In the arms of his love

2 Months

Look out ladies. This guy has more confidence than he can handle.

One of the few good shows left...

This show "30 Days" has been around for a while. It's into its 4th season now. However, we've just started watching it (thanks Netflix) and we love it! I think it's one of greatest shows on TV today, not for its entertainment value, which it has much of, but for its informative value. Here's the premise. One person spends 30 days in the shoes of another, and in the end, better understands his/her situation/viewpoint/belief. Its simple but great! Subjects can be anything from Illegal Immigration to Atheism to 30 days in a wheelchair. Though the show leans a bit left, for all you right wing nut jobs ;-), let it go. It is very informative will always bring a new perspective in your life. Check it out. Its on FX if you have cable, we don't so we do Netflix, which is better anyway.

Oldie but a goodie

Since my wife won't let me "shoot" her these days, I had to pull from a past photo shoot we had. She sat at the kitchen table in front of the white wall. I simply brightened up the wall in Photoshop to a bright white (and a few other adjustments). Voila! Home studio...

Mo Ro!

Enough Rowan already? Well since Heather won't let me get within 25 feet of her with a camera in my hand, I resort to the one with slightly less agency.

Rowan on Black

Forget silly baby photos! I like to see my baby deep in thought. This was Rowan just before he asked. "Daddy, why do bad things happen to good people?"

Striking!

This shot was taken in Kanab, UT. I happened to be at a great place at the time of the storm. The shot consists of probably two or three strikes. In order to capture lightning you must have a camera that allows for the shutter speed to be changed. For this shot the shutter was open for 30 seconds in shutter priortiy mode (camera decides the aperture setting automatically) to allow for the camera to capture at least one strike. Its a lot of luck and patience. Oh and don't forget the tripod! Impossible without it.

More Baby

Cloverfield

We watched Cloverfield over the weekend. I know I am way behind the times. It's been out of theatres for a while now. It got pretty good reviews which is why I rented but didn't really see what the hype was all about. If you don't know what its about, basically a weird monster attacks Manhattan. The End. Meanwhile there is some love interest going on but thats it. The only reason the movie had so much hype was the way it was shot, through a hand held camera being operated by one of the victims. This is movie that can only be fully enjoyed (if at all) in the theatre with great sound and a huge screen that will hugely increase the effect they were going for aka "how many people can we get to puke" I thought the movie was simply a gimmick that didn't have a plot to carry it. Not one of my recommendations.

Rare moment

With Rowan's busy schedule, its difficult to catch him when he's taking his nap. However, in between his Pilates class and brunch, I managed to snap a rare shot of him sleeping.

On a side note - Because I wanted to incorporate photography in this, not simply photos but also the art and technique. I wanted to use this photo to bring up what is called Depth of Field. If you look you can see that Rowans blanket is mostly out of focus, his face is mostly in focus and the background behind him is again completely out of focus. That shallow area that is mostly in focus is called Depth of Field. A shallow D.O.F is much desired in portrait photography. It can be manipulated in Photoshop but it doesn't look as natural.

To achieve this effect you can do one of these things (or both to increase the effect)

1. Back up and zoom in. The further in you zoom the less DOF you have. Great for portraits.

2. Open your aperture all the way up (put it on the lowest number) your camera may or may not have that manual capability. If it doesn't put it to "Portrait" mode and it will somewhat do it for you automatically. The aperture on the lens I used can be opened up much more than most lenses. This is how I was able to achieve that effect.

Try it out.

"Smile"

It's not often you see a new born smile, however, because Daddy is sooo funny, he just couldn't hold it in any longer.

Ulrich Schnauss (featured artist)

I'm happy to feature one of my newly favorite discovered artists, Ulrich Schnauss. Please check out "Letter from home" below. Its sure to lift your spirits.

Rowan

Conditions are perfect...

Vitals are good, epidural is turned up to 11...

IV is in making sure all is good and liquid...

and after a "few minutes" of pushing, Will Ferrell pulled the little guy out

Here he is just laughing hysterically


All the laughing made him tired. Now he is very serious.

After all this Heather still looks gorgeous. I think Rowan agrees.

Rowan has very large feet. Obviously from Heather.

...and the funny thing is, he does it to himself.

Heather and I both agree how much of a blessing our special little guy is. A rare gem.

Photography on a budget

Some of you have seen this of my darling nephew Andrew. It was taken with a used 50 dollar lens on my entry level Nikon. You don't have to spend for quality....just wanted to drive that point home.

It just keeps looking smaller

Every time I handle some of the more higher end D-SLR's Im reminded of how small my Nikon D40X is. However, I love my camera and it takes great pictures. All of the photography posted on this site (minus the header picture, that was taken with a Kodak Easyshare that I handed down to Heather :-) The camera has been replaced so Im sure there are people selling theirs for cheap. If you want to step up to a DSLR I would highly recommend it. You don't have to spend a fortune to get good pictures.

I knew I only needed my Nikon D40X!

I'm so excited that this lens came out, you have no idea. I was just about to post on the new Nikon D90 which is supposed to be the cat's pajamas for only $1,000 ;-) but as I was looking for a picture for it I saw the announcement for this. I don't need the D90 anymore. Its about time that Nikon released a 50mm that fits with my camera. Now to come up with $440 bucks.

Tempe Town Lake Bridge

Though I don't like this photo much as far as content, it does have a very cool effect. This was my first attempt at an HDR photo. HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. Basically by combining 3 or more images you can capture much more range of detail in highlights and shadows than just one exposure. I use a software called Photomatix. Its not free unfortunately, Im just using a trial right now. For more on the process of HDR go here. I'll let someone else get into the details.

An amazing discovery!

Watch this amazing discovery. I find it quite beautiful despite of what my wife thinks.

And please......share your thoughts.

Lackluster (Featured Artist)

To kick off the featured artist string, I'm featuring Lackluster. One man out of Helsinki, Finland. Lackluster is minimal techno. Its melodic and great for a good lie down. Check out a few tracks from the playlist below. If you're too late and we've moved on click here.

Tired of Pandora?

Many of you who are familiar with Pandora would call that question blasphemous? I agree that Pandora is one of the best programs for music on the internet to ever come around. I use it everyday, which is the main reason I bring this up. I have found that I have almost exhausted Pandora's selection of music. I am constantly telling Pandora to not play a certain song for a month because they play it over and over.

If you don't use Pandora all the time you probably won't have this problem. But if you want something else, try last.fm for a change. Click on Radio and type in an artist and it will play music similar to that artist like Pandora. The layout is not near as convenient and you can't pause the music but you can skip as many songs as you want as far an I've seen. Also you will find that last.fm has more variety that Pandora is missing. They also have a huge library of full tracks you can listen to on demand. If I'm behind the times and you are already using it or something better let me know.

Welcome

Hey guys. Welcome to my brand new blog named "Sight & Sound" If you were wondering if there was a title, it's written on the wall next to our visually impaired friends above, in case you didn't already see that. I'm creating this blog because my wife blogs like an addict and is getting some great response from it. If you want to know how my testicular cancer is going, just check the blog! (I don't have testicular cancer by the way) Our focus here will be based mostly around sight and sound so I will be posting personal photography (like the one you see above), videos, and featuring musical artists here and there. And if I feel a need to share something completely off topic then that will takc place here too. I'll leave all the "our life as an open book" blogging to my beautiful wife. Thanks for visiting and feel free to leave any comments.