week 30 day 205 shot of the week

Paulo Nutini at the House of Blues. As he swaggered to the stage, glass of red wine cupped in his perfectly posed strut, I checked with e and she was happy. Thanks for that Paulo, but in case you bump into her.... she is totally married!

day 205 July 24

e like many screaming young ladies has fallen for Scottish singer Paulo Nutini. We ventured to the "new" House of Blues to see his performance with the Vipers. I rarely get self conscious with the camera, but as we muddled around in the pit of college girls and older couples with dates, and the show had them pulling their digital cameras and raising them above their heads, I wondered what the point (and shoot) was. My digital camera does not really differ in function. Eventually I did start clicking away and now after reviewing numerous images, my hope is that I did record something unique.

day 204 July 23

Anyone out there looking for a great little puppy? On the left is a boxer lab mix that is a sweet as can be, who is rumored to be looking for a new place to call home. Comment here or message me if you are in the market for a good pup.

day 203 July 22

Our John Parker posse has a foreign visitor, who also fancies photography. It will be fun to see what he brought home from the fair....

day 202 July 21

It's as simple as this. 8 years ago on a dock, on this day, the best 8 years of my life unfurled like a perfect eggplant.

day 201 July 20

We finally got Peter to make a fire! Smore fires will be required.

day 200 July 19

When I saw the kids skating around the woods hole section of the bike bath as e and I walked with miss morsel I knew I did not have the gumption to go pull the shot that I knew was there out of the scene. Naturally I shot some anyway as we walked through the gaggle of "punk kids" and confirmed that, yup, it was going to take some effort to get just the right one and I just didn't have it in me. While editing for public consumption a week later I was pleased to see this pano image appear from where I thought there was nothing.....

week 29 day 199 shot of the week

The Katie Meyer 7th annual Kick Ball tourney was held this weekend. Good times and a more competitive game than I am used to seeing was played. I will need to do a little investigating and come back with more details of the festivities.....

Report two - This years KMKBT MVP was Orion! Congrats! Not pictured - this is Chris.

day 199 July 18

I have a bunch of shots from the past week that I will be turning into panoramics, including one of this series from Stony beach - I was struck how different a landscape we have here on Cape Cod. It was nice to return and on my first day back find a bunch of shots hidden in plain sight.

day 198 July 17

There has been another hiccup in the phoenix 365 project will I will now have to name it the phoenix 363 project (or worse) as during the trip I missed a second day for the year..... As I post this she is carrying a much too big for her small stature stick around in the yard and chewin it up - worlds cutest put on display.

day 197 July 16

So I am using the east coast time thing to my advantage here, this pic was really taken on the previous day but not on the east coast. The shot of the week will probably might also come from that day... but that is yet to be seen.... Looking forward to shooting Seattle again! Lots remaining to see and shoot!

day 196 July 15

I got to spend something like 36 hours in Seattle and loved this city. I promised e that we would visit and soon. Now a technical note.... should I adjust the time on my camera to reflect local time when I travel? Pictures that I would consider from the previous day have spilled into this day and this day into the next as the camera is an 02536 camera....

day 195 July 14

File in the you can not make this stuff up. Philomath, OR, farm country is where we found ourselves looking for a cafe for a cup of coffee. When we did, we were very out of place with our blackberry's and dress shirts. The dingy bathroom sported the puppy power poster tacked above the toilet in need of a cleaning. The window advertised best bacon in town and I believed it. When the hand forged sign on the milk dispenser read " do not touch - checking dial adjustments". I was touched.

day 194 July 13

Five days of travel with the company's GM began on this day. We ate dinner at Cloud 9 in Corvallis, home the the OSU mighty beavers. The Pad Thai was unusual but tasty....and I have now just realized how the unusually large number of U's in that word.

day 193 July 12

Mr Foster I presume? Need some fine carpentry or furniture built on cape cod.... I know your guy.

week 28 day 187 shot of the week

In general I do not crop. This might even be the first crop you see here. That said, I am fascinated by producing some dynamic panoramic photos and would love a good panoramic camera someday. In the mean time I will be occasionally visualizing in pano such as this shot and then cropping after the fact.

