Aydin

This photograph was taken this past Saturday at our Memorial Day cookout. He was crawling around on the deck, and decided to stick his tongue out at me. Luckily, I had my camera; imagine that, I had my camera. :)

I captured two cute pictures of him playing with his tongue; this one and the one I posted as "My Favorite Photo...At The Moment." He is adorable. Thanks for looking.

Smiley Face Balloon

The infield at Indianapolis Motor Speedway was filled to capacity this past Sunday for the 500, and I was scanning the crowd from my seat looking for anything interesting to photograph. With all the people it would only be a matter of time before an opportunity was presented. As I scanned, I found this balloon turning in the breeze, and I waited for the moment it turned to smile at me. I think the balloon's expression could pretty much sum up the atmosphere around the track. The race was a fantastic experience; despite the heat. At some point in the race, it was announced that the 2010 Indianapolis 500 would go down in history as the hottest race day in history. The canopy city built by the fans provided a colorful backdrop.

Thanks for looking!

Bad Day for the King in Indy

Shortly after serving a penalty for blocking, Michael Andretti, driver of Richard Petty's number 43 car, came out of turn 2 and found the wall. He came to rest at the entrance of turn 3. Here you see the car being helped back to the garage area, the King's day was over in Indy.

It was unbelievably hot, but the racing was fast. This was my first experience at the Greatest Spectacle in Racing, and it was awesome. I snapped just under 170 photos, so look for those soon. I will probably just post a group of them in a single blog post. Thank you to my good friend for inviting me.

Thanks for looking!

Along Came a Spider

Wow, my wife was leaving the garage headed out to the deck, and she noticed this cool spider web in the corner of the door...Then she noticed our friend that has made it its home. As any good husband would, I grabbed my camera for a close-up. I don't mind spiders, unless of course, they could kill me, but this one is just hanging out, minding his business. I let him live to see another day, and if he's still there tomorrow I'll get a daylight picture.

Blue Eyes

I love portraiture. To get a great portrait, lighting plays the star. If done well, a face will glow, and you can see the detail in the eye. The small specks of light you see in this young girl's eyes is called a catch. The twinkle draws your attention to the eyes and helps make a portrait beautiful. Gracie is adorable, and has the bluest eyes; I have taken some great photographs of her.

This photograph was created on this past Easter Sunday while she hunted easter eggs. I love this portrait, but perhaps I am biased because she is my niece.

Thanks for looking!

The Cockpit

I had the opportunity to sit directly behind the pilot and co-pilot, in this little cockpit, on a private jet. What an amazing experience. Once I settled down and realized that I was holding my camera, I began capturing some very cool images of the dashboard, and through the front windows of the plane. This has been my first and only experience on a private plane, and I hope to get to do it again. Take-off and landing were really cool with a bird's eye view.

The pilots were really nice guys, they took the time to explain what I was looking at. They seemed to love talking about what they were doing; nearly as much as I loved listening. During the flight, the co-pilot pointed out Cedar Point Amusement Park just as the plane banked to make a turn. I snapped a picture of the island from 20,000 feet. I may post that in the future, you can make out the initial drop of Millennium Force and a couple other coasters.

Thanks for looking.

Daddy's Girl

The young lady just got out of the wading pool, and was freezing, so what does her daddy do? Wrap her up in a towel....nope, has her pose with him for a photo. :)

Jason is a fellow photographer and proprietor of J. Michael Studio Photography in Fort Wayne.

I like the colors and the blurred trees in the background. You can see the corner of the gazebo to the right. You can tell that she is trying to smile, but her lips are shivering too much. If I remember correctly, he did wrap her up right after the picture, so she wasn't freezing for long.

More Spring Fun

Caught this young lady having a great time coming down this inflatable water slide. You can tell by the smile that she is just having an absolute ball, and you can tell by her purple lips that she freezing in the hose water! I am pretty sure that when the temperature gets above 65 degrees, kids will chip ice on the surface of water to get in it. If I did this at my age, I think I'd have a heart attack, or go into shock. I played it safe and just took pictures.

Love the vivid colors of this picture, and the smile is one of a kind. She never smiles like this for posed portraits, but then again neither would I, if I was constantly posing to "test lighting" in the studio.

I was just trying to capture the spray of water as she hit the wading pool at the bottom of the slide, but the expression is priceless.

Thanks for looking.

Splash

Saturday was this young man's 7th birthday. He had a wonderful party, and hours of play in this giant water slide set up in his back yard. I absolutely love this photograph; the colors are amazing, and I happened to catch him kicking the water to splash a near by friend. I think the water was just above freezing, and the air temperature was around 70, but it didn't stop the kids from having a ball in this water wonderland.

To capture the water droplets suspended in mid-air, I turned my shutter speed up to 1/640th of a second, set my ISO to 400 to deal with some cloud cover, and here you have it.

