Stocks Garden Sunday

Sunday is the laziest day, isn't it? For me it usually is. It's the last day of the weekend and it reminds me that another full work week is ahead. I usually just want to sit and chill. This past Sunday I went to Holly's house. While waiting for the delicious dinner her dad was making, she took me out front to see the garden in progress. One quick walk around the garden and I decided I wanted my camera. Luckily, I usually keep it with me.

This is a cucumber plant if I'm not mistaken. They look pretty cool all curled up.

Here's another view. This one was being used by a spider to attach its web to it.

Some of the plants are pretty chewed up so Holly was showing me how you can see where the larvae travel and consume more leaf as they grow. It's pretty cool. I didn't have a macro lens or macro tubes so I had to crop the image a bit but luckily these large megapixel cameras can handle a good crop.

A tomato growing on the vine. It's hard to see but I like this image. Obviously it would be better when the tomato gets red.

I saw these little flowers in another section of the yard. I don't know what they are but I hadn't seen them in this color.

While looking at the flowers, I spotted a colorful spider. I've noticed that spiders and their webs are hard to auto focus so I tried my best at manual focusing.

In the back yard, I spotted a dragonfly sitting on a leaf with the golden sun glistening through its translucent wings. I got a few shots off and as I kept turning to get a head on shot, it flew away. This is a very tight crop of the original.

The dragonfly landed on another plant and Holly wanted a go at capturing it so I lent her my camera. I cropped this again quite tightly but I think the detail still holds up for the web.

Holly still having my camera spotted Arwin, her cat, sleeping in a strange position.

Once I got my camera back, I went in for more Arwin pictures.

I kept getting closer until I finally bugged her enough to get up. I shot quite a few but she doesn't like to be photographed, by me at least, and this was the best I got.

Just before heading inside, Holly pointed out these flowers with the blue thingy inside. Thingy? I really need to learn about flowers.

There were white and purple flowers and this one was both!

This one apparently had a visitor. Luckily it was the only one I saw in this condition.

As I was leaving, I decided to take a photo of Holly. She had the sun to her back and it was really strong so I popped the flash on and dropped the exposure comp to -2 and brightened up the shadows a little in Lightroom. I didn't want to blast too much harsh light in her face.

These are most of the images shot from Sunday but if you prefer to see them on Flickr, you know where to clickr.

Moving help

On Saturday I helped my friends Joanna and Jacob move to their new house. Joanna's brother, Daniel also helped. I took my camera gear including my GoPro hoping I could get some footage but my primary focus was in helping. I went to their old apartment to help load the truck they rented. They had already done the hardest part in boxing everything up so the move itself didn't take us that long. Jacob and Daniel loaded the large couch in the truck and I assisted Daniel with the smaller love seat. My arms were shot from this point. As you might notice in the video, I had energy but couldn't lift heavy so I kept working during break time to make up for it.

Once we got all the stuff loaded on the truck, we drove it to the new house. I rode in the truck so I decided to setup the GoPro to document the ride. I setup a shot facing inside to show the three of us in the cab and then flipped it out to capture the drive and area.

I had an idea and Daniel brought it up as well, to mount the GoPro on some furniture as it was being carried. The only problem with this was that it might hold up the task at hand. I noticed a window from the second story and went upstairs to mount it facing the truck. I started recording and got over an hour and twenty minutes of video before the battery died and since I didn't take my spares, that was enough. Check out the video below. I'll keep yapping away after you watch it. It's not available on mobile though.

Moving (in fast forward) GoPro edition

When I got back and started editing down the video, I decided to just have a quick intro of us riding in the truck. I spliced a few of the front and inside facing shots even though they're not simultaneous. It's called movie magic. I had so much footage but all from the same angle so I sped up the video 10x to get that timelapse effect. I also cut out all the footage where none of us were around. This makes it look like we were working much harder than we actually were. 

I didn't record sound. Well, I did but it's GoPro sound so it's terrible. I thought to track a song for the length of the video. I was looking through my library and found this cool song I thought matched and was long enough that I didn't have to keep cutting. I find out later it's not available on mobile but that's the risk with using copyright material. I don't know why they don't allow it. It's still making them money since I can't monetize it while using their song. Anyway, the song was slightly longer than the video so I added an outro linking to older videos of mine. I thought it turned out nicely.

