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?
Sunday, May 30, 2010 at 7:55PM | in HDR, Navy Memorial, Travel, Washington DC This moving and evocative statue is located at the U.S. Navy Memorial in Washington D.C. We sleep well and safely because there are soldiers, sailors, marine and coast guard men and women keeping watch or walking a post for us. Our laws grant us our freedoms but we need to remember it's the men and women who serve in our armed forces who defend those freedoms.
Saturday, May 29, 2010 at 12:33AM | in California, Car Show, Cars, HDR, Ruby's Car Show, Whittier Ok so why can't modern car manufacturers make anything even approaching the coolness of a car like this? Kathy was going to the Ruby's car show and asked if I wanted to go. Well now, any chance to hang out with my beautiful wife is great and if we can take photos of cool cars too it's a win, win. I last photographed this 1959 Impala at the Uptown Whittier Car Show about a year ago. I reintroduced myself to the owner who was nice enough to move the car to a more open space so I could get better pictures. I took a lot of shots which I will post in the weeks to come.
Friday, May 28, 2010 at 6:05AM | in California, Creative, HDR, Pasadena Friends and co-workers Tom and Geri (not to be confused with the cat and mouse characters that inspired the ultra-violent Itchy and Scratchy cartoons) and I decided to bring our cameras and tripods to work and walk over to Pasadena's California Mediterranean style City Hall during our lunch hour. As planned we took a few HDR sequences. The weather was partly sunny with a strong overcast building as the lunch hour progressed. By the time we were walking back to work we could feel rain drops beginning to fall. I never mind cloud cover when I shoot HDR images. Clouds act as a big soft box and look very interesting in tone mapped images. The building was completed in 1927 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
I had been walking around the USS Midway for about an hour with my camera and tripod shooting HDR sequences here and there. I wasn't really liking the photos I was making though. Looked ok I guess but nothing special. Then I realized that it was my viewpoint that was off. When photographing a car, I almost always collapse my tripod and get a low angle shot. This makes the car look more powerful and the viewpoint is interesting because we rarely look at cars from 3" above the pavement. Why should it be any different for aircraft? The fun part was watching the other Midway visitors puzzling over why I way laying down on the abrasive flight deck peering through my camera.
Post a Comment | tagged Aviation, California, HDR, San Diego, Travel | Share Article Permalink Email Article Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 6:09AM | in HDR, Museum, National Building Museum, Travel, Washington DC Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun?
The National Building Museum (NBM) in Washington D.C. is a huge space to a big guy like me so it must look even bigger to my Nephew Manny here. As you can see he took it in stride. The great hall is supported by several of the giant columns you see in the background. They are truly colossal in scale. While the NBM is not the most popular destination in Washington, it's a fantastic place to go if you are in town.
This is a 3 shot HDR which is the largest number of exposures I can generally shoot hand held and have some chance of aligning and stitching together. Since the kid is naturally wired, he moved around during the sequence so I had to mask him into the HDR image from the middle exposure and adjust his saturation and tonal values so he seamlessly blends into the background. Shoot right into the sun? Sure. Photoshop just rocks!
Tuesday, May 25, 2010 at 7:05AM | in Camera Gear, HDR, Travel, United States Capitol, Washington DC The security at the US Capitol building is pretty tight. While I understand very clearly why it needs to be this way, I also realized that due to the rules, Manny and I woudln't be able to carry our backpacks into the building with us. Hence no extra lenses. I chose to take my 28-135 which is a nice general lens but not wide enough to capture the entired rotunda dome. I do think the off center framing adds interest. Oh well. Maybe next time I'll take my 14mm.
Monday, May 24, 2010 at 6:07AM | in Bobs Big Boy Broiler, California, Car Show, Cars, Creative, Downey, HDR Light-weight, low slung and fast. What more could you want? OK maybe power brakes and steering, and air conditioning. Whatever. Still way cool.
Sunday, May 23, 2010 at 11:34PM | in HDR, Museum, National Air and Space Museum, Space, Spacecraft, Travel, Washington DC This is an actual lunar module which was built to fly in space during project Apollo. Its mission was to separate from the command module, fly about a hundred miles away and then link up with it again. This is the second of two test Lunar Modules built. It was never used because the first test item worked perfectly during the Apollo 9 mission.
Saturday, May 22, 2010 at 10:12PM | in California, HDR, Panorama, San Francisco, Travel This was a cool guerrilla photo shoot. I was staying at the San Francisco Hyatt Regency and had found a platform on the 17th floor just adjacent to the emergency stairway. There was a concrete wall with a 9" wide gap in it that allowed me to put my camera and lens through it. This is what I saw.
Friday, May 21, 2010 at 6:30AM | in HDR, National Mall, Travel, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington DC It was early morning and the rain had slowed down a bit by the time Manny and I arrived at the statue of the three Vietnam soldiers in Washington DC. Located just across from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, they seem to have emerged from the trees and have paused to stare at the black wall of names. They are extremely realistic and detailed. The overall feeling there was one of sadness.
