my life, my thoughts, my world.

Late last week, I got together with Brittany for a quick photoshoot outside. My new Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM lens was really just dying to be used. New lens, meet local model!

Having fun is usually my first objective when I pick up my camera, and this shoot did not let me down. I stuck with only the 85mm, one reflector, and a pair of my 285HVs. The results? Well, I’ll let you be the judge of that (if you’re reading on Facebook click here).

Never has it been a secret that I enjoy my travels. The opportunity to see new places, meet new people, and escape from everyday life as I know it is always welcomed with open arms. When finals finished up, I seized that opportunity again. Destination? Boston!

One of my oldest friends, Sheehan, goes to Boston University. My old Battle Captain, Leo, attends Harvard. Flickr friend, Meg, goes to Northeastern. Over the course of my five days up north, I got to see them all.

Meg was kind enough to invite me to Cape Cod with a group of her friends. The trip started great, but a medical monkey-wrench got thrown into the works early on. The first morning at the beach house started with an unfortunate trip to the hospital for Meg. I won’t go into other people’s medical business, but I will say if you have to go to a hospital make sure it isn’t on Cape Cod. I wasn’t even the sick one, but I still wanted to choke half of the staff. Color me unimpressed.

Meg pre-hospital

Once Meg’s parents showed up, and we handed off all of her things, the rest of the group decided it was time to head to the beach. I decided it was time to call on an old friend for an extraction. The group was nice, and did a lot to make me feel welcome, but I just didn’t feel right sticking around. Leo said it best, so I’ll just say what he said. There are some people you just help when they need it. Convenience isn’t a factor. If they need help, and you can provide it, you just do it. I’m glad he counts me as one of those people; I’d do the same for him.

Meg's friends in the ocean

Leo and his wife took me to dinner, gave me a place to stay, and showed me the sights of Boston. I’ll let the pictures tell this part of the story.

Random lonely chair in a field

Harvard

Boston Massacre Cemetery

Memorial for OIF/OEF casualties

USS Constitution mast

The rest of the photos can be found here.

My friends, Colby and Lauren, asked me to take some photos last week. The sun was shining brightly so I went with natural light and had some fun with both my Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM, and my Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM. There were even a few frames shot on my film body, with the 50mm lens, on Ilford HP5+. I’ll get those developed at some point.

Since I was rocking the sun as my main light, I broke out one of my 4′ reflectors for some fill and kept the sun behind my subjects. Eventually, we ended up using a large (oh, 80′ or so) white wall instead of my reflector. It didn’t get blown around quite as much as my reflectors were. Giant reflectors require an assistant, and I did not have one with me. Remember that if you plan on using reflectors. They’re great lighting tools, but you need a stand or an assistant (probably both).

There were quite a few keepers from the shoot, but below are four of my favorites.

Them Shades

Longing

Fight - Colby using the force.

Two

The rest of the set is here.

January 8, 2010, I blogged about the start of my first home-brew experience. Today, I continue that tale with the bottling of my very first home-brewed beer. I had intended to wait longer in fermentation, but another hydrometer reading today showed no change from my last reading several days go. Time to bottle.

Since I will ultimately move up to larger 5gal batches, I decided to make another trip to DeFalco’s for a few more odds and ends. While I already had Iodophor for sanitizing my equipment, I did not yet have any way to dry my bottles after cleaning and sanitizing. I also lacked any way to really get a smooth, and controlled, flow of beer into my bottles to avoid aeration. In my last post, I really had no concept of how important any of that is to the final product. Fortunately, I spent about 10 hours in my truck driving across Texas and listening to Brew Strong podcasts. It all makes much more sense now. A bottling bucket, a bottle filler with some tubing, and a bottle tree came home with me.

Bottle capper and sanitized bottles

When I finally got home, it was time to clean and sanitize my equipment and working area. I would hate to make it this far only to infect my beer and have wasted my time. Iodophor should be used at a concentration of 12.5ppm for rinse-free sanitization. That translates to .50 fl. oz. per 5gal of water. Since I do not have much to sanitize, and did not feel like wasting that much solution, I made 2.5gal of solution to sanitize my bottles, the bottle tree, my caps, bottle brush, bottling bucket, bottle filler and hose. About a quart of the solution went into a cleaned and sanitized spray bottle so I could sanitize the outer surfaces of everything as well as the inner surfaces.

Once all of that was done, I made my priming solution. For a 5gal batch I would boil .75 cups of dextrose in 2 cups of water. I cut this in half for my 2.5gal batch, and added it to my sanitized bottling bucket. It was finally time to pour my beer into the bottling bucket, on top of my priming solution. This is when I wished I had gone ahead and purchased a racking cane and siphoning tube. Pouring, with any kind of control, 2.5gal of beer through the mostly useless tap on the front of a Mr. Beer brew-keg was an exercise in patience to say the least. It took forever, and exposed my beer to more air than I would have liked. Now I know. I will use a racking cane next time, for sure.

the bottom of the fermenter

The Beer

Bottling Bucket with my beer inside

My first beer, bottled.

Bottling went quite smoothly. My batch filled 16 12oz glass bottles, plus half another 12oz bottle and two ~33oz plastic bottles. I had my Dad tilt the bottling bucket towards the valve for me so I could get most of the beer out. In the end, only about half a pint was left behind. I can live with that. In a few days, I will check the two plastic bottles and see if they have hardened from carbonation at all. If I managed to make it through this whole process without screwing something up, I will be quite happy. Doubly so if the beer is drinkable.

The local VFW post, where I happen to be a member, asked if I would take photos of one of the various events they were organizing (or supporting) on Veteran’s Day this year. If ever there was a good reason to skip calculus class, honoring those that wore the uniform before I did certainly qualifies. Photo slideshow below (click “View Original Post” if you’re reading this on Facebook).

Slideshow below. I may edit this later and actually write a few things about the show. Know that I definitely had a good time. I loved airshows when I was a kid. Not much has changed.

A few photos from a wedding where I shot as the second photographer.

Yesterday, I took a trip down to Hermann Park to let a friend test out my Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS zoom lens. The weather was typical for Houston in August, hotter than Hades. Then I noticed a rather large, rather dark, and rather ominous cloud. Rain was on the way. Houston needs the rain, so no complaints on that front. Anyway, as we worked our way back to my truck I snapped a few photos of some ducks in the rain.

Ducks enjoying a rainstorm in Houston's Hermann Park

from another angle