Monday, March 31, 2008

.l is for legerdemain.


.l is for legerdemain., originally uploaded by calanan.

Salt Lake City, UT

Sigma 30mm f/1.4

[Part of my "Drive-By Shootings" street photography series]



Favorite photo of the day:

"Veteran’s Day Parade, NYC" by John Agoncillo [alapan]

Friday, March 28, 2008

"Blown-Out Joy From Heaven's Mercied Hole"

Salt Lake City, UT

Sigma 30mm f/1.4

[Part of my "Drive-By Shootings" street photography series]

Favorite photo of the day:

"Happy #2" by Michael Spivak [phazeman]

Puppy Love


Puppy Love, originally uploaded by calanan.

Kerby and Maude's Playdate
Salt Lake City, UT

Sigma 30mm f/1.4

Our neighbors Steve and Rosemary came over yesterday to let their dog
Maude play with Kerby. Maude and Kerby get along very well, so much
so that I think Kerby's thinking about getting Maude a ring (shhh).

DO NOT WANT!




View more photos here or try the slideshow!

Favorite photo of the day:

"old7" from Sarah Nix [sarahnix]

Thursday, March 27, 2008

New blog feed and an e-mail subscription option

Dear readers, you'll see two new methods for keeping track of my blog posts below:



First, I have added a new blog feed option in addition to the built-in Atom feed that Blogger offers. This one is via FeedBurner, which I'm trying out due to its advanced feed optimisation and tracking features. Signup is straightforward, just follow the link and tell FeedBurner which reader you use or format you prefer:



If you do subscribe via the new feed please let me know what you think of the format and if you have any problems with it.

I've also activated FeedBurner's mailing list subscription for those who don't use RSS, etc. feeds - once you sign up you'll receive my blog posts right in your Inbox. Subscription requires you to complete a CAPTCHA:



...and then to follow an e-mailed link to complete the confirmation.



If anyone tries this option please let me know your thoughts.

Thanks!

- mike

Disclaimer: I don't use any ad tracking or the like nor do I harvest/sell e-mail addresses to anyone!

Finally, here's a bonus favorite photo of the day:

"Grafted From the Whitest Secret Soul... II" by Ron Flory [leetonia]

Manray


Manray, originally uploaded by calanan.

Sage's Cafe
300 S & 500 E
Salt Lake City, UT

Sigma 30mm f/1.4

calanan.com


Favorite photo of the day:

From dead sea

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Kerby: Before and After


Kerby: Before and After, originally uploaded by calanan.

Spring 2008 Edition

Salt Lake City, UT
Sigma 30mm f/1.4

calanan.com

I just got back from taking Kerby to the groomer (Dirty Johnson's Dog Wash)...his groomer, Jessie, did such a great job!



Favorite photo of the day:

"saw a pretty girl this morning" by Christy Scherrer [christyscherrer]

Warning, Dex knows.

100 S
Salt Lake City, UT

Sigma 30mm f/1.4

[Part of my "Drive-By Shootings" street photography series]

calanan.com



Today I am going to start a new tradition of including a favorite photo I've found along with each of my own posts. This photo is from a new Flickr contact of mine, Shakti Dalabehera [shakti_sd]:



Please take a look at his other work.

Monday, March 24, 2008

More photos from Natalie and Drew's maternity session

Here are more photos from my first maternity photo shoot with Natalie and Drew.

Initially I was shooting the key light through a white brolly with a 2nd light snooted for highlight but after the first photo review the couple preferred a more harsh, old Hollywood style of lighting and we ran with it. In fact they were not only willing to try some moody lighting but they were also creative and instrumental in coming up with positions. During the shoot we'd take some frames then connect the camera to the TV, review the shots and make modifications on posing and lighting based on what we saw.

This following shot this was taken outside on a sunny day with Manray blocking the sun above Drew and Natalie with a large piece of foam core board. I metered on Natalie's belly and the background was bright enough that the camera simply overexposed it while keeping their skin tones intact.



We had a lot of fun with these following shots! Both Mom and Dad are hockey players and Mom's an excellent goalie so they wanted to try something with some of their hockey equipment and harsh lighting.



And here's the setup for the shot on the left, which required a little help from Manray and our carpeted cat tower to help prop up Drew :)



Saturday, March 22, 2008

My first maternity session

My first maternity session

Today I shot my first maternity session with my friends Natalie and Drew. They were such good sports with all my experimentation with angles and lighting as well as with my fumbling with the backdrop, tripping over lightstands and knocking over Natalie's drink. :)

Nat and Drew wanted some b&w photos with dramatic lighting and this case I shot with a single Nikon SB-600 snooted at 1/4 power. My D200 sported the Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 and was in manual at f/5.6 and 1/250s at ISO 100.

Manray and I are off to their baby shower now, I'll upload more photos from the session later!

Friday, March 21, 2008

"Happy Nails"


"Happy Nails", originally uploaded by calanan.