Blurred Runner

The story behind this picture is less about why I took it and more about the finished product. The girls were walking, and as I snapped the picture the girl on the left began to run. After I uploaded the image to the PC and saw that the runner was blurred, I was set to delete it, but I never delete a picture on a whim. A few days later, I was showing the pictures that I had taken that day to my brother, and when he saw this one, he said they looked like a couple worn soldiers walking or running from a battle scene. It took me a minute to see it and agree, but I turned the photo black and white to give it a more serene feel and the finished product is pleasing. With one girl running and the other carrying her shoes as if she's completely worn out, he may have been right. The more I look at this one, the more I think he is. I decided to keep the picture even though parts of the subject is blurred. I think it adds to the character of this photo; at least it does in black and white. In color, I don't think the picture is as good of a finished photo.

Banana Split

My daughter and I were walking by a bank of newspaper vending machines, and she stopped to take a picture. I thought, why is she taking a picture of the newspaper machine? It wasn't until we loaded them on the computer that I saw what she was taking a picture of; it wasn't the machine at all, it was the newspaper inside that had a picture of a banana split on the cover! I learned two things with this picture:

1. It was a really slow news day in Fort Wayne; a banana split is the lead in

and,

2. My daughter is only about 4' tall, and she has a completely different perspective on things.

She loves to take pictures, like dad, and I have told her that she should take pictures of things that are pleasing to her. A giant banana split would, no doubt, be pleasing to her. I am about 6' tall, and would have never seen the cover of this paper. Kudos to her for spotting this gem. I just need to teach her composition, so that she can frame her pictures better. She does seem to have an eye for seeing things as no one else would; including dad!

Road Signs

Ever wonder what happens to old road signs? I didn't, but in Meadville, PA, they have it figured out. The picture you see is some really cool landscaping with vegetation made completely of old road signs. Look close! This isn't the only place you'll see this outstanding use of twisted metal; for about 1/2 mile leading to this intersection there is a fence made of the same materials. Not only does it look cool, but it's good use of old signs.

I shot this scene out the window of a car going about 40mph. We were hoping for a red light, I know, the first time I have ever hoped for a light to be red, and it stayed green. At that speed there isn't much time to get the best composition or settings in the camera, but I think it turned out pretty good.

Thanks for looking.

Stone Quarry

I have known about this stone quarry in Fort Wayne for at least 10 years, and have always wanted to take a look. One Saturday morning I decided to take my daughter out to take some photos. I gave her my backup camera and we headed out. This was our first stop. They built an observation tower that is surrounded, top to bottom, with chain link fence. We had to get right up close and take photos through the links. While we were there, 6 old biker guys and gals rolled up on their Harley Davidsons; as soon as they got up to the tower, it was "f this" and "f that". One of the women noticed my 10 year old daughter and reminded the guys to watch their language. Of course the men forgot that we were there within 20 seconds, or so. We didn't stay much longer.

This picture is of a piece of land that pushes out into the quarry, and had by far the most color. The green, yellow and rust colors showed up very vividly in the photo. The tree in the foreground almost disappears into nature's backdrop. My daughter saw a bird that she was able to capture soring over the giant hole; maybe I'll post that picture sometime. Hopefully, we'll be able to visit this spot again; maybe it will be at most PG-13.

As always, thank you for looking!

Wm. H. Block Co.

William H. Block immigrated from Austro-Hungary in 1874, he built an eight story retail store on the corner of Market and Illinois in Indianapolis in 1896. The store closed in 1993, but the building, of course remains. It houses several retail locations at street level, and the upper 7 floors were converted to residential apartment space. This is the upper west side of the building. The satellite dishes add modern flair to the old building.

Money Bag

This statue sits outside the north-west entrance to the Indiana Convention Center. I have no ideas about the meaning of these characters standing on top of a bag of money; perhaps it symbolizes the governor and his wife dancing upon a bag of tax income. I thought it looked pretty cool, so I framed it up on my Blackberry and snapped the picture. I have to say that I am pretty impressed with the camera on my phone. I did tweak the contrast and the colors in Lightroom; the phone does not allow for any adjustments when the picture is taken.

Not pictured: There are two smaller statues resembling the two you see off to the left that are taking pictures of the couple on the money bag. I was going to get a picture of them too, but forgot as the day got busier.

Indianapolis Evening

I was on my way to hotel from dinner and got a look at these buildings, with just enough light. It looked pretty neat. I wished I had my regular camera, but didn't take it to dinner with me so I snapped this with my Blackberry. Pretty good I thought. Photography is all about subject and composition right?

Monument at Circle Center

So I am in Indianapolis this weekend, and I don't think I could leave without taking a picture of the monument at Circle Center. Most people in Indiana don't know that Fort Wayne was supposed to be the state capital, but the people wanted it to be somewhere more geographically center of the state. It was because of this that Indianapolis was built to be the state capital. Most cities are built near rivers or major seaports, but not Indianapolis. It's only reason for existing is because of it geographical location within the state in Indiana.

