sweet little d
Two weeks ago, I had the distinct pleasure of driving down to Pillsbury Crossing to meet young master D, a brand-new, 11-day-old little boy. His family has some beautiful farmland just around the corner from the river crossing, which almost made me late getting there. You would think that Google could put on their map if your directions take you, oh, I don’t know, through a river! I did end up getting there safe and sound after calling little D’s mom, just to confirm that all of the signs reading “Warning! Do not cross the river! You will die!” weren’t really all that serious.
We had a fantastic session. It was my first session with a newborn, but since it was D’s first session too, we were all able to relax and have a great time. 
Here are a few of my favorites from the session:
Eventually, we got D’s big sister, little miss A, involved as well.
I think she’s a natural.
Finally, my two big faves from the session:
Sweet little D, thanks for sharing your time and your family with me. And thanks for not “christening” me,your mom, or any of my blankets or gear! You’ve got a wonderful family. Welcome to the world!
excitement
I’ve got a lot to do these days, now that I’m on vacation from my real job for a couple of weeks, and I’m really excited. There are just a few reasons for me to be excited (in order of occurrence):
- A beautiful wedding at a Wamego church.
- A fun wedding at a B&B that eventually got stormed out and relocated.
- A really fun newborn shoot for a friend at their farm.
- An engagement session for my first solo wedding (coming at the end of the summer)
- Another newborn shoot for a friend at my studio house.
Yeah, I’ll be busy for the next few days, but that means that you guys will get to see some fun stuff coming up, so stay tuned!
And, since this is a photoblog, a picture from a recent church event at City Park.
exciting news
Can you see that little photo credit there? Yeah, that’s my name. I was so excited this week to receive a copy of The Sailor’s Book of the Weather, by Simon Keeling, and finally see one of my pictures in something that I didn’t pay to print.
It’s a fun feeling.
The publisher was searching flickr for a picture illustrating centrifugal force when she found mine and liked it enough to ask if she could use it. A pleasant side effect of having my pictures online.
In case you can’t see it, here’s the original picture they used in the publication:
I shot this in November, 2006 with our old 3.1 MP point-and-shoot digital camera, so I’m not too sure about the settings, but here’s what the camera recorded on the picture:
ISO 100, 1/14s, f3.7, 10.9mm
The slow shutter speed (1/14s) is what’s producing the motion blur over most of the picture. The reason that the hand and bar are in (reasonable) focus is because I was panning, moving my camera from side to side, as I took the picture. It’s a really fun technique that you can use with any moving object with sometimes very surprising results.
lotus – maternity
A week or so before I went to New York, I got a call late one Friday from a friend of ours. She had been expecting to give birth any day (actually, a couple of days prior to that), so we expected the call to be the big news that her baby had been born. That wasn’t the case. But, she thought, since she was still pregnant with nothing to do, would I want to do a maternity shoot with her and her family the next day?
Of course!
We went to an old house in Manhattan for a fun shoot with her, her husband, and their daughter. I was apprehensive going into the shoot because I typically like to do my shooting outside, with all the wonderful natural light. I found, though, that there is lots of lovely light inside, too, so long as you know where to look. In this house, we started upstairs by a big window, moved our way to the staircase, and then eventually to the front room with its massive windows and yummy light.
Here are a few of my favorites:
I especially love the light on her belly in this one:
Their daughter, the lovely Miss M, was all too eager to get in on all the fun!
We got a couple of nice family portraits while we were there, too.
And, of course, we got some great belly shots:
Lotus, Charles, and little Miss M, I had such a fun time with you and your family! And it was great to get to see young Master S at conference this past weekend. All my best to you and your growing family!
because, if it hasn’t happened already, one day, you will miss a shot
Occasionally, because they know that I dabble in the photographic arts, people ask me what camera they should buy. That’s a really tough question to answer because, really, there are so many variables involved, the majority of which I cannot possibly foresee for whoever has posed the question. I recently ran across a blog post (that I have tried and tried and tried to find, to no avail) from a photographer who used to provide the best possible comparison of different camera types, models, and so on, in the hopes of providing some basis for the person to choose a camera from. It would take time, effort, and nerves (what if he recommended a camera that the person bought and then hated?). Now, however, he has a different response:
If you want to take better pictures, invest in a photography course instead.
That’s not the point of this post, but it is such an important point, I had to include it somewhere.
The point of this is to introduce all of you “I’m in the market for a camera, so what should I buy?” types, along with all you gadget-o-philes, to a brand-new camera that may be exactly what you’ve been looking for.
You see, Casio has just announced that, in a short time (about two weeks), you can buy your very own time machine.
Really.
The Exilim EX-F1 is an amazing new digital camera that has all the features you always knew that you needed in a camera because Star Trek made you want them. With this camera, you can actually get those shots that you have missed every single time before. By holding the shutter button half-way down, the camera starts silently recording 60 shots a second until you press the button, discarding all the old shots as you go. After you hit the trigger, you can then review all 60 shots from the second before you hit the button, choose the perfect one, and get rid of the rest. Or keep them all, just for kicks (or to turn into a movie). Or delete them all because the shot you really want was over a second ago and your reflexes are just that bad.
