Day 79: Chili Chocolate

I suddenly got a chocolate craving yesterday as my roommate and friend went to the grocery store, so I joined them to get my fix. Normally I’ll get the cheap store-brand semi-sweet chocolate chips, but I decided to try something new and bought a bar of Lindt dark chocolate… chili-flavored. It was on sale, so wasn’t much more expensive than my usual choice.

55mm f/16     ISO-200     3.2 seconds

It is actually quite good. If you wait a second or two after taking a bite, the chili ‘heat’ creeps in and lingers for a second before calming down again. Before the heat kicks in it almost has a cherry taste to it… Anyway, I think it’s kind of fun and believe it will help me eat through this bar slower than I probably would the bag of chocolate chips.

Manual: Magnified View and Rotating the Image (126)

Images: Jonathan Canlas

Day 78: Dinner Dance

Each year after Christmas Around the World the folk dance club has their annual formal ‘Dinner Dance’ for the team members. I was lucky enough to be invited to attend, even though I no longer dance with them. This year the event had a big band theme. After the dinner we went downstairs to the ballroom for the dance portion of the evening. However, many people also used that time for taking pictures (it is a formal event, after all… we don’t get to dress up like that everyday). Myself, being the picture-loving person that I am, was glad to lend my services to photograph my friends. One of my favorite pictures from the evening was this one:

50mm f/2.8     ISO-1600     1/60 second

I know I cut off his foot… I fixed it for the next picture taken, but I like their faces better in this shot.

Manual: Searching for Images Quickly (124-125)

Images: Jasmine Star

Days 73-77

I apologize for my recent lack of posting… life has been kind of crazy the last week or so…

Day 73: Christmas Around the World

50mm f/2     ISO-320     1/160 second

This is my friend McKenzie doing some Scottish Highland dancing at Brigham Young University’s Christmas Around the World last weekend. I shot pictures during their dress rehearsal, which gave me the freedom to move around on the floor.

Day 74: Christmas Around the World – Elementary Edition

50mm f/2     ISO-400     1/160 second

Every year with Christmas Around the World, the folk dancers will also perform a shortened version for elementary school kids who come during the day. Because there are so many kids arriving at the same time, we also traditionally put together a little variety pre-show to keep them entertained as the rest of the kids find their seats. We’ll sing Christmas songs (I’ve played the piano for this for the last few years, including this one) and have little acts for the kids to watch. Pictured above are a few members of the Performance Arts Company having a contest spinning ‘Chinese stars.’ One of the dances we have features these stars, though only the girls dance it (even though many of the guys have learned to twirl them, as well…).

Day 75: I Spy…

…A whole lot of people running downtown dressed as Santa Claus:

214mm f/5.6     ISO-640     1/250 second

50mm f/5     ISO-200     1/320 second

I went downtown to photograph the Santa Run on Saturday morning… I couldn’t decide which picture to post, so I posted two.

Day 76: What I Woke Up To This Morning…

50mm f/2.2     ISO-100     1/3200 second

Yeah, on December 6th it finally decided to snow. It was a little later than usual this year, but I didn’t mind that…

Day 77: Iron Fence

50mm f/2.2     ISO-100     1/2000 second

Day 72: Silver Lining

50mm f/16     ISO-200     1/4000 second

I think the colors along the cloud’s ’silver lining’ are really interesting. I didn’t do anything to that, honest. All I did with this picture was adjust contrast, noise and sharpness. I don’t think it was my lens, because even when I rotated the camera and took a vertical shot, the colored cloud linings didn’t shift. Maybe something in the air? Or in the clouds themselves?

Manual: 123, Image Playback

Images: Scott Jarvie

Day 71: Orange-Red Abstract

50mm f/22     ISO-100     1/15 second

Any guesses what this is?

Manual: Manual Sensor Cleaning (121-122)

Images: Mike Larson

Day 70: Night Lights

I was out with a group of local photographers shooting the newly-lit Christmas lights downtown and I took this shot:

70mm f/22     ISO-200     10 seconds

Honestly, there weren’t many lights to shoot, which is why I went to things like this shot of the intersection. I was about to post one of the Christmas light pictures, but decided to only show this one for now because I could easily reproduce the other, if needed. I really liked the motion of the headlights caught in this picture and don’t want to ‘waste’ that  other idea when I could use it at a later date (if I’m struggling with a picture for the day, for example).

Manual: Appending Dust Delete Data (119)

Images: Flickr pool for the tasra365 group.

Days 66-69… Thanksgiving Holiday

I had limited computer access over the holiday break because I went out of town. I still took tons of pictures, of course, but haven’t been able to post them until now. Instead of flooding you with four posts, they’ve been combined. Here are days 66-69…

Day 66: Turkey Bowl

70mm f/8     ISO-400     1/2000 second

My favorite action shot from a neighborhood Turkey Bowl. It was a spectacular collision, which didn’t happen much at all that morning because they were playing flag football, so I’m really glad I caught that one. It was good practice taking sports photos.

Day 67: Spinning Quarter

55mm f/5.6     ISO-400     1/13 second

My friend was spinning this quarter on the table and I got the idea for this shot… using flash to freeze the quarter while keeping a longer shutter speed to also see the movement of it spinning. I also like the red of the plastic cup.

Day 68: Niece

50mm f/2.8     ISO-400     1/320 second

No, she’s not my niece… but a niece of the friend whose family’s place I was staying at. She loved having her picture taken and asked (repeatedly) for me to take it (and then show it to her, of course). It made for a fun game, and I got a few nice pictures out of it, as well =)

Day 69: Birthday Cake

50mm f/2.8     ISO-400     1/40 second

My birthday was on the 26th, but I was out of town. When I got back to my apartment on Sunday I had a nice little stack of things that had come in the mail for me while I was gone. Among them was a box from one of my best friends in Arizona. Inside was a cake mix, frosting and candles spelling ‘Happy Birthday’ and ‘23.’ I was given instructions to make it and take a picture to show her to prove that I actually did it.