Anyway, I snapped this shot from the top of the parking garage at the Hilton. It was cloudy, but I think the picture turned out great. I cropped it narrow because I couldn't escape having the side of the parking garage in the shot without cutting off either the top or bottom of the monument. The side of parking garage was covered in lots of birds' business.

A Waiting Bride

I followed this bride around almost all day, from the time she was getting her hair done, to the ceremony, and of course to the reception. As she waited for a drink I saw an opportunity to compose an image in which she was finally starting to relax. Think about having a camera near you all day, you are the bride, all the attention is on you. Here she had a chance to break away from the guests and well-wishers to quench her thirst that had probably been building for hours. I chose to do this in black and white to give it a calm soothing feel. The picture is a little grainy due to the dark nature of the room and a high ISO setting in the camera. I was using a flash, but was quite far from the bride, so the flash had no effect. I don't think the graininess negatively affects the image.

Father and Son

Once in a while, you capture a perfect image; perfect in that the composition, lighting and model's expression are all in tune. This photo is one of those photos. It is common to see a photo of a baby and mommy together, but photos of baby and daddy are a little more rare. Capturing one where all three things, previously listed, are harmonious is a challenge. I posted this photo on a photography community blog, photo.net. There, hundreds of thousands users can critique and rate your photos. The users are predominately professional photographers, and their work is amazing. I look at most of their work, and can only hope to achieve their levels. This photo received high enough ratings that you can find it in the photo.net gallery. Photos have to rate higher than 5 out of 7 in both categories rated to be in that gallery. Today photo.net shared this photo on their facebook page for their fans to see. Thank you photo.net users for allowing my photo to be looked at on the same level as yours. I am proud of this image, and I appreciate the recognition for my work.

Those of you who know me know that I am not conceited about my photographs, as it sounds here. I know that I can improve, but it's nice to know that I am heading in the right direction.

Window Light

It's funny, a kid can play outside all wide-eyed, but as soon as you ask them to look out a window so you can take a picture they can't stop squinting. It took several attempts at this shot before she kept her eyes open long enough to get the picture. You'd have thought I had asked her to look directly into the sun, but I didn't and the sun was high in the sky.

Kids just love cooperating for pictures. God love them.

Soda Can

Part of being a photographer is looking for interesting colors, shapes, or objects around you. Have you ever noticed that a Pepsi can is very bright and vibrant? I hadn't until I noticed this one sitting in the sunlight. I intentionally blurred the background with a wide open aperture to make the can pop, pun intended. The deep blue and red colors are prominent. Next time you drink a can of Pepsi, notice and appreciate the colors that Pepsico has brought to you.

Heavy Equipment

This John Deere toy was sitting in the dirt at a house I was visiting. It had probably been sitting there for quite some time; probably hasn't been played with since the summer before. The yellow contrasts the surrounding earth making the toy almost lifelike. If you follow my photography with some regularity, you probably already know that I love taking pictures of things that most people overlook. This toy caught my eye and I couldn't resist taking the picture.

The Press

Last month I got to tour a factory that makes tools. What you are looking at is a large press that is changing the shape of the molten steel rod into a rough tool. The colors are particularly interesting considering the only real light source in the area was the red hot steel rod. You can see the paint peeling off the machine, and the bright oranges, reds, and greens. I was trying to get the press in action because every time it would strike the soon-to-be tool it would throw sparks, which I thought were really cool. What I ended up with was this colorful image of an industrial press, that you wouldn't think of as this vivid and colorful.

In addition, this image is outside of the normal pictures of "things". It was a great tour, and I got several impressive shots.

Spring Time

I love spring time. I tend to "hibernate" in the winter, and spring time brings fresh air, sunny days, and baseball. During a recent get together, some of the guys and I were playing catch, and I put my mitt down on the table. While I was taking pictures of our guests enjoying themselves I looked at the glove and realized that it was rich with shapes and shades of color. I love the detail in this photo, and the tones present in the glove. When I look at this photo I think spring, and of course, baseball.

What does spring time mean to you?

The Bank

A few weeks ago, my daughter and I went out to take pictures of different Fort Wayne landmarks. We had just parked the car, and we were heading over to Fort Wayne's beautiful courthouse; the sun was just right in the sky, and it made the 1st Source Bank Building catch my attention. The trees lining the street help frame the lower right corner. I love this capture. I created another version slightly blurred. I printed that version; it's framed and decorating my entertainment center.

Big Plush Bunny

This past Easter, my family and I had dinner at my mom's house along with my brother and his family. My nephew got a large plush bunny in his Easter basket. As he was hunting eggs, and carrying his new bunny, I happened to capture this image. He is so photogenic, I don't think I've ever taken a bad picture of him.