Vintage Honey Burst

From photo project 2010

From photo project 2010

New guitar day again. Likely to be the last for a while. This one, an Edwards, hails from Japan, and is a relatively faithful copy of the '59 Les Paul - which has sort of become reference material at this point. The tone is open and dynamic - almost organic without a thick coat of lacquor to box in the sound. You can really hear the wood on this electric. I found that the finish on this guitar to be very photogenic.

I recorded a short clip of it on semi-clean.

Masterbilt

From photo project 2010

New Guitar Day again. I've been trying to sell my Ibanez Artcore for a few months now with no takers. Last night, someone emailed me and asked if I was interested in a trade for an Epiphone Masterbilt acoustic/electric. I did some quick research, realized that it was a better value than the Artcore I was selling so I made the trade today.

Premier Guitar gave this guitar a 4 1/2 out of 5 picks (stars), and I can see why. Brand snobs will look at the Epiphone brand and thumb their noses, but this is a Masterbilt - the highest model Epiphone makes, and it's actually very impressive. So in the photo, I focused on "Masterbilt" and not on Epiphone. Give me about another week, and I may be able to say that this is arguably as good, if not better than many of the Taylors/Breedloves/Takamines I've played costing between $800-$1000.

I haven't settled on whether I'm keeping this yet, but if I do, it'll be my "beater" workhorse. If I ever need to play outdoors for weddings again in either 37 degree weather or in sweltering heat, this is the guitar.

Natural Spotlight

From photo project 2010

Took an extra day off yesterday and got a chance to do some shooting in the morning. It was already pretty late in the morning, around 10am, and the sun was way too high for any good landscape shooting. I was already heading back in when I spotted a few dead leaves under this really lush tree outside our house. I decided to move a couple leaves around and place them in the sun spots where the sun was breaking through the tree above. I wanted to play around with framing my shot with light. This was the outcome I guess.

Spring Finally Sprung

From photo project 2010

From photo project 2010

From photo project 2010

I was almost starting to think we'd never see spring weather. It's still not quite here yet, but at least we're getting these April showers. Grabbed my camera after work today and walked out to the front of our townhouse development to grab these shots. It's nice to drive into this after a day at work. I've got a ton more of the close up flowers about to bloom. Really great timing today - the rain drops left hanging around the flower pedals was icing on the cake as these flowers bloom just once a year. They'll be gone in a couple weeks so I'm glad I got these shots just as they're about to bloom.

Dinner for One

From photo project 2010

Sue decided to go shopping with her girlfriend tonight instead of coming home for dinner. More food for me!

Picked up a 2005 Bordeaux a couple weeks ago - not bad at all for a $12 fare. Chateau La Ramonette if anyone is interested.

Breaking the Seal

From photo project 2010

I've finally finished my Macallan 15 Year Select Oak single malt scotch last night. I tend to nurse my scotch because I don't like to fork over $40-$50 in one shot on liquor. The Macallan lasted me a good 7 months - way longer than any 750ml scotch has a right to. I will say, that the only thing good about pouring the last bit of that Macallan was the anticipation of a new bottle of scotch that I haven't yet tried.

Well here it is - a Cragganmore 12 year speyside single malt which came upon a recommendation from my little cousin who apparently is a much bigger scotch conoseuier than I am. That label there gives it a pretty good general idea of this scotch - a bit sweeter than the Macallan 15 year select oak with a hint of smokiness, and not nearly as sweet as the Macallan 12 year which swings more on the sherry side. Thumbs up to this Cragganmore.

NGD

From photo project 2010

NGD - New Guitar Day! Actually, it was yesterday. I have to admit, I can be a bit of a brand snob when it comes to certain things. However, when I come across no name brands that perform as well as their brand name counterparts that only takes a fraction of the cost to acquire, I'm more than eager to give them a fair try. I've been researching Agile guitars for a while now. Ever since one of the electric guitar players I played with for church told me about these Agiles last November, I've been scouring the internet looking for youtube demos, reviews, and guitarists' feedback on these Gibson Les Paul copies. Probably 9 out of 10 guitarists have said how impeccable the build quality is, and playable these guitars are. Built in S. Korea, these have been said to be better than Epiphone Les Pauls (made in Mexico), and on par with, if not better than Gibson Les Paul Studios (made in U.S.A.) which cost between $800-$1200 depending on what finish you get your guitar in. This particular Agile costs $400 new, but I picked this up for $300 from a guy in N. Jersey when I saw his craigslist ad the other day. Beautiful guitar with Grover tuners so they stay well in tune, Mother of Pearl inlays on the ebony fretboard. This guitar sounds pretty good - though I'll probably swap out the bridge pickups very soon (too thin sounding). Can't be happier with my purchase.