Salt Lake City, UT

Sigma 30mm f/1.4

[Part of my "Drive-By Shootings" street photography series]

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Photos from Southern Utah

Manray in the natural amphitheater

Snow Canyon State Park
St George, UT

Tokina 12-24mm f/4

Sorry for the lack of updates, we were in Southern Utah for business and thankfully had some free time to explore some parks. We visited Zion National Park:



...and Utah's Snow Canyon State Park near St George, UT:

Mickey Lava

Taken by Manray

What a beautiful place Utah is!

More photos from the trip here!

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Mush! :)


Mush! :), originally uploaded by calanan.

No new drivebys so I thought I'd share this just because...

Just because Manray is in it.
Just because Kerby's tongue makes me laugh.
Just because I miss the snow.


Salt Lake City, UT

Tokina 12-24mm f/4

Thursday, March 13, 2008

9 mother lickin' trucks I passed today

(from the archives)

Taken between Joliet, IL and Omaha, NE during my road trip from Buffalo, NY to my new home in Salt Lake City, UT

Tokina 12-24mm f/4

hello from the alps! :-)


hello from the alps! :-), originally uploaded by calanan.

Ha, I found this while archivinng old e-mail...it was sent to my account from a webcam in Grossglockner, Austria during our honeymoon in June of 2007.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Bonneville Shoreline Trail


Manray and Kerby, originally uploaded by calanan.

Just a couple of snaps from our hike this weekend on a part of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail we hadn't yet seen.


Kerby

Kerby

All photos: Salt Lake City, UT
Tokina 12-24mm f/4

Monday, March 10, 2008

Sexy aubergine


Sexy aubergine, originally uploaded by calanan.

Manray thought the eggplant was just too perfect not to photographic it so we made a quick setup using the ingredients from last night's supper. I don't have much experience with food porn so this was also a great exercise for my photographic skills.

Lighting info:

Camera right: SB-800, white brolly, 1/4 CTO
Camera left: SB-600, silver reflective brolly, 1/4 CTO


(I should have let more light spill onto the background.)

As for the dinner, we sliced the eggplant, drained it, brushed the pieces with oil*, added pepper and basil and roasted at 400F for about 20 mins. The tomatoes were sliced in half and roasted for about 5-10 mins. The tortillas were warmed on a skillet and given a good dollop of hummus then filled with lettuce, the roasted eggplant and tomato and drizzled with a little tahini dressing.

Next time we'll add some falafel to the wrap.

* The olive oil picture is from our honeymoon in Croatia last spring...the oil is so delicious that we've been trying to use it as sparingly as possible!

Video of the most recent Photowalking Utah event

Jeremy Hall has updated his blog with his video of the Photowalking Utah event at the Moran Eye Center...check it out! FYI, I'm at 6:30 in the video below:

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Gypsy punk rockers Gogol Bordello


Best show ever. Ever!, originally uploaded by calanan.

...kicked Salt Lake City's ass last night.

What an amazing show! They were the most energetic band I've ever seen and I've been to two operas and a marching band competition so I certainly know a few things about music.


Gogol Bordello [On last.fm] [On MySpace]


Crowd surfer

Gogol Bordello Live Gogol Bordello Live

Gogol Bordello Live

I've got more photos over on Flickr - [view slideshow].

Saturday, March 8, 2008

.d is for dictator.


.d is for dictator., originally uploaded by calanan.

Main St
Salt Lake City, UT

Sigma 30mm f/1.4

[Part of my "Drive-By Shootings" street photography series]

Thursday, March 6, 2008

calanan.com updates

This calanan.com project is moving along nicely, I'm getting a lot of positive feedback on the look and feel of the site. Thanks so much to everyone for offering their critiques as well as for testing out the site, it is most appreciated.

Now that I have the basic structure of the site in place I can work on fine-tuning the layout, refining which photos to use for each section of the portfolio and I still need to add a bio, list my company's services, etc. It is busy-work but busy-work to which I look forward doing!

For the geeks in the crowd, the site is currently written in static HTML with some CSS and javascript includes but I'll soon be converting the pages to PHP and will be using a MySQL database to store metadata like paths to images and their groupings, body text, CSS elements and the like.

If you haven't looked at the site in the last couple of days please take another peek:

www.calanan.com

Feedback - positive and negative - is always welcome. :)

Thanks!

- mike

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

the all new calanan.com


the all new calanan.com, originally uploaded by calanan.

It's early days but here's the beta version of my new web site/portfolio.

I'm trying to iron out bugs and would like to confirm that it works nicely in a variety of browsers...would you mind checking out www.calanan.com/ and let me know 1) what you think and 2) if you have any problems clicking the images, viewing the larger versions, etc.? I would be most grateful!

FYI, I downloaded the image viewing script from www.dolem.com/lytebox/ - I like the style, I'd seen it (or something like it) in use elsewhere and dug around until I could find that free download.

Thanks!

- mike

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Manray in the DIY disco


Manray in the DIY disco, originally uploaded by calanan.

Just a little something fun from the archives.

.pause. James in red

From Stefan's birthday party, Nov 2005, Burlington, Ontario, Canada.

We miss ya' boet!

Stefan
Stefan