For the last couple of months, I’ve been hard at work with Shooting For A Cause. This is a project thought up by the fine folks at the Digital Imaging forum at BroadbandReports.com. They decided to pool their collective photographic talent and do something for charity.

The result is a series of four calendars with different themes: Earth and Sky, Flowers, Sunrise Sunset, and Wildlife. Each calendar costs $19.99. Of that money, $5 goes to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The rest goes to CafePress to cover production costs. Neither I, nor anyone else from Shooting For A Cause is making any money from this.

So please click on the image below to buy some calendars and help us support a worthy charity. Also, please check out the “Spread The Word” tab for information on how to let more people know about Shooting For A Cause.

By the way, I’m partial to the Flowers calendar as my photo was chosen for April.

On Friday, July 21st, I went to the Bronx Zoo with my parents, wife, and son. On the way over, we drove through pouring rain, thunder, lightening, and wind. There were plenty of times when I thought that we were crazy for continuing on. My son was so looking forward to seeing the animals, though, so I drove on in the slim hopes of the bad weather passing when we got to the zoo. And wouldn’t you know it? As we entered the Bronx, the rain lightened. The thunder and lightening faded away. And the winds died down. Sure the clouds were still there and it was very humid, but the weather was now passable for a zoo visit. The ground wasn’t even as wet as I thought they might be.

So we entered the zoo and went through the exhibits. The Butterfly House was fun, especially for me since I’ve wanted to take some butterfly shots for awhile. The little guys are quick though and usually flit away before the camera is focused on them. In the Butterfly House, though, the butterflies are used to people gawking at them. So they didn’t mind me getting up close to take their photos. Two even took a break from flying on me! It’s hard to take a closeup shot of a butterfly on your upper arm, though.

We also saw the gorillas. I think this might have been Noah’s favorite part. He loves gorillas and kept pointing them out to us and running over to see another one. This one gorilla approached the glass dividing the gorilla habitat from the human section. She laid down and rested a foot and arm on the glass. One of the other zoo visitors touched the glass and the gorilla moved her hand over to cover the woman’s hand. The woman tapped the glass and the gorilla tapped back. It was quite interesting. (I joked that the gorilla must be thinking “Boy, what a great human exhibit we have here.”)

We also went on the Wild Asian Safari monorail, walked through the bears exhibit, saw the giraffes (my son’s second favorite, I think), and even walked through the Children’s Zoo. As we were nearing the end of the Children’s Zoo, my father got a call from a coworker in Manhattan. He reported that Manhattan was pitch black out and thundering like crazy. As if on cue, we heard thunder in the background. We hurried out of the Children’s Zoo and left the Bronx Zoo. (We were almost done with the Children’s Zoo and that was going to be our last stop anyway, so it’s not like we cut our trip that short.) As we got out of the parking lot, rain drops started falling on the car’s windshield. Then the driving rain, thunder, lightening, and winds returned.

Still it stayed nice long enough for us to have a very nice visit. I’d recommend visiting the Bronx Zoo to anyone, but especially if you have little kids. It’s one thing to see all of the animals. It’s quite another to have a toddler next to you in sheer awe over the fact that a gorilla is right in front of him.

As for photos, I was able to take quite a few photos. Most of my Asian Safari photos didn’t turn out well, but that’s mainly because the monorail didn’t really stop moving long enough for my camera to take decent photographs. Still, I’ve opened a new gallery for the Bronx Zoo photos. Just click here to view them.

This is a combination post. In some ways, it will be the first of many freeware reviews. In other ways, it will be a tutorial on how to create images like this:

Bet you didn’t know that I had triplets, did you? Well, I don’t. (And given how much of a handful one Noah is, thank goodness!) So how come there are three distinct Noah’s in that photo? Microsoft Group Shot is why.

Microsoft Group Shot is a freeware application that Microsoft has released that enables you to take multiple photos and combine elements of them to make one overall composite photo. The most common use for this would be group photos (hence the “Group Shot” name). Whenever you do this, someone invariably blinks or looks away just as the camera takes the shot. With Group Shot, you would take a series of photos of the group and select which faces you wanted to use in the composite photo. Nothing that can’t be done with a copy of Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro, mind you, but it is much simpler (and cheaper) with Group Shot. In fact, my only gripe with Group Shot is that you can’t resize the window.

To make a composite photo, you obviously need to start with the source photos. For this, I would recommend getting a good tripod so the overall scene doesn’t change from photo to photo. Once you are set up, take your photos as you normally would. After uploading your photos to your computer, load up Group Shot. Drag the series of photos into Group Shot and it will load them up, one photo per tab. Now, for each photo, you simply drag a rectangle around the area that you want to use in the composite photo and click “Add to Composite.” Group Shot will display an in-progress composite image for you. When you are finished, simply export the final image. Viola! No more blinked eyes!

Now onto Part II. Creating triplets where only one kid really exists. Start off with your tripod/camera setup. Place your subject in the first position and take the photo. Now change positions and take another photo. Repeat this as many times as necessary.

Now load up Group Shot and drag the images onto it. Carefully select the subject in each photo and click the add to composite button. Export the final result and you have a quick and easy photo with multiples of the same person or object.