As I noted on geophlog, my price for taking cute pictures of your kids is dinner. That is, of course, the friends and family rate.

Follow my progress on Readernaut.

The first in a series of two shots of a backlit Bradford Pear.

I was up early yesterday and felt inspired to go take some shots. The above is the best of a bad lot: I should’ve overexposed the shot in-camera, had to crop heavily because of mediocre lens selection, and didn’t reset the white balance from the previous indoor shots I’d been doing at work. In other words, when I was in post-production, there was much swearing.

Today, I went out to go re-create that shot. I didn’t go early enough to match the light, but I think it came out okay…

The second in a series of backlit shots of a Bradford Pear tree.

See, that’s right out of the camera. Different lens, different color balance, different day, but essentially the same shot.

I don’t do this very often—revisiting a subject in the same light, twice—because a lot of what I take is concert photos where you get one shot. Of course, I shoot in a lot of the same places with a lot of the same subjects, so in a way, I get to re-learn there, but I’m pushing myself to try this more often so I can have benefit of my re-thinking.

I have much, much to learn.

I’ll keep adding photos to the Backlit Blooms set as I find that I’m happy with them.

Geof and Rick | Day 158

Originally uploaded by Geof F. Morris

Now, here’s why I love Twitter. I started with: “Anybody local wanna go grab a beer this evening?” This morphed into “Quick dash through the shower before I go eat Tommy’s Pizza with @jcreekmore and @abcreekmore…“, “Pizza + beer at the World Famus Bridge St.“, and then “Chilling at Bridge Street with Creekmores, Kings, and Granades. ” Sorry for those of you HSVLocals who already had dinner plans by the time this sprang up.

As for the look on my face here, I think I was trying to make Emily look at her mother. Oops.

My Tree | Day #130

Originally uploaded by Geof F. Morris

So I was sitting inside the house, chilling on a Saturday morning, and I saw how the light was playing on the tree. Outside I went.

Happy Birthday, Eli!

Originally uploaded by Geof F. Morris

I can’t believe he’s five already.

Dr. Boom | Day #128

Originally uploaded by Geof F. Morris

I love happy accidents.

Two PowerMates and a Microphone | Day #096

Originally uploaded by Geof F. Morris

So I’ve had the two PowerMates for a while, and I’m now putting them to good use. I won’t let the focus of this entry be how I’m using the PMs system-wide [another day, if you're interested], but suffice it to say that I’m using the PMs for awesome in Aperture.

Now, I’m biased by Fraser Speirs’s photo workflow; before I was ever serious about the concept, I had read what he was doing. I don’t do stack sorting—in fact, I just closed the tab so I won’t spend thirty minutes delving into same and stop writing this entry—but I do use the PowerMates to power through the weaning process. My ratings are much like Fraser’s—if it’s okay, going to get rated up to one start; if it’s crap, I reject it. Here’s where the PowerMates come in:

Left PowerMate: clockwise rates up, counterclockwise rates down.
Right PowerMate: clockwise advances in the set, counterclockwise goes back.

A wee twist of the wrist is all I need to rate something up or down, or to move back and forth. I think that adding in stacks will make this even more powerful for me, especially when I’m off of my current kick of sports photography and back into concert stuff, when taking eight or twelve exposures at a swath is about catching an expression or some light, not a pass or a shot or a hit. But it’s really quite quick for me: fire up Full Screen mode, position my hands, and make the snap decision.

I do my editing in passes, typically. I do the reject/promote run the first time through, culling the crap. The second pass, I’m looking for stuff that is two-star level: something about the frame catches my eye, and it’s either good as is or needs some cropping, tweaking, or other. And so-on until I get to at least three stars, sometimes four. Depends on the shoot and how much I’m looking to push out to Flickr—sometimes three stars is my bar, and sometimes it’s four. But with just a bare minimum of movement, I can fly through the editing.

What do I use other than the PowerMates? Well, besides Full Screen, I use the C shortcut to fire up the cropping tool and the ` to bring up the loupe. Between those two, plus using all of my 24″ of iMac real estate, I can power through stuff faster than I ever have—and I’m just getting started at doing this.

