Ramblings of a geek with a few hobbies…
I don’t know what it is, but Ana and I really enjoy flying kites. Since it was finally warm when Ana and I got off of work, we thought it would be fun to take David to the park and introduce him to a kite the Easter Bunny left for him this year.
Beautiful weather, and a good time. A few more photos in the gallery.
This morning after searching our house for Easter Eggs and before going to church we decided we’d do a quick David photo shoot. It had been a while since the “monthly photos” ended, and he was all dressed up for Easter. As luck would have it, today just happens to be his 16 month birthday too.
Ran into some lighting problems (bulb burned out), so some of them are using a combination of lamp and natural lighting. Those look a little odd to me.
The rest of the collection are in the gallery (still uploading, should be done soon).
I’ve been toying with the idea of doing a Daily Photo. I’ve been wanting to spend some more time behind the camera as well as expand my photographic “eye”, and a Daily Photo surely would do both.
But can I really commit the energy needed to take 365 disparate photos over the course of a year?
I don’t know…
It sure is tempting though…
I started this project on the weekend of January 25th, and here on March 6th my camera cabinet sits completed and filled with my gear. It turned out WAY better than I hoped and expected and I don’t have to hide it in a corner. I normally wouldn’t have gone for the gold hardware, but we wanted it to match the piano that’s in the same room.
It’s made of Red Oak, stained with 2 coats of Minwax Red Oak oil-based stain, and finished with 2 coats of polyurethane.
This photo reminds me that I need to get the magnetic door closers.
Here’s the inside – storage for my camera bags on the bottom and lenses on the shelf (all but one lens, which I used to take this).
And the drawer is full of the numerous accessories, plus the camera.
Feels good to finally have it done and to be happy with the results. Photos from the build here. A big thanks to dad for coming over tonight to help me move it upstairs, it’s a little too big for one person.
8 Hours. That’s how long the project book said it would take to make the book case I designed my camera cabinet off of. Ha! I can’t even count how many hours I’ve put in on this thing now – probably another 6 or so this weekend. I’m slow.
I made quite a bit of progress in the past couple days: top trim; adjustable shelf; researched, bought hinges; made and hanged(?) the doors; and got almost halfway done making the trim for the doors. I also picked out a couple sample stains and tried them out on some of the scrap wood. I think I’ll be going with a couple coats of Minwax Red Oak over the Red Mahogany, but we’ll see.
Here’s where it stands tonight (more photos here)..
Bits left: finish making and installing door trim; make the back; sand; stain; poly.
In the nearly two years since I purchased my DSLR, I have accumulated quite a bit of stuff – lenses, flash, bag, cleaning supplies, etc. My current organization “technique” has been to keep some of this stuff in my LowePro Slingshot 200, others in another bag, and the remainder on my desk or in a drawer.
Well, I’m tired of it. I want good, proper storage to keep my equipment safe and in one spot.
This weekend I started construction on what will soon by my camera cabinet. Here’s the quick design, without the 2 doors and draw (at the top) since I’m not good enough with SketchUp get them drawn out.
The middle shelf is going to be adjustable in height and will be where my lenses are stored. I’m going to try making EF/EF-S mount “cupholders” for the lenses on that shelf – we’ll see how that goes.
It’s going to be made out of Red Oak and once it’s done I’m hoping to stain it to match our piano. So far I have the inner box built and the top shelf thing for the drawer made and installed. So far it it’s been a fun project, and one I hope turns out how I imagine.
Neo’s nose, courtesy of my new Canon 100mm macro.
Today is officially the first day of Winter, and what an introduction. Springfield was reportedly at 1 degree, with a windchill of near -20F. That just hurts.
I passed the lake a couple of times today and finally decided to take a few pictures of it.
Brrr!
Last night Jay and Katherine came over for dinner, followed by a trip to Lowes to each get our Christmas trees. Their selection was pretty dismal, and Ana and I eventually bought the very first one we look at. Go figure.
So today we got the tree put up, and boy does David enjoy it.
These pictures took some experimenting to get, my first attempts at using the flash and keeping the backgound as close to its natural luminence. Not too bad, I’m sure I’ll be getting alot more practice with as much as David likes the tree 🙂
He’s 11 months old today, kinda crazy. The rest can be seen in the gallery.
Quick little story about the backdrop. I had grand plans of it looking a lot better/different than this. I started last night first dying the muslin solid yellow. Then I tied it into ball and dyed it tan, producing a nice mixture of the two colors. Finally, I tied it up again an dropped it into a dark brown dye. Unfortunately, I didn’t tie the ball tight enough and the dark brown overpowered the other layers – completely ruining the autumn-looking backdrop I wanted. The end result still looks ok, just not what I had planned 😦
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