to my personal blog. Here I post examples of my photography and writing. I specialize in making unique and highly detailed photographs. Notice I said making and not taking. Yes I take photos but a lot of time and work is involved in pushing and punishing the pixels in my images to achieve the look I like.
Please feel free make comments about any of my words or photos. I enjoy constructive critiques, learning about locations to shoot or photography techniques. Click on the "Share Article" link to share any of my photos via Flickr, Facebook, Instagram, etc.
Want to use one of my posts in your own blog? No problem, but please make sure it links back to the original post here and do the right thing and give me credit. Don't copy my words, crop the images, remove the watermarks or claim my work as your own. This has happened more times than I can count so I've had to report copyright violations to ISP's and regrettably the violators blog is usually taken down.
Can't we all just get along?
Monday, January 4, 2010 at 6:24AM | in Aviation, HDR, Museum, National Air and Space Museum, Panorama, Travel, Washington DC I mounted my DSLR on my gorilla pod and put it on the ground at the Udvar Hazy Center in Washington D.C. for this 3 shot HDR panorama. Each of the 3 shots consists of 10 exposures. I used Photoshop CS4 to stitch this. Original file size before downsizing for upload was over 14,000 pixels wide.
Sunday, January 3, 2010 at 12:04AM | in Aviation, California, LAX This massive China Airlines 747-400 was being guided to the taxiway as we drove by. We were way too close for me to capture the entire jet with the 300mm lens I had mounted on the camera at that moment. So I ended up taking 5 shots that make up this panorama. The jet was moving the entire time so some of the images don't line up perfectly.
Saturday, January 2, 2010 at 9:51PM | in Aviation, California, HDR, LAX Resplendent in its Quantas livery, John Travolta's Boeing 707-138B "Jett Clipper Ella" as seen parked at LAX. This is a classic jet airliner design.
Saturday, January 2, 2010 at 7:20PM | in Aviation, California, HDR, LAX While we were touring LAX in Kevins car we had to stop for a passing United Express twin prop going by in the fading light, destination unknown.
Monday, November 30, 2009 at 7:14PM | in Aviation, HDR, National Air and Space Museum, Udvar Hazy Center, Washington DC Udvar Hazy Museum's SR-71 Blackbird spy plane.
Positioned front and center, this aircraft greets all visitors to the National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center located at Dulles International Airport in Chantilly, Virginia.
No other aircraft in history operated globally in hostile airspace as successfully and for a longer period of time than the SR-71. No aircraft was ever lost to hostile fire.
On its last flight Lt. Col. Ed Yielding and Lt. Col. Joseph Vida set a speed record by flying from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., in 1 hour and 4 minutes averaging 2,124 miles per hour. Upon landing, the air force donated the aircraft to the Smithsonian.
Monday, November 23, 2009 at 5:37AM | in Aviation, California A huge KLM 747 photographed from atop the old LAX control tower.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 10:03AM | in Aviation, California, Disney, HDR Wonder if the restrooms are clean?
Tuesday, November 10, 2009 at 11:46PM | in Aviation, California, HDR Following close behind a taxing 747-400
Taking HDR sequences from a moving car following a moving aircraft is difficult to say the least. Thank goodness for Photoshop's auto align function. We were riding in Mike's car who works at LAX in operations and were following this Singapore Airlines cargo plane. The tail was nearly overlapping the hood of the car. I have photos of it but being that my head doesn't tilt that far back, I had to extend my arms forward and just guess where it was when framing the shot. I guess I should try creating a vertorama. Being this close to such a large moving aircraft is amazing. You hear and feel it adjusting it's flight controls and throttles. When it turned in front of us the car rocked a little from the exhaust. Thanks to Kevin and Mike for an amazing day!
Tuesday, November 10, 2009 at 11:03PM | in Aviation, California, HDR I think we're being followed...
I was on a ride along with a very cool LAX airport operations guy. He was called on to escort a FedEx MD10 Aircraft that needed to taxi from one side of the airport to another. An escort was required since a mechanic was behind the controls and an active runway had to be crossed.
When I looked at the aircraft in the side mirror, I started laughing at the "Objects in this mirror are closer than they appear" text you see in the picture. It reminded me of that scene in Jurassic Park where the T-Rex was chasing the Jeep. That aircraft looked huge!
Tuesday, November 3, 2009 at 10:16AM | in Aviation, HDR, Museum, National Air and Space Museum, Spacecraft, Washington DC So much history in just one photo. From left to right are:
Charles Lindberg's "The Spirit of St. Louis" which was the first aircraft to fly solo from New York to Paris.
Scaled Composites "Space Ship One" which is a rocket powered aircraft that made the first privately funded space flight.
Bell Aircraft's X-1 rocket plane in which US Air Force pilot Charles "Chuck" Yeager first exceeded the speed of sound on October 14, 1947.
