I really wanted to take some photos of people in the rain today, but I couldn’t find anyone willing to get soaked nor could I find anyone willing to stand next to me shielding a q-flash from the rain. So, I figured I would still try to use the “water” theme along with some macro shots. The macro shots were taken with a 28-105mm lens with an EXTREMELY cheap macro attachment. With the macro shots, I was aiming toward the same style that musician Trent Reznor uses for the photography of his albums.  He takes very close / macro images of very random things, many of them being so close or obscure that you’re unable to tell what was photographed.  For some reason, it seems to work nicely for him… but nothing came out as I wanted.  Here are a few shots. Here is a slideshow.

I took a few macro shots of this old Kodak Brownie I found a while back. Only cost me $3… but its bellows are in terrible shape and there was some white tape put on it in the past, so it’s in pretty poor condition. Still a cool thing to own.

I have never attempted to shoot sports. My main reason being because I don’t have the correct lenses or a camera that can take multiple shots quickly (which is changing because I just ordered a 30D for only $650). So for this assignment, I decided to get some stuff from checkout and give sports a try. I went to the Lions High School All-Star football game which took place at the UCM Vernon Kennedy field. Many of the shots I got were pretty blurred from the action and that is because I hate upping the ISO for a better exposure in low lighting. I finally gave in, upped the ISO, upped the shutter speed, and got a few decent shots – although they are still a bit soft. Thanks to Jackie for letting me borrow her lenses with IS… and to Amy for letting me use the massive 300mm for a few shots. Here is the whole lot of images and here is a slideshow. Below are some of my favorites.  And yes, the yellow-ish tint was intentional.  I think it adds more atmosphere to otherwise uncreative compositions.

Here are a couple of the only shots I ended up liking from the in-class food shoot with the food stylist and Jerry’s tasty bread. Here are the other images, and here is a slideshow.

This one is a bit soft. I was using the tilt-shift and obviously didn’t have it focused quite enough.

A bit close and cut out of the frame, but I like it.

I liked the dark background of this one as opposed to the blown out shots that are normally seen in food photography.

I don’t care for the composition of this one but the bread looked quite nice and was well lit from the available light.

So yet again, the engaged couple canceled on me. I’ve been trying my hardest to plan their shoot around their schedules, but they keep coming up with reasons to put it off longer. This was the fifth time! Oh well. Maybe next weekend?  By the time they finally go through with the shoot, they’ll already be married!  Ha!

For this assignment, I decided to use the images I got from Powell Gardens. Below are my five favorites and here is a slideshow of some other decent shots.

I got a few shots of this guy. I think after a while he noticed I was taking photos of him so he put himself out of range of my viewing.

I took quite a few shots of this butterfly. It wouldn’t sit still, but I managed to get just this single shot of it in focus.

This was one of the shots I took while using the tilt-shift lens. The out-of-focus areas are subtle but I liked it.

I got a number of shots of her playing in the fountain. This was my favorite of them because it got a mix of the flowers in the foreground, flowers in the background, and the nice stone wall behind her. I didn’t manage to get any images that showed her face without a blob of water in front of it.

My attempt of a dragged shutter shot without a tripod.

So far, I am having bad luck with my shooting assignments. Last week I had 2 shoots canceled, my memory card failed and I lost the majority of the images from for my first assignment, then this week I drove all the way out to Kansas City, Kan. for the Quindaro Community Festival – but it began raining during the drive. Once I arrived, nothing had been set up and no one was there, except for a radio station and a few women selling some produce. I was excited to photograph the dancers, the African Drumming group, the art, games, the children playing, people having a good time – but it didn’t happen. In a last ditch effort, I went to the Burr Oak Woods nature trail in Blue Springs, Mo. My bad luck didn’t stop there… because I soon realized that my lens is not focusing properly and the majority of my images came out slightly blurred when viewed at full-size. So here are the six images I found to be the most decent out of the ones I salvaged. You can also view a slideshow of a few of the other photos I took today.