Japan in Pictures

Scooters in Shinjuku

(click above for photos)

Ok, I apologize. I’m going to take the easy way out this week and forward everyone to my photos of Japan taken from last year. This week at the school has been a busy but rewarding one for all of us. During this week, we have had a mid-term exam, two papers, and a quiz. This Friday night cannot come soon enough.

I promise I will be back this weekend with the very last installment of the Japan trip podcast and will then start documenting the future instead of dwelling on the past. I’ve also got some Japan related news, marketing research, and excellent blogs to share. Stay tuned…

Lightning Photo

June 20th - 21:21:18 - Lightning (No PS)

Canon EOS20d 1/60 f1.8 20mm ISO400 Sigma20mm (full size)

It started to storm up while I was finishing my packing the other night. I ran outside with the camera hoping to grab a few shots of the storm. I was always about 1/2 a second behind the lightning, my human reflexes just could not keep up.

However, I got lucky when I tried to take a picture of the lights on the passing vehicle. Mother nature decided to give me a beautiful show. Though the clouds look truly unreal, I can promise you that there was no photoshop involved with this photo. This was raw from the camera. I will most likely never take a photo quite like this again. 😉

Crawling Out

Crawling Out

Canon EOS20d 1/13 f5.0 27mm ISO200 (full size)

I had read an interesting post on taking more interesting photographs earlier in the week. I wish I had saved the link so I could post it. At any rate, one of the techniques that stuck in my head was to think of common objects from different angles or in different positions. As I was cleaning the bathroom today with the harshest of cleaning products, I took a quick break to see how I could make the gloves seem like a large looming monster. Meh, ok I think but not my best work.

Weird Copyright Laws

I’m looking into various ways to support myself while I am in school. One of the possibilities is looking at selling photography online at stock photography sites. In reading the photographer FAQ at iStockphoto.com, I learned something strange today regarding photographing trademarked buildings:

“… photographs of the Eiffel Tower during the day are legal for resale, but not night shots (showing the light show)”

Odd.

Heat of Iraq

I love this photo that my friend Mike added to his Flickr account. I don’t get the chance to tell him that often how much I appreciate what he does for us. This photo pretty much sums it up though. When I think of Mike now, its this photo, this face, this resolve that I think about. Thanks Mike!

Shadow Robots on Hallgrimskirkju

I just started playing around with Flickr, and I used this as a test photo. On my last trip to Iceland, my friend Fred and I took some pictures up by Hallgrimskirkju – a rather large nordic looking concrete church on top of a large hill in the old city portion of Reyjavik, Iceland. I was able to create some shadow robots with some creative body positioning. Not sure why the shadow doesn’t look like me though.