Nick 365
With the start of the new year, I have decided to make an attempt at my own Project 365. This gallery will exhibit a photograph per day for the next year. The photos will be randomly inspired with varying techniques. My hopes are this will be a fun experience that will broaden my creativity and allow me to learn more to help enhance my photography skills. Hope you enjoy!
80/365 - March 25, 2012 - Blue Reflections
This afternoon, I took the kids downtown for some photo hunting. We parked on the Gay Street viaduct and spent time around it and the north end of Gay Street. This is a shot of the windows on the front of the Sterchi's Building.
79/365 - March 24, 2012 - Grillin' in the Rain
This evening I got caught out in the rain grilling dinner. I took this shot as the sun started coming back out during the shower.
78/365 - March 23, 2012 - Best Part of the Meal
Today I ventured to the Old City again on my way home from work. This time I captured a shot of the old JFG Coffee factory facade. This is another HDR image that helped bring out the contrast in what was a fairly bland shot with the overcast skies. Turned out much better than I thought it would.
77/365 - March 22, 2012 - Patrick Sullivan's
After Lisa dropped the kids off at the office at 5:00, I made a detour to the Old City on the way home in hopes of being inspired for today's photo. When I got to the corner of Jackson and Central, I found it. The sky was filled with storm clouds and thought it would offer some nice contrast in the background. After parallel parking the Sequoia on Jackson (which is no easy feat), I snapped a few shots on the opposite corner of the intersection from the now closed Patrick Sullivan's Saloon. This shot is an HDR image that I applied a tinted black and white filter to in Photoshop. I was really torn between the color version and this one, but decided this one gave a nostalgic feel. I really miss Patrick Sullivan's.
76/365 - March 21, 2012 - La Coronita
Tonight I was definitely scrambling for a shot. After starting my day at the office around 5:30 this morning, I was still at it around 11:00 tonight (I actually took a 4 hour break this afternoon to spend some time with Lisa and the kids). After trying to find something interesting that involved my job, I finally gave up and took another shot with an alcohol theme. This shot is of a souvenir from our trip to Puerto Vallarta last fall that sits on my desk. And don't be deceived, that is not my Bible sitting behind it on my desk, just my steel design manual. I only included it in the background to prove I was actually at work this late.
75/365 - March 20, 2012 - Bedtime at Sunset
Tonight I had the kids to myself as Lisa was out of the house tonight. The kids were extra whiny, so I gave both of them a bath before 7:00. Prior to laying Nate down for bed, we went out on the deck to watch the sunset with the intentions of getting my shot of the day. I wasn't really feeling the sunset shot, so when I looked over my shoulder, Nate had climbed into one of the kid sized plastic patio chairs on the deck. With his sloppy bath hair and Elmo pj's, I had my shot.
74/365 - March 19, 2012 - Blooming Redbud
Prior to leaving the office tonight, I captured a shot of one of the many blooming redbuds that surrounds the parking lot. I applied some selective color toning in Photoshop to isolate the redbud.
73/365 - March 18, 2012 - I Dress Myself
My original photo of the day was a shot of some boneless pork ribs I was grilling. The shot turned out as good as the ribs tasted. However, after Anna came outside in her crazy outfit, I couldn't help but not to use it. As a bonus, I captured this action shot of her kicking a ball.
72/365 - March 17, 2012 - St. Patty's Day
Today's shot is a simple one of clover in the backyard. The picture pretty much summed up the day, a quiet one at the house with the kids.
71/365 - March 16, 2012 - Storm's a Brewin'
This afternoon after work, some fairly ominous looking storm clouds rolled in ahead of a thunderstorm. Just a few minutes after this shot, the wind picked up and a deluge of rain dumped on the neighborhood.
70/365 - March 15, 2012 - Light Show
On tonight's drive home from work (albeit a late one around 7:30), I witnessed a tremendous lightning display north of Powell. After getting home, I grabbed my tripod/camera and tried to get a shot of the lightning from the confines of the back door of the house. This is one of the few shots that actually turned out. This is an 8 second exposure that was fortunate enough to capture a couple of strikes. I just wish I hadn't captured part of the soffit, but I didn't dare go further out on the deck with my steel tripod. Definitely some of the most amazing lightning I have ever witnessed.
69/365 - March 14, 2012 - Pi Day
After hearing it mentioned that today was Pi Day (3/14 ~ 3.14159...) several times, I decided to make that the focal point of today's photo. If I had an actual pie sitting around the house, that would have been my shot. Since a pie wasn't available, I got a shot of the number pi displayed on the iPad. And yes, I realize how much of a nerd this makes me appear, but what can I say, I am an engineer.
