What it Feels Like

I took a class on Cairo last year, and an optional field trip was offered as part of the class. I went on that trip, and that's where all of my Cairo pics came from. My professor is one of the top Cairo experts, and she has this picture framed because it reminds her of Cairo and really captures the essence of the city. A polite way of saying it's very dirty.

My Caucus

Well, this is really what made it happened. Winning caucuses just like these all around the state of Iowa was the reason why Barack Obama is the President of the United States of America. I caucused for Edwards. Poor choice, Reid. Poor choice.

Cherry Blossom

Several people have asked me for this photo to put on the background of their computers. This was from the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, DC. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, but the banks of the tidal basin were overflowing onto the sidewalk. The falling petals looked like snow, so that entirely made up for it.

I'mBack and Another Wrigley Shot

Sorry guys, it's been a while. I was really busy the last two weeks doing a Campaign Management Institute at American. Anyway, here is another tilt-shift from Wrigley. It's Derek Lee standing at 1st base. The guy is huge, but he looks small and lonely in this shot.

Football

Per my Mom's request, I am posting this silhouette of my brother. The light was perfect, the light pole was obnoxious. Also, I think I am going to update less regularly. I don't really have enough of an incentive to post every day, to be honest.

I Don't Know How Much Longer I Want to Do This

An Egypt picture. Let's face it, they're the best I've got. This is a Pyramid. Also, happy birthday, Mom. Everyone send her a birthday wish. jtrose11(at)mchsi(dot)com.

Dad

What a goof!

When Photographers Get Bored

Photographers are people too. In this case, photographers are bored people, so photographers play with their favorite toy: their camera. I set my camera on a shelf, set the timer for a few seconds to allow me to get into place, then halfway through the exposure, I walked out of the shot. Here's what I got.

Campaign Photography

For all the time I spent at campaign rallies doing my job, I never really had any pictures to show for it. This is one exception. The day before the Iowa Caucus, John Edwards had a rally with John Mellencamp, and since I wasn't really doing anything, I had my parents bring me my camera. I got to go to all of the press areas and take pics. It was a good show, and a great way for me to end that campaign. As we all found out, thank goodness we lost. This is a picture of Bruce Braley, a sophomore congressman from Northeast Iowa. One of my favorites from the Iowa delegation. To be entirely honest, this isn't one of my best shots from the rally. I just like him the best of anyone there.

Motorcycle

This is the HDR that made mw keep trying HDRs. It was the first one that looked like I actually made to look like I intended. I spent a good two hours that die trying different shots and spent a few more on Photomatix. Consider this a look back into my history

Yellow

A pretty flower in honor of the summer and such.

Shadow Figure

During the second semester of sophomore year, my friends at school produced, filmed, and starred in a TV show on ATV, American University's closed circuit television. I didn't want anything to do with the show, so I kind of became it's official photographer. The cast of the Mike Mayer Show was practicing the "Thriller" dance for an episode that never did see the light of day. Fortunately, a bried clip of the dance can be seen in this teaser trailer for season two...which only aired a single episode before the cast and crew gave up on the series.

For this shot, the cast turned off most of the lights so they could better see the laptop computer scene while they followed along to Michael Jackson's dance. At the time, they seemed a little hopeless, and this shot caught Adam right as the team finished up the rehearsal.

Three for One

Sorry y'all. Got a little lax. Parents are in town. Stuff is moving. These are just going to be three pretty pictures of mosques in Cairo. Not much of a story behind these. Just mosques.

I'm gonna try to get away from my Cairo stuff for awhile. Looks like I need a little more diversity in my pics. I need to travel more. It's an official goal.

A Cat

This is a favorite of one of my friends. Actually, a favorite of several of my friends.

Anyone that has been to Cairo knows that stray cats are everywhere. Less common on the sidewalks, though, are couches. However, every once in a while you do come across a stray couch. I found a stray cat AND a stray couch at the same time!

Finally There

After 14 straight hours in the car together and very little sleep, it's no small miracle that they actually wanted to move closer to each other. But they did. Of course. I'm kidding. The car ride down was very pleasant and we all got along great. I think I might be the one they got mad at, seeing as I had to take this picture so far away and they made some sort of strange rule that I couldn't talk for two days.

Anyway, it was a sweet moment.

Colourmusic at 80/35

Feliz Cinco de Mayo, everybody! Is that right? I stopped taking Spanish a couple years ago. I wanted to post a picture of something that looked like a party, but I thin the closest I'm going to get is a picture from a concernt I went to over the Fourth of July last year. These guys are called Colourmusic, and they're out of Oklahoma, I think. Not sure if I would buy any of their music, but they were a blast to watch live. The crowd was really into the gig and the white sweatsuits made me think of Devo. Not sure that's what they were going for.

On an unrelated but just as interesting note, I was looking at the followers of my blog the other day, and I noticed that of the ones who had profile pictures, all of them were taken by me. That trend ended yesterday when Dee joined the site, but she's still welcome here ;)

And since I'm working on my last assignments for the semester, so now is as good of a time as ever to daydream instead of being productive. I decided I should become a travel photographer. Just seems so much more fun than politics. Any idea how I go about doing that? I suppose I should start by traveling, but I don't have the cash. Maybe I should sell my photos! Who wants to buy a picture? $300 for a 4x6 print. Frame not included. Oh man, it would be awesome to be that good.

Anyway, I toast this margarita to you, my readers.

Chicago in a Purple Sky

This photo has pretty much the same story as the other Chicago picture. Froze my @$$ off waiting for the sun to go down so I could get a night shot of Chicago. I may have gone a little overboard with the HDR processing on this one, but I like the colors. My friends always seem to do a double take when they see this picture and aren't sure whether or not it is a photograph. I assure you, this is a photograph.

My parents pointed out that there is a "44" written in lights on the center building. I didn't notice it until they pointed it out to me, and they told me it was in honor of then President-Elect Obama's victory earlier that month. Pretty cool stuff, if you ask me.

Breadline

A different version of this picture is currently the desktop image on my computer. It's not a particularly breathtaking image, but considering millions of people have taken this same picture, I don't think more than a handful have tried this in HDR. Processing pictures of people in HDR is somewhat complicated since people can't stay motionless over three separate exposures like a building can, and people sure as hell won't stay still if they don't know you're taking a picture of them (don't worry, I asked later if I could keep the pictures). I know this picture doesn't look like HDR, but trust me on this one.

Chemistry Building

This is one of my very first attempts at HDR. It wasn't a particularly good one, but I really like the combination of the angle and strange lens distortions. Something about all of the lines and angles feels really strange. It also reflects my sentiments of American University--gray and dreary.

I dunno, what do you think?

Opera

This is my friend Elizabeth Zito singing with the American University Symphony orchestra. She easily has one of the most amazing voices of anyone I know. If you get a chance, check her out at http://www.myspace.com/selizabethzito. Incredible stuff.

I haven't really done a lot of event photography, especially not indoors, so taking photos at the concert was pretty new to me and very experimental. I couldn't use flash, and I broke my zoom lens, so I was forced to use a fast ISO equivalent and crop the pictures pretty close. Sorry for the grain. Regardless, I was very happy with the end result given the circumstances.