Day 78

Day 78, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

Kind of an unproductive day today but I settled on this self portrait from the heaps of garbage I shot today.

Day 77

Day 77, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

This was taken in the playground at Grasslawn Park in Redmond. I don't know who the girl was but if I ever meet her, I'll thank her for wearing the teal dress.

Day 76

Day 76, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

The windmill at Marymoor. Maybe it’s just me but the clouds have been spectacular out here in the Pacific Northwest lately.

Day 75

Day 75, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

I spent the day working in the backyard so I didn't have much time for shooting pictures. I didn't even turn my camera until after 9:00 pm. But after a well needed shower I started shooting some of the landscape lighting in the backyard. I noticed the sky behind the house was lighting up really cool. The clouds were moving fast so I got that cool blur too.

Day 74

Day 74, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

We had a BBQ in the cul-de-sac tonight and I was being annoying with my camera as usual. This is Gabi, a beautiful "young lady" in the neighborhood who is actually very photogenic when she's not making goofy faces. I love the highlights on her eyelashes and the little hair on her cheek. I couldn't decide whether to go with a Sepia tone or straight B&W. I settled on the sepia because it softens the harsh shadows which I felt was correct for image.

Day 73

Day 73, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

Too many choices of bad images today. I didn't like anything I shot. This was taken at the North Creek Park in Bothell around sunset. The best of a bad day, I guess.

Day 72

Day 72, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

I was walking around my favorite park in Redmond shooting the alphabet, a technique I learned from Vincent Versace, when I came across this wonderful hog laying next to an open door ( I was on the letter K). After taking a couple of shots I discovered that this would be the perfect opportunity to use my camera's built in HDR function. For those who don't know; this function will take two photos of the same image, one darker and one lighter, then merges them together to create a more dynamic image. This way I can get detail in both the bright exterior and the dark interior. This is nearly impossible with a normal exposure and could only be done by compositing later in Photoshop. But enough technical stuff, here's my picture of a pig forming the letter K.

Day 71

Day 71, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

I'm breaking a couple of photography rules here by shooting with the sun behind the subject and shooting at midday but I like breaking rules. And I like starting sentences with "and".…but I digress

The clouds were so cool during lunch they just had to be part of any photo. This is a sculpture on the bike path ...near Redmond City Hall. I liked the idea of the fish swimming in the sky and the sun is an added element that feels like it's glowing from within the heart of the sculpture. Almost like I'm bringing life to this inanimate object thru my photography…..

Day 70

Day 70, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

I saw this guy cleaning the windows at Redmond city hall on the way back from a lunchtime walk. I like how it looks like he's floating in the clouds, above the tree tops.

Day 69

Day 69, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

For the first day of Summer I wanted to take a shot that relected that, no pun intended.

Day 68

Day 68, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

I'm not sure why I took this picture, I can only tell that I couldn't resist it. Pink famingos againts a red truck...it was just asking to be photographed. But I did finally get to use the isolate red preset in Lightroom that I've been itching to use so I guess it's a success.

Day 67

Day 67, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

Great day at the Washington Brewers Festival! A Festival about beer... what more can you ask for? Yes, I was shooting as he was a handing m a beer that's dedication!

Day 66

Day 66, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

This is a portrait of Mischu, our 7 year old Whoodle who has cancer. She's had two chemo treatments and is doing well now. Most of the time she acts like a normal dog. It's amazing what vets can do now.

Day 65

Day 65, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

Another cloudy day but I managed to get a good shot of this Heron on Lake Sammamish. This one is all about balance. I shot this at 200mm, my zoom fully extended and I still had to crop in a bit. I added the dark graduation at the bottom to balance out the dark band of trees at the top. I made sure the horizon line was perfectly straight and directly on the upper third line while the Heron sits perfectly at the lower, left third line. The handrail adds a nice sculptural element to the perched bird focus point and really makes this image a little more unusual.

Day 64

a500-0031.jpg, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

"The Turn" I went over to the Marymoore Velo track for lunch today to shoot this idea. I got lucky with the cloud break and then made the whole thing work in Lightroom. I'm really happy with the cinematic feeling of this.

