All Natural

The last moments, originally uploaded by RLHyde [breatheindigital].

I looked out of my patio door and saw this great lighting, so I had to take advantage of it. This was taken from inside my living room (had the camera on a tripod, triggered with a remote trigger). It was kind of weird having my sliding glass and screen doors wide open with a camera pointed toward my neighbors, but I don't think they noticed. And besides, it's not like I was taking pictures of them. Totally.

Behind the break is a pic of just the patio, sans me. Click on "Read More" to see it.

Patio, originally uploaded by RLHyde [breatheindigital].

Favorite Things

Favorite Things, originally uploaded by RLHyde [breatheindigital].

Books are treasure. That's always been my view of them. Even though I'm a Literature teacher, I'm not the most prolific reader in the world (both my girlfriend and my roommate read a ton more than I do), but what I do read I really dig into and fall in love with.

These are a few of the books that have made big impressions on me. If they weren't out on loan, either Poisonwood Bible or Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver would be in this shot as well. Oh, and while I haven't actually read all of that anthology of Ray Bradbury short stories, I'm exceedingly glad I have it.

Curious Cats

Curious Cats, originally uploaded by RLHyde [breatheindigital].

The big tree in the back lot of my apartment complex grows a massive mushroom on it about this time every year. It probably doesn't bode well for the tree, but it makes a fun platform on which to put tiny plastic cats which were originally cupcake decorations.

Also, shooting something this small makes me wish I had been using an autofocus lens. A 50mm autofocus is definitely on my "buy before the year is out" list. That, and at least one more flash.

God Gave Rock 'n Roll to You

Tribute, originally uploaded by RLHyde [breatheindigital].

Remember Cammila? Of course you do. Well, we're at it again, doing shots for her fashion blog, and this time she wanted to pay homage to her car and, thusly, to the bands she loves the most. It's hard to tell in these two shots due to the paleness of the shirt, but it does say "Queen", which is easily her favorite band. View it large and on black to get a better view.

During this shoot, the wind blew over both of my umbrella stands a couple of times, and my silver reflective umbrella is ruined. I've already ordered replacements for both (shoot-thru is now a little wonky as well). I need to find a better way to anchor my stands.

On a completely different note, I noticed that the link to my Picasa web album was broken. I understand that some people find Picasa's web albums easier to navigate, so I've fixed the link (hover over the "Photo Streams" tab above and click on Picasa). There's a lot of stuff in "web albums" in there, but it's in reverse chronological order.

Distinctive, originally uploaded by RLHyde [breatheindigital].

They Rise!

They Rise!, originally uploaded by Breathe in Digital.

From the very bowels of the earth, they come to consume us all!

FINGER PUPPETS!

My roommate suggested that this be a caption contest, so if you have a witty thing that these awesome finger puppet monsters are saying, just post it in the comments. If something awesome gets suggested, I'll post up an editer version later :)

If you're interested in any of the information as to how I set this up, or to see larger versions click on the picture. (For those of you uninitiated, when you click on the photo and go to Flickr, click on "all sizes" at the top of the picture to see the big version).

This is what happens when you get it right the first time!

A gentle obscurity, originally uploaded by Breathe in Digital.

View this on a black background

It feels exceedingly good to be figuring more out about my lights. This photo required virtually no editing whatsoever, just a few minor tweaks for the sake of it, but no hours of post production like my dance shots.

Cammila, as always, is gorgeous and a great model to work with (okay, the only model I've worked with). It helps that she's one of my best friends ever and lives in the same apartment complex as me, of course, but still, the fact that she runs an awesome fashion blog and I run this little photo blog makes our friendship suddenly even more mutually beneficial than it already was. Thanks, Cammila, for being awesome!

Here's one more to tide you over. See the full set at my Flickr (Cammila has her own album on my site, now).

A Celebration, originally uploaded by Breathe in Digital.

A night sky

A night sky, originally uploaded by Breathe in Digital.

I was informed that there would be a beautiful sunset. Where's the beautiful sunset? I demand a beautiful sunset! Apparently my lethargy and the time it took to set up the tripod in the dark equaled a shot that could have been better. Still, it's pretty enough to post.

That Squirrel Would Be COVERED in Makeup

David and I were out on the back porch the other day when a very nosey squirrel decided to come up and investigate. I ran back inside to grab my camera, but squirrels don't pose, and when they do, they don't pose in visually interesting places (these are the rules that I've just made up). However, I managed to get a couple of visually interesting shots.

Bonus points for finding both Eddie Izzard references.

I liked this one because of the lattice being in sharper focus than the squirrel. It's just a bit different than usual. I've also gotten into the habit of cropping things down to emphasize the most visually interesting elements in the shot, so this one is a standard 8x10 crop.

I tried cropping this one in all sorts of ways, but the most interesting version was the original. Unfortunately I don't have a better zoom lens . . . something I'm going to try to correct some time this summer.

Back Yard and Beyond

On Friday, we had a bit of a power outage for some reason. So what better to do than go out into the back yard area of your apartment complex and start taking some photos? It's especially nice when there's a creek winding around back there as well. Remember to click on pictures to bring up the bigger, higher quality versions.

This is the shot I had in my head when I decided to go shoot, and it's the first one I got. I like all of the lines in it. I thought of doing this one in black and white, but I decided to let the color of the grass contrast with the natural blue shadows to get that early Spring look.

Here we have a hole dug by some small animal, surrounded by new Spring grasses and the like. Something about this shot seems hopeful to me.

I did decide to play with some black and white shots, though (pretty easy to do with Photoshop). It took me a while to realize that when you want an interesting looking black and shot, you've just got to contrast it all to hell. There was a different version of this shot with only minor tweeks, and there just wasn't anything to look it. It all blended in. I'm happy with this result.

This was the shot I was most excited about when taking it. Originally I had just intended to shoot the little puddle by the side of the creek, by suddenly my camera decided (thank you, autofocus!) to get a crisp shot of the reflection of the trees above this tiny puddle instead. Again, I thought this one looked nicer in black and white (dull brown mud, dull brown water). I hope you enjoy it.