My life
« Previous EntriesToday’s picture: Nuts the Secret Ninja Squirrel
Thursday, March 11th, 2010If you’ve read my blog at all, you know that I have a friend named Nuts. He’s a secret ninja squirrel. We’ve been together for the last 3 1/2 years ever since we linked up in Iraq, and we’ve formed a somewhat beneficial bond: I put a roof over his head, he fights international terrorists. It really does work quite well. Knowing that, and the fact that we haven’t had a good picture of him lately (he comes and goes so much), I decided that my picture today on my test run of a 365 would focus on him, properly. I have a long weekend coming up, and it just so happens that he’s coming along for the ride. Perhaps we’ll see more of him next week. On a side note, don’t expect anything else from me at least until Monday.
This was done with my G11 and portable camera kit.
Today’s image: Back Pain
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
My inspiration today comes from my body. I tweaked my back somehow in Iraq and it’s causing a little pain today. These are something I was given by the VA for it, but I’ve only ever taken about 5 or 6 of them since they pretty much knock you out. Useless sitting in my medicine cabinet, today they serve as fodder for a picture.
Still testing out the idea of doing a 365.
Thinking about a 365 project… started with a lawnmower.
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010p>For the last month or so, I’ve contemplated doing a 365 day photo project (a picture a day for a year) to try and jump start my photographic passion. Sometimes life just gets too busy and photography, since it’s not required, gets pushed to the backburner. I’d like for that to change, at least some. I want to do a project that will make me push myself creatively, mentally, but also stylistically and artistically. I want to broaden my photographic eye, so to speak, and a large project like that just might work. Right now I have some commitments that might interfere with a picture every day, but we might be able to find ways to work around that. I’m testing the waters right now, so here’s my first attempt at ‘branching’ out a little bit:
I had some yard work to do amongst a busy schedule yesterday so I figured I’d try and squeeze a picture in during that time. I mounted my D80 with a Tamron 11-16mm WA lens to my lawnmower via a superclamp and went ahead moving it around. It was very hard to get one clean capture since the ground isn’t perfectly flat so I decided to make a run on some concrete since it was smooth.
We’ll see where this goes. Wish me luck.
I’m now on Twitter. So is Nuts.
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010Just a heads up, you can now keep up with my exploits on Twitter by following @Vorpahl. I’ll warn you, it isn’t just exclusive to photography and I have a weird sense of humor some times, but it is there nonetheless. I keep it updated pretty regularly.
Also, Nuts the Secret Ninja Squirrel, being the copycapt that he is, is also now on Twitter. I really have no idea why he needs to be on there as most of his stuff is supposed to be “secret”, but he couldn’t keep himself away from the microblogging community anymore. Follow him here: @NutstheNinja. I apologize if he doesn’t make any sense since he is, in fact, a squirrel.
Frustration 2.0
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010Somehow, I lost a whole days worth of edits. Not sure how, it seems the folder just disappeared. No trace of it anywhere, it was gone before I could back it up. And I know I’m not crazy because Windows shows them in recent documents.
Anyways, I had taken my portable G11/SB800 camera setup out with me on my Valentine’s date with my wife and we snapped a few, so it’ll take a little longer to get them up to show all of you.
For now, let’s just reflect on this drawing I made showing my current temperament:
Just discovered a Wordpress app for Android!
Thursday, February 18th, 2010Well folks, I usually liked to only put up posts whenever I had time to write out something very complete and somewhat coordinated, but now thanks to an Android Wordpress app I can now blog many of my smaller, pithy thoughts as well. It should add a little bit more life to the blog [...]
How To Save A Life
Friday, October 2nd, 2009
How to save a life.
If you’re at all into modern music, you listen to the radio, watch televsion, at some point you’ve probably heard The Fray’s hit song “How To Save A Life”. Chances are that just by reading that you’ve heard the words being sung in your head by the group’s lead singer Isaac Slade. I know I did as soon as I finished typing it. It’s catchy, it has a nice sound to it. Specifically for those reasons recently the youth pastor at my church did a series on witnessing and the theme was “How to save a life”.
You’re probably wondering why on earth I’m mentioning this on a photography blog and my answer would be the picture at the beginning of this article. See, we have this guru of Powerpoint guy that works with us in youth ministry named Tim. The guy’s a stud at combing the internet looking for graphics to use for our youth pastor’s slides during his messages and subsequently putting them together with all sorts of crazy and appropriate fonts. He makes the usual drab graphics stuff have some life to it. Unfortunately (and rarely), he couldn’t come up with anything to go with this series, so they were scratching their heads trying to come up with an idea.
By all accounts, if you can’t find what you need, create it. Cue the guy with the camera who loves photography. They had some rough ideas and volunteered some of our teens for the picture and asked me if I could put something together. Well, I’m not sure if this was their original idea, but as soon as I got the gist of the message and the target audience I had something in mind: an aprehensive teen looking over his shoulder at some other students near their locker. With a visual in my head, I brought my gear to the church and went to work.
Click here to continue reading…
A birthday celebration from a different perspective
Wednesday, August 12th, 2009DISCLAIMER: What you are about to read is nonsensical, unrealistic, completely 93% fabricated un-truth, or what some people might call stupid. So, if you don’t like any or all of those, maybe go do something else for a moment while I entertain my slightly overdeveloped (or underdeveloped depending on your point of view) creative side. However, if you don’t mind reading something completely ridiculous with a few very… ‘interesting’ pictures thrown in, then proceed. Know this though: gummies were harmed in the making of this story.
Click here to read if you dare… (or if you’re just a little interested)…
Select cruise photos for your viewing pleasure
Tuesday, August 11th, 2009I haven’t posted much as of late because I’ve been busy with life. I’ve also been gone on a cruise for a little bit. Anyone who’s ever had the pleasure of going on a cruise knows just how relaxing and fun it can be, and for photographers it offers you the chance to get some pictures in places you’d probably never otherwise go. For me and my wife, it was Cozumel, Mexico and Georgetown, Cayman Islands.
Now, there’s a trade off between prioritizing your desire to photograph everything and spend time with those you love, and for me I decided I was going to put my phoptography ambitions on the back burner. That doesn’t mean I didn’t catch a couple of good or interesting ones while I was out and about:
Click here to see more pictures…
More cupcakes, simple easy pictures, and addition tells me I’m now 27
Wednesday, July 8th, 2009In two completely unrelated events, as of 12:01am last night , I’m now 27 and I also have another cupcake picture for you. Though, if these cupcakes were what I got instead of a cake, you’d hear no complaining out of me.
My wife, along with another lady she took a cake decorating class with, got together to make a batch of cupcakes for a small reception some friends of ours were having. The last time I took a picture of her cupcakes, I picked the best one (or the one I liked the most) out of all that she made and took a picture of just the one. This time, I decided I wanted to find a way to incoporate all of them.
Now the focus of talking about this cupcake picture is not because it is a spectacular picture. It’s nice, but the main idea is this: sometimes pictures can be easy to make. Those of us who love to get creative with our pictures seem to find so many ways to make them complicated that we end up not taking any because we think it requires too much effort. Sure, sometimes they do take a while to set up and orcestrate, and then sometimes they only take a few minutes.
Click here to continue reading and see the setup shot…
« Previous Entries