I’m not sure if I love Port Wine because I am Portuguese, or because I love the feeling it gives me. If I want to drink something that is going to make me happy, sleepy, and sexy at the same time – Port wine it is. My brain was fried after work on Monday, but I had to meet with Sam to go over more Google Maps work. I opted to meet at our favorite bar, Congress, instead of a coffee shop. Something about the Port wine made working a 13 hour day enjoyable!
While running around Providence with Dan, the sky started to look awesome. Instead of scouting out a nice location, I opted to focus on the sky with the tree silhouettes in the foreground before I lost the awesome light all together. Can you guess where this was taken?
Saturday’s 365 is from another Google Maps shoot I did with Sam. This was from Copacetic Rudely Elegant Jewelry in Providence, RI. There where a ton of cool things in this shot, but the clock on the left was probably my favorite.
The owner Don, is a super nice guy and has some really cool gadgets and clocks in addition to Jewelry sourced from local artists. You can check out more clocks and jewelry in the tour here: http://goo.gl/maps/jYB5o Be sure to let him know you saw his shop on Google Maps!
I had the pleasure of shooting Providence Florist aka Blooming Blossoms in Providence, RI on Friday for Google Maps. Pam has a really great shop with some amazing flowers and arrangements. You can check out the Street View tour here: http://goo.gl/51HYv
I am not sure what type of flower this is exactly, but I do know that it is awesome looking! If you work for a small business or own a small business and want to show off your establishment on Google maps, check out www.rhodeislandbusinessphotos.com and let me know if you’re interested!
While photographing for The Colosseum on Thursday night, I grabbed this shot of one of the GoGo dancers doing her thing. I am a sucker for silhouettes and colorful lights.
This was Williams first “leg ride”. He was way too amused by the simple act of being dragged across the floor on my foot. I love this little dude.
I had another busy day on Tuesday and this is all I came up with – my keys. I can not deal with a key ring with more than 3 keys, the extra weight and awkwardness drive me nuts. I find it interesting that when I use a off camera flash off to the side of a metal object, and shoot the object from above or straight on, I get these awesome bokeh balls.
I just realized I never posted my 365 photo from Monday the 14th. I can not even find the image files from that day. I have been so busy the past two weeks that I have started to let this project slip. I have indeed been taking my photos on a daily basis, but barely have time to edit and post them right after I shoot them. I took this shot on 1/22/13 but am posting it as 1/14/13’s 365 photo, it’s my project so I guess I make the rules, and instead of ending it because of this slip up and starting over, I am going to continue forward on the journey and learn from my mistakes.
A nightly ritual.
I was feeling a little under the weather on Saturday night so I stayed in for most of the evening. I wanted to do a macro shot and I wanted something metal, so I grabbed my old Minolta X-370 and got a little weird.
While shooting for Northern Lights on Friday night, I tried a new technique while photographing the glovers. I tried using an off camera flash to freeze the glovers face while using a long exposure to capture the light trails. I am not 100% happy with the results just yet, but I see a lot of potential with the technique combined with the art of gloving.
I have been meaning to make a texture pack for some time now so I figured I would make it Thursday’s 365. These images are completely open source and free for you to use however you would like. You can download all the high resolution images here: http://kevinjamesphoto.com/textures-by-kevinjames-v1.zip
Diamond Plate
Plywood
Concrete
Treadmill
Bubble Wrap
Sam sent me a macro shot of a pencil tip breaking on a piece of paper so I had to give it a shot. I decided it would be more interesting to have a drawing on the piece of paper that the pencil could interact with. My drawing skills flat out suck, so I googled “cartoon outline”. I saw this little tough guy on an About.com drawing article by Shawn Encarnacion and thought he would make a good subject, if you want to learn how to draw this little dude check out the article here: http://drawsketch.about.com/od/cartooning/ss/cartoontoughguy.htm
I failed at getting much of the in-air pencil shrapnel, and the little muscle man printed out a bit pixelated, but I was happy with the results overall. I did some focus stacking to try and get most of the muscle man and pencil tip sharp while keeping the rest of the image soft. I also used an off camera flash to the left of the camera shooting in to a reflective umbrella, to get a bit of a shadow off the back of the pencil.
On Tuesday I met up with Sam Henry to work on some Google Maps Street View work. We where both playing with the Sigma 8mm Fisheye lens so I figured I would make an image with it. Instead of just a single shot, I decided to make another small planet. I did not have my tripod on hand so I did this hand held which makes it less than perfect, but it is a cool view of the boats and the bridge. This was taken in Providence, RI over near India Street / South Water street, street view of that location here: http://goo.gl/maps/oZQne
I have a regular panorama from this location as well I will be adding shortly.
I try not to use photos from my day job in my 365, but sometimes the equipment I photograph is really interesting. This is part of a endoscopy camera unit. Probes are connected to this device then inserted in to your body to make images and video of your insides. Pretty cool stuff!
The beard is back in full effect and I am ok with it.
This photo sums up my Saturday night pretty well. I stayed home and built a new website with the Bootstrap framework. I am super impressed by how quickly I was able to build a site that behaved well across multiple browsers and platforms with it’s responsive CSS. I have not been able to work on the site or the logo much since then but you can check it out at http://www.ribizphoto.com
My mother has decided to sell her house, so I have been helping her get the property ready to be shown to potential buyers. Photographing the house I grew up in, and helped build, so it can be put up for sale was a bit emotional. It was also pleasantly nostalgic experience. All the good times, bad times, laughs and cries shared in this kitchen over the years will be ingrained in my head for the rest of my life. It’s not the fanciest house, but it was our house, and it will be missed.
I almost forgot about my 365 on Thursday. When I got home with about 20 minutes to spare, I started looking around the house for something interesting. I saw this huge jar of buttons my mother has been saving over the years and decided to work with it.
Day 240 of 365 – Stress Relief
When life gets hectic, I can always count on taking photos to help me relieve some stress. It’s even more therapeutic when I have a fellow photographer to shoot and talk about nerdy camera stuff with. I finally talked Sam Henry in to starting his own 365 project, so on Wednesday night I went out with him to take some photos for our projects. You can check Sam’s photo from this evening here: http://samhenryphotography.com/?p=178
Sam’s focus was the bridge, my focus was on capturing a photo of Sam making his 365 photo. My attempts at capturing Sam do his thing in this lighting environment where quite bad, so I turned my attention elsewhere. While Sam was shooting the highway, I noticed a big hole in the fence that separates the sidewalk from the freeway. I tried a few different shots and angles, but this macro of the fence was by far my favorite shot of the night. The fence’s blue tone was unintentional, but it ended up complimenting the whole shot nicely.
Here is one of the shots of Sam capturing his project. 365ception!
