Day 262

Day 262, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

New Year’s Eve 2010! I took this portrait of Michele in an Edmonds café today. We were going to the zoo today but we had to change plans because it was 25 degrees and the animals would be staying inside. So instead we went to Edmonds and took in some local culture.

Day 261

Day 261, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

I saw this as I was leaving the neighborhood on the way to the mountains. I shot photos in the mountains all day and I still like this one the best.

Day 260

Day 260, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

The marsh was stunning this morning! There was some snow which enabled me to shoot the final chapter of my photo book “Boardwalks in the Marsh”. Now that I have way to many images for each season, I’ll be spending a lot of time just choosing the shots I’m going to use.

This is a photographer I met this morning in the marsh, I forget his name. He was interested in photographing the barn with snow on it rather than the marsh. I really like the painterly look to this image which I tried to enhance in the developing. The stacked centered composition adds to the meaning of this shot which is about composing an image.

I’ll let you know when the book is done, it’s going to be really good!

Day 259

Day 259, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

It was getting late and I hadn’t taken a photo all day so when Michele wanted to take the dogs for a walk, I welcomed the chance to get out. Just as we were leaving our driveway some of our neighbors drove up and their dog Rainy hung her head out the drivers side window. I loved the look so I took the shot.

Day 258

Day 258, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

It was cold and wet in the mountains today. I rode by myself so I took the opportunity to take a self portrait in the mountains without holding up a group. This is a nice study in contrasting textures.

Day 257

Day 257, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

What an elegant young lady. I added some Hollywood style lighting to really add to the mood.

Day 256

Day 256, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads......Merry Christmas everyone!

Day 255

Day 255, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

I met Marvin on the boardwalk at North Creek Park today while I was out on a photo walk. He mentioned to me that he was a cancer survivor and was out enjoying a Christmas Eve stroll with his family. It reminded me of the time we took Mischu to that park and I took a photo of her not far from where I met Marvin. I’m glad to have met him there and it inspired me to put together all of the photos I’ve shot in this park and create my first photo book.

Day 254

Day 254, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

It was pouring rain today so I had to stay inside and find something to photograph. This is Dima, the lead character modeler at my work. We were talking about a gallery he really liked in New York I just snapped some photos while he was talking.

Day 253

Day 253, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

Broken clouds today made for some interesting photos. This is a kayaker I meet down by Lake Sammamish during lunch. I struck up a conversation with him and then couldn’t get away. That’s the thing with a lot of these sports guys, they love to talk about their sports. I use that to strike up conversatios though so I can't complain

Day 252

Day 252, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

I have lost my ever-loving mind! I just spent the last hour and half taking a picture of the penguin on the front porch in the rain. I was really unhappy with everything I shot today so I had to go to a stand by shot.

Day 251

Day 251, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

I’m not sure why but I’ve been wanting to take a high viewpoint shot of umbrellas in a crowd since the Summer. Maybe it was something I saw a long time ago and wanted to recreate it. So when I got to Redmond Town Center and there was a line of people with umbrellas waiting to see Santa, I knew my ship had come in. I got up on the second floor walk and took the shot I had been envisioning since August. The girl running into the frame from the left was a happy accident, I never saw that in my vision, but it really completes the composition.

Day 250

Day 250, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

After spending some time with the photos from today’s shoot I’ve decided that this is a much better photo.

The light was really beautiful today and perfect for taking pictures of the newest addition to our neighborhood, Desi our neighbor’s adopted Golden Retriever. I shot almost 300 images in just a half hour but I only came out of the shoot with 100 usable images. Lots of lens flair and blurred shots from a very rambunctious dog. I chose this one for the composition, light quality and negative space between the Desi and Noah.

Day 249

Day 249, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

This is a nice quiet moment in my neighborhood. I saw this dog sitting on the porch from my car and stopped to take the shot without even opening the door of my truck. I guess it would be a kind of a drive by. Now that’s lazy but getting out wouldn’t have made it any better of a shot. This was a very flat capture so I had to add the lighting in Lightroom. It’s not cheating if you’re creating art, I say!

Day 248

Day 248, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

This was captured on my way to work this morning while stopped at an intersection. I was drawn to the back lighting and the cloud of dust around the workers feet. This composition is about a glancing moment from a car so I’m only showing what one would normally see as they pass by. A moment like this happens very quickly so driver would only be able to notice something moving and in this case it would be feet and dust. This is full frame, camera composed capture and not cropped. Conceptually, I really like this fleeting moments idea, I may have to explore that more.

Day 247

Day 247, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

I saw this as I was walking to a meeting at the local coffee house. I was busy all day so I didn’t have time for a photo walk so I just kept my camera out as I walked to my meeting and kept my vision at the ready. Balance and repeating shapes and strong in this melancholy image.

