Christmas

Check out this link for an unedited look at my christmas day, slamed together for one minute of crazy fun. the song is american money by yoko kanno.

http://gregblobaum.webng.com/xmass/

jess

mi hermano Jesse, snowboarding in my backyard at night. single strobe, set to the left.

winter wonderland

It was a rather cold and miserable night last night, but thankfully, area schools were canceled, which allowed me to go out feature hunting. and where better to go that a gigantic hill for sledders? I went up to arnold heights, a hill up in airpark that puts the pioneers park sledding hill to shame. it's a bit out of the way, so there are less people there, but it is a much larger hill. one problem i ran into was keeping my batteries warm, because they were dying quickly. darn cold. the 2 shots from the last post were taken at the same hill, only a few weeks back.

I really like this wider shot of the sledders, mostly for the girl at the bottom left. there was a big dip that made for a great jump, and after shooting tighter and closer with the 16-35, i decided to pull back and shoot wide and long with the 70-200. i do wish there were more people going down the hill in that frame, to clean up some of the dead space, but you take what you get.


here is the same bump, only close up. you can't go wrong with kids wiping out.


this is what greeted me this morning, a solid sheet of ice covering my car.

a little fun

sometimes i like to get artsy

star city holiday oh my god it is freezing parade

cold cold cold cold cold. shooting the (rather sad) parade saturday was not that fun. there were no marching bands, and if you have not figured it out yet, it was really cold there. but, i did get to play around with a fun little lens. i have always been surprised that the parade is at the start of december, and not closer to christmas. meh.

a little thanksgiving joy

happy thanksgiving to all. went back home to fairbury, and gorged myself of many foods. it was nice to see the family again, and it was nice to get my grandma sprung from the nursing home for a day to join us. my brothers and i spent some time playing with our grandpa's old train set, hence the lego sharks eating the car. we also talked with him about all of his train memorabilia. once i get my hands on some recording gear, i would like to interview him about pretty much his entire life, from growing up in boston, to WWII, to his time as an engineer on the railroad.

it seems i was wrong about the count towards post #100, about 7 posts were actually drafts, so this is post #90. but, still, close.

I hope all of you reading this gave thanks for things in your life. i know that every day i am thankful for my family. when things are looking their most bleak, my family is always there to bring me back up. i don't know what i would do without them.

fun with rubber cement

guess what, with rubber cement, even YOU can ignite ice cubes. and cause forest fires.

Friday night lights

Class A highschool football championship, Omaha central beats Millard north.

5 more posts till 100.

bloggin from class, volleyball style

i am really, really having trouble focusing in class today, so what better way to be a responsible student than to update my blog! During Class!!!

State volleyball!!! hooray! shot 2 games of the tourney on friday, back to back. Grand Island Central Catholic won quite handily. That is why they are happy. I was not so happy, because i had to wake up really early to drive to waverly to cover this game, which was at 930 in the morn. boo morning!


Heartland did not do as well. That is why they are sad. They lost in the first round, but at least did not get swept.


Now, looking around for features at the end of the Heartland game, i saw these guys. I am not saying this was a good photo, i am saying i just took this to illustrate a point. These guys thought they were hardcore with a little face paint. they thought they were awesome fans. well, guess what, you got nothin.


Here are some real fans, from Heartland. they dressed up as presents, and had other themes ready if Heartland won. Not only were they screaming the entire game, they were singing many songs. all memorized, including the theme from Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, All that Jazz, and their ABC's.


This weekend... State Football!!!

Fairbury

In honor of Fairbury being in the news (the mayor was just booted from office) here is a snap from when i went back home a week ago. The town has decided to have a trick or treat event down on the town square. It helps the kids who live out in the country who don't have the same chances as the town kids to get some tasty candy. part of it was to keep kids safe, which i think is a bit reactionary. but, kudos to fairbury for putting on something that was a hit with the town.

by the way, i am closing in on 100 blogs posts, i think i have about 7 to go. im kickin around some ideas for a lead up, but if anyone has any, feel free to chime in.

a little spot news

Last night, i recieved a text from one Johnny Perez on how there was a fire right close to my house. Thankfully, no one was hurt, and there was minimal damage. not too often you can cover spot news basically right out of your door. It has been a while since i have shot any spot news, so it was fun to go out and cover something happening.

take me home

Went home last week to see my family. My grandmother has been having some health problems, so it was nice to go down and see everyone. The first photo is one she gave me of when she was younger, with my grandpa. As for the final photo, i had just picked up the camera and had snapped a shot of my mom acting like a zombie. She was not too happy that i took that shot. Hi, Mom!

purdy light

another engagement session, with some fantastic sunset power to make me happy. These two were made with a single strobe to the left set to ettl, which is surprisingly accurate. congrats to lee and candace.

halloween

a halloween with a not so good back drop, but in a pinch it will do. drunk people at a bar and a single strobe can be quite fun.

