Archives July 2011

I ran out to a local car show on Friday night to snap some photos.  After fighting my camera’s focus (which was stuck in manual, I think some photobooth software I was using caused this weird condition), and a flash that refused to fire (apparently the batteries were good enough to power on the LCD panel but not do anything else), I was finally able to start shooting.  The main car show was actually Saturday but I couldn’t make it Saturday, so I had to shoot the few cars that were out there on Friday night.  It ended up working out though as one of the cars there was a timelessly cool 1958 Ford Fairlane 500.  It was a beautiful car and looked like it had just rolled off the show room floor.  They don’t make them like this any more.

“Fairlane”

What made me think standing in a the middle of a field for an hour on the hottest day of the year a good idea?  This shot, which is another HDR merged shot, to give both the sun-setting sky and the fields the correct exposure.  I didn’t think I was going to get the shot at first because when I left my air conditioned car, all of my camera gear fogged up!  After a lot of blowing and wiping I finally got the lens cleared and started shooting, luckily not too late.  I absolutely love all of the soft natural colors in the final merged image produced by the hot July sun.   Three separate images were combined in to make this one photo.

“Maize”

I love summer.  Have I mentioned that yet?  This was a busy weekend with a lot of things going on.  Family having parties, the Christian County Fair, as well as the Chatham Sweet Corn Festival.  We some how made it to everything we wanted to and had a great day.  Our last stop was in Chatham for Sweet Corn.  Sweet Corn is an annual gathering hosted by the Chatham Jaycees at the Chatham Community Park.  The main attraction is, of course, sweet corn (and beer).  You can get other food as well, but most people come for the corn.  There are also other vendors selling things like kettle corn and other fried snacks.  Once the sun starts setting, the music starts rocking.  This year’s saturday night band was Area 51 from Lawrenceville Illinois.  They are a cover band, and while I’m usually not a fan of cover bands (having been subjected to the now defunct F5 might have ruined cover bands for me, I could not stand them), I actually liked Area 51.  They played some really great songs and their vocals were really well done.  I enjoyed them a lot and would definitely go see them again and hope they play future Sweet Corns.

“Festival”

I had another shot planned for this week, but it didn’t quite work out like I wanted it to… soon hopefully though.  It’s just a bit too humid right now.  I headed out with a collectible O-No Sushi vinyl figure from Andrew Bell.  I have actually used his vinyl figures for a photo before, back on week 16 for Invasion.  This vinyl figure is more of an original Andrew Bell piece though.  While his Android stuff is awesome, and was how I was introduced to him, he has some really cool and weird original stuff too.  I hope you enjoy it because I had fun taking it, even if I got some strange looks from passers-by.

“Lost”

This photo marks the half way point of my Photo 52 project.  It is hard to believe the year is already half gone.  This week’s photo was almost in jeopardy of not happening though.  I knew I was going to be shooting fireworks tonight (Sunday), so I hadn’t shot anything else all week.  Well, this evening rolled around, and the rain rolled in.  Luckily the storms mostly broke up and it only ended up sprinkling lightly before sun down,  allowing the fireworks show to go off as planned.  I ventured back to my home city of Chatham Illinois and set up my tripod and Canon.  I ended up snapping 90 photos over the course of the show (a lot more than I thought I had).  I had a ton of really cool shots and it was hard to only pick one, but I ended up going with this one because it was sort of unique from the others.  It was a clean firework by itself, it was multicolored, and almost looks like some kind of space anomaly in the night sky.

Happy Independence Day Everyone.

“Independence”