Fatsia Japonica - Day 33

Fatsia japonica and its umbel of small white flowers blooming in my front yard.

Day 48 - Rainbow Slinky

My rainbow plastic Slinky illuminated with an LED Litepanel.

Quiet - Day 151 #CY365

Time to enjoy an evening caffè lungo and some quiet time. Canon 5D Mark II, 1/80 sec @ f/8.0, ISO 800, one LED Litepanel for illumination.

Resourcefulness - Day 129 #CY365

Being resourceful, I put an old Hurst T-Handle from my 1973 Mustang Mach I to good use. Meet the ultimate in performance mice, the Logitech-Hurst Darkfield T-Handle. Canon 5D Mark II, 1/160 sec @ f/8.0, ISO 800 photographed in a light tent with two LED Litepanels for illumination.

Small Details - Day 125 #CY365

Blades from a Gillette Fusion razor at 5x magnification. At this level of magnification you can clearly see the grinding marks from the placing of the edge on the blades. Canon, 13 seconds at f/16.0, ISO 100, MP-e 65mm macro lens, lit with a Litepanels Micro LED light, mounted on a tripod.

Uplifting - Day 120 of 365 #CY365

I love watching the ferns come back to life in the Spring. They sprout new stems and uncurl the beautiful leaves from a tightly wound center, one of the many uplifting signs of Spring. Canon 5D Mark II, 1/160th sec @ f/11.0, ISO 1600, 100mm macro.

Colorado Blue Columbine - Day 116 #CY365

Our Colorado Blue Columbine has a night visitor. The little spiders are everywhere tonight. Almost every bloom I looked at across the yard had the busy little spiders working away. Canon 5D Mark II 1/160 sec @ f/11, ISO 1600, two LED light panels.

Fill the Frame - Day 97 #CY365

The little assassin bug nymph "Zelus" is stalking a tiny fly on this forsythia flower tonight. I went outside with my LED light panel and macro lens to look for an interesting macro photo to "fill my frame". The wet forsythia seemed like a good place to start. I was amazed at the tiny insects I saw - spiders, aphids, little flies and this cool Zelus. Seconds after taking this photo, the Zelus sprang and caught the fly below.

Canon 5D Mark II, 1/400 sec @ f/8.0, ISO 1600, one LED Litepanel and an LED Ring Light.

Spring - Day 80 #CY365

The Pieris japonica 'Valley Rose' are in full bloom for the first time. These wonderful bushes are flanking either side of our front porch and were recommended and installed last summer with our new front yard landscaping design from Bill Maxwell of Maxwell Landscaping Services. Canon 5D Mark II, 1/250th sec @ f/11.0, ISO 1600.

Duplicate - Day 77 #CY365

Batman and his twin. Canon 5D Mark II, 1/50 sec @ f/8.0, ISO 400, 100mm macro lens.

Arranged - Day 71 #CY365

Today's challenge was to arrange something in a stack and use a shallow depth of field to create a blurred effect. I love photography books, well to be truthful, I love everything about photography. Anyway, I stacked some of my recent favorites, used a couple of LED litepanels, a macro lens and voila - we have a photo of the day. But back to the photography books - someone once said the two most important things you can do to improve your photography are: 1) take lots of pictures, hence the 365 project and 2) look at lots of photographs with a critical eye. While digital photos on a computer screen are pretty cool, in my opinion nothing beats the printed photograph for appreciating the work. Photography books are a great place to both see good photographs and understand how they were made.

Canon 5D Mark II, 1/250 sec @ f/5.6, ISO 400.

Muse - Day 65 #CY365

I had to find my muse on the Capture Your 365 project gallery today. It was easy because I have been admiring the work of contributor Pam Scott since joining the project in January. She has a great closeup eye for photos. I choose her Day 49 "In the Front Yard" photo of a pink camellia as my inspiration. Here's my pink camellia completely desaturated and presented in black and white. I was looking to capture the same texture and feel as Pam did but with my own view. Canon 7D, 1/125 sec @ f/8.0, ISO 400, converted to black and white using Silver Efex Pro.

Cattus Petasatus - Day 61 #CY365

Happy Birthday Theodor Seuss Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, who was born on March 2, 1904. This is a Latin translation of the children's classic first published in 1957. It belongs to my son Michael who teaches high school Latin and it's looked over by my prized Lucky Cat. iPhone 5, one LED Litepanel and the Camera+.

Bittersweet - Day 56 #CY365

Today's prompt - Bittersweet. I eschewed the obvious, chocolate, and went for liquor instead. Here my friends is a Rob Roy, a cocktail created in 1894 by a bartender at the Waldorf Astoria New York. Similar to a Manhattan, it is basically Scotch whiskey, sweet vermouth, a dash of bitters garnished with a maraschino cherry. The best part of today's project, drinking the prop. Canon 5D Mark II, 1/60sec @ f/4.5, ISO 400, illuminated with three LED Litepanels.

In the Front Yard - Day 49 #CY365

Not much happening in the front yard today, so I had to "manufacture" a picture. Went out tonight with my macro lens, two LED litepanels and a jar of bubbles. So there you have it. Oh the things one will do to get a 365 picture. Canon 7D, 1/50 sec @ f/8.0, ISO 1600, 100mm macro lens.

Conversation - Day 44 #CY365

Used some of my vast PEZ collection for today's photo. The PEZ Valentine's Day dispensers mimic the popular conversation candy hearts. I really struggled with this topic today. Not that happy with the results. Canon 7D, 1/15 sec @ f/18, ISO 800, 100mm macro lens.

Old School - Day 38 #CY365

Old School - This is my Sterling model No. 594 Decimal Trig Multi-Log slide rule ©1965. I acquired this slide rule in 1972 from the Tidewater Community College bookstore at the old Camp Pendleton Virginia Beach Campus. I still have the original 10 inch long belt holster - a symbol of geek cool. This pretty much makes it "old school" and believe it or not I still know how to use it. The slide rule would be obsolete within 5 years, replaced by cheap electronic calculators. Today these elegant mechanical analog computers are relegated to collector's items. Canon 7D, 1/200 sec @ f/18, ISO 800, 100mm macro lens.

Focusing - Day 30 #CY365

Our late blooming Christmas Cactus is the subject of my "Focusing" photo for today. Using a macro lens for an extreme close-up results in a very shallow depth of field allowing the photographer to to draw the viewer into a certain part the photo which is in sharpest focus. In this case the purple stigma and the pollen covered stamen are the focal point. Canon 5D Mark II, 1/125 sec @ f/7.1, ISO 1600, one LED Litepanel held below the flower and just barely out of the frame.

RJ-45 - Day 28 #CY365

A super close-up of the lifeblood RJ-45 network connector for most of our computers. Without the wired ethernet network there would be no Internet, no WiFi and probably no Google, Amazon, Facebook, . . . you get the picture. Technically RJ-45 is short for Registered Jack-45, an eight-wire connector used commonly to connect computers onto a local-area network. I personally think it an object of beautiful functionality.

Canon 7D, 1/160 sec @ f/11.0, ISO 1600, 100mm macro lens captured at 1:1 or life size on the camera's image sensor.

Umbrellas - Day 23 #CY365

Umbrellas - Day 23 of 365. Canon 5D Mark II, 1/1000 sec @ f/8.0, ISO 800, 100mm macro lens, backlit with LED litepanel.