You gave her a WHAT?

As I walked up the ramp leaving the building, my foot made a "ching.... ching... ching." noise, kind of like a mini pair if spurs.

But only on the right foot.

We shook hands, said our thank yous and when I got to the car I lifted my foot to find this:

My shoes were packed with multiple bullet casings.

Yep, when everyone else is at church (ok, none of the heathens we know, but lots of good god fearing folk), we were off at the gun range.

Why?  Well, other than good clean fun, we were there to take the test for our conceal/carry class.  Yep, in true redneck fashion, we want to carry guns (and legally too!) all the time.  It's something we've wanted to do for a while, and have recently felt like it was an important thing that we get accomplished.

It was actually quite fun, but as I hadn't shot for a while, I was kind of nervous.  I also admit to cheating off of Gene's written test on a couple answers, which was a MISTAKE because we both missed the question. LOL. 

Surprisingly, I know more about parts of a gun than I thought I did.

huh.

You have to qualify, which means you have to shoot 50 rounds at 21 at a paper homicidal maniac.  Then, you get to shoot him another 50 times (ish) with a revolver and a semi-automatic.  And I say him, because hellooooo..... do you see earrings on my paper guy?

no.

Once you shoot a big fat hole in the middle of your guy, you have passed your test and now can apply for a license barring any problems with your mental state or criminal history.

*cross your fingers for me*

Gene, being a show off  and a former cop, of course shows me up.  Douche.  All of his holes are in the important part of the paper maniac. 

Mine on the other hand.....

Well, I maintain that one up there by #7, while out of the "important zone of 9" is still a good shot because I feel confident I hit the juglar.

It'll be a slow death.

Sorry.

Oh, and now I want a semi-automatic pistol for christmas.

really.

BTW, thanks for the kind words Tuesday.  I feel better and feel less like killing people, which is probably a good thing considering I don't have that CC license yet. ha.

Good night and good riddance

Ever have one of those days, where you know around 9:30 a.m. that you probably should just have stayed in bed?  And you got up at 9:05?!
Yeah, it's been one of those days. 

I can barely up the muster to put my clothes on, let alone anything else.  A foul, stinky, "I hate the world" kind of mood I tell ya.  I had a blog post planned for today, but instead I have decided to sleep it off - like a bad headache that won't go away.

More tomorrow.

In the meantime, enjoy my dark, moody photo which kind of illustrates my mood.

What's an extension tube anyway?

If you love close up/macro photos you may already know that a macro lens, even a cheap one, is going to set you back hundreds of dollars.   I totally will admit that I've had one on my amazon wish list for several years now, but the truth is, I really need other lenses more.

Gene sells jewelry online, and I really struggle with getting a great shot that shows the details of the piece. 

Introducing... the extension tube.

An extension tube is just that.  Basically a tube that moves the lens away from the camera base.  There's a couple different sizes that you can buy for a canon mount, but in reality, you can make your own out of some black pipe and some hose clamps.

However, I really wanted my camera to take readings while I got the shot so I went for the OEM product from Canon which costs around $140-$175.  A virtual steal when it comes to "lenses".

Essentially, what happens is that it moves the lens away from the body which reduces that minimum focal distance.  My 50 mm lens before was 1.5 feet minimum distance from the object, but now I can get down to about 4 inches from my subject.

Here's a couple examples of what the extension tube can accomplish.  Both photos below are as close as I can possibly get, no cropping of the image.

As you can see, the focal length greatly affects also how close you can get, but on some items you may not want to get that close so you can choose a lens with a longer focal length.

This has greatly improved my close up shots.

You don't want to forget, that with any lens, you need to narrow your aperture to increase your depth of field.  This will guarantee your subject will be nice and crisp.  You'll have to give up something else in return though - you'll need a lot of light the more you narrow your aperture.  (just increasing your ISO will cause grain unless you have a 1dx.  Which I don't)

My over all evaluation is that the ext tube was a great investment for my return.  Not the same as a macro lens, but pretty darn good anyway for what I need to accomplish.  If you're looking for a good photography gift for someone, this is a winner.

If you'd like to read more about extension tubes, here is a great article.

A different spin on a senior photo

Now for something... kind of different.
Paige's senior photos.

Evaluating another photographer's work

I got an email on facebook from an old friend from high school.  "Do you have the historical society on your friends list?  They just posted a photo of your family."

It took a matter of seconds from getting that email, until I requested being added to the group of other people sharing the heritage of our hometown.  The curator, Sandi, had acquired boxes of negatives from a 40's/50's era photographer.  Lovingly she scans each one, and shares the results with the group.  Many people seeing relatives long passed.

In this group of thousands of photos, were a few taken of my dad and his siblings as young children.  The above photo I've seen before, that's my dad on the upper left.  He's the oldest boy.  The only one missing is his older sister who was living with my great-grandmother out of state.

Most would look at this photo and see their family...
"Uncle's tooth is missing"
"Look how she dressed them as twins, even though they're not."
"What's up with the high waters?"
"Love the pomade dad."

As a photographer though, I evaluate other things...
"Posing is pretty bad, but great considering 5 kids under 10"
"What happened to Uncle's hand?  Horrible crop."
"What's up with the random chair?"
"Off camera flash?  I see you have problems with that too."

 

{Never before seen photos of my family, around 1946-ish)

Then I remembered that we all start somewhere, even if it was 60 years ago. I will reserve MY early work to scare away mice under the house.

But as I looked at other pieces of his work, I saw something else. Here was a guy (because there weren't many female photographers back then) that was really trying to push the envelope.  He was shooting in people's homes, yards, and in their daily surroundings rather than a studio.  I'm guessing he didn't have one.

He was experimenting with posing and with light.

He was taking on jobs with people I know were lower income (my family probably being one of them, hence multiple trips to this photographer as evidenced above).

He worked sometimes in shallow depth of fields (which blows my mind).

He sometimes worked with odd random props.

It was then that I realized, that the man was a visionary, a man ahead of his times. I've looked at thousands upone thousands of vintage photos in my life (I have a collection), and I've never seen work like his.   Most photos you will find are either snapshots, or they are studio shots.  I don't ever remember seeing work in a family's home specifically, or while they are playing in the yard.

These are things you see now, 60 years later, and he was doing things things either out of desire our necessity.  I'm assuming necessity since he had no studio.

Then I realized, that he and I have more in common than I could imagine. Technically his work might need some work, but the vision is the same.  Make people happy.  Give them what they can afford.  Go to them when you don't have a place to put them.  Work on the technical aspects to do your best.  Improve your work 10-fold.

And for that, I give us both a pat on the back.