Monday, August 31, 2009

Thoughts on a Tuesday Morning


Here's a little splash of color for those of you out there who prefer it to black and white. It's the reflection of a summer sky on the surface of my uncle's pond. While it wasn't my intention when taking the shot, it almost reminds of an impressionist piece.

Well known photographer William Neil has made a name for himself with his "Impressions of Light". It's a body of work containing "blurs" of landscapes and other images that, while blurred, still give you the overall impression of what he's shooting. I've yet to even come close to an image I'd want to pass along trying this technique, but I'd suggest you look him up at www.williamneill.com. He makes some excellent images.

I had to handle the cooking last night and I will for the better part of the month now that my wife has been switched back to the late afternoon shift. I love cooking and, while she does most of it when she's on her normal shift, I'm just as happy to pick up the task now. Is there anything better than garlic? Three cloves went into last night's dinner and I love the smell of it when it's peeled and freshly chopped. Within forty minutes I had a kitched filled with the aromatic scent of garlic and oregano chicken simmering in white wine.

Cooking is another hobby of mine. It's just like writing and photography, anything goes. Anything you can create, whip up or throw together works as long as it tastes good. There's no wrong thing to do (except burning the meal). I'd use fresh cracked black pepper and garlic in everything if I could get away with it.

Labor Day is coming up next Monday and we're having a cookout. I think I may attempt some jambalaya and barbecue chicken, among another dish or two. It's really starting to feel like fall here and fall makes me think of things in the slow cooker, simmering away all day while someone's playing football in the backyard or on the television. And as the weather turns colder it becomes time to turn to soups and hot chocolate and other culinary creations to fortify you against the cold wind outside the door.

I'll be keeping an eye out on the leaves as we get farther into the season and the first chance I get to make a fall image and post it here, I'll do it. This is my favorite time of year, between now and January. There's so many holidays, so many exciting things to experience and so many new books to read that it's really the time when I'm at my most inspired.

Not to mention excited about being four days away from the first College Football Saturday of the new season...

First Photos




As promised last night I'm uploading a couple of photos. They were taken with a Canon Rebel XT with the EF 50mm Macro and a Hoya yellow filter for those of you interested in the technicals.

For the more pertinent details, these were taken behind my Grandpa's house in West Virginia while climbing around the massive boulders that dominate that stream. I hope you like black and white photos because I've just ordered new gear specifically for black and white and I'm working on putting it through the paces, so you may see plenty of b&w for a few posts. I promise to put some color up soon.

On a more exciting note, college football opens up this week. I agree with most of the writers out there who've picked Florida to go all the way. It's hard to pick against a team that loaded and that has a quarterback that is such a dynamic force as Tim Tebow. My team, WVU, looks to have an easy opener against Liberty (hopefully) before taking on the always surprising ECU. Virginia Tech, the local favorite around here, takes on Alabama and are thought to have an edge as 'Bama's o-line is thought to have problems. Personally I'm hoping and figuring on 'Bama wiping the floor with Tech, but we'll see how it goes.


Sunday, August 30, 2009

Getting in the Habit

So as you can see the blog as improved a bit with a couple of pictures. Hopefully there will be more soon as I can process through them and continue to post to this blog.

My wife, Bethany and I, have founded a photography business, Hagy's Photography, in our home in Clifton Forge. While we specialize in weddings we can handle just about any photography job with the exception of sports team pictures. Those we pass along to our friend and professional photographer Chuck Almarez at Kid Pix Photography. We've spent the summer dealing with the weddings we've shot and we're down to one left to process. With any luck it will be out the door this week.

I much prefer to focus on outdoor photography, as you can tell by the photos I've posted so far. This weekend I tried out my new Hoya Yellow filter for black and white photos. The results have been very promising. If you scroll down to the bottom of this fair blog you'll see the panorama I made from four images shot in the creek behind my Grandpa's house. They were stitched together using the software that comes with Windows Vista on my sister's laptop.

I'm pretty happy with the results I'm seeing from the filter and as a result I purchased a Nikon Red filter. As a die hard Canon man, it was hard to make that Nikon purchase, but you can't beat a brand name like Nikon for quality. The weather's done nothing but offer up cloudy days so the landscape shots the red filter is reputed to excel at haven't yet been possible. This week should give me some opportunity to fix that.

For now, Sunday evening is winding down into Sunday night and it's time to put things in order for the week ahead. I'll process some more images from the weekend's work later tonight and get them up in the next day or so.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

First Posting

So here it is. My second blog, really, after the one on my Author Page on Amazon that hasn't been updated in ages. With a little luck, inspiration and some work I hope to add plenty of photos, random thoughts and vittles for the mind on this blog.
At the moment I'm writing this one at work, so I'll keep it brief. The current trial in my life is finding my ND400x filter for my camera. It's the first piece of gear I've ever misplaced and that's irritating enough without the $70 price tag it's going to take to replace it.
For now, though, it's back to work. I'll be adding more detail and sprucing the ol' blog up as time allows over the next few days.
Hope you enjoy!

Josh