Another Late Blog

This weekend I'm "attending" another creative live class, this one is with Zack Arias. I'll do the substantial Friday blog on Monday. No real change there I guess!

The Friday post. On friday no less!

Hi everybody, this post will be in 2 parts sort of. First off, I shot a portrait shoot a few weeks ago, I have two  images from that shoot, and one I shot a couple of  years ago.The shoot with the dogs and the people was a great time and produced some good images for Jen and John as well as the seven four legged members of that family.  here are two of my favorites!  That's Jennifer and the dog's name is Mitch.

The dogs, with two exceptions, all come from pet rescue centers. four of these dogs are dachshunds, I think one of them is16 years old. He wasn't very happy about my supplemental light, I'd trip the shutter and he'd  go the other way. After 3 takes he just decided he was headed for the nice soft dog bed, that's when i got him! So this is my friend monk.

   This next one, is one i shot of a friend of mine. Thanks Trish!

Ok, so now on to the second part.Today is earth day so i spent the morning form 530 to 1030 shooting. The light was good, but not alot going on. The critters had not heard about this earth day thing. I have 5 images one of which is a pano I shot especially for earth day.

And so ends the Friday post for earth day!
Thanks for reading! Lest go shoot!

Tech problems

I'm back, tomorrow is earth day  so I think I'll go out and shoot the earth, check back tomorrow for some of that.

The Friday post on sunday

Hey ya'll, Saturday I shot a portrait session, which was a combination pet shoot with people. 7 dogs, 4 dachunds, 1 huskie, 1 german shepherd wolf mix and one large dog that i wasn't to sure what she was, and the 2 people that run the show. It was a blast, I shot the dogs like they were wildlife, we just let them run. I followed looking for images, and made quite a few. The light was great, had that really nice morning sun thru clouds thing going on (huge soft box) and the rest was just imaging the dogs as they went. We did resort to some on the leash action, no problem, a little retouching magic and boom, no leash! When it was time to shoot the family portrait the dogs were just ready to lay around which is what i wanted. Only used small flash bouncing off a gold card so no big lights and used a gold reflector for that extra kiss of light. I've been editing all day, Monday I'll start cropping, de leashing and retouching as well. I'll put some images up after i show them to my clients. My clients were real troopers, Jennifer wrangled the dogs and I used both Jennifer and John as reflector holders. Great time, good looking images, Going to call this one a success!

Meanwhile, I have nature stuff to edit, last week I shot hummingbirds. I like hummers, i think they get buzzed on caffeine to start the day so they are always moving. I got a few sittin on a small branch though, put some flash on them and got that glowing wing happening, very cool! The roses at washington oaks are making a spectacle of themselves so i have a couple images to put up here.

Earth day is coming up. Take a camera outside and shoot some earth.

That's it for now Thanks for reading!! Lets go shoot!!

the friday post is gunna be late

I have an online seminar at 1pm at creative live. I have a portrait shoot  at 9 am Saturday as well as day two of this online seminar so I'll be posting the Friday post on Sunday.

Check this out though, this is the first slide I ever took. I originally picked up a camera because my mom wanted pictures of Europe. The U.S. Airforce sent me to the Netherlands in 1984. I shot this picture from my motel window then i went to sleep. I shot this image with the venerable Pentax k1000 fully manual camera i think the users manual was 25 pages maybe. Now just the users manual for the sb 900 flash is 139 pages.
OK I'll do a full post on Sunday.
Thanks for reading! Lets go shoot!

My First Portrait Session

I have my first portrait session next sunday! A dog and people shoot. 7 dogs, 1 person, outside, probably 1 light and a reflector or at least that's the plan right now. i'll post some results afterward. STOKED!   

The Friday post on saturday

For the last 2 days the sun has been out after a week of overcast and rainy skies. So, obviously, I've been out shooting. Today's post is going to be  a combination of stuff I was thinking about while wandering the nature trails early this morning at Washington oaks. Today I saw 2 bald eagles on an oyster bed in the Matanzas river, I've never seen 2 on the ground I've seen them in trees but never on the ground. There was also a red tailed hawk in the trees in the gardens today, I was moving into position for a better look and lost him for about 5 minutes, then i heard this chirping noise and I saw a squirrel on the ground, yep, you guessed it, the hawk came in about mach 2. Heres the part you wouldn't have guessed, the squirrel sidestepped the hawk! and the hawk flew off. I never got my camera passed my chest it was one of those wow moments! Later i saw the hawk on a fence looking at the roses.

OK so here's a little story, I have friends that used to have chows and the female chow was a bird chaser, the cool part was that she would chase them when they were in the air. she would see a bird flying over the yard and take off after it till she got to the fence, then she would turn around and come back to me and say, "next time I'm going to get one of those." Today I was shooting at little birds and when one would fly past I would throw the camera up to face, but little birds fly quick, and sometimes my timing is off,  anyway I always tell myself "next time I'm going  get one of those."

Another thing i noticed today was that my camera smells like insect repellent, the camera body is a magnesium alloy but it has rubber and plastic covers and things like that. But i noticed that mosquito's still try to suck blood out of my camera. mosquito's, not the sharpest tool in the shed.

All of us shooters are out now, I ran across one that was doing some great hummingbird pics. He was also settling the great Nikon vs Cannon debate for himself by carrying both brands. His result? stick with Nikon. He had some really nice images, he shoots strictly for himself so he doesn't have a web presence I just saw them on the back of his camera.

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ok the only image i'm going to put up on this one is an adolescent owl. I shot this a couple days ago right after the rain quit
Thanks for reading! Lets go shoot"