Theme Week: Cats

Nikon D7000, 80mm (35-80), 1/200, f/5.6, ISO 400, cropped

Here’s a couple of things you don’t see much from me. First, I typically take pictures of my cats only when they’re being especially cute or when I need a photo for the day. And second, I don’t generally do “theme weeks” on the 365 blog.

But this week was different. It started out with a particularly good photo of The Dutchess, one of the neighborhood strays we’ve been feeding. [subsequent note: the cat died a few days after this photo was taken] And in our own family, Anna Marie’s room got a new door, replacing the baby gate we’d been using.

iPhone 7

iPhone 7 (cropped)

iPhone 7

iPhone 7

iPhone 7

iPhone 7

Pompeii exhibit

Today Ken and I went to the Pompeii exhibit at Union Station. Fascinating stuff.

But after getting stuck lugging a useless camera around the non-phone-photography-forbidden Body Worlds exhibit, we opted to leave the serious equipment at home. Imagine my dismay when I saw at least one of our fellow patrons shooting merrily away with an SLR (though I don’t know if he was allowed to or if he was just doing it anyway).

To spare myself some captioning, all these photos were taken with an iPhone 7.

Bird house in tree

Nikon D7000, 28mm (28-200), 1/250, f/8, ISO 200

It’s funny what you find just sitting there by the side of the road.

On my commute to work I noticed that an old tree by the side of the highway had a bird house in it. Actually, it took me a couple of days to convince myself that the thing was actually there. But of course once I decided it was real, I had to have a photo of it.

This serves as a lesson in the importance of keeping your eyes open. It’s also a lesson in taking photos while you can. A couple of days after I took my photos, the bird house disappeared.

Best of the 365 Blog – February 2017

Things got back to normal this month. I took advantage of the relative calm to put the new phone through its photographic paces.

Anna Marie, looking serious and photogenic as usual.

iPhone 7

Remember last November when we found out ladybugs weren’t all that cute close up? Apparently Arby’s reubens aren’t improved, either.

iPhone 7

The warm weather prompted us to replace the grill. They look so good when they’re new.

iPhone 7

This bit of carpet scrap and dead leaf arranged themselves into an interesting configuration.

iPhone 7

And these pens in a rack made an interesting pattern.

iPhone 7

Even without much exposure control, the iPhone can still get some dramatic sky shots.

iPhone 7

This is one of the blog’s most popular posts. That’s at least in part because I Facebooked it with the comment, “Draw me like one of your French cats.”

iPhone 7

An abandoned chew toy on the floor of Amigos on State.

iPhone 7

Best of the 365 Blog – January 2017

New year, new beginning. Or at least that’s what it seemed like until the middle of the month found me in the hospital. The adventures never cease.

New Years Day as usual found us out at the ballpark for our annual ceremony.

Nikon D3000, 10.5mm, 1/160, f/6.3, ISO 100

Winter got off to a warm start, with more rain than snow.

Nikon D7000, 400mm (18-55), 1/30, f/5.3, ISO 800

At the Zum soap shop. If you’ve got exposed pipes, you can at least paint them attractively. This was one of the last photos I took with my old phone.

iPhone 5s

And this was one of the first with the new phone. Our deepest snow so far [added note: this turned out to be the deepest snow we got all winter].

iPhone 7

My pictures didn’t amount to much for the three days I was in the hospital. Fortunately Amy got some good pictures. This one’s the light fixture in the ER.

iPhone 7 Plus, photo by Amy Whitehead

Local meteorologists predicted a huge ice storm, which fortunately didn't materialize. All we got were a few icicles.

Nikon D7000, 36mm (18-55), 1/80, f/5.0, ISO 400

The aftermath of my stay at the hospital left me with several new pills, two kinds of insulin injections, and a blood testing meter.

Nikon D3000, 10.5mm, 1/30, f/2.8, ISO 640

An array of sauce cups I photographed while waiting to pick up some carry out.

iPhone 7

Unblogged Favorites of 2016

The past year was unusually active for me, at least behind the camera. I took a ton of pictures during a trip to Idaho in March, and June saw the start of a 365 project that is still going strong (fingers crossed). Many of 2016’s unblogged favorites were taken shortly before or after blogged photos, narrowly missing the cut for one reason or another.

Nikon D7000, 28mm (28-200), 1/250, f/8, ISO 160

Photos like this one are a great example. The mountains in Idaho provided no end of opportunities for dramatic landscapes. It was hard to choose one over the others. Indeed, I could probably fill this entire post with nothing but stuff from that one-week trip.

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

Here’s another case in point. This photo was taken just a few seconds and just a few feet from one that ended up in the Google Tour about the trip (as well as my portfolio). The other one gives a better view of the lake and the mountains, but this one provides a better view of the beach.

Nikon D7000, 250mm (75-300), 1/640, f/5.6, ISO 800

Early in the baseball season we got to see the guys get their World Series rings from 2015. The view from our upper-deck seats isn’t always the best for photography, but this one came out okay.

Nikon D7000, 200mm (28-200), 1/400, f/5.6, ISO 1600

In June I was doing a 30-day, subject-specific photo challenge. On the day that found me at a party at the lake the subject was “portrait.” But I couldn’t let this one go unblogged forever. I love the heat ripples in the blurry background above the flames. And if you spend too much time looking at the fire, it starts to look a little like a Xenomorph from Alien.

Nikon D7000, 105mm (28-200), 1/100, f/5.3, ISO 6400

The trip to KU’s Natural History Museum produced a lot of good shots. These trilobites were barely edged out by a big fish.

iPhone 5s

I hate to be this petty, but I’m still steamed about the Body Worlds exhibit’s arbitrary and poorly-publicized rule against SLRs. Look at how blown out the highlights are in this phone photo. That would have been so easy to correct for when shooting or to fix in post.

Nikon D7000, 135mm (28-200), 1/640, f/6.3, ISO 200

The Fourth of July is always such a good photo op.

Nikon D3000, 20mm (18-55), HDR

An October weekend in southern Missouri yielded some good subjects. This particular one is my only HDR piece from the trip. It was hard to get the rushing water just right while at the same time losing neither the brightly-lit rocks or the shadowed, mossy background. That justified dragging the tripod along.

Best of the 365 Blog – December 2016

December was a little catch-as-catch-can. Between the emotional fallout from the election and the usual end-of-semester exhaustion, I wasn’t focusing on photography like I usually do. Keeping up with the 365 project was the best I could manage. So here’s what I got:

An absinthe spoon in silhouette:

Nikon D7000, 42mm (35-80), 1/800, f/4.2, ISO 800

The resident cat at the Dusty Bookshelf in Lawrence:

iPhone 5s

Snow on a table at the college:

iPhone 5s

Jenny making the Jenny Face:

Nikon D7000, 48mm (35-80), 1/80, f/4.5, ISO 400

A dramatic-looking rabbit:

Nikon D7000, 35mm (35-80), 1/125, f/16, ISO 100, flash

Christmas Eve in the drive-thru of our favorite Chinese restaurant:

iPhone 5s

An amazingly-detailed toy car (from the Supernatural TV series):

Nikon D7000, 80mm (35-80), 1/125, f/8, ISO 100, flash

Cat scratches on a railing:

iPhone 5s