Day 63

a500-0116.jpg, originally uploaded by Terry Schmidbauer.

"Little Ansel" The clouds were stunning today but I waited until late in the day, when the sun was lower to take this shot. I shot this once before but it didn't make my shot of the day. But as I was thinking of what to shoot this spot came to mind. This was on my way home so it was an easy one as I knew what I wanted to do.

Also, you may have noticed that I'm changing photo sharing from PicasaWeb to Flickr.  I like the interface better at Flickr and it hooks into Lightroom better.

Day 62

I should have saved this one for Thanksgiving but it was too good to not post. I went over to my favorite park in Redmond and the this turkey was just walking around out side the pen. I sat down and let him come to me. I'm learning Vince!

Day 61

While we were at Tonya and Andy's for a waffle brunch this morning I decided to terrorize the cat :) Here kitty, kitty, kitty.....

I shot this with my 50 prime because of the low lighting situation and even then I had to brighten up the image in Lightroom. I hand held this at 1/30 which is a stop lower that you should shoot at but because of the steady shot I was able get something acceptable. Thank you Sony!  I also added some saturation to the eyes and nose and created the dark grad from the bottom, all in Lightroom!  Love that program!

Day 60

I shot over 500 photos and this is the best I could come up with :) Michele and I went over to our friends Victor and Kellie's for dinner before we went to the roller derby. After dinner Victor brought out the martini kit all hell broke loose. Needless to say we never made it to the roller derby..... but we got some awesome shots...well at least they looked good at the time. It's amazing how booze can ehance your shooting abilities!

Day 59

"The Photographer"....This is a fellow photographer who was in a workshop with me today down at Pike Street Market. I was drawn to classic look and feel of this shot and I was trying to mimic Velvia slide film to enhance that feeling. I haven't tried the Velvia look yet because I feel it's been done to death by other photographers but it really works with this image...so what the hell!....Do yourself a favor and click on the image so you can see the entire composition...it won't hurt, I promise.

Day 58

I was showing a workmate my new camera and we just happened by his bike. He's really into his boots and wanted me to get some shots of his boots down low. So, as I was looking thru the new liveview I noticed that this was the perfect portrait of Steve.

Day 57

I actually shot this last night with the new camera but I screwed up the date settings so no one will know the difference...oops. The focusing is amazing on the new camera, I love it. I'm discovering the camera today so although I've shot a lot of pictures, they all look like test shots, which they are. This is much more interesting.

Day 56

This reminds me of a shot I took in college. I was at a total loss as to what I was going to shoot today so I set the GPS to the nearby St Edwards State Park and just took a walk around hoping something would sparkle. This staircase was hiding on the other side of one of the really old buildings at the park. I took a bunch of shots at different angles. Back in the darkroom, I was trying different presets in Lightroom to convert it to B&W and the image just lit up on my screen when I used the high contrast Black and White. I love it when that happens!

Day 55

Everything says old except for the tagging on the bridge. I could have taken it out in PS but I kind of liked the contradiction

Day 54

I saw this odd little hut on the way back from Levenworth.

Day 53

I went rafting this weekend over on the other side of the mountains and while I was there I took some time to shoot sunset pictures on Lake Wenatchee.

Day 52

No time to take pictures on a rainy day and I was getting ready and leaving for a rafting trip right after work so I just shot a self portrait while I was driving.....well, stopped at a light.

Day 51

I got my shot early this today. I was filling with gas at Costco when I saw a car group start to gather up in the lot. They were headed over to Winthrop for some event and they more than happy to have some photos taken of their cars.

Day 50

Wow, 50 days! It was raining today and I had no idea waht to shoot so I went over to Marymore with the idea to shoot puddles. I walked onto the tennis courts and the colors just lit up my viewfinder. I had to use a polarizer to control the reflections. I shot until my lens was too wet to shoot any longer. I stuck the camera inside my sweatshirt and headed to the car and dried it off.

Day 49

I took a drive over to Bridle Trails State Park in Bellevue and was disappointed in the fact that it was just a bunch of trees and a lot of horse pooh. Tried something different with a telephoto shot..