Cloudy Beach Day

Here's what you do when you're on the beach, it's cloudy, a windy, and not blisteringly hot. You grab your camera, grab your kindle, grab a lounger under a thatched roof hut, grab a piña colada, and enjoy your day. Don't forget to get a picture of yourself with some serious beach hair!

Bowling for Kids

We did Big Brother's Big Sister's of KC's Summer Bowl for Kids Sake again this year. After doing a bit of fundraising, we bowl, eat lots of free pizza, pass on free but horrible beer, and have lots of fun. I even shot with 3 different lenses, including my newest aquisition, the Helios 44-2 58/2, WITH a speedbooster! Unfortunately, this setting wasn't super conducive to show off the gorgeous swirly bokeh, but I have some of those to share eventually. It was so dark in this place I had to shoot at an ungodly high ISO the whole time, even shooting all my lenses wide open. I'll let you judge for yourself, but I think the noise is fantastic for shooting at ISO 5000 and even up to 6400! If anything it adds a bit of a film-esque grain to the shots.

Wedding Reception

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it much yet on here or on Flickr, but I got married recently! We got married in the Dominican Republic in May, and a couple weekends ago had a reception back in Kansas City for all of our friends and family who couldn't make it. Between helping getting everything set up and getting ready for the reception I managed to snap a few photos. My cousin was nice enough to shoot photos throughout the reception, so he got the good candid shots, but here are what I managed!

















Apparently I thought this was the perfect angle/photo to photograph

Castillo San Cristóbal

Castillo San Cristóbal is a fort in San Juan that I've had the chance to visit twice now. Yeah yeah, big deal, you've heard that already. Interestingly, while I did see a few of the same areas, we actually explored a previously unknown (to me) area of the fort on my second visit. A few of the areas I'd visited in 2011 gave me some memorable photos, so for a couple of them I actually shot a similar photo as a fun then and now.














Cannon balls are still there!
2011:


2014:






At first I thought that these coats hadn't moved an inch, but upon closer comparison they have! (BTW, 2011 photo totally wins)
2011:


2014:










2011:


2014:



I love photographing these things, in case you haven't already noticed...





I didn't photograph this again, but it's still there, I did see it!
2011:

June 19, 2015 | Old San Juan

My first trip through San Juan was in 2011, at the tail end of my first cruise. It was a cool visit, but it was done in sort of a whirlwind of a tour. When I went back last November, I realized how close together everything we toured was the first time. I had no idea we could have pretty much walked between all the spots we stopped on the first tour (because we did walk between them all, and from the ship, in November). I really liked seeing some of the same places, but with a little different perspective this time. Here's part one of my photo tour of Old San Juan, comparing my 2011 shots to my 2014.


Plaza de Colón
In 2011, this plaza was deserted, and there were a lot of pigeons. In 2014 there was a sort of craft market all around the perimeter, and there were people everywhere. Still lots of pigeons.
2011:


2014:







Old San Juan Food Court
I had no idea what this place was called, and was so thrilled to stumble on it again in 2014. Let's see how it's changed.. Well, the fan is surprisingly the same. The weather was still hot. The beer is still cheap, but we went for the Piña coladas (advertised as the best in the universe), which were delicious (best in the universe is debatable though)!

2011:


2014:





Street
Between the food court and the Plaza was a road. I took a couple shots there both times, including an attempt at recreating the sewer drain shot of 2011. Honestly, I like the 2011 photo better.


2011:


2014:

June 8, 2015

I'm going to try something new. Each week I'll make a post here, which will feature a series of photos shared exclusively here. One or two may be on Flickr, to link back here, but the majority will be blog-only. I tend to post all my photos to Flickr, and this blog doesn't get the love it needs, so I'll try this out for a while and see how it goes. To start it off, some photos from last night. We were hanging out out front before a run, so I used it as an opportunity to test out my new OM-FX converter. I wasn't sure what to expect. I've used legacy Nikon lenses on my Fujifilm X-E2, with only limited success, so I didn't have the highest hopes. I mounted my beloved Zuiko 50/1.8, which is pretty much the only lens I used on my Olympus OM-2n, and got to work. The more I shot, the more fun I had with it.

I bought the Fujinon 18/2.0 (~28mm full frame) lens to use with my X-E2 originally because I wanted to try out a wider angle as my walk-around lens. It's taking some getting used to, but I'm finally getting the hang of it. When I mounted the 50/1.8, it was like a whole different world. This is the focal length I've been shooting for years, and I'm pretty sure it's the focal length I'm meant to shoot (except for ultra-wide, of course). I'm going to keep working on the 18mm, but I may have to seriously consider the Fujinon 35/1.4, or even the 56mm (though that's extremely pricey) to get me back into my wheelhouse.

Anyway, back to last night. One of the things I miss about shooting this focal length is the bokeh. I killed the bokeh last night. I did everything I could to get the most bokeh out of that old Zuiko, and I think it worked. I don't know if it was just me being used to shooting with that lens or what, but I hit the focus almost every shot I took, and without the digital split-frame (which helps in manual, but still isn't great). Checking the photos last night in Photoshop, I was amazed how sharp these are. With the limited Nikon success, I was worried maybe these old lenses just couldn't cut it mixed with this newfangled digital sensor. Thankfully, I was wrong. I'd been reluctant to mount the Zuiko on my X-E2, only because I didn't want to discourage myself from shooting my Olympus, but I just loved the results. Whenever I don't want to bring my Fujifilm and Olympus, I'll know with certainty I'll have a good combo bringing at least this lens.