day 192 July 11

When the phoenix 365 series of photos can mix with photographs that I believe might be my "style", such as this shot, it pleases me to no end.... I am certain that e will give me grief for sharing this with the world, but I can handle it. Enjoy.

day 191 July 10

After getting off to a bit of a skeptical start we made a new friend this week. I introduce you to 8 month old Dom.

day 190 July 9

More from on the bogs...the things seen while walking ms phoenix.

day 189 July 8

As if the day before lacked inspiration.... I give you this.

day 188 July 7

This is typical of my shooting pace lately... the day before there are dozens of weekend shots that I would happily show off here. Then the work week starts and all I can muster is a phoenix 365 shot that is not particularly compelling....but she is a cute pup, no?

day 187 July 6

We live in a strange time where you can know someone electronically better than you know them in person. I met such an individual recently and was most surprised by the tonal quality of the "C-dogs" voice. Similarly we also know a Dj and when we see her in person I find my mind reconciling the radio voice with the slight young woman telling stories that do not cut to the pending weather....

day 186 July 5

For a while I was not shooting many verts... Lately there have been more. This image is hinting on what the feeling of the portrait series I want to start should look like. I want the viewer to wonder what is going on in the mind or setting of the subject.

week 27 day 182 shot of the week

My all-stars have been with me through the thick and thin. Thanks guys!

day 185 July 4

We bbq'ed with old friends in a backyard in Somerville. I did and didn't want to find a spot to shoot the works at. It didn't matter if it was here on the Cape or up in the big big city. I was counting on a little serendipity. I have shot fireworks before...and want to do something different with them...but did not know what or from where... We did see the shot I now want to collect, but it was from the expressway while traveling 70 miles per hour....maybe next year....

day 184 July 3

I want to start doing portraits, environmental portraits of people and not people. I would like them to tell or hint at a story being told - feel cinematic..... I think I have been developing some of the necessary tools to do this - but wonder when pressed into action if I will forget all that I have learned or is it unlearned....

day 183 July 2

e and I have been discussing the phenomenon that is the website and the magazine. Its interesting, more than a couple times lately I been called a "celebrity"....wtf.... or had complete strangers say ..."like ben from benshotme?". While getting my name and the images out to people was the idea.... it is still a bit strange to be called a celebrity at the coffee shop. I am thinking of smashing the camera in my own face the next time I do a self-portrait.

day 182 July 1

I believe I have posted about this before, but its worth mentioning again,as sometimes typing this stuff out helps me understand it... 99 percent of the images you see here and over at the www site are as shot in the cameras. I tend not to like to manipulate things in photoshop or its equivalents. While photoshop can do many incredible things, I prefer to use the camera and lens as the tools to manipulate the images.

day 181 June 30

Cape Cod Kickball continues and the fun is rampant. A reminder to the participants to be careful, on this day a slip severely hurt a competitor. For me this was also a day for a little personal victory. I participate in a softball league and for the first time in my life at any level of competition, I hit a home run!!! I felt a little like Mo Cheeks here crossing home plate, but surely less graceful....

day 180 June 29

Summer is officially here - proof positive DQ ate at the harbor. What other evidence do you need. Ok how about a 7 mile back up at your favorite bridge?

day 179 June 28

We met our newest friend Perrin on this day. She is very small. She knows some cool people already though.

week 26 day 178 shot of the week

Maybe I will maybe I wont come back and blog about straw hats here....

day 178 June 27

Another day of far to many photos to choose from! Arg... I want to share them all so instead I will pick three from the harbor cruise slash Ryan Montbleau band show!

day 177 June 26

In the middle of what I was considering a little bit of a photo rut, came a weekend to cure some creative yearnings.... First pictured here was the 2nd annual Water St music festival. There are dozens of photos to choose from when searching for shots I really like from this day. If you like this one check the the June 2009 archives there are a dozens more. As the weekend progressed we partied like it was a 5 year olds birthday....oh it was! Happy Birthday Justin! And then rocked the harbor with Ryan Monbleau!