68/365 - March 13, 2012 - Corked
Tonight I was scrambling for some motivation, and I found it with our cork basket we keep on the counter in the kitchen. We have kept the majority of the corks from the few wine bottles we have consumed over the years. This is just a simple close up of the pile.
67/365 - March 12, 2012 - Motion in Drive
This shot didn't turn out quite as well as I would have liked, but then again, what should have I expected on shooting this on a whim. After stopping to pickup some Diet Coke on sale at CVS, I decided to quickly setup the camera on the tripod in the back seat with the intent of capturing a still image of the dash while producing a long exposure to blur the road and surrounding while driving. I used the timer to actually fire the shutter in hopes of reducing camera shake. As you can tell, I didn't get the crisp view of the dash I was hoping for. I also didn't get enough blur of the roadway due to it being daylight. I just couldn't get a long enough exposure without overexposing (ISO 50, 1.3 sec @ f/22). I will be trying this shot again in the future. In the mean time, this will just have to do for today...
66/365 - March 11, 2012 - Spring Explosion
On another beautiful afternoon, we enjoyed part of the day outside in the backyard. One of the first signs of spring is the explosion of blooms provided by the pear trees. This shot is of my neighbors tree that overhangs our fence line. It's just too bad the blooms do not smell as good as they look.
65/365 - March 10, 2012 - Growing Up
Today I had the kids to myself as Lisa was tied up with a jewelry show and training. To keep myself sane, I decided to venture out to the park to enjoy the beautiful weather. Since Anna fell asleep in the car on the way, I decided to drive up to Cove Lake State Park in Caryville to allow her to take a fulfilling nap. This shot interested me above the rest because Anna looked so much older sitting in the swing than I really think she is. My little girl is growing up way too fast.
64/365 - March 9, 2012 - Grill, Burgers and Beer
After a long day of work, I took advantage of the gorgeous evening to fire up the grill for the first time this year. With the meat patted out and a cold beer along side, I grilled us some delicious 1/2 pound burgers. Definitely a good way to end a long week.
63/365 - March 8, 2012 - Incarcerated
This afternoon I visited the Anderson County Detention Facility to examine some of the existing roof framing that the expansion I am helping design will be tying into. During my travels through the various corridors and traps, I snapped this shot of one of the many doors that are centrally controlled by a corrections officers. This trip confirmed to me that I do not need to be caught making meth in the garage.
62/365 - March 7, 2012 - Produce
On my way home tonight, Lisa tasked me with stopping at Ingles to get a few groceries for dinner. Prior to this project, I would never think about taking my camera into a grocery store. With two months into this thing, I have found I have to look at things differently to get different shots. Tonight I took advantage of the different colors in the produce section, using red and green peppers as my inspiration. I am sure people were wandering what the heck I was doing shooting photos while grocery shopping.
61/365 - March 6, 2012 - Super Tuesday
Today's photo is somewhat lame, but since it was election day in Tennessee, I thought I would take a shot of the plethora of signs at my voting precinct. Not that I am advocating Ron Paul, but I decided to use his signs since there were several aligned in a row. The only other one that provided some repetition was Rick Santorum, and there was no way I was advertising for him on my Project 365.
60/365 - March 5, 2012 - Web of Steel
I had a really hard time deciding whether to go with the color version or black and white version of this shot. As you can tell, I chose black and white. It's a shot of an electric transmission line tower, directly beneath looking straight up. The sky was a perfect blue, so the color shot turned out really good as well. However, I chose this more abstract look that utilized a red filter to turn the blue to black.
59/365 - March 4, 2012 - My Brain's Right Up There...
Tonight after dinner, I grabbed the camera as Nate was hamming it up in his high chair. In this shot, I caught Nate in a position I am sure he would rather have not captured years from now. This is definitely one of those shots that future girl friends will see...
58/365 - March 3, 2012 - Vols SECond
Today after spending most of the day at a marriage conference at our church, I caught the second half of the Tennessee-Vanderbilt basketball game on the tube in the comfort of my home. The game was important in that the win got the Vols a number 2 seed in this week's SEC tournament. Since I couldn't be there in person, I did the next best thing and caught the celebration on TV with my camera.
