erikcurtis.com

Poppy Goes…

Erik — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 17:42:58 +0000

This is form some seeds that my brother Thor gave me. We must have had a thousand of these asian poppies blooming this past spring. I shot this with 3 exposures -2ev 0 and +2ev. Processed in Photoshop CS5.

A Rose By Any Other Name

Erik — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 17:38:33 +0000

This was taken in our front yard at the end of spring 2010. I had just installed Photoshop CS5 and processed this using the new HDR tools.

Video Editing aka the great time suck

Erik — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 22:15:03 +0000

Those of you who know me, know that I coach my kids sports. This past baseball season I had two GREAT parents that offered to photo and video the action during the games. This is great since while I’m coaching, I don’t get to take any photos of my kids. By the end of the season we had 1000+ photos and about an hour of 1080p HD video.

My goal was to chop this down to a 15~20 minutes and create DVD’s for each player. Simple, right? After 2 weeks of 2-5 hours per night give or take, my master piece is about 2 hours away from an Oscar.

I started with the photos. I went went through each one and trashed any that were out of focus, off angle or just had something wrong with them. Then I went through again, this time I tagged them with the players names and rated them 1-5.

The video was given to me as a bunch of sequenced AVHCD files that I was able to import in to Adobe Premiere Pro. Little did I know that these HD files impose a huge drain on the computer. I had edited SD footage in the past with no problem.

I was amazed at the amount of time I put in to this project. From when I sat down it seemed that time would speed up and the next thing I know, 4 hours had gone by. Don’t get me wrong, I had a blast doing it and learned a lot along the way. Granted, if I was more knowledgeable with the software and the techniques, it would not have taken as long.

Would I do it again? You bet!

love of the game

Erik — Fri, 21 May 2010 15:47:09 +0000

Jillian just finished her softball season with the most dynamic win I have ever witnessed. She was playing hurt, halfway through the game a wild pitch hit her upper arm and took her out of it for a while. The good of this is that it pissed her off so much that she took it out on the ball. Adding to her teams awesome effort by smashing the ball to deep center bringing 2 RBI’s and a double.

It all came down in the 7th. Score was tied 6-6. The opposing coach had walked our #1 batter to load the bases. Lucky came up with 2 outs and took 2 strikes. The next pitch was on fire and caused a hush to come over us all. Except Lucky, that ball was met with the swing of the season and knocked directly at the shortstop who wanted nothing to do with it. The ball continued past the left fielder coming to rest deep in the outfield. This brought in three runners ending the game with a walk-off.

new blackberry thingie

Erik — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 21:41:16 +0000

So I got a new blackberry tour at work and started playing around with it. Nice to have a camera, my old one was lacking one. I got it connected to facebook, twitter and flicker.

Day off….

Erik — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 21:51:19 +0000

J at about 4 years old. I think we had the day off and went down to the California Science Center in Los Angeles. This was taken during the trip going to since I’m sure she was sound asleep on the way back.

Mom and Dad

Erik — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 21:39:29 +0000

Since my mom passed away last May, me and my two brothers have been scanning all of her family photos. We’ve come across some photos that we didn’t know even existed. This is a photo of Mom and Dad at the Seven Seas nightclub in Hollywood. I’d have to guess that it is during the early 1950’s. They would work all day, Mom was a nurse and Dad was a mechanic at McDonald Douglas Aircraft, and then go out all night dancing.

Day after the rain

Erik — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 21:27:29 +0000

Big J had been cooped up in the house for a few rainy days and needed some outside time. Being 100% boy, he headed right for the mud.

I am the egg man…

Erik — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 21:03:18 +0000

This is from way back when J was just over a year. We were on vacation and she was playing with these swim goggles. She let me put them on her just long enough to take the photo.

Downtown Rush Hour

Erik — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:13:19 +0000

I was standing on the bridge in Downtown Los Angeles at 5th and Figueroa just after sunrise. This is a composite of three bracketed images that I processed in Photomatics. Though not perfect (I’m still learning to learn photography), I thought it came out well.