From photo project 2010

From photo project 2010

From photo project 2010

From photo project 2010

From photo project 2010

Frozen!

From photo project 2010

From photo project 2010

What a rough winter in NJ so far. We've probably had the most snow in a four week stretch than I've ever remembered. Practically one snow storm a week, with two storms that dropped around 15-19 inches of snow each, and one nasty ice/sleet/freezing rain storm last week. At least there are nice photos to be had afterwards. These were taken with a 50mm mounted on an extension tube. The tube allows me to get up super close to my subject while staying in focus. This is the other way to do macro photography. Prior to this, I was using a reversal ring to mount my lens backwards for macro shots. It's one thing to do that indoors, but a little precarious to have the back of your lens exposed outdoors. I'd still prefer using an actual macro lens though since you lose both metering and auto focus this way, but I just can't afford a $500 macro lens right now.

Snow Conquerer

From photo project 2010

Last photo from last Monday, and in anticipation of another round of snow tonight into Friday morning. Subaru makes the snow it's snitch.

White and Green

From photo project 2010

Another shot from last Monday. Would've been nice if there was more snow spread out on the evergreen, but I guess the heavy winds took off most of that. I wonder how such a heavy layer of snow ever managed to stay the other parts. I turned the EV down a little bit to tone down the brightness of the snow and give the photo a moodier feel with a darker background.

Snow Drift

From photo project 2010

From photo project 2010

Shot these last Monday after the snowstorm. It was a good day to break out of my photography slump.

A Little Bit of Sun

From photo project 2010

I loathe winter. So much so that when autumn swings around I start feeling sad just looking at the orange and brown foliage and feeling the crisp autumn air. A sense of dread comes over me when I start thinking about how cold it'll be, and how our daylight is shortened by a few extra hour. So in a furious rebellion of the quickly approaching darkness and bitter cold soon to follow, I'll hold up this simple reminder of all that is good and pleasant from the summer. Melodramatic I know, but I really hate winter!

Welcome Home

From photo project 2010

From photo project 2010

New car! Okay, bought it used but still new to me. This is my 4th Accord, and the 3rd white Accord I've owned. My first was a '89 LX-i hatchback that I inherited from my dad after I got my license. I complain that the Accord are boring, but it's actually not that bad - at least the coupe doesn't feel as boring. Back in Hong Kong, when I was little, my dad had the first ever Accord model. It was a dark maroon/brownish color from what I can remember, and one of the few things I remember at the time when I was about 6 was that I wanted an Accord when I grew up. Hah. I would never imagine that I would own 4 of them. Interestingly, I've never bought a new one. Two of my Accords ('89 and '92 were from my parents who bought theirs new (one I inheritted, the other I bought from them I think), and I bought a '94 white Accord from a friend's dad, and this one, an '05 EX-L w/ navi from a coworker. I wasn't originally thinking of buying an Accord, let alone a used one, but looking at the new car market, I just wasn't getting anything I wanted at the price point I wanted to spend. A Honda Fit Sport costs over $17k, and the ride over small road imperfections was so jarring that I didn't want to ever go over anymore road imperfections again during my short test drive. Still, I was surprised at how peppy that 116 hp engine was with three adults in the car. A Mazda 3i felt pretty solid, but we didn't like the cheap plastic knobies inside and I didn't like the ultra sensitive steering. Thought about spending more on a VW Golf, but then I'd be spending more, and we ultimately got spooked by previous VW owners warning us not to go there. SO here we are, Honda Accord coupe EX-L w/ Navi in my favorite Accord color at a price waaay below what we wanted to spend. Slipping back into an Accord feels like home.

