Written by John Shea    I can't really think of anything to say on this shot.  It's with my new 50mm lens, which I am absolutely smitten with.

Written by John Shea   

My son's football season ended today, not exactly on the frozen tundra, but certainly in the frigid rain.  He had a tough game, with the opposing team's biggest player constantly lining up across from him.  But despite getting repeatedly run over, he kept popping back up and taking another shot at it, without complaint.  He won plenty of praise from the coaches today for toughness.  And he's already looking forward to next season.

To say I'm proud of him is an understatement.  We didn't encourage him to play football.  He decided it all on his own.  Actually, it was more like we had to slow him down.  He's been watching the bigger kids practice at the park in town since he was two years old.  Finally getting to join the team was a big deal for him.  His only real complaint is that they don't get helmets at this level.

He's made huge progress during the course of the season.  He's a much faster runner now and a lot more confident.  And he made a ton of new friends.  It's been a pleasure watching him develop a dream and tackle it, even at his very young age.  I can't wait to see him take the next step.

Written by John Shea    This is the world with an infrared filter.  Under normal light, this is a pretty ordinary photo. 

Written by John Shea   

Doesn't this feel like he's sailing a ship off into the future?  Maybe it's just me. 

This is the sort of photo that makes me very happy.  The artsy part of my brain is delighted with the light, framing, angles and bokeh in the background.  The other part of me is just loving how cute my kid looks in it.  Win win.

This is an excellent example of why I was so excited to get a 50mm prime lens.  The tack sharp detail on his face plus the dreamy out of focus background is a wonderful combination.

Written by John Shea    Today there was a package awaiting me on the porch.  A brand new 50mm prime lens.  I'll spare you the geekery as to why that's cool, just be satisfied that I'm excited.  I fired off tons of shots today, just having a blast experimenting with it.  Some of the results really startled me.  Not that they were great photos, because I'm still learning what this lens will make possible.  But possibilities were made very clear in those experiments.  Today's photo is one of the many experiments.  It's not genius but it has a lot of the elements I hope to get with this lens.

Written by John Shea   

Now I know why my pen won't write smoothly.  Just look at it.  That ink is not evenly distributed on the ball point.  Pitiful.

Today I tried an idea that I'd read about a few times but never took seriously before.  If you have a DSLR camera, take the lens off, turn it around and hold it in place.  Instant macro lens.  Now, because the lens is detached, you have no auto focus and no ability to control the aperture.  So that's a problem.  And the depth of field is at best about a millimeter, so focusing is tougher than nailing a politician down on policy details.  But if you can get past all that, it's pretty damn impressive.

I was going to make this another mystery picture and have people guess but when I posted the same photo on Facebook, it took about five minutes for someone to figure it out.  And once again, I had a hard time picking a photo.  It was neck and neck between this one and our visiting pig.

Written by John Shea    The photo says it all.

Written by John Shea   

It's been awhile since I've posted a flower photo but with the whole autumn thing going on, there just aren't that many about.  Tack on a painfully dry year and you double the problem.  But then it rained for about two weeks straight and suddenly things are growing again.  Enjoy it.  I don't know when there will be another one.

I'm also starting to hit a point where finding things of interest to photograph is getting pretty difficult.  I spend huge chunks of my time in one rural block of space, so it's starting to feel repetitious for me.  You can probably expect more set up shots in the near future.  Maybe.  I could just be whining and nothing will change.  We'll see.

Written by John Shea    It pays to ask.  I was having a terrible time getting pictures at this game in the first half.  The coaches seemed to be actively trying to place themselves between me and the action.  At half time I went and asked if they'd mind me roaming the sidelines.  It was no problem at all.  When you're getting good photos of their team and/or kid, they don't mind at all.  So that gave me the freedom to get shots like this one.

Written by John Shea    Tonight we tinker with light painting.  I've shot plenty of night photos but never really played around with this idea before.  Very simply, while the shutter is open, you play a light over something in the shot, highlighting it.  In this case, the dugout was painted with my flashlight.  It would have been near invisible otherwise.