Christmas Photo Shoot

Packages, from my Christmas Card Photo Shoot.

I probably took around 400 pictures over the course of two shoots for this project, using my Christmas tree and various props - ornaments, townspeople, etc. Oscar even jumped in to "help."

Shooting the townspeople was difficult because they don't have much detail to their faces, and it was hard to get the light on them just right. I sort of had Sarah Vowell's book covers in mind when I was styling it. I think the photos didn't come out too bad. More on my Flickr, and more to come.

Exactly.

Taken at the Rally to Restore Sanity/Keep Fear Alive in Washington D.C. on October 30, 2010.

Lucky Shot.

   A very lucky shot from the window of the airplane. My phone was off and camera buried in my carry-on because I had no idea we were going to get such a good view on take off. I scrambled to wrench the camera from my bag and took this pic without looking through the camera.
   The Washington Monument is the most obvious in this photo... if you follow the lawn back and to the right, that's the US Capitol building. If you follow the lawn back and to the left, that's the White House.

   The photo above is zoomed and cropped from the original. You can click on the photo above for a bigger view. Hit the jump for the original version.

Aggressive Cranes

Taken at the National Zoo in Washington DC, October 2010.

... because the passive-aggressive cranes in the adjacent enclosure just weren't as interesting.

I thought this sign was funny, I'm not really sure why. I tried to capture the bird and the sign in a sinister, kind of film noir way.

Detriot at Night

Sort of. Taken from a plane on October 31, 2010.

I was trying to get a good night, aerial shot of Detriot, obviously, but I think the camera initially was set to an automatic setting, causing the very slow shutter speed. Regardless, I like the result. Night shots from a plane are never interesting anyway, and they all look pretty much the same to me. But I'm always compelled to take one even though I know I can hardly replicate what I'm seeing out the window.

Just Another Day at JTG

Jimmy's To-Go, Reedsburg, Wisconsin. Circa 2009. Taken on my iPhone.

My parents are wrapping up the end of another successful year today, so this post is very appropriate. This photo was one of those rare moments that makes me confident in my photographic eye for scenes, people, interesting things. I love every element of this photo: the worn-looking picnic table in the foreground, the hot dog stand in the background. And I don't know who that guy is, but he's posed just perfectly in his foundry uniform, waiting for lunch.

I love it so much that I even put it on the cover of my book, Jimmy's To-Go: The Beginning, that chronicles the first and very successful year of the Jimmy's To-Go saga.

Truck Series

HipstaTruck, taken yesterday at MadCat.

Slowly but surely working on a 2011 calendar for MadCat... we're probably going to use a photo of the truck for the cover. Now the assignment is to make the old girl look good.

I took the above pic with the Hipstamatic app on the iPhone. It's not the greatest calendar picture but I think it's pretty kickass anyway. The photo to the right is with my regular camera.

Andy wants to replace the numbers on the license plate with the year, 2011, so I laid on the parking lot to get this pic with the plate front and center and everything else kind of spreading out, looking epic. Didn't hurt that the skies in Wisconsin have been amazing lately - choppy and white, like the cotton ball creations we made while learning about clouds in second grade.  Stereotypical skies.

We'll figure it out.