2013 Jacksonville Jazz Fest

I went to Jazz Fest last year for the first time in Downtown Jacksonville and had a great time so I was looking forward to going again this year. We were excited to see the two headliners, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and Trombone Shorty.

Upon arrival, I started shooting the scene.

I'm going to need to make a separate trip to downtown to shoot some buildings.

This was Memorial Day weekend so I shot a few flags. This one I thought to do something different and rotate it 90 degrees.

While the girls were shopping, this Jerk Chicken establishment was making our mouths water.

Random bike just standing on the curb unattended.

We chose to eat some flatbread pizza which was delicious.

It was cooked in this portable brick oven. Looked more concrete or stone than actual brick but the fire was real.

Spotted some celebrities in the crowd. Here is Cee Lo Green.

Not sure what these people were looking at but it looks interesting.

The crowds were thick as we started looking for a spot to setup our chairs for the headliners.

Another flag waving. I cropped this shot a little and accidentally left "GO" in the background. I like to think it was a happy accident as Bob Ross called them. Go USA!

Our view of the Swingin Stage once we setup for BBVD.

BBVD rocked. This was the best I could come up with. I changed to my 50-200mm. Since the stage was lit pretty good, I was able to shoot with the widest available on that lens at f5.6.

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy at Jacksonville Jazz Fest 2013

Here's a video of BBVD playing

It was so dark in the park area we were sitting in but I was able to somewhat capture a few of the dancers.

As the show was going on, I noticed a few photographers shooting to my left. I noticed the moon rising, so I took a stab at it too.

Switched back to my 50-200mm to get a closer look. The moon moved quick.

Day two of the festival gave me an opportunity to shoot more of the environment. I didn't really take advantage but I did capture this cool piano art.

While listening to a latin band playing, this old man sat at the base of the statue at Hemming Plaza and he just looked cool. It looks like he has several lifetimes worth of stories to tell.

Homeless Dance-off Crosses the Line

As we made our way to the Swingin Stage to setup for Trombone Shorty, we saw a crowd cheering some dudes dancing. It looked like they were having an innocent, old school, dance-off. Someone decided to tip the dude a dollar and then another and the other guys decided to step it up to make some money. Well, watch for yourself. I was a little grossed out.

Trombone Shorty at 2013 Jacksonville Jazz Fest

Despite seeing the dance incident earlier, once Trombone Shorty went on stage, all was good. I filmed this one song and it turned out to be one of the longest of the night. 

I had to leave early because Trombone Shorty was really loud. Much louder than the previous night for BBVD. I enjoyed their performance and would have liked to finish but it was all good. We got an early lead to the car before the massive crowd let out. Which was beneficial because I forgot where I had parked and had to walk up and down Bay street to find the garage.

I have a few additional photos over on my Flickr site if you just didn't get enough of the 2013 Jacksonville Jazz Fest.

BioLab

Holly needed to go to her lab to set up some samples before dinner.

I started looking for interesting angles.

They say to get a better shot to go in closer so I tried and I agree, sometimes...

I thought this vacuum thing looked cool

This was actually the first image I saw but took the others first.

I thought these hoses would make for a better image. Not bad I suppose.

Holly doing her thing

This is great. I went across the shelf and focused through the containers and shot just as she looked up at me.

Then I was asked to take a few shots of the experiment so I did.

Check out the full Flickr set for a few additional pictures.

Portfolio

Here's a first look at my portfolio. I joined 500px because they now have a portfolio service/section. I uploaded some photos. I need to make it better but check it out while it's in it's infancy. jal316.500px.com

I may also move my domain to the portfolio once I have it setup and link this blog from there.

Epic Jenga

Game night on Sunday was special. I took Jenga. The first game ended rather quickly but the second was epic. It got to a point where I started Googling the Jenga world record. At one point we only had three moves left below the top two rows.

When we realized it was a game for the record books, we started shooting with our phones. As we kept going, I pulled out my dslr and got a few of the last moves.

 Holly had her Jenga face going

I'm not immune to the Jenga face

Jenga master

 First shot with my DSLR. Black and white for dramatic purpose. 

Contemplating a piece. Not many options left.

The piece that ended it all

Great game.