And We're Back from New York City

We experienced an amazing, fun-filled, and busy weekend in Manhattan meeting Megan's long lost cousins from the island of Lifou.  We didn't have much time to spare, but we did find time to make it to the American Museum of Natural History, Times Square, and Rockefeller Plaza.

Happy Christmas!

-Tom

Fall Fun

Gotta love these guys!

-Tom

A Boy and his Pumpkin Part II

So Brody, our youngest son, is a ball to photograph because he's the boy with a thousand expressions. We'll even do little mini photo shoots where I just say "brody, do expressions", and he'll start flashing happy, sad, crazy monster boy, and so on.  But the photo above shows one of his authentic looks. We went to Legend Hills Orchard this Saturday near Utica, where he chose one of the largest pumpkins available.  I think he's almost in disbelief just how big and how cool this pumpkin really is.  And he's wondering to proudly to himself, almost in disbelieft, that he was able to con his parents to buy him a $12 pumpkin.

Last year I took another photo of Brody with a much smaller pumpkin.  A much more mellow (read exhausted), contemplative Brody with a much smaller pumpkin from last September.  What a difference a year makes!

-Tom

I shot the top photo with the wonderful and now much cheaper-than-when-I-bought-it Canon EOS 7D Mark II and the very useful, extremely lightweight Canon EF-S 55-250mm F4-5.6 IS STM Lens   Thinking about buying a new camera or lens?  Using these links to make your Amazon purchase helps support my continuing photographic journey.  Thank you!

Mother & Son

Monday, August 10th, 2009

The "North" Woods- Sky Watch Friday

My first attempt at any type of serious digital astrophotography. The RAW file had a ton of noise, which I removed using Canon Digital Photo Professional. This is a manually focused, twenty-two minute exposure. When we go back to Maine in less than a week, I hope to perfect my technique- The clouds on the right were lit by the neighbor's home, about one-half mile down the road.

Tom

My first SkyWatch Friday post in quite some time.

Megan's Headshot- Strobist Boot Camp

I've been following the strobist blog for quite some time now. And late last winter, I purchased a lightstand, umbrella, flash swivel mount, and some Cactus V2 triggers to get my camera off flash. I really hadn't done much with the setup, and I had really wanted to start shooting people. Strobist's recent boot camp series got me off my duff. The assignment was to do a head shot of someone you know, and have them take a picture of you using the same setup. Not enough time for a picture of me, but I'm really happy how this image of Megan turned out.

Vivitar 285hv, camera left, shoot through umbrella, fill bounced off wall. Background darkened in photoshop, area around Megan left light for emphasis.

Tom

Restoring Old Family Prints- George Washington Thomas

My great grandmother Ida Thomas probably took this image, sometime, I'm guessing, before 1930, and possibly, much earlier than that. This is my grandfather's father. To put things into perspective, my grandfather is 89 years old. I believe that George Washington Thomas was born on September 9th, 1881 and died in March 1968. I found this photo as I was going through and organizing my "man cave" area/photo studio, and thought that I might be able to use my new found photoshop CS4 skills to restore this photo. What do you think?