57/365 - March 2, 2012 - Brad Paisley Virtual Reality Tour
Tonight Lisa and I braved the severe weather in the area to attend the Brad Paisley concert at Thompson Boling Arena. Our tickets were a Christmas gift from Lisa's parents. Our seats were on the floor, but at least 30 rows from the stage. As luck would have it, toward the middle of the concert, Brad setup on a smaller stage near our seats. We were within 15 feet of this make shift stage. Good thing to since this shot was taken with my Canon Powershot SD770 point and shoot. Just think of the shots I could have gotten if I could have brought in my Canon EOS 5D...
56/365 - March 1, 2012 - I See You Daddy
Tonight's shot is of Anna shining her flashlight at me. I was crawling around the floor with the camera, and she kept flashing the light at me saying "I see you daddy."
55/365 - February 29, 2012 - Leap Day
In honor of leap day, today's picture is of Anna jumping on her brand new trampoline that she got for her birthday. I chose this one not for her vertical leaping skills (unfortunately her jumping ability is like mine), but for the action of her hair standing up.
54/365 - February 28, 2012 - Anna at Three
Today was Anna's 3rd birthday. Instead of posting just one shot of her today, I made a collage containing a photo from birth and each of her birthdays so far. She is growing up way too quickly as you can see...
53/365 - February 27, 2012 - Nashville Lights
Tonight I was in Nashville again for another all-day seminar on Tuesday. After having dinner with a college buddy, I ventured down to Broadway. Unfortunately, there was a Predators game tonight, which apparently just wrapped up as I got to Broadway. After sitting in traffic for about 15 minutes before finding a parking spot, I got this shot near the Ernest Tubb Record Shop.
52/365 - February 26, 2012 - Happy Birthday Anna
Even though Anna's birthday is not until Tuesday the 28th, we had her party today. We had it at Pump It Up, which is an inflatable playground of sorts. I think I had as much fun as the kids climbing around on the structures. Anyways, today's shot is of Anna blowing out her candles on her cupcake.
51/365 - February 25, 2012 - Tangled Steel
Tonight I attended an awards banquet at Anderson Co. High School. Prior to going to the banquet, I visited one of my current construction sites, the Anderson Co. Alternate Learning Academy. The new school is located on the campus of the existing high school. This is a shot of some of the steel framing that has been erected that supports the roof structure. It is an HDR merge with Photoshop color toning.
50/365 - February 24, 2012 - Plane Building
Today was my company's yearly management retreat. This year it was the associate's responsibility to create a team building exercise for the group. This shot is of one of the group's inventory of paper airplanes. We split the group into two paper airplane "manufacturers" and had them create a prototype plane. Once the prototype was set, then they had to determine how to mass produce the planes in a consistent manner. It was interesting to see your office's leaders perform such a trivial exercise yet take it so seriously.
49/365 - February 23, 2012 - Shelman
Tonight during bath time for the kids, I got the camera out and snapped a few of them. On second thought, I thought those photos were best served to be left private away from the view of would be perverts on the net (even though the photos were completely censored). While they were finishing up with Lisa, I took a quick shot of Nate's friend Shelman on the floor. This is his bedtime friend that he's had from almost the beginning. The name derived from Sheldon on Big Bang Theory, but was mispronounced by Anna as Shelman. It stuck.
48/365 - February 22, 2012 - Raindrops
This afternoon prior to leaving the office, I got this quick capture of some raindrops on the rear deck of one of my co-workers vehicles. I got the extreme closeup using my telephoto lens with a macro filter attached.
47/365 - February 21, 2012 - Knoxville at Noon
Today on my lunch break, I made a quick trip to the 11th Street Garage off of Cumberland Avenue to get a shot of the Knoxville skyline from the World's Fair Park perspective. After setting up on the tripod to help combat the heavy wind gusts, I decided to shoot a multi-shot panoramic. This shot is made up of 10 photos, which I processed individually in Lightroom prior to running the photo merge in Photoshop. I considered posting a black and white version, but the colors in this rendition were too good to pass up. Beautiful day in Knoxville...
46/365 - February 20, 2012 - Wheel Watching
Tonight we were super informal and had dinner at the coffee table in the living room. With Anna at Lisa's parents for the evening, it was just the three of us. After eating, we just sat and watched Nate as he focused intently on Wheel of Fortune on the tube. This shot is of him pondering his solution to the puzzle.
45/365 - February 19, 2012 - Mamaw's Birthday
This afternoon we celebrated my grandmother's birthday, which was on the 16th. Today's photo is a quick compilation of three photos I took of the festivities. She hardly looks old enough to be a great grandmother.