Day 246

Day 246, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

Noelle has appeared as the photo of the day couple of time so I didn’t plan to do a shoot with her today. But when she came by my cubicle dressed like this in the morning, I had to take her picture. I wanted to shoot something more than a portrait so we made a quick trip over to the Redmond Town Center during twilight and we acted out a fashion shoot. It was fun!

Day 245

Day 245, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

This is Chris, a designer here at work. I caught him as he was adjourning a hallway meeting near my cubical. Compositionally it would have been better if he was looking toward the green light but there’s a comical aspect to him looking in the wrong direction and missing out on the green light.

Day 244

Day 244, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

It was pouring rain halfway thru my twilight photo walk so I had to cut it short. I really didn’t get a capture that I liked so I was glad to see this Lotus parked in front of my building. I see this car from time to time parked in front of work and I’ve wanted to take it’s picture for awhile but I always thought to save it for a rainy day when I can’t find anything else to shoot. I have a couple of those pocket captures stowed away waiting for the right time and this was indeed the day to capture the Lotus!

Day 243

Day 243, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

I went down to the Country Village shopping center to take some photos of the holiday lights in the rain this afternoon. Although there was some wonderful light displays, nothing says Merry Christmas like a chicken with a cool hair doo. I spent a good amount of time irritating this chicken with my camera until he finally gave up and struck this pose. It’s a lot like how I work with people when I’m shooting their portrait.

Day 242

Day 242, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

Not a lot of time to take pictures today but I managed to snap a quick one of Sophie, Oliver’s sister , as we were getting ready for a walk.

Day 241

Day 241, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

I waited all week to take this picture at the Christmas tree farm in Woodinville. I had to shoot this during the twilight hour and Friday was the only day this week I could get out of work early enough to take it. I only spent about 15 minutes at the site but I’ve been thinking about this shot all week so I knew exactly what I wanted.

Day 240

Day 240, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

At a loss for what to shoot on another dreary lunch hour and I went for a selfie. With no tripod along, I set my camera a picnic bench and set up this shot. It must have looked pretty silly to some of the people passing by.

Day 239

Day 239, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

I haven’t been to the farm park in awhile so I took advantage of some clear weather between the storms and took this portrait. I like the balance here and the way the sheep fades into the background. The gesture is very elegant and proud. I should find out her name and have her sign a model release.

Day 238

Day 238, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

In memory of all of the brave men who died on this day in 1941. May we never forget them.

Day 237

Day 237, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

When I got back from my photo walk during the twilight hour I was very disappointed with everything I shot. I thought I hit a wall. Was this the day that I didn’t get a shot? As I was searching thru the images in Lightroom for anything that could pass for a decent photo, I inadvertently clicked on a preset named “Savera”. This was a preset I created last week as a demo when I was showing Lightroom to a friend at work. I was fiddling with the controls and just saved the preset as “Savera” to show him how presets work. When I hit the preset tonight, it just lit up this image! It’s amazing how just by hitting a preset button you can go from totally depressed to being exhilarated! I love Lightroom!

Day 236

Day 236, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

I’m using what I’ve learned from working with the bleached bypass to make this image work. I saw this bird having problems sitting on top of the windmill and knew he was going to take fight so I set up and started taking pictures. I like the balance in this shot and how the bird interacts with the negative space.

Day 235

Day 235, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

“The Bandana” Being point blank to Marc's ski poles is really scary but I stuck to it and took the shot. Great day in this mountains today!

Day 234

Day 234, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

Bleach bypass again today! This is my friend David Grega on stage at Ste. Michelle. We snuck unto the stage which is closed for the season. I thought we were going to get caught, it was really fun! This really seems to fit the bleach bypass process well with it’s high contrast and industrial feeling. It really reminds me a lot of the Maxell ads from the late 70s.

Day 233

Day 233, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

The Bleach Bypass development process has been in vogue for years now. I still don’t understand why it’s been so popular for so long but I’m going to work with the process and see what is so special about it. I did a quick search on the net on the process only to find information about the “how” to do it but not the “why” to develop with this process. This is pretty typical for the photography community in general though, a lot of tech but no substance.
My first impression of the Bleach Bypass process is that it works well with urban, industrial subjects where you want a high contrast and desaturated look. It adds a certain seriousness to an image and that may be one reason why it’s been so popular.

I took a walk thru downtown Redmond during lunch which is the closest urban area I can get to with the limited time I have for lunch. But they do have a skate park and nothing says urban like a skate park. I sat on the edge of the upper bowl and was just shooting different compositions of the cement and this skater kept skating into my frame. After awhile I struck up a conversation with “Wild Bill” and snapped some pictures of him skating and a couple of portraits. This is an environment portrait of him.

