PBPhoto

The Space Center Visitors Complex is free once a year for Brevard County residents.  So cool.  It's been many years since I've been there.  Always loved space as a kid and as an adult.  We had a such a great time.  Here are a few shots that I really liked.  The T-38 above was extremely backlit by the sun just over the vertical stabilizer.  Using the fill light slider on Lightroom2 makes quick work of this.

I love this shot with the clouds reflecting in the memorial.  The astronauts listed in the foreground are from the Challenger disaster.

Here's one of Hezekiah trying to land the lunar lander.  Thankfully they didn't have a 6 year old trying to do that.  It wasn't pretty.

And here are a few more that I liked.

Being the great Dad that I am (at least that's what I'm told), I am raising up some future Rock Stars.

I was inspired by these awesome hats that we got yesterday.  They say Rock Star In Training.  I love it.  Hezekiah is always striking his rock pose. 

So I got a little edgy with the light.  Both lights are slightly behind so as not to fill in the entire face.  My umbrella is at camera left and a bare old Sunpak is camera right.

Gave it a high contrast black and white treatment in Light Room 2.

In an attempt to at least occasionally shoot for the daily challenge at PhotoChallenge.org I went looking for a window display.  Actually the whole family went.  We packed up the car and went to downtown Melbourne, FL looking for the right one.  My wife suggested the year-round Christmas store.  Which normally would be a great choice but the time of day wasn't very good.  The reflections in the window were stinkin' up the joint. 

So we drove on down the street and she spotted this one.  Excellent.  I didn't really like the street reflection but it was reduced some as I worked on it in LR2.  The colors are great.

Here's a quick one that I captured tonight.  I used the preset "Matt's Vintage New York."  I like the muted tones.  I added a little brightness in the eyes to bring out some detail that went away when I applied the preset.

Just used my Vivitar into a shoot-thru umbrella.  I slowed the shutter speed down until the incandescent light burned into the background.

Be blessed.

I am really liking LR2 and all of the presets that are available for it on the web.  These shots started as decent photographs with cool lighting IMHO.  But the colors are just too stinkin' accurate!  What?  It occurred to me as I was looking at various effects to apply to these shots that I spent a lot of money for a camera that has incredible resolution, low noise, and represents colors accurately.  Now I am undoing all of that.  What does that mean?! 

It reminds me of the tube vs. solid state debate in music circles.  I have to admit that I used to be a solid state guy until I played my '74 Strat through a Fender tube amp.  It just does sound better.  I know as an engineer these days that it has to do with the harmonic content of the signals as you overdrive the devices.  Odd harmonics from tubes and even harmonics from solid state.  But that's a debate for a different time.

Anyway, I suppose that all that matters is the end creation.  Use whatever tools and techniques necessary to produce the outcome that you have visualized.

So the lighting is this: I have a home-made foamcore snoot on my 285HV @ 1/4 power for the key light, and for accent, my 540EZ, bare @ 1/32 power.

I found this great preset called "Matt's Polo/Ralph Lauren" available HERE.  I really like the desaturation and also the tone that is added.