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Abigail woke up this morning with a 101.9 fever, a stomach ache and a sore throat, yet still manages to eek out a joyous smile. At this point, I suspect she could go to school but in the interest of keeping her well, she’s logging into Webkinz and taking it easy.

UPDATE: Her fever was up to 102.4 this evening and all she wanted to do was lie down. I carried her to the couch when she weakly told me, “I’ve never been sick like this before.” An extended nap, some Tylenol and a lot of water has her smiling again.

Canon 5D 24-70 f/2.8L @ 70mm f/2.8 ISO 1600 1/100s

Last Saturday I had the opportunity to get out and shoot a Trash the Dress session with Katie and Eva and fellow photographer Gabe Tanase. I’m still processing the shoot but thought I’d share a "frames" video inspired by stellar wedding photographer Nick Haskins. In ten minutes I had fired off just under 250 frames, filled the last SanDisk 4GB Extreme III CompactFlash Card in my Canon EOS 5D and was wondering what to do with two very wet brides.

Enjoy.

Today marks the last full day of school for Chicago Public Schools. We celebrated with a school-wide picnic. Hula hoops, moonwalks, hot dogs, Dilly Bars, 86 and sunny. Everything a kid needs to kick off summer. It’s bittersweet to see the end of the school year, but next Fall will be here before we know it. In the mean time, I’m sure there will be plenty of play dates, afternoon matinees, swimming and summer activities

When not standing in line for face painting, jump ropes and hula hoops were the preferred activities.

This Dilly Bar was no match for a high of eighty six and a hungry child.

Managing a large number of seamless backgrounds can be unwieldy. To simplify my life and storage requirements, I keep two seamless paper rolls mounted at all times - black and white. But throw in a strobe and a set of gels, and you can turn that black background into an array of wonderfully rich, saturated colors.

For example, consider this portrait from last night’s session:

Here we have a model with rich brown hair, amazing highlights and a lime green shirt. I wanted to match my background to her clothing and bring out the contrast of her face and eyes to really make the portrait pop. As already mentioned, I only keep a black and white seamless background handy. So where did the lime green background come from?

Achieving this effect is rather simple, but counter intuitive. A Canon 580EX II is sitting behind her, to her right, gelled with a Rosco Roscolux Straw, 20" x 24" Color Effects Lighting Filter and Rosco Roscolux No Color Blue, 20" x 24" Color Effects Lighting Filter. Combined they yield the green you see here. Lighting up a black background results in deeply saturated color and enables you to combine colors from a sample pack of Roscolux gels to achieve a very wide variety of background colors.

Further effect is added by zooming the flash head to 50mm to achieve the background highlight and natural vignette that further draws your attention to the subject. It is similar to using specular reflections as a background element, but in this case we are lighting the entire background separately from the main subject.

Not only is this technique simple and cost effective, it also resulted in this picture being showcased on flickr’s Explore. So the next time you’re looking to add a little punch to your portrait, first consider black and then reach for the Roscolux gels!

It is simply a beautiful afternoon here in Chicago. This time of year here is so bizarre. Consider this past Tuesday when it was winter-like and in the low- to mid-40s with miserably overcast skies. It made my Chicago Architectural Outing far less fun than it could have been. But this afternoon we’re loving the amazingly blue skies, white puffy clouds and the ever-so-nice 78 degrees!

The pool has been up for an entire week and is just warm enough to provide the kids with some enjoyment, despite them needing to continually warm themselves in the sun after every dip. For me, it’s a perfect opportunity to break out my Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L and grab some wonderfully colorful wide-angle shots of the kids.

The following images were developed in Lightroom with my own Saturday Color preset. Saturday Color is designed to really bring out the clarity in an image and make the colors pop, perfect for these types of shots of the kids in colorful environments. Feel free to download it and put it to work.