So this is my first attempt at this process. I kind of like it for this subject matter and I’m going to stick with this shoot with it for a couple of days and see where it takes me.

Day 232

Day 232, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

Oliver is one year old today so to commemorate the day I took a portrait of the little guy. It’s really hard to believe that he’s already a year old. Where does the time go?

Day 231

Day 231, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

It’s really becoming a challenge to find enough light for a good capture during the day because of the weather and the shorter dayligh hours. I set up for this one under the 95th St. bridge in Redmond to take some shelter from the rain and waited until the bridge’s light went on late in the afternoon so I had some light to work with. I put the camera on a tripod and waited across the river for someone to walk along the path and into my viewfinder. I stayed there for around 30 mins and had about a dozen people walk, run and ride bike thru.

I chose this one because of the quiet quality and somber mood. At first I was conserned that I was breaking the compositional rule of the subjects direction moving into the frame. When you break rules you really need a good reason to do it or the image may feel uncomfortable to the viewer. But the balance in so good in this image I felt I could get away with breaking the rule. His direction draws attention to himself which alerts the viewer to look closer and notices the school of fish on the back wall. The viewer then understands that the person is walking upstream and then it becomes a more interesting image.

Day 230

Day 230, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

It was a nice night to take pictures at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens. They do this great Holiday lights display every year and this years was as amazing as ever. It’s always a better to experience the display when there’s a little moisture on the ground because of the reflections.

I saw this Mother and her Son walking toward this tree when I got an idea to do a silhouette shot. When I first envisioned the shot they were the only two people in my field of view but once they got into position, there was a crowd closing in around them. I was lucky to snap this when I did because a second later and they were nowhere to be seen.

Day 229

Day 229, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

This is a sculpture from the backyard I photographed right after a hail storm. It was a crazy weather day today with freezing rain and hail followed by sun breaks and then changing back to rain again. It really limited my outdoor time for taking pictures.

When I take pictures of other people art, as in this sculpture, I want to do something different with the composition so that it’s not just a record of someone else's work. I shot this as if it’s a portrait and tried to give the composition some gesture to help bring this inanimate object to life. The bokeh helps create a focal point at the sculpture’s face and the color helps create a mood.

Day 228

Day 228, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

Another PowRider portrait. This is Calvin, who I met up at Steven’s Pass today for another great day in the backcountry. I took another four portraits today and you will be able see them on the PowRiders Project website when I get a chance to develop them: www.powriders.com

I’m really liking the idea for this project. I wrote a short project outline this week and I really feel like it’s going to improve my photography. This will take me out of my comfort zone and force me work creatively with the lighting at hand, which in turn, changes the importance to taking a relaxed, honest portrait. I also have plans to create a photo book from this project.

Day 227

Day 227, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

The holidays have begun! Here’s a Holiday image that’s unique to the Pacific Northwest, a rain soaked ornament hanging in the Rhododendrons.

Michele and I hung the lights up on the house today and decorated the Rhodies. It’s our traditional thing to do the day after Thanksgiving. When we were done I though the ornaments hanging in the Rhodies would make a great holiday card. It was raining and very low light so I had to shoot with the fastest lens I have. Man, the 50 prime is really getting a work-out so far this Winter....and Winter’s not even here yet!

Happy Holidays everyone from the Pacific NW!

Day 226

Day 226, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

We had a bit of a scare this morning with our 15 year old Golden Retriever. She wouldn’t get up , she wouldn’t eat and she had terrible problems walking. We were lucky enough to have our friend, who’s a vet, come over to diagnose and treat her in our kitchen. What a wonderful person to have come over on Thanksgiving to help our dog. We were just dumbfound as to what to do and really thought that we would be putting Gilda to sleep tonight instead of eating turkey.

This is a shot of our friend working some of his acupuncture magic on Gilda. She’s doing better now but she’s still really stiff and needs help getting up. She had a little dinner and was able to go up and down the steps on her own.

Day 225

Day 225, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

I’ve been wanting to take Monette’s portrait for a couple of weeks so when she came into work today in this striking orange hat we made plans to shoot right after lunch. The reason why I’ve wanted to take her portrait for awhile now is because of her light blue eyes. She really does have these color eyes too. I really didn’t have to do much to make her eye light up in post production. Also, the orange hat helps kick the blue color up a notch too being a complementary color.

