The above was shot with my 1D and is minimally cropped from the top and left.  The photo below was shot with the Rebel and is HEAVILY cropped.  I'm definitely ready for a camera with more megapixels. 

I brought my 1D and the borrowed Rebel out to shoot some gulls.  I found that I could obtain initial focus equally well with either camera but the Rebel was no match for the 1D when it came to keeping focus.  I constantly lost focus with the Rebel but once the 1D locks on you've got it.  The first two pics are with the 1D and the third is with the Rebel.  The second one is cropped quite a bit which I usually don't do but at this small size on the web it will work.

This is a picture of my kids "getting along".  Sometimes I get after them and tell them to settle down and the answer I get is, "C'mon Dad, we're getting along.  Would you rather we were fighting?" Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between getting along and fighting.

I have an app on my phone called Big Lens which has this awful snow filter that I thought I would never use.  Today it struck me as appropriate.

My camera is a Canon EOS 1D which was the best of the best when I bought it back in 2002.  It still works great but it doesn't have the resolution, dynamic range or high iso performance of the new models.  I would love to replace it with a 5D Mark III but don't really have the $$$.  Sometimes I wonder if I could be happy with an entry level Rebel.  My brother forgot his Rebel at my Mom's house and won't be back until Easter so I "borrowed" it.  I know I could live with this camera for portraits but the jury is still out on action and wildlife.

Logan got to go to the state bowling tournament in Joliet, IL today.  He bowled well with a high game of 148.

I've been playing around with adding background textures to portraits using blend modes in Photoshop.  It works best with a grey background so you're not carrying a color cast through to the texture. At the moment I only have a blue background so I've just been going with the blue.  When I saw my wife all dressed in blue I had to get this shot.

I downloaded a new HipstaPak today so I had to try it out.  This is Dixie Film with the Mabel Lens.

I was trying to talk but they weren't listening so I snapped their picture instead.  I played around with it in Snapseed a little.

I tried to do a shot of myself similar to the one I did of my son last Friday.  I wore a white shirt to set it off from the background but something just isn't right.  I like the one of Logan much better than this one.

The whole family was at my Mom's house today to celebrate my Grandma's birthday.  My cousin's son loved watching the trains go by.

This is our 20 lb cat, Uncle Rico.  He's named after a character from the movie "Napoleon Dynomite".  I was inspired to make this image after viewing the work of Wolf Ademeit which was featured on Phlearn's Weekend Inspiration.

One of my favorite Photoshop teachers is Calvin Hollywood.  I used some of his techniques on this portrait of my son.  It was shot with one light but looking at it now, I wish I had some rim lighting to set him off from the background.  The texture in the background came from a couple shots I took in St Maarten.  One of a wall, the other of a stairway.

This is three images put together to make one.  The window and castle were downloaded from psdbox. 

I took the image of my daughter today and then followed this tutorial by Andrei Oprinca to create the manipulation.  If you are interested in learning how to create lighting in photoshop, I highly recommend Andrei's youtube videos.   

I'm already loving the extra hour of daylight.  Tonight I went for a short run and still had time shoot pictures in daylight.  This is a mess of an image but I was happy to see and photograph a red-tailed hawk.

The contrast between the orangish tungsten light on her face and the bluish daylight coming through the window caught my eye.

I was invited by Pam to try meMonday, a self portrait every Monday so here is my first one.

I went for a run today but had to alter my route when I found this flowing across the road.  We had a lot of snow last week followed by rain all weekend.

Our last hour in the sunshine of St. Maarten before returning to cold and grey Illinois.

As I sit here adding photos (on Sunday) I have been half-listening to an interview with motorsports photographer Darren Heath.  He was just talking about obsessing over your own pictures in ways that other viewers don't.  His example was wishing a certain tree wasn't in the background.  I have that problem with this picture.

I like the image a lot.  I like strong geometric shapes in my pictures and the window frames create three nice rectangles.  The man in silhouette makes this much more interesting than if he wasn't there, but I can't help being bothered by the other silhouette clipping the bottom left corner.  

I could probably fix it with Photoshop but instead I'm going to obsess over the lady who set her luggage down six inches to far to the right.  :)

Today we spent the morning shopping in Phillipsburg.

In the afternoon we took a drive around the island.  We had heard there were herds of goats wandering around and sure enough we found one.

One of the main reasons I wanted to visit St. Maarten was to take this photo.  I had seen it on the Travel Channel a few years ago and have wanted to visit ever since.  The beach is at the end of the landing strip and it seems like you could reach up and touch the planes when they come in.

The beach cleared out a bit after a brief rain shower and I was able to get a shot with Nicole in it.

We've arrived in paradise but are too tired to do anything but snap sunset photos from the balcony of our room.

We are spending the night at the Best Western Ohare.  Our plane leaves at 5:30 am tomorrow.  My wife is very good at organizing everything to make air travel less stressful.  Here she is preparing her bag for tomorrow.

I shaved today, now I have to shave every day. 

They're all set for the Maroon 5 concert.