Kiss the Girl 6/52

View On Black

Week 6 of 52: ♫ Kiss the Girl ♫

A friend asked me to shoot engagement shots with him, so I needed to find a photographer to model my weekly shot from. Another friend had mentioned a local wedding/engagement photographer name Brian Hall, www.brianhallphotographers.com/main.html.

I looked through his engagement shots and found one I liked. It was a couple kissing in a field backlit so you could just see silhouettes and some definition of figure, so I wanted to replicate something similar. This isn't very close to his shot, but it is where I drew the idea from.

The person I was shooting the engagement shoot with had scouted out the area and took me to a spot with tall grass. It worked fairly well. I worked to define her form with the back-light and her front is defined by his shirt acting as a reflector. If I shot this shot again, I would have moved them further to the left so the tree wasn't behind him and worked on his pose a bit more.

Eric

Week 5: Northward Ho

Week 5: My plans were simple this week. Take a picture of a star trail with the north star at the tip of an object (a tree is what I had available without too much light pollution). I was limited to about 20 minutes due to park closure time.

Taken with my SMC Pentax-A 35mm f/2 at about f/4 if I recall correctly for this shot. Fujifilm ASA 200 film and a Pentax MX body on bulb. In an ironic twist of fate, I had sold both my wide angle lenses this week prior to doing my planned shot where I needed a wide angle.

The widest lens I have left is the 35mm f/2 until my 16-45mm f/4 comes in, so I had no choice but to put it on the film body to get a 23mm field of view or so. I took a couple shots with the IR Dimage too, but it is a bit difficult to get bulb shots without a remote :)

To make matters more interesting there was some creature by the lake that would grunt and breath deep whenever I got close. I think it might have been saying "Tailypo, Tailypo, give me back my Tailypo" ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tailypo ), and this is the same lake: www.flickr.com/photos/28177041@N03/3892157437/. Seriously though it was probably just a muskrat or something.

Eric

Sept. 11th, 2001

I don't write poetry ever, but for some reason I did 8 years ago today. Here was what I wrote in my journal. It is amazing how this stuff remains around, it has been moved between about 5 computers and hasn't really been looked at in since I wrote it, but has been floating around in a zip file I made before upgrading my computer.

Journal follows:

The other world changing news today was the destruction of the World Trade Center, part of the Pentagon, and the loss of four US commercial airlines. Could be the start of a war. It is disgusting how cowardly people can be; sending terrorist action against thousands of civilians.

Well, I thought I would have more to say, but I don’t. It is been a long and disturbing day. I need to get up early and go work on some homework.

Hopeless souls walking the streets
Unaware of the dangers surrounding them
Fiery death raining from above
The world tumbling to those unsuspecting
Who would have known life’s unfair

Events unfolding, life ever mutable
A foundation, sturdy as stone
Has stood through the ages
Crumbles and falls, touched and corrupted

Fingers are pointed, blame is placed
To no avail, the blow has been struck
Revenge is hollow, remorse deep in heart

From the ashes, a new bird arises
Reborn and anew, as life ever cycles
Such is the fate, of our ill-lucked race

Eric Tastad, ’01, memory of the WTC