Getting in My Exercize

 

Without a lot of verbiage, I shot these today on the way back from lunch.  I think from time to time I need to try a make something interesting from relatively nothing. We have an old Masonic Temple that was converted into a Theater and Bowling Alley and as I left the grill within the Bowling Alley, I spent 10 minutes, doing this exercise.  Me and my iPhone.

This is how I got there.   Got it figured it out.

I shot this into the gold chrome lid of a trash can sitting inside the door. You can see the black iPhone and my hands reflected in the dome of the trash can.

One more thing, I am certainly not the first person to shoot up into a winding stair case.  As I think about it, as a freshmen in Photography 101, I shot up into a Forrest Range's observation tower and that was in 1964. I think maybe Charley Sheen recently shot up in a stairway.

Friends beget Friends beget...

Regular followers of this blog will remember not too long ago I had a post of a friend of the family, Emily, and Emily allowed herself to be my temporary muse in an effort to build a small portfolio for a new project I had begun.  Afterwords, Emily's friend expressed her unbiased opinion in favor of our efforts.  When Em told me of her positive delight, I suggested we invite her to follow suit. Well, Maggie didn't consider herself material for the cause and she wasn't going to have any of it. I went back to Emily and while discussing my options and she happened to mention that Maggie possessed a full head of curly, very curly, red hair. I'm a sucker for redheads.

Now challenged by her resistance I doubled my effort and enlisted Emily to help. Sufficed to say, we won.

A couple of evenings ago Maggie came over to see if I could indeed do what I had claimed.

Now, I guess you're thinking, if you love red hair so much, why the Black and White image.  Well, dangit, because I like it. 

I would have never thought to do anything but glorify her amazing hair color but in this case I think it works well. Do not despair because we have many captures of her tresses in full living color.  

I guess at this time I must say that we spent a good deal of time shooting with her hair down and fluffing it and shaking it and pretty much abusing it and when it was all said and done, my favorite image turned out to be this one, with her hair up.

 

Here's another thing.  I got so caught up with the whole curly red hair theme, I hadn't even considered she also possess these amazing eyes and a very pleasant smile.

Thanks Maggie and Emily, it was fun.

All right, by popular demand, I'm adding a third image with her locks in full glory.

Rock Goddess

The First Sign of Spring

Ah yes, it's the one thing that lets you know that Spring is just around the corner.

No, it's not a Robin.

And it's certainly not the Ground Hog.

It is that infamous call from Florida and Arizona...Pitchers and Catchers Report.

Yes, when Major League Baseball declares that spring training is to begin, my mind relaxes from it's winter's clinch 
and I start the anticipation of warmer weather to come.  Life is Good.

I Think You Can See Clearly Now

OK, the response to the previous post was very entertaining.  The vast majority of the comments were positive and complimentary.  There were however, a few purist that chastised me for the extreme softness of the image and their inability to imagine what my friend might look like otherwise.  I did, if you remember explain why I took the direction that I took.


So, in an effort to make everyone happy, here is the "Bets" in her more natural form. Sure, someone is gonna say, you still added a blur to this image.  Aha, wrong.  I used a tool that controls tonal contrast and it's amazing.


Enough of the tech talk.  Please enjoy.

BTW, if any of you aficionados' of blogspot know this answer, please let me know. That last post has shifted colors considerably since I first posted it and I've noticed this before.  Cause and fix?