Day 224

Day 224, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

I shot a similar photo at the end of the Summer but I said I wanted to go back a recapture something when there’s a little snow on the trees. I stopped in the morning to get a couple of shots but I was disappointed in the images. So I left work in time to shoot something during the golden hour. When I envisioned this shot in the beginning of last Summer, this is what I was thinking of. I’m glad I was finally able to get a shot that reflected that vision. For now, I’ve played out the snow on the Christmas Tree theme with three shots in a row so I’m on to something new tomorrow.

Day 223

Day 223, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

It snowed in Seattle this morning. I stopped at the Christmas tree farm and took some shots in very flat and colorless light.

Day 222

Day 222, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

Winter is here and the holidays are right around the corner so here’s a quiet little composition I shot in my front yard. This image reminds me a lot of some of the Christmas cards my parents used to get back in the 60s.

I really like all the different types of contrasts in this image. There’s the contrast of shapes, sharpness and of course tonality. The bokeh helps with the sense of depth as the contrast of sharpness really makes the foreground branches jump off the page. And I’m really liking how these dark boarders give my compositions a nostalgic feeling.

Day 221

Day 221, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

This is the first in my new photo series called “The PowRiders Project” (a website and Facebook group will be forth coming). My intent in this project to take backcountry portraits of people I meet in the backcountry and explore the the feelings of riding fresh, untouched powder snow thru these portraits.

This is one of 8 people I meet in the backcountry today at Steven’s Pass WA. The Ski resort wasn’t open yet but there were plenty of people up there hiking to the top of Skyline. The snow was really good for early season and you can tell by the smile on this man’s face.

I’m also going to be exploring some new boarders in this project. I think it gives the portrait a nice feeling of nostalgia.

Anyways, I hope you follow along with this new project of mine, it's going to be fun.

Day 220

Day 220, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

We treated Noelle to lunch today for her 21st birthday. Now that she’s 21 she’s going to have to start buying her own drinks. And I never even knew she was underage! That was the joke at lunch because she’s well past 21 but really doesn’t look it.

I made sure we were seated near a window so that we would have some nice light coming in for a birthday portrait of her. Happy Birthday Noelle!

Day 219

219, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

Another dark and dreary day today so I decided to make the best of the soft lighting and shoot a portrait. This is a portrait of Deane, an artist here at work. My first thought was to take a portrait of someone in deep shadows with highlighted facial features. But after a quick scouting trip during lunch I discovered that I would never get the look I was after without some help. The light is so soft that I needed something close to the face that would create a shadow area. I talked Deane into using this black umbrella which I thought would not only help set up the shadow areas but also be a nice contrast with her blond hair and fair complexion.

Day 218

Day 218, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

This is a hood ornament from an old dump truck for sale on the side of the road. I saw it a couple of days ago and wanted to stop but didn’t. This morning it was really dark and raining so I was thinking about shooting either something with color or something with texture. This fit both needs so I made the stop and took the shots.

Day 217

Day 217, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

I originally passed this image up in Lightroom thinking it was just a door knob and nothing too exciting. But when a friend walked by my desk and commented on how much she liked the image, I took a second look. Then when I was listening to a webcast with Chris Orwig he was talking about finding quiet in images, this image came to mind. It has a haunting feeling to it that I’m really drawn to but I’m still not sure if I really like it. It will be interesting to come back to this photo in a couple of months and see how I feel about it.

Day 216

Day 216, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

I went over to Redmond Town Center in search of light on a rainy day. I’ve been shooting a lot of portraits lately so my intention was to shoot something other than a portrait. I know it’s too early in the season for this but when the real Santa presents himself, you have to take the picture. This portrait reminds so much of the Coca-Cola Santa from the 50’s that I do believe this to be the one true Santa. How else could you explain the resemblance.

This was all shot with natural and available lights and composed in the camera, for what it’s worth.

Day 215

Day 215, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

This is a portrait of the Lucy, one of kids in the neighborhood. It was very overcast today so the light was a bit flat but that diffused lighting really does make for some nice portraits.

Day 214

Day 214, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

Having to work on a Saturday, I took advantage of the opportunity to take some portraits. This is a Casey, a character modeler here at work. This man spends a lot of time in front of his monitor so it seemed fitting to take his portrait in this manner. We were discussing how the solve the world’s problems I was taken by the light coming from the dual monitors in the background and how his dark shirt created a great graphic element in the foreground. I made sure to capture this while he was talking to avoid a posed gesture. His jaw looks a little soft because of the movement but the rest of the gesture is perfect.

Day 213

Day 213, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

Steve left a note on my monitor this morning that he was wearing his favorite Harley shirt today and wondered if I’d like to take a picture of him in it. I shot some nice photos on the way into work but I always welcome a chance to take someone’s portrait. So we just went out in the parking lot and found some nice morning light. I took the shots of him in his favorite Harley shirt but I really like this headshot with the rim lighting.