day 176 June 25

I just gave myself a little bit of a scare. I thought I had gone a day without photographing miss phoenix. I opened the archives and no pup pics..... after some quick checking of the archives I discovered that I had missed an upload....phew! That said, its this row of headshots of one of my favorite co-workers Bob that I like the most from this day.

day 175 June 24

Lunch times walking with the pup and the wonder wife on the bogs during a break in the weeks rains.

day 174 June 23

Thirty five years ago I started playing with this model of a British Spitfire. It patrolled over Britain and this model over my grandfathers bed. We will need to clean it up a little and glue on a broken horizontal stabilizer.

day 173 June 22

I have been enjoying mixed or shooting off of natural color balance lately. This one finds the camera having auto picking something between daylight and incandescent - resulting in both cool, outside and warm inside......

week 25 day 172 shot of the week

This weekend consisted of a memorial and then sifting through the left over possessions of my grandparents. I spoke at the memorial and we went to the loot-grab, both things I did not think I would do. I am glad for both, including the semi-morbid sifting through of formerly treasured belongings....because there are now some new photographic treasures. This photo is my grandfather's binocular case, used often for birding off the back porch, accompanied by his Scout leader uni for troop 64 Saylesville, RI, where he was a charter leader back in 68.

day 172 June 21

Can photographers do cover tunes? This is my cover of the work of Abelardo Morell, a fantastic photographer whom I met during my days working in the trenches of the Boston photo biz...

day 171 June 20

And now for something completely different. I do not tend to shoot a lot of abstract"ish" stuff, but from time to time the abstract jumps out and grabs me. It's a fence a pole and wall - in that order.

day 170 June 19

The Upper Cape Cod Camera Club has given out its summer assignments. One of mine is to create an HDR image. This is my favorite single exposure for one of my recent attempts. If I like the HDR results, I will also publish here...... to be continued.....

day 169 June 18

This is a part two from day 167. While driving with e (not this picture again) to the memorial service of my recently deceased grandparents, (Don't Fear) The Reaper began playing as we crossed the bridge to go off-Cape.

day 168 June 17

There are a number of problems with this Phoenix 365 submission.... the largest is me -literally. I am bothered by how chubby I have become again. One thing that helps me to do things that I know are not going to be fun, like getting myself in better shape again, is telling someone of my intent. So internet - soon I will start losing weight.

day 167 June 16

Blogger warning: This blog will not be about the accompanying photo.

As a youth I joined one of those clubs where you pay a penny for a bunch of tapes and then you have to buy a bunch and or accept a number of the cassettes of the month. One of such cassettes of the month received by me was a Loverboy album I never opened. My friend Joel noticed the unwanted tape and offered a trade for an unwanted tape of his- Blue Oyster Cult. I accepted as I liked the song Godzilla as well as others.

While deciding on what tapes to bring on a family road trip (a blog for another time) I discovered that the tape no longer played and set it aside. That fall, Joel died in a car accident. When I remembered the tape exchange and the broken tape I searched and found the presumed broken tape. While traveling to the his memorial, I popped the broken tape in the player.....and not only did it play- it started playing on their hit (Don't fear) The Reaper....

day 166 June 15

This is the first of many pup shots for the week. It seems worth mentioning again that this year, I been working on a series consisting of daily photographs of our super pup Phoenix. The challenge to myself is to try to continue to find new angles on this single subject, the required 365 times.... This one I like more than the average day, lots of places for the eye to roam too and it has my other favorite model in it too!

day 165 June 14

Being named the official photographer of Cape Cod Kickball in its second season was quite an honor. It also has been great fun to go shoot these bi-weekly matches, where teams like The Hippie Killers spar with the likes of Cape Cod Cowboys. To see the level of athleticism on display, at this level of competition, has been an inspiration and a breath of fresh sea air.

day 164 June 13

Last weekend we took in another of Turning Pointe Studios Dance production, this time their "A Celebration of Music" held at Mashpee High School. Our favorite dancer claims to have enjoyed being in the show but would not divulge her favorite part to this reporter.