Best of the 365 Blog – June 2016

Nikon D7000, 10.5mm, 5 sec., f/6.3, ISO 200

For some time now I've been trying to start a 365 blog, in which I post at least one picture every day. Until last month I met only with sporadic success. However, one of my goals for this summer is to get into the habit of keeping up with this project. So far so good.

Many of the photos aren't exactly immortal classics. But every once in awhile something good – or at least interesting – comes of it. For example, the photo above is a shot of 18th street in Kansas City Kansas. I'd been meaning to take this photo for awhile now.

Nikon D7000, 80mm (35-80), 1/25, f/5.6, ISO 1600

Here's a photo of a lime slice floating in a grape slush from Sonic. I admit to doing some color filter work to bring out the purple a bit better. Straight out of the camera it was an unpleasant brown color.

Nikon D7000, 56mm (28-200), 20 sec., f/25, ISO 200

I was mostly just playing around when I took this one. It's a longer exposure taken out the front windshield of a car driving down the street at night.

Nikon D7000, 18mm (18-55), 15 sec., f/22, ISO 200

Another KCK street night shot.

Nikon D7000, 28mm (28-200), 1/125, f/5, ISO 6400

One of the fossils on display downstairs in KU's Natural History Museum.

Nikon D7000, 18mm (18-55), 1/250, f/8, ISO 100

Time to buy fireworks!

iPhone 5s

Throughout this month I was also working on a 30-day challenge. The theme for this image was "warning."

Nikon D7000, 24mm (18-55), 1/60, f/4, ISO 450

And at the end of the month we bid a sad farewell to Little Freshie sno cones.

Fireworks 2016

Nikon D7000, 28mm (28-200), 1/60, f/4.5, ISO 6400

Once again our Independence Day celebration was full of fireworks and photography. For the most part I stuck with standard techniques: long exposures for light painting and short exposures for sparky blasts.

However, I tried one trick:

Nikon D3000, 48mm (18-55), 5 sec., f/11, ISO 200, front curtain flash

This shot combines a long exposure with an off-camera flash. The flash fired as the shutter opened, when our friend Brandon was still lighting the fireworks. He was illuminated strongly only during the brief fraction of a second when the flash went off. As he swiftly got out of the way, he doesn't appear in the long exposure part of the shot along with the stationary tub or the light trails from the sparks.

Of course we had our usual fun finding creative ways to blow things up.

Nikon D7000, 200mm (28-200), 1/1250, f/5.6, ISO 200

That's a Pringles can meeting a fiery end.

 

Nikon D3000, 48mm (18-55), 5 sec., f/11, ISO 200

 And that's a tennis ball stuffed with ground-up sparklers.

Nikon D3000, 18mm (18-55), 5 sec., f/4.5, ISO 200

And though smoke bombs are typically better during daylight, lighting a bunch of them at once produced a nice effect.