Wonderful, Smile, Clean Motion Graphics

The backstory

Funny story about these orchids: I got one of the centerpieces from our student design show reception in April. It was the end of the night, and we were cleaning up the area, and there was a remaining orchid after all of the students and guests had theirs, so one of my colleagues said that I should take it home for my wife.

I know very little about flowers, but what I did know was that orchids were supposed to be finicky. It was a cold night, so I warmed the car. There was a support clip that the orchid stems were attached to a small rod on, to train them up. I set it carefully in the cup holder and began to drive home.

As I turned right at some point, my elbow hit the plant, snapping the stems almost in two in two different places. Aaagh! If not for bad luck I'd have no luck at all!

So I ran into the house, and grabbed some packing tape, wrapping it around the stems, propping them up. Yeah..that should work I thought to myself. Using the logic of a mischevious six year old, I brought the plant in and showed it to my wife.

She also was disappointed about my careless elbow, and slightly amused at my packing tape "cast." But we figured that we'd give it a go anyway. After about a week, one of the stems showed signs of dying, so I pulled it off and tossed it. The other seemed to be OK though, so I kept it in the sun and kept on watering it. 

It appears to have come through OK (knock-on-wood). You can see in the top pic the areas where both stems snapped, and the one surviving stem thriving with two flowers, and a new "bud" forming behind them. The tape is till in place (afraid to remove it for fear of breaking it again).

The photos

On a rainy Wednesday, I thought I'd photograph this survivor for kicks. Put a cheap poster board v-flat behind it, and propped it up on pizza boxes. Used only window light (which admittedly wasn't much on this very gray day).  

I also wanted to see under similar conditions what I could get out of the old iPhone 4 camera I have (5 mp). The bottom two shots are from the iPhone. They are a bit more contrasty, and have some noise in the bgnd, but look really good in average light conditions. There is also a bit of the flat and tape that got caught in the shot as the angle of approach is different with the phone (tried to smooth the tape on the flat out, and looks sad I know). The data on the iPhone shots is saying they are f2.8, and 1/120 to 1/60th of a sec? What that means on a lens that is a few mm is pretty relative, but still impressive. I imagine the Samsung and the iPhone 5 would look even better. 

Oh...and guess what happened next? The flimsy V-flat fell onto the plant. But alas— alive and well still. That thing is like ROCKY.

Brush Script Travel by Neil Secretario

Experiment Water droplets. One of my sons jokingly quipped that this could be done with paint, milk, or pigs blood. I used water and a glass pyrex dish that I could slide paper under (which accounts for the pyrex logo in every shot…sigh…should've used an unbranded dish or a plastic container).

I also used colored paper as flash reflectors, and an off-camera YN560II flash aimed at the  paper. Used another reflector opposite (almost camera-left) angled a bit. Had some ambient daylight as well.

You need to manually focus on the point where your water droplets fall (AF won't lock in on it otherwise) and use a tripod. I shot at sync speed (1/200 for Canon consumer-end) manual flash, 1/4 to 1/2 for most shots.

You'll get the feel for your flash and camera on this exercise. It is ALL timing. The coveted "crown splash" shot (top) was literally in 3–4 out of over 170 shots.

Want to try again sometime with constants (my LED hardware store light and a few Fluorescent clip lamps).

Crispy Eggplant Parmesan Subs // A Beautiful Mess

This looks amazing and delicious and exactly like something I could actually make!

10 Genius Portrait Photography Tips Gary Lun, craftsy.com

Taking your portraits from just OK to seriously awesome doesn't require any special skills or equipment. All you need are these 10 easy, expert tricks, which you can start using right away.

Meh... But still worth a read

My son creates these small paper sculpture-creations using the remnants of tissue rolls. The sphere is from the cardboard tube, and the cube is from some of the tissue. They are really unique texturally.

I shot them on a reflective black surface using an inexpensive LED shoplight, overcast daylight ambient, and a white reflector (all played fairly nicely together). Used the ubiquitous"kit lens" (18-55mm, f4) for the 'macro'/closeups with the inexpensive Photodiox tubes. The Canon "nifty-fifty" provided the other shots.

In the early 1920's, Racine, Wisconsin had an NFL Franchise (in fact, it had a couple of franchises until the new league gained traction in several other markets). One of the most well-known was the Racine Legion. The logo above is a "reimagining" of what that logo would have looked like if the franchise were in play today.

The suspension of a bridge while driving. My wife took this on my cellphone camera while we were crossing. It amazes me how versatile camera phones are! she held the camera near the dash (not against the glass) and got a decent shot off. I only wish the light post wasn't in the shot, but traveling at freeway speeds in traffic doesn't afford those luxuries.

Lettering for magazines by Jackson Alves

Asiatic Lilies-- courtesy of my wife's green thumb!