It’s been a while since I made the time to get out and shoot in downtown Chicago. Drew and I had talked about getting together for the past year and we finally did so yesterday. Armed with the Amod AGL3080 GPS Data Logger and through the cold and wind, we started at Millennium Park where I’ve never before seen The Bean. Hard to imagine, I know, but I enjoyed the abstracts it provided.

Next stop was the Millennium Park Amphitheater. A few years back I made a great patterned picture here with the sun streaming into the theater. After letting Drew take a few frames with the Canon EF 70-200mm f/4 L IS USM Lens for Canon Digital SLR Cameras, we headed down close, got scolded by security for being beyond the barriers and made a few images from angles you don’t normally get to experience.

We trekked north up Michigan Avenue to John Hancock Center where I made an image that has been on my mind for almost a year. This particular image is made at the corner of Michigan and Delaware and requires that you travel with a spotting buddy to hold back traffic so you don’t get squished like a bug. Thanks for watching my back, Drew.

On the way back to the car, the light was less-than-stellar, it was cold and it was difficult to find anything creative about shooting the river from the Clark Street bridge. The bridge itself, however, yielded this image.

Despite the cold, it was great to be out again and shooting in The Windy City. I’ve uploaded a more complete set of images here to my flickr account. Enjoy!

I’ve been working though an amazing series of podcasts by Brooks Jensen, editor of LensWork, entitled LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process. Dating back to February, 2004, this podcast series is an amazing set of short - two to five minutes each in length on average - pieces of insight from an amazing photographer and long time editor. If you are looking for a source of inspiration and motivation, to try something different or to simply listen and absorb, I strongly recommend you download all of the episodes and spend some quality time with camera and your iPod.

One episode in particular, LW0034: Thinking In Sets of Three, really caught my attention about presentation of artwork and how to increase one’s creativity by expanding upon a single image:

… good presentations of artwork are always in odd numbers. Three of something. Five of something. Not two and four. And so now when I’m out photographing, I find myself thinking in terms of three. If I find something that’s really going to make a good photograph, I immediately start thinking about the two pictures that will go with it.

I applied this technique to a rather impressive dandelion my daughter picked and brought home the other morning. I used the opportunity not only to apply my seldom-used macro lens, but to craft three slightly different views of the same subject that are complimentary to each other. And in the spirit of LensWork, they are produced in black and white - which yields a far more compelling image than their color counterparts.

Every year the Norwood Park Memorial Day Parade is hosted right here - almost in my own backyard. The line up typically includes all of the local schools, a few local high school bands, many local businesses, a considerable selection of antique vehicles, plenty of people throwing candy to the kids that line the street and handing out advertising goodies (I may never need to buy another water bottle again) and, my favorite … a tribute to the men and women of wars past who have fought for our very freedoms. Here’s a few of my favorite images from the parade. Click on any image to visit the set on flickr.

For starters, the parade always opens with a tribute to the men and woman of wars past who have fought for our very freedoms.

The local high school marching bands bring the joy required of every parade, that of woodwinds and percussion.

Antique vehicles galore, but some that you definitely do not see every day, with the BMW being my personal favorite.

It’s definitely worth checking out how the one and only door to this BMW works.

Local families are enlisted with float-pulling duty and are always well received when sporting a cute-as-a-button child.

And if you find walking and chewing gum at the same time difficult, check this out … patrons from the Wooly Lamb Yarn Studio here in the neighborhood were actually crocheting while marching in the parade!

Last, but not least, is our beloved Chicago Police responsible for bringing a safe close to this year’s parade.

Many thanks to all of you who participated and made this annual event something to look forward to each and every year!

In December of 2007, I made a personal commitment to focus on my love of photography and use 2008 as a year to build my photography business - partly to earn back my investment in my hobby and partly to begin planning for my post-retirement life. In both cases, its to forward my love of capturing life’s moments and memories in a single frame from a single moment in time.

I hope you will enjoy the journey with me along the way - both in the images captured and the knowledge shared.

Welcome and enjoy!