44/365 - February 18, 2012 - Tennessee
After dropping Lisa off at a training show she was doing for one of her new jewelers, Nate and I made a detour downtown prior to going home for the afternoon. As you can tell from the photo, it was a beautiful day in Knoxville, at least until mid-afternoon when the clouds started rolling in. This is a shot of the Tennessee Theatre sign on Gay Street. I shot a similar shot years ago, but unfortunately, I cleared the memory card prior to downloading the files. I'm sure this one turned out better than the one from before.
43/365 - February 17, 2012 - Scattered Sky
Today's photo is simple. It's a shot of the sky about 30 minutes before sunset. The cloud patterns with the sunlight being partially diffused created some nice contrast between the blue sky and the small, white repetitive clouds.
42/365 - February 16, 2012 - Six
Tonight I revisited the creation of light trails using a long exposure with a flashlight in motion above the camera. As you can see, I created the number 6. Why 6 you ask? Well on this night 6 years ago, I surprised Lisa at her apartment after she got off of work with a ring. Thankfully she said "YES!" and the rest is history. Why she chose to spend the rest of her life with me I will never know, but regardless, I am so thankful she did...
41/365 - February 15, 2012 - Klutz
Today was an eventful day. My sweet, but clumsy, wife hurt her ankle at Jazzercise this morning. It was only her second day back from a two month hiatus from her routine. Unfortunately, it was her right ankle, so I had to leave work this morning to pick her and the kids up and take them home. The rest of the day resulted in taking her to the doctor for x-rays. Thankfully it's just a nasty high ankle sprain. She will be on crutches for a few days until the pain goes away.
40/365 - February 14, 2012 - P.F. Valentine's Day
On our 7th Valentine's Day together, I grabbed takeout from P.F. Chang's for dinner. This has become somewhat of a tradition for us, as we have never went out for dinner on Valentine's Day. Neither of us appreciate the day enough to get out and battle the large crowds at the local restaurants. I got P.F. Chang's for us on our first Valentine's Day together, and this has been the meal of choice for most, if not all, of our Valentine's Days together.
39/365 - February 13, 2012 - Tinkerbell
This evening after work Lisa went out for dinner with a friend. In my time alone with the kids, I got the camera out. This is a shot of Anna in her newly acquired Tinkerbell costume. My girl loves to dress up as you can tell.
38/365 - February 12, 2012 - Me and Papaw 2
This evening we had family over to our house to have some cake and ice cream for my birthday. This shot is of my grandfather, Nate's great-grandfather, hanging out in the kitchen. My grandfather thinks Nate hung the moon, which I am sure you can tell by the fun he's having watching Nate play with the window blinds.
37/365 - February 11, 2012 - Epiphone
Tonight, my brother came by the house with a few of his guitars in hopes of getting some good photos to hang up in his man cave at home. Unfortunately my wireless remote between my camera and my lights wasn't working properly and my sync cable was at the office. This was one of the few in which the flashes fired and synced with the shutter. This shot is of a 60's model Epiphone.
36/365 - February 10, 2012 - Happy Birthday Daddy!
This photo is a day late, but I just had to show off my homemade birthday card that Lisa and the kids made me for my birthday yesterday. The best card I have ever gotten on my birthday.
35/365 - February 9, 2012 - Thirty-one
Today I had the clever idea of trying to find the number 31 to commemorate my 31st birthday, which of course is today. My first thought was an address number on a building. I started searching popular thoroughfares in Knoxville such as Neyland Drive, Gay Street, Kingston Pike, etc. and discovered most numbers are in the 100+ range. Then it hit me, Market Square uses double digits. After searching for 31 Market Square, I discovered the 31 Bistro, which provided a bonus, 31 was part of the logo. To make it even more perfect, this restaurant used to be called La Costa, which is where I had several of my photos on display this past summer. Pretty cool indeed...
34/365 - February 8, 2012 - Converging Rails
Today during lunch, I ventured downtown to get my shot for the day. I ended up parking on the Gay Street Viaduct and getting this shot of the rail road lines below at the old train depot.
33/365 - February 7, 2012 - Red, White and Blur
Tonight I wasn't on my A-game with my inspiration or execution for today's photo. Lisa had a Premier Jewelry show (her business that helps keep her home with the kids) at our house tonight. After putting on my telephoto lens and macro filter, I attempted a few shots of some of Lisa's jewelry. I shot this one after zooming in and seeing the out-of-focus view of the piece. As for the naming, I actually come up with "Red, White and Blur" (a play on Red, White and Blue) prior to Lisa informing me the jewelry piece's name was Firecracker. What a coincidence.