On the Fourth

Day 185

04 JULY 09

Day 185 fell on Independence Day, and I considered using one of my many fireworks photo attempts. Even started to process one of the photos, but I stopped myself. Decided to go against the grain. So much for the fireworks. ;-)

Every 4th of July, my husband's employer hosts a huge festival. It lasts all day with entertainment, a kids' carnival, and food, and it tops off at the end of the night with a huge fireworks display. Every year, my husband has to work the festival so the kids and I pack a cooler with food and drink and spend the day with him.

This was one of the entertainers for the day. A jazz musician. I wish I could remember his name; he was quite good. Even held a note on that sax for what seemed like a full 10 minutes. Dude was a master of circular breathing. My daughter (who plays the alto sax in her high school marching band) was green with envy.

I love this shot. Love the musicians position, love the story. I'm not crazy about the lighting, but what are you going to do with midday sun? And I hate hate hate that person in the lower left-hand corner. I thought about cloning him out, even made an attempt. Alas, my cloning skills were not up to snuff in this case.

Post-processing: noise reduction, sharpening, curves adjustment, border addition.

Sweet Music

DAY 16

16 JAN 09

Since the kids have a four-day weekend this week (Presidents' Day weekend), I had the opportunity to accompany my husband to his studio for his regular Friday recording sessions. Knowing they'd also been doing a lot of construction down there, I took my cameras along to get what I knew would be great shots.

While my husband was working in the back warehouse portion of the building, there were a couple musicians songwriting up front. Actually, they were in the early stages -- more idea lobbing than writing. They were brainstorming ideas. And man, was it entertaining! I told them more than once I had brought the wrong camera. I should have had my video camera with me. But I did have my still camera, and Jeff and Bradly turned out to be more interesting subjects than the construction was (although I got shots of that, too).

Meet Bradly. I took a bunch of pictures of him while he played, some incorporating depth of field and selective focusing as in the shot above, others using motion blur to try and show just how dynamic the process was. In the end, I had so many shots to choose from, it was extremely difficult. This particular shot just spoke to me, and it did so the moment I captured it. Something told me this would be my shot for the day.

Post-processing includes noise reduction and sharpening, and I applied some additional lens blur to the ugly background. Borders were also added.