Making of a Christmas Card

My Christmas Card for 2010... HDR photo of San Fernando Cathedral in Main plaza on December 4th, 2010. San Antonio, Texas

I went downtown to Main Plaza around 5:30pm on December the 4th thinking that the Christmas tree was lit up at the same time as the river walk (the Friday after Thanksgiving). With the greasy aroma of fried corn wafting in the air, I quickly picked a spot to shoot from, making sure to crop out the gordiata vendor just to the right of the tree. IThe plaza was filled with tourist and locals strolling about taking snap shots and chit chatting. Knowing that I would be shooting from a prime location for an extended amount of time, I brought extra patience with me. The cool weather was just right. The few times i started to get annoyed with people who decided to loiter in front of my lens for extended amounts of time, the tranquil sounds of the water fountains brought me back to a peaceful mind. Watching the toddlers play in the fountains helped pass the time.

I set up the tripod and camera, then fired off a few test shots.  I began taking different bracketed exposures as the sun set. Knowing I would be shooting at slow shutter speeds, I remotely triggered the camera with a set of Pocket Wizards.  When 6:15 rolled around, the lights on the church came on. The Christmas tree remained dark however. As the sky grew darker, I watched a band set up off in the corner. Then the big man himself showed up. Saint Nick parked his rump in a chair in front of the dark Christmas tree. Turns out kids could take pictures of Santa Clause bathed in blue lights (that's where the blue light next to the tree is coming from).  Finally the PA system was set up and an announcement given. Turns out the tree lighting ceremony was to take place in about 30 minutes.  Time to pull out the old smart phone, peruse Facebook, Twitter and become mayor of Main Plaza on Foursquare!

At about 6:55 the ceremony was finally over. The lights on the tree illuminated. The camera locked in the same place it was at 5:45 with no light left in the sky and an aperture or f22, I slowed the shutter speed down to 20 seconds (that means the shutter was open for 20 seconds). The low shutter speed helped the swarms of people strolling through the plaza to magically disappear.

The next day I merged 6 photos (3 with the blue sky and no lights on the tree, and 3 with black sky and the tree lit up) together in Photoshop CS5 using the HDR tools that come with Photoshop. The photo merging also helped to remove more of the ghosting created by people moving about while the shutter was open.

Hound Rescue Garage Sale

If you can't make it to Austin, you can always support Hound Rescue with donations or by fostering needy hounds.

"Just a reminder that our 4th annual, Hound Rescue charity sale - Saturday August 7th!!! It's not too late to clean out the garage or get rid of those items that are taking up space and donate them to the hounds. Last year's sale yielded over $1400, so the goal is $1700 this year and we need all the support we can get to achieve it! Wanna help donate goods or volunteer your time at the sale? Contact Christine Alt at ealt@austin.rr.com or 512-658-8487. (Christine will begin accepting donations starting on Monday, August 2nd thru Friday August 6th - contact her to set up a time to drop off your donations.) Tax deductible receipts are available upon request.

Saturday August 7th
8 am to noon
Christine's Home (NW Austin, off 183N, between Anderson Mill Rd and Parmer Ln)
8807 Black Oak Street
Austin, TX 78729"

San Jose Website Design

I've been hard at work the last month spending every free minute working on a website. Ive been so busy in fact that I haven't even updated my face book profile that often. In addition to to the website, I also work full time and I am taking a summer flex course at NE Lakeview. The first week of class we recieved 10 chapters of assigned reading . The only reason I have time to write this blog post is because I'm sitting in class waiting for others to finish a test so we can begin this weeks series of topics.

Work on the website began when I took vacation the first week of June. Shannon and I drove to Waco to visit my family. While there we spent nearly 2 days at my uncles new shop; Shannon working on the page layout while I was photographing the products. When we weren't at the shop I was working on the code or drinking margaritas with my brother and cousins. It was supposed to be a vacation afterall.



After shooting all the products I had to clean up all 60 something images in Photoshop (I.e. sharpen, adjust levels, crop, and remove dust, smudges, and fibers). That was another weeks worh of work. Once Shannon was finished with the design, I had to dissect it into smaller images and make the actual website look like her design. The home page took very tedious work to align everything seemlessly.

It took about 2 weeks to code all 12 pages. I finally finished all the major work last night at midnight (instead of studying for my test). Now minor editing and tweaking remains before we launch the new site. I hope to have it done by this weekend so I can enjoy my birthday weekend (and a few margaritas ). 

HDR Photography

This is my first ever attempt at High Dynamic Range, or HDR, photography. HDR photography involves a process of bracketing shots and then composting the individual shots with software. I also followed some of the techniques in this Photoshop tutorial, minus the sky portion. Its  not as great as I had hoped, however, shooting at 2pm is not the ideal time.