The beauty of the PowerMates is that you can program them to do lots of things—volume controls, keyboard shortcuts, scrolling. You’ve got global settings and program-specific ones. I’m just scratching the surface.

Matt Sweazey and Scott Kalinchuk

Originally uploaded by Geof F. Morris

I’m proud of these shots … especially this one. I think it’s because Matty and Chuck are such good guys. I pretty much talk to Matty after every game these days … always with the handshake-into-the-man-hug.

The Creekmore Clan

Originally uploaded by Geof F. Morris

I should spend more time laughing.

This will seem obvious to anyone who thinks about it for more than a minute or two, but:

JPG : RAW :: MP3 : FLAC

JPGs [and GIFs, and PNGs, and the like] are great for transport, as are MP3s [and M4A/AAC, WMA, etc.]: both trade fidelity for filesize. Good is the enemy of great, though. I’m sometimes asked why I don’t buy many digital downloads of music, or why I hoard hard disks like they’re gonna stop making them. The answer is pretty simple: I want all the bits. I believe in a future where our compressed copies are gonna be like the 8-track—we’ll remember them fondly for their portability, but we won’t have anything to play on them.

I am, also, the same person whose first act on opening a physical CD is to make a copy of it; after ripping, that CD goes back into its case and is rarely seen again.

Don’t make me cut you.

Update: Hunter smacked me later, noting that PNG is indeed lossless. I will now light myself on fire.

Design by Granade Graphic Design; name from Amy via an open Twitter inquiry.

Practice | Day #4

Originally uploaded by Geof F. Morris

So the greatest amusement of my day was UAH head coach Danton Cole coming up to me and Will while we were watching UAH’s first practice and saying, “Hey, do you guys think you can help me get information out over Facebook?”

This amused the two of us greatly, as Will started the UAH Hockey Facebook group, and I, well, do this kind of stuff all the time.

I mean, really … twist my fuckin’ arm, Coach.

[For the record, I'm buying season tickets this year, including a four-pack in good seats on the penalty-box side of the ice. Obviously, I am only one man and can only sit in one seat at a time, so if you would like to use my tickets for free, you just give me a call or drop me an email, eh? First come, first served.]

Thirty! | Day #1

Originally uploaded by Geof F. Morris

I’m thirty today. I’m excited, can’t you tell?

I’m also joining Mike and Rae in a 365-day photo pool called “Hacks and Cameras”, which I fit on both accounts. Whether be with my DSLR, my iPhone, or Photo Booth, I hope to shoot something every day of my 31st year on Earth. You can follow the pool or 30+N/365 set.

Thanks to all who have called, emailed, and the like to send their regards. It’s been a good day after a number of really bad ones in a row.

Eli Scored!

Originally uploaded by Geof F. Morris

So Eli’s first soccer games was yesterday, so I decided to go and take photos. Because, well, two things: 1) I love the kid and 2) it’s soccer! I played for four years, but not at his age. When I started playing in third grade, you actually had to, you know, work at scoring a goal, because the kids had figured out defense.

So when he was self-upset about not getting to score in the first seven seconds, I told him, “Dude, do you know how long it was before I scored in a game? Four years!” I could see the wheels grinding, “Four years? That’s how old I am!” Exactly, kid. Did I tell him that I played 90% of the time as a goalie or a fullback? No, because at that age, they don’t get the concept of positions. Or, well, defense. [Okay, so there was the one kid on Eli's team that got defense. I wanted to run over to him and pat him on the back, then encourage him and teach him how to knock guys off-stride without getting carded. AHEM.]

There was the most comical moment of the morning when Eli suddenly stood on the goal line and waved his arms around, making himself look big and trying to distract the kid with the ball. This technique reminded me of, well, most every penalty kick I’ve ever defended, including the one I stopped because I was too scared to move and the kid, taught by his coach that I would be moving at the kick, went right for my feet. Heh.