Body Building Contest

My friend asked if I would take pictures of his first ever body building contest, an I couldn't tell him no.  Here are some of the shots that I took. 

The first three are of my friend.  

This next one is the winner of the "Mens Short Open", or something like that

This is the all around winner of the contest.  He said it took him 25 years to win his first all around. 
I think he looked really good for being in his 50s!!!

A stool that moves

For some  you will understand what an accomplishment these 2 pictures are.  For those of you that don't we spent a lot of time and money training these dogs, and we never thought Gertie would be good with Caitlyn.  Thank God we were wrong.  We have now gone from using her as a pillow to using her as a stool.  Next step, learn how to balance while Gertie walks. 

Let's do Lunch

So my daughter started whining and I thought she was hungry.  It's only 11:00 am and she usually goes down for a nap between 12:00 and 1:00.  Well apparently I was wrong.  One day I will learn to understand what she wants, well then again maybe not...

loving the Doggy

Took this one awhile ago, but I like it so I am posting it.  She decided she wanted to watch a little TV, but needed somewhere to rest her head; Gertie was the closest thing. 

Caitlyn's Birthday

Thought I would post up a few shots from Caitlyn's Birthday.  The first 2 are of the smash cake and cupcakes my wife and sister-in-law made, and many people helped decorate.  The last one is right after she got her slide from Grandpa Calcut.

One of the bikes

Well I am rather strapped for time today.  I am working on my fathers bike so I figured I would post a pic of one of the bikes I owned.  Unfortunately I had to sell this one about a month ago.  This post is also test of the new layout.  Let me know what you think...

Jaiden...2 years old

Last spring I was asked to take pictures of my godson because his parents couldn't get him to sit still for studio photo sessions.  I took about 150 shots and we had a lot of good ones.  Here are a couple of photos from that day....

Best Picture in the World

This could quite possibly be the best picture in the world.  Well if anything the best picture I have ever taken in the world.  Below are 2 pics the first is the original cropped to eliminate some unwanted background items, and the other is edited by a friend.  Maybe you can see what was changed; maybe you can't.

...more photos of Caitlyn

These are pictures at the same place roughly around the same time.  The difference with these is I had a little fun with colors, cropping, and all sorts of other things. 

This was taken in front of a barn in the shade.  I boosted the colors way up, tilted the picture and cropped a lot.  I was using a 200mm zoom so I got in as far as I could and there was still a lot of background needing removal.  

This was taken at a building that is suppose to resemble an old train station.  This was in a walkway between two buildings.  Again, I was zoomed in pretty far, but still had a lot of background needing removal.  I cropped the photo and boosted the vibrance and saturation WAY up.  I also increased the contrast, fill light, and exposure. 

This was taken at the same park, but in a different play area my wife found after our first visit.  She was sitting on the play set just about to go down the slide and I managed to get this one.  This has been cropped, the fill light and exposure have been increased.  I also boosted the black levels in an attempt to make things pop.

I really like this one.  Same play area as the previous, but this time in a swing.  I took, probably, 25 - 30 shots and this is the only one that came out with her smiling, and nothing distracting in the background.  I boosted the color, the exposure, added a vignette, and increased the black levels. 

I went crazy with this one, maybe even overboard, but that is what I was going for ;).  I was trying to boost the colors as much as possible, but still maintain a proper skin tone.  I also added a vignette.  Note... The sky is actually gray dingy clouds.  The colors were boosted so much it pulled out some blue tones.  I really like this one.  Too bad we couldn't get one with her looking at the camera.  Apparently the ducks were way more interesting.

This one wasn't edited all that much, but I had to raise the temp in order to get rid of some of the blue from the overcast skies.  I like this one because I managed to get the ducks in the background. 

Here are a few more "un-editited" pictures I took of Caitlyn. 

A few pictures to get us started

Well after playing with Lightroom I have finally figured out how to export pictures with a watermark, and limit the size of the file for web use.  It took a little while, but now I know.  So I figured I would start this blog off with the most beautiful model in the world, my daughter.  We took her to the park so she could have some fun, and so we could get some photos of her.  This is Homestead Park in Hilliard Ohio. 

 

 

Not much has been done in the line of editing to these pics.  I boosted some of the colors and increased the exposure a little just to brighten them up.  In the next post I will put some pics that have been edited.  As always I appreciate and comments you can leave.  Not only about the adorable model, but on the composition of the picture.  

Hello

Well I was previously using Wordpress.com, but I just wasn't  feeling it and I decided to give this blog a try.  So far so good.  I think I have things figured out.  I just need to find a good layout.  This one caught my eye, but I think it might be a bit too much, and I think I am might want something with a black background.  I haven't decided if I am going to bring the photos from wordpress over, or just start over from scratch.  Enough of the babble lets get some photos going...