Zipper City Photography

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2010-03-09T11:05:00.001-05:00

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Down in the Valley

2010-03-08T11:02:00.005-05:00

This photograph is from the Towpath Trail in the Cuyahoga Valley. I started hiking in Peninsula with the goal of getting this far(to the Turnpike Bridge)because I was on a time table(had to get to my parents for dinner). It was a hike that was tougher than I expected - slipping and sliding in the snow takes it out of you after a while.

I added a lot of saturation and contrast when I was processing this photo to give it some pop - it looked really flat directly off the camera. It was my favorite shot of the day.

Trouble Books and Gabe Schray

2010-03-07T22:25:00.004-05:00

On Saturday night Gabe Schray and Trouble books both played a record release party for their respective forthcoming CDs and LPs. They both can be purchased by clicking on the links that follow - Gabe's Effective Demonic Experiment & Trouble Book's Gathered Tones. I was glad there was some large artwork up on the walls at Square Records - it made for an interesting background. I had brought a light stand with me and hoped to set a flash up high for more interesting lighting but I got there a little too late and didn't have time. So I just bounced my flash off the ceiling and I think I got some pretty decent photos.

Under Construction

2010-03-05T15:21:00.002-05:00

This blog and all the other pages on this website are based on blogger templates but unfortunately blogger plans to no longer allow users to upload to external FTPs. Never mind the technical mumbo-jumbo - I bring this up because I'm going to use this as an opportunity to revamp and improve this site. I'm going to add photo galleries and redo the navigation - its a work in progress. The first thing you'll notice is that I've created a new banner. I only have it up on the blog right now but it will soon grace all the pages when they are redone.

The above photo was an accident from earlier today when I was shooting portraits for the banner. I liked the reflection of my old camera in my new one.

The Unguarded Moment

2010-03-04T18:38:00.014-05:00

Today I went to the Joseph Saxton Gallery of Photography to check out the exhibit of Steve McCurry's work called 'The Unguarded Moment'. Steve McCurry is an award winning National Geographic photographer most famous for his photo titled 'Afghan Girl'(visible in the exhibit poster above). All 50 of his prints on display showed beautiful color and detail. They're portraits of people from the Middle East and Asia - with a focus on showing "a person caught in the broader landscape that you could call the human condition". It was truly an amazing collection of work. The Gallery also had many other photos from their collection on display.

I'm glad I went - I've wanted to make an effort to get out to see more things like this. There really is a difference between a page on a website (or a magazine) versus seeing a large, beautiful print in person.

Behind the Eight Ball

2010-03-03T15:23:00.004-05:00

I know I've posted photos of pool playing at the Matinee before....but I had to share this shot of Wes - because it is awesome. We were out that night because my friend Mike had flown in from Seattle for a funeral. I shot this without flash at an ISO of 3200 - which is kinda cool because my older camera was limited ISO 1600. My Canon EOS 7D goes all the way up to 12,800 - though the images get quite noisy at that point - but sometimes a noisy image is better than no image.

30,000 Clicks

2010-03-02T15:35:00.002-05:00

This is the first photo I uploaded to flickr back on June 13, 2006 - taken with a borrowed Canon PowerShot SD400. Today my flick 'PhotoStream' received its 30,000th view and I was taking a little trip down memory lane looking at some of the older stuff. Its amazing to see my niece and nephews grow and to see the vast improvement in my digital photography skills. Hopefully I can look back in another four years and see just as much improvement....

No More Borders

2010-03-01T14:17:00.004-05:00

A Friday night in the Winter of 1996, hanging out with the gang in Pete's basement, we'd already had band practice and watched the same skateboarding video for the 100th time, what next? I know - let's hit up Borders. Borders wasn't a store then, it was a hang out - we'd stand in the magazine aisle for hours reading all the band interviews (and occasionally buy a CD), not to mention probably run into other friends from school. I don't usually mourn the loss of a chain store, but I'd be lying to say I'm not nostalgic about the Montrose Borders. Yesterday I decided to head over there to check out there store clearance sale(30-50% off)...and maybe more so to say goodbye.

They Say Its Your Birthday

2010-02-28T11:46:00.001-05:00

On Saturday night my family celebrated my sister and brother's birthdays, which are only 3 days apart. I've written before about how family events are great low pressure situations to practice getting good event-type photos. In the above photo I was concerned with capturing this moment and I didn't realize my focus point was off(it may not be too noticeable at this size but becomes apparent when viewed larger). Good thing this wasn't a decisive moment at someones's wedding....

Blue Hen Bust

2010-02-27T13:46:00.003-05:00

I went out for a hike at the Blue Hen Falls trail in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park the other day. There are two pretty cool water falls there, Blue Hen and Buttermilk, and I thought that they might make for good photos all frozen up. I was wrong. Blue Hen Fall's ice formations just weren't that picturesque and Buttermilk Falls just looked like a hill covered in snow. The photo is just above Buttermilk Falls - the foreground(and where I'm standing is actually the river) - it was really the only photo I was happy with from the hike. I think I'll have to head back out there when the falls are starting to melt....

Recording Part II

2010-02-25T12:03:00.004-05:00

...and now the exciting conclusion to yesterday's post....

The photo to the left shows the lighting set-up I used for the above photo. The top photo is my friend Justin about to lay down an acoustic guitar track - I added a black & white gradient layered at 90% to get the color on the photo. I'll be posting even more of these photos to my flickr page today.

Shallow Depth

2010-02-24T23:52:00.004-05:00

Today I was at a recording studio at Tri-C in Cleveland to shoot some photos for a friend who is working on a music project there. He needed some photos of the process to go along with it. The studios up there are absolutely beautiful.