been gone

some highschool state tennis action. i have been in and out of town the last few weeks for those who have not seen me in a bit, some work related, some family related. but, yeah... i really like covering high school sports. im looking forward to abusing my nsaa pass to no end to go and have some fun at all the state finals that are happening in the next few weeks.

tiny kitten!

trevor and his young kitten, niblet.

congrats

I shot another wedding a few weekends ago. The groom was Russ, a great friend from way back when. The bride was Megan, one of the nicest, most fun person you will ever meet. It was a fantastic day for an outdoor wedding. When shooting outdoor weddings, i tend to keep to the k.i.s.s. principle. keep it simple, stupid. outdoor weddings are great places to shoot wide, with a lot of sky. the really wide, up high shot was made duct taping 2 monopods together and using a remote cord to trigger the camera. this wedding was probably the first wedding i wish was actually longer. by the time i had shot the up high shot, they were almost halfway done.



to back track, before the wedding i spent a lot of time shooting the prep work. here are 2 semi portraits of megan, with 2 different feels to them. the blue one was set to tungsten with window light as the source. the other was exposed for a gel-warmed flash in front of the same window.




after shooting almost 2 hours of post-wedding formal portraits, we decided to do some fun portraits. lying on my back on the goose poop covered group to get the grooms men was interesting. the problem with something like that is you cannot pop a flash on them. if you try, the top half is bright white and the bottom half if dark. i have a nice set of reflectors, but i left them in the car. hey, i was already carrying about 90 pounds of gear, give me a break.





as for the reception, i did a slight derivation on my back-lit dance shot. i set a 550 strobe on the right in the frame to 1/8 power and aimed it at the bride and groom.

all in all, a great wedding. after i was done shooting, i had a few beverages, and for some unknown reason my head felt about 7 sizes too big the next day. Congrats again to Russ and Megan.

The Killigans promo shoot

springtime for hitler

About a week ago, i shot a neo-nazi rally in omaha. I would say that i was surprised by the fact that not that many people were there, but omaha said they could only have it at the same time as the Husker season opener. all in all, it was not a terrible time. i drove up with an old professor of mine, Luis, and we ate at Cali Taco. For access, it was a bit of a pain, because the police were trying to keep us in one small area away from everything. I however felt bad for the officers, because i understand that they are just there to do their job, and the last thing they want is trouble. The whole time i was there, i had the songs form Mel Brook's move "The Producers" running in my head. go figure.

p.s. in the next few days, i will have a couple of updates ready to launch, including an update from another wedding. hooray!

um.....wow.

OK, for those of you who know how big of a tech head i am, and a canon freak. but, i will say that the new nikon camera has given me pause. for the first time in a long time, nikon might have came out with a camera that beats a canon. enter the D3. sitting at a comfortable 12.1 MP full frame, with live view, 51 AF points, and something else. 25,600 iso. yes, i said 25,600 iso. my god, that is crazy. now, that is in a special mode, and until i see some images popped out of that thing, i will remain a bit wary. but....yeah....wow. if those images stand up, that is bar light like daylight. i've said it before, but for the last 8 or so years, nikon has been playing catch-up with canon. it may be that they have finally caught up.

it's a nice day for a white wedding

Congrats to Clay and Tamara for getting hitched on Saturday. I went up with several friends to St. Paul for the wedding, and it was rather fun. I'm feeling a little bummed now, because the wedding was my last chance to see several of my friends for quite some time. Megan and John are now in Philly, Moseman is going to Boston, Amanda is going back to Chicago, Melanie is going back to Denver, and i am still in Lincoln. So it goes. I'm just happy i got to be with them all one last time.

a little old, a little new

this weekend, i spent far too many hours in the heat shooting over 30 games of kids playing soccer. whee. i managed to stay hydrated, and looking through the photos, i came to the realization that children suck at playing sports. i mean, they are very terrible. wow. here is a fantastic photo that anyone can get if they manage to have the autofocus touch on a shoe instead of the intended moment.



looking through some of my old photos on a hard drive that needed cleaning, i came across a photo that was taken several years ago. Alyssa Schukar, Kris Kolden and I decided to go on a pan-nebraskan tour. I just wanted to post this to remind people that everyone should take road trips. I have always enjoyed carhenge. if you ever have the chance, head out to alliance NE to see a true piece of american art.

I done shot rabbits meaner than you.

As the last part of shooting the cornhusker state games, i shot some Cowboy Action Shooting. basically, it is a bunch of people dressing up as cowboys and shooting things with guns. i had a lot of fun. i arrived early and took some time to shoot some features. the people were really nice, and they even let me shoot some of the guns. to start the course i was on, you had to say "I done shot rabbits meaner than you." after that, you shoot 10 shots from a rifle, 10 shots from the 6 shooters on your hip, and then 2 shots from a shotgun. the event is timed, and you are penalized for missing. i am proud to say i hit every target, and they said i did very well for time, even better than some of the competitors. of course, i had to wear a cowboy hat to do the shooting. good lord, i love america.