Night at the Beach, a Walk in the Woods

From photo project 2010

From photo project 2010

Both taken last week. It's been a pretty busy week and I haven't had the energy to do much shooting or posting. Took these last Sunday and Monday respectively. I caught the sunset which gave a really strong radiating glow to the structure behind the house that is mostly a sillohette. I thought it looked kinda cool. Second shot is from last Monday. Took the day off and went for a little hike in the Sourland Preserve in Hillsborough. I um...lost the trail on my way up. So I just followed someone back down. Fail. This second shot made me wish I had either a wider angle lens or a full frame format camera body (or both). The 18mm just wasn't enough here to capture more of the tops of the trees, and combined with the DX format camera body, what I'm really getting here is the equivalent of a photo shot at 27mm. I didn't want to lose the fallen tree as that is really what makes this photo work more so than more tree height, so it is what it is.

Higher Ed.

From photo project 2010

I love summer hours - 2pm closing on Fridays if there are no crisis going on. Did a walkabout Princeton University this afternoon to photograph some architecture. I need some help in that department actually. 1 hour walk, and this was the only half-decent shot. ugh.

...He is like a tree planted by streams of water

From photo project 2010

Went for a walk with Sue after work today. Found a park 5 minutes from our house and walked the trail. It was a little discouraging at first since there was nothing noteworthy to photograph until we got to the end of the trail where the covering of the trees broke and this stream appeared with this tree looming over it. Reminds me of Psalms 1.

On another note, I was finally glad to be able to take some shots outdoors. I was getting tired of shooting everything in my house. It makes my life feel terribly uneventful.

Fun with Macro

From photo project 2010

From photo project 2010

From photo project 2010

Working from home today. During my lunch break, I decided to try some more macro work. Some of these are shot at f 11. Basically, I'm keeping the aperture wide open so I can see what I'm focusing in on, then, when I think I've got it focused, I turn the aperture ring up to F8 or F11, trying to keep the camera in place as much as possible. It works sometimes, not so much on others. None of these are shot w/ a tripod, but there were a few cases of different shots that could've benefited from the anti-hand shake that a tripod would've provided.

Macro on the Cheap

From photo project 2010

From photo project 2010

I've been wanting to shoot macro for a while now, but have always been held back by the price of a $300-$550 macro lens. I've been reading that you can achieve macro photography with a reversing ring for your fixed focal lens, so I decided to give it a try. Picked up a reversing ring today that reverses the way your lens mounts onto your camera. The wider the angle of your lens, the bigger zoom you can get. Only fixed focal lens I have is a 50mm so it'll have to do for now. I wrestled with the DOF on these shots. F stop set at 8 manually with the aperture ring on the lens (since you lose all control of the lens from the camera body, along with auto focus and metering), the DOF was still pretty shallow. I have bad eyes, so at 11 and 16, the aperture was so small that it was hard to see in my viewfinder what I was looking at, let alone trying to manually focus, so I was stuck at a maximum aperture of 8. Not too bad for a $30 reversing ring. Would I throw down $300 to $550 bones for a real macro lens? Definitely in the future. I want my auto focus and metering back!

Studded Turtle

From photo project 2010

Been trying to shoot at apertures of 1.8 to 2.5, and I'm not sure if it's because I'm shooting small objects that it's not working out. The subjects generally tend to be too soft, and even blurry. Maybe my hands are shaking too much? At first, I had Sue hold it up higher so I could focus in on the turtle and leave her out of focus, but for some reason, I couldn't get a sharp image on the turtle. Maybe both our hands were shaking too much? I didn't want the whole shoot to go to waste so I settled for this shot. meh.

Roses are Red, Violets are Blue...

From photo project 2010

So my wife complained that I wrote a poem for a guitar pedal on my previous post, but never wrote a poem for her in all our years together. Busted. So on the fly, I wrote her this:

Wife, embodiment of all that's fair
How I love running my hand through your hair
I remember how you bat your eyes to play coy
But the glimmer that shine from them bring me great joy

Wife, your happiness is my delight
And never would I wish that we would fight
If I can but forever hear your joyous laughter
I would not ever mind to be your clown and jester

-Fred Wong