Anyways - when I got home and started to look through my photos this one immediately jumped out at me. It turned out pretty much exactly as I hoped and I edited up a copy before I even finished looking through the rest of what I shot. I achieved the narrow depth-of-field by shooting with and aperture of f/1.8. It was lit with my flash & shoot through-umbrella up and to the left. I will probably have a part 2 to this post with more studio photos tomorrow - but I was too excited to finish more editing and posted this for now....

Flowers Pt. II

2010-02-23T23:30:00.000-05:00

Laura hung some of the roses I got her on her door for drying. I really liked they way the looked on the door. I only had my camera and one flash with me so I bounced the flash off the ceiling for the light. This was shot with my 50mm lens.

Flowers are a Girl's Best Friend

2010-02-22T10:36:00.002-05:00

There is a certain kind of person that really likes getting flowers - I tend to call them "women". Laura and I have been together for a year so I decided some flowers were in order. She was real happy about that - as you can see from her dancing.

Canal Fulton

2010-02-21T13:05:00.002-05:00

On Saturday Laura and I were heading down to Portage Lakes to see our friends Kyle and Greg participate in the annual Polar Bear Jump(see Kyle's Chief Source Post). I was planning on getting some good photos for the blogs. Well, things don't always go as planned. We couldn't find it. We drove around the Portage Lakes area until we realized we were going to miss the jump so we just randomly kept driving. We ended up in Canal Fulton. We decided to park, get some lunch, and explore the little town. Even though it wasn't how we planned to spend our afternoon it turned out to be a worthwhile trip - and I always have my pictures.

A Serious Man

2010-02-20T16:34:00.005-05:00

This time of year I work part time as an assistant for a photographer. Yesterday we were up in Cleveland shooting some executives in a corporate headquarters. I was more dressed up then I usually am so when I got home I decided to take a portrait of myself. A "serious" portrait if you will. This pose beat out the one with my cat on my lap....

I really liked the way the shadows from the window were on the wall. I lighted the photo with a reflective umbrella and flash high to the left and a shoot-through umbrella and flash low to the right(to add a bit of fill).

My House in 3D

2010-02-18T13:55:00.000-05:00

I found a new website called Start 3D where you upload 2 photos taken three inches apart and they turn them 3D for you. I took these photos of my house to try it out. It doesn't seem to be perfected yet but the site says that it is still in BETA. It looks like they plan to start charging to use the site at some point which I don't really understand - I mean its kind of a cool thing to try out but I don't see some huge purpose for this....

RIP Fairlawn Lanes

2010-02-17T14:12:00.011-05:00

The old Fairlawn Lanes building in my neighborhood has been a background and/or subject for many of my photos. The most recent time I had used it was as a location for a shoot with my friend Gabe(view ChiefSource.com post here). After reading a Beacon article about the building being torn down I went there last night and today to get some farewell shots. Above is what it looked like this morning - below is what it looked like last winter.

Below/left is from late last night and below/right is from this morning.

Gum Ball Flickr

2010-02-16T12:19:00.003-05:00

When the farm I work on closed for the season I was given a bag of Dubble Bubble Gum Balls that would go stale by the next season. The other day I grabbed two of them to chew on and realized how much they resembled the Flickr logo. Being a huge Flickr fan I decided to take a photo and make my "Flickr Gum Ball Logo".

Flickr is a great site for photographers - for 20 bucks a year you can upload an unlimited amount of photos(it also can be used for free but with upload limits and advertising). Its also a great place to receive advice and learn from fellow photographers. Flickr group's discussions and pools make for the best photo forums on the web.

Cavaliers Fake Tilt-Shift

2010-02-15T15:08:00.004-05:00

Earlier this year I went to Quicken Loans Arena to see the Cavaliers play the Chicago Bulls. I just realized that some of the photos I had taken might work well for a tilt-shift fake miniature, a Photoshop technique that mimics the effect of tilt shift lenses to make things appear miniature or model-like. I did a post last winter on this technique for the Chief Source which you can see here.
This effect is best viewed large.

Waterloo Restaurant

2010-02-13T17:53:00.002-05:00

This is Laura at the Waterloo Restaurant in South Akron. Ever since Laura and I have been dating(about a year) I always take a photo of her when we are eating out. I don't really know why - maybe I could start a Zipper City Restaurant page to go with my camera page?! Anyways - this is the latest and I plan to keep it up, maybe I'll make something with them in the future...

Double Your Fun!

2010-02-11T21:20:00.001-05:00

This was done using masking layers in Photoshop. I took the two images with my camera on a tripod than combined them to create one. I can't take complete credit for the concept as I've seen other people do similar photographs. I did however try to bring something new to it.

Bombs Away!

2010-02-10T21:39:00.003-05:00

My friend Wes invented a new drink called the 'OC Bomb' and our friend Ryan was crazy enough to try it. It is basically an 'Irish Car Bomb' on steroids - a shot of Baily's dropped into a shot of Jameson dropped into a 22oz. glass of Guinness and than chugged! I got my camera out because I didn't believe someone could handle this monster - Ryan proved me wrong and easily put it away. Mind you this was around 6PM not sometime late at night. Ridiculous.

Cemetery Snow

2010-02-09T22:38:00.003-05:00

Today I found myself in the unfortunate position to be standing in a cemetery in the cold and snow. I felt this photo captured the moment. I hope you've had enough depressing posts for a while, I have - and its time to move on. Keep reading - things are looking up....

Snowed In?

2010-02-07T16:17:00.001-05:00

For some reason my girlfriend's boss thought it was funny to plow her car in after the blizzard the other night. She found it humorous as well - I didn't. Above is her in the process of clearing it off - I also helped out with a shovel.

As you can see below we eventually did get it out.