumping to shoot a basketball into our new hoop we bought a couple weeks ago. But when that didn’t work out, and my older son was sick in bed tonight, I asked my younger son if he wanted to jump off the ottoman and let me take a few shots.

He agreed, and we got some great shots. Here’s my favorite, but you can check out some of the outtakes on my Facebook page photo album.

031012 CTE Jump photo

Canon 60D | 18-135 lens | 1/60 | f 4.0 | ISO 800

My wife was a little embarrassed about the laundry in the background, and I am sure no one would have noticed it unless I pointed it out… so I guess the cat is out of the bag on that one. Oh well.

~signed, Carltonaut

Just for fun, WordPress Photo Challenge

Weekly Photo Challenge: Down

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While contemplating various ways of participating in this week’s The Daily Post at WordPress.com weekly photo challenge, I decided a family trip on President’s Day to Boondocks for a little bowling would be perfect. Nothing like throwing the bowling ball “down” the alley, hoping to knock “down” all of the pins, right?

Down the alley

Canon 60D | 18-135mm lens | 1/5 | f4.5 | ISO 500

Bowling alleys are notorious for low-lighting situations, so I knew that going in to it. However, I didn’t want to set the ISO so high that the quality of the photo suffered. I also thought a little blur on the bowling call could be a cool effect, but I wasn’t about to set up my tripod in the middle of my family’s bowling match.

I took about two dozen photos of my kids bowling, and this was the one that I thought came out the best. I like the blur of my son’s motion, and the way he moved the ball made it blur less, so it provided more of a “floating bowling ball” look to the photo.

I would probably have kept going with the photo-taking, but I am a serious bowler, and I wasn’t on track to even break 100. So the camera was put away and my bowling skills brought me back up to beat everyone else (yes, that included my wife and three young kids) with 124 points. But my daughter was second place at 106. It was a great way to spend the weekend.

~signed, Carltonaut

Alphabet Photo Challenge, Just for fun

Weekly CTE Photo Challenge – G is for Game

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The CTE photo challenge letter for this week was G. I had a few ideas in mind, but Game is the one I landed on. I thought of games like Candy Land or Scrabble, but for weeks I have been thinking it would be fun to incorporate my son’s Lego Star Wars guys into the photo.

All that said, here is the photo, which I’ve titled, “About to lose.”

About to Lose

Canon 60D | 50mm lens | Manual mode | 1/250 | f4.0| Speedlight 430EX II | ISO 100

Lego hands aren’t the easiest to work with, so I had to use putty in their hands to help hold the cards in place. I also used putty under the winning guy to help him lean just enough to be looking around his card. Balancing the guys was a little tough, too.

You’ll notice that in this photo, titled “About to lose,” the guy who just called UNO is out of focus, thus drawing the eye to the loser. I had another version where the winner was in focus and the loser was out of focus, which would have been titled, “Uno.” But I liked this one better. What do you think?

~signed, Carltonaut