NYC Photo Conference

I was very very lucky to attend the Photo Plus Expo in New York recently. I have been to a handful of other photo conferences in the past and i highly recommend them. Not only are you in a huge crowd of people that love the same thing you do but you also get to listen to some of the worlds best tell you about why they love what they do and how they do it. A walk with zack arias (http://beam.zackarias.com/#!/index) was really cool but the highlight for sure was listening to dan winters (http://www.danwintersphoto.com/html/) for an hour. If you have an opportunity to take in a photo conference then go, don't hesitate, just go. Be prepared to be exhausted but also inspired. So some tips you say: Stay at a hotel close to the conference, go a day early and do a pre conference session, plan your lectures well and if one is not what you thought then leave and head to a different one, spend time on the show floor (lots of lectures there too plus all the equipment you want to get your hands on), if they have a party night go (you will get a chance to talk to other attendees and make friends), bring a sweater (the conference areas are always air conditioned and cool), stay an extra day if you can for shopping and street shooting. I have been to photo plus expo and photoshop world conferences and i would recommend both.

NYC round 2

I was very very fortunate to have attended the pdn photo plus expo in new york last week. it was very inspiring and awesome to just spend a week shooting, thinking, and watching. this is the first of about 60 photos i plan to post this weekend so please come back for more soon. this photo was taken from the staten island ferry with a 35 mm lens as thats the longest lens i had with me.

football season

Its football season once again and these are a couple shots from last nights game. To make my son stand out a bit more in the frame i duplicated the background layer and applied a vignette. I created a layer mask and painted in black on the mask over him. I then applied a curve to each layer, darkening the photo except for him, and lightening the layer that he was on. The mask keeps the two parts of the image separate so you can work on them independent of each other. Remember to keep things subtle.

more paris

will be posting a bunch of photos in a week or so as the editing process of 15,000 photos shot over a 15 day span is coming to an end.

paris

i am still working away on france photos but thought i would jump ahead to paris as my parents will be there soon.

nametag

juno beach ceremony and how i got access. Thanks marc

normandy seagull

since I'm running with animal photos, here is one more.

normandy cows

still going through france photos and here is one that i enjoyed. This was in the backyard of the farm we stayed at for 10 nights. on a technical note i used a vignette on the cows in lightroom to darken down the background a bit and highlight my subject. on another note, this image shows a great example of the rule of thirds. Google rule of thirds if you don't know what it is.

arromanches

Still going through images and found another one of me. This was at the british beach landing site at arromanches. Very cool spot.

France

I was very lucky to be able to go to france for the 70th anniversary of D Day this year. I shot 15,000 photos and now am working on getting the images ready, which is a mammoth task. In looking for images for someone today i came across this selfie i took of myself on Juno Beach during a ceremony on july 7th.

New Pano

I recently tried a 10 frame pano of the Lt. Gov. residence in Fredericton. It stitched together very well and i then masked two exposures of the same completed pano together to darken sky and area around building. It didn't take long and i was happy with the result.

Cuba

I am in the process of looking through some travel photos for an upcoming show. For some reason i keep coming back to this one. I think for me i wonder who drives the car and sits side by side on the porch. I feel a sense of relaxation and peace and i like that.

from the road

I have not posted in awhile but seem to have lots of photos taking up space. These are a sample from some recent road trips.

Summer??

We have had a snow filled winter this 2014. I drive by this pool often and have wanted to shoot it covered in snow all winter. It has warmed up a bit and now calling for lots of rain tomorrow so today may have been my last chance to get the shot i have been thinking about. I waded through knee deep snow to get this angle, thinking all the time that i should have brought snowshoes. This was shot as a pano with 8 or 10 photos stitched together.

lite test

I had to shoot some group photos on white yesterday and of course had to test the light. I set two lights on the background, behind the black walls you see in this photo, and put two lights on the subject. I tried to balance them in a way that it was not too flat and at the end of the day it didnt look too bad for groups of 4 and 5 people to come in and do some posing. A long afternoon for sure but lots of fun.

Wrestling

I was testing the light today for a wrestling competition that i shoot for the next two days and thought i would have some fun. Three separate photos, using my sneaker as a tripod with camera sitting on floor.