My Test Subjects

My Test Subjects, originally uploaded by Breathe in Digital.

The ECA dance was a pretty big success, all things considered. The kids had fun, the staff had fun, and I got a chance to play with my off-camera flash setup.

Ellen and Dave were happy to be my test subjects before I got to all of the students who wanted to be photographed (none of those pictures will appear here as they're all minors). Now, my skills at off-camera flash are pretty weak, and everything that I shot was under exposed and pretty awful looking. That said, this terrible mishandling of my new toys gave me a chance to learn even more about post production. After all, I had to make usable photos for the kids, lest they be heartbroken. So, the above photo is the kind of quality I was able to pull out of these things using my new favorite post tool, Adobe Lightroom.

The last shot here is of Ellen and Dave dancing. This was just taken with on of my sb-600's on top of the camera and required a lot less post production.

ECA STAFF: If you'd like to see photos of the kids, send me an email.

Let's Dance, originally uploaded by Breathe in Digital.

Candid

Dave, originally uploaded by Breathe in Digital.

So at our work bar gathering on Friday, I got to take a lot of very candid shots of my co-workers. This is Dave, our administrator. I feel like this shot pretty much embodies his story telling style.

Randal, originally uploaded by Breathe in Digital.

We were mostly there, though to appreciate Randal, the man who makes the entire school function. Without Randal, we'd be disembodied teachers hovering around in classrooms, and in a semester's time the school would no longer exist.

There were more shots, but I know better than to load a post down with a bunch of pictures. Please click on either picture to view my Flickr stream and see the rest of the staff that was present! They're all pretty good shots, if I do say so myself.

views from the job front

We had a snow day today. Well, it wasn't exactly a "snow" day, but an excessive cold day. When school was called off, the ambient temperature was reading -15 F, with a windchill of at least 10 degrees lower. Anyway, I ended up going into work for a couple of hours anyway . . . got some paperwork done, met with my principal, took some pictures.

I share an office with a good friend of mine, Amber. This is her desk. I would have uploaded a photo of mine, but it would have taken too long to clear off.

One of our science teachers has a lot of plants by his office. This one apparently clones itself. Near the center of this shot, in the most focussed area, is one of these little clone pods. The concept is kind of frightening.

Even on "snow" days, the central office is a very busy place.

Yet in the chaos, there is still a bit of peace. You just have to get real close to focus on it, and even then it doesn't seem to quite stay in focus for very long (that was a poetic way of saying that I didn't quite get exactly the shot I wanted here).