Sorry to anyone who reads this. I haven’t updated in quite a while. I’m going to try and do a write-up of my latest project soon. stay tuned!

I’m going to take a quick moment out of the usual photo blogging schedule to tell you about a website that I just joined a month or so ago. Its called Lockerz.com . Some of you may have heard of it, but if you havent, its a sort of social site that lets you play games, watch videos and win prizes. Right now its still in the beta stage, so a few features arent up and running yet, but they’re working on it constantly, as shown by their frequent updates on their facebook page. So anyway, every day when you sign on, you automatically earn 2 points. For every person you sign up (refer) you also get 2 points, plus if you get 15 people to sign up , you get to be on the “Z-list” which is just like a perk, where you earn double points and stuff. Its really easy/fast to sign up (like a minute is all it takes) and you can build up points pretty fast too. i’ve been signed up for about a month, probably a little less, and already have enough points for a ps3 game. So if you want to sign up, just leave me a comment with your email address (i’ll just reject the comment and send you an invite from the website) if you have any questions about it though, feel free to ask, but the only way to get in is to get invited!
-NOT an advertisement, Tony Bombardo

Today I decided to take some stuff that was laying around the house and make myself a nice  umbrella stand. Yesterday, I began by painting the inside of an old broken umbrella with silver spray paint.

Paint cost- about 3 dollars

Umbrella- free

Step 1. Paint umbrella and remove handle

A few other options could include using white fabric, reflective fabric (talk to a company that sells dance outfits if you cant find any, maybe), or even lining the inside of the umbrella with mylar foil.

After the umbrella reflector was created, I next set about building the stand. This was a bit more difficult. I actually began this project yesterday and wasn’t really sure how to go about doing this. I visited National Camera Exchange in Burnsville, MN to take a look at light stands and umbrella reflectors today and also took a look at umbrella/flash holding heads for these stands. A standard plastic one that includes a tilting head with a foot for a flash and a hole for an umbrella costs $29.95 and a stand costs 30 dollars for a low end cheap one and goes up from there. I decided I’d rather build than buy, so I pulled out an old tripod that had a broken adjustment handle and got to work. First I drilled out the joint at the top of the tripod head (you’ll see this better in the photo) and inserted a threaded rod which I then added a couple thick threaded washers to to hold it in place. The rod goes into the umbrella shaft and is held in place with a metal pin. I also ended up fixing the broken adjustment handle with another rod and a big metal thing I found in the garage. for tightening it.  The finished head is shown below.

Step 2: turn a tripod head into an umbrella holder

So now that we have an umbrella stand, the only thing left was to attach the flash. Sony’s HVL-F56AM flash (as well as many other brands and models) includes a foot  for standing the flash up for wireless firing as well as attaching to a tripod , so this was the easiest part of the whole build. Well… that’s about it. Below is a final setup shot, as well as a sample image I took with it. If you have any questions about this , shoot me an email at tony.bombardo@gmail.com . Also, be sure to check out my Flickr page for more photos!

This is my mom.

Since I’m already on the topic of health today, I figured we may as well continue the trend. This time, I’d like to tell you about a cool health forum I found. The forum’s name is Natural Medicine Talk, and that is what it’s devoted to. This forum tackles numerous topics such as nutrition, women’s health, excersize , and even cancer. The layout of the forum is simple and straightforward with coloring that isn’t distracting. You’ve most likely seen this forum format before (I know I have) so visiting this site feels very familiar yet refreshing at the same time. This forum also has a very large active member community, so most questions get responses fast. So if you’re trying to get healthy, this site, as well as the one I mentioned earlier are great places to start your quest!

I just wanted to take a break from the usual photography talk to give you a brief review of a cool health blog I found today.  The name of this blog is Healthy Fellow. As the name implies, this blog is devoted to short and informative healt-related posts. One prevalent topic  is natural remedies and solutions. I like this aspect because more and more people are turning to natural alternatives these days as the “green” movement progresses. This blog is definitely worth a look if you’re interested in health topics, and with the state affairs in America currently, who isn’t? Click the link above to check the site out and tell others if you like what you see.

This past weekend me and my brother headed up to the north shore in search of camping. After stopping at Cascade State Park, we were informed that most campgrounds along highway 61 were completely full, but there were some up near Grand Marais that usually didn’t fill , so we ended up at Devil Track Lake. The campground is located in part of the Superior National Forest. The first night started out clear with great visibility so I took a few night shots. We did some hiking on the first full day, and then stopped at the Temperance river on our way back to the cities. Click the photo below to view full size and see the rest of the photos on my Flickr. And as always, comments are appreciated!

Wildflowers growing wildly.

Tonight I went boating with my parents for a few hours. Had a good time; took some pictures, ate hotdogs on the beach, swam in the St. Croix, wakeboarded for a bit, all that good stuff.

Just uploaded all the good photos to flickr, below is one of my favorites. Click the photo to see the rest. Comments always appreciated!

Taken in Hastings, MN

Last night there was a high-energy thunderstorm in the metro area. As the storm moved closer to where I live, you could see a large cloud full of lightning and hear the low rumbles of thunder in the distance. Luckily the rain had not yet began, and there wasnt any cloud-to-ground lightning so I ran outside with my lightning rod tripod and took pictures. I just thought i’d share a few with you. Clicking the photos will take you to my flickr page where you can view them larger.

June 17, 2009

Pow!

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So last night I took the time to set up a little studio in my room in hopes of getting some awesome photos on my  black night stand. I took a while setting everything up, using a couple florescent shop lights (one bouncing off a wall, the other had parchment paper covering it to diffuse the light). Apparently it just wasn’t my night, and I wasn’t really even happy with my best shot.(below)

Fossil watch

After taking this photo, I decided to try and take pictures of a record player which my brother bought at Goodwill for 10 dollars. This turned out even worse than before, and I quickly scrapped that idea. Once everything was put away though, I noticed something on my wall. It was the clock that I had put together from a cheap plastic IKEA clock and a smiley sun I bought at a garage sale. The light was hitting it just so perfectly so I took my camera out and decided to snap a few shots of it . The picture below became my favorite shot of the night, which just goes to show that maybe it’s better to just keep things simple.

Time

Alllright… so I’m going to really try this time to keep this thing going. It’s been over a year since my last entry on here. This is just a quick post since its getting sort of late and I don’t have much to say. Just got back from Vegas last week though. Here’s one of my favorite images from the trip.

Venetian Hotel on the strip