And really, it’s the camera’s ability to shoot at 60 frames a second that is so extraordinary, especially when you consider that a movie camera only shoots at 24 or 30 frames a second, and the best, professional cameras that I know of can only pull 10 or 11 frames per second. Mine only does 3 per second. Of course, you can only keep up this sort of speed for a second, but you can, of course, adjust the frame rate to give you more shooting time: 30 frames a second for 2 seconds, 20 frames a second for 3 seconds, and so on.
One very important point to make: these are not tiny little shots that you would have to think hard about whether you’d even post them on your blog because they’re so small. No, they’re fully 6 MP images. You can print posters with these suckers.
So, you can start shooting 60 frames a second right before something happens, hold the button down half-way in anticipation of something happening, or you can set the camera down and let it shoot the good stuff all by itself. That’s right: if you ask it to, it will sit there for hours (if you’re battery is charged sufficiently, I’m sure), wait for something to move, and shoot a 60-fps burst all by itself. Catch all the great action that comes along when you are not there.
Did I mention it does full-HD movies with stereo sound? Or shoot ultra-high-speed movies for ultra-slow-mo playback? We’re talking up to 1200 frames per second here…that’s some serious speed!
Of course, with the good comes the bad (including the $1000 price tag, which actually sounds quite reasonable). Get the rest of the skinny from the NY Times (along with a nifty, and actually entertaining, video of the EX-F1 in action).
becky
This may be embarrassingly late in being posted, but I just had to post some images from the awesome session I had with Becky. Back in the fall, Becky and I got together for a fun, early morning (7 a.m.!) shoot around downtown Wamego. I was excited that she was so willing to try out all sorts of fun locations that I had scouted out.
Here are some of my favorite images from the shoot:
We found some very cool concrete pipes all stacked up that made for a fun background.
She loved both of these, and I just loved what the funky processing did with her eyes:
(More after the jump) (more…)
error 99
This weekend, at my son’s birthday party, I discovered that this is not a good thing for your camera to display. At first, I wasn’t really sure what that particular error code meant, so I looked it up.
Apparently, error 99 means “You idiot. You left your camera, complete with it’s massive flash unit that, of course, makes the thing quite a bit top heavy, on top of your already unstable refrigerator right when your wife was trying to get all the food for your kid’s birthday party out of the aforementioned refrigerator such that, of course, when she shut it, the big, expensive, top-heavy thing took a tumble and your cheaply built 50 mm f/1.8 lens took it right on the nose and shattered into pieces. What did you expect?”
Anyone know of anyone wanting to give away their nifty fifty? I miss mine.
unphotographable
In the tradition of photographer Michael David Murphy and his blog, Unphotographable, I give you my own first installment.
This is a picture of my wife and I, me hunched over the bathtub, she kneeling beside it, holding onto the same Himalayan cat. We are both soaked and variously spattered in blue paint spots and blood from several scratches up and down our arms. The cat, beneath the firm restraints we have placed on him, looks very much like a drowned rat, except for the faint blue streaks in his fur that my wife is trying to wash off with a washcloth. There is a vaguely wild look in his eyes.
This is also a picture of the blue paint spots on the carpet, trailing away from the paint tray and roller on the floor of our son’s room. The paint is randomly striped and splattered on various objects that the trail of carpet spots encounters on its way out of the room: the bed leg, a never finished Jackson Pollack work in blue; the train table, blue stripes on natural pine veneer. All of these spots abandoned by the two who are wrestling with the cat in the bathtub.
It is unclear who is winning the fight.
jenny – maternity
This summer, while on vacation, I had the pleasure of meeting one of my sister’s friends, Jenny. At the time, she was about 35 weeks along in her first pregnancy and I had never shot a maternity session before, so I offered to shoot some images of her. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get our schedules to work so that both her and her husband, Rob, could be there, so we went ahead and did the session with just her (since a maternity session with just the husband doesn’t really have the same appeal).
She was a beautiful model to shoot and wonderfully open to my suggestions. Here are some of my favorite images from the session.
She was staying at her parents’ house at the time, and there was a super cool little spot in the dining room that we merrily took advantage of.
As we were shooting in her parents’ front yard, her sweet little sister came home.
My two most favorite images:
Thanks, Jenny! And Rob, I’m sorry we couldn’t quite meet up all three of us. I hope the little man arrived happy and healthy!
jeff, ashlee, and skylar – a family!
In late August, I shot a family portrait session for some friends of ours. Jeff was being deployed to Iraq and the family wanted some nice portraits done before he left. We met at the park one evening around sunset and had a fun time together.
Despite the late hour, Skylar was as cooperative as she could be, and we got some great images of the family together.
The pond at the park provided a great backdrop for a number of images. I just love her hand on her teddy bear in this one.
There were some amazing moments captured…
…but most of the time we were just goofing around and having a good time.
A few more of my favorites from the evening:
Godspeed on a safe return, Jeff! Thanks for all you’re doing for us over there.
amy + jace – a wedding!
This past weekend I had the distinct pleasure of assisting Alan Honey as he shot Amy and Jace’s wedding out at a wonderful little country church. Even though Alan got the majority of the images, he turned me loose to go see what I could find along the way!
It was so much fun working with Amy and Jace–they are really two of the most fun people. They had arranged to see each other before the wedding, so we made Jace wait. I think he actually managed not to peek!
Amy and Jace were so laid back as everything was made ready for the ceremony. They had time to stop and talk to all their family and friends that turned out to help make everything perfect.
Their little ring bearer, on the other hand, needed a whole lot of comfort and encouragement before he felt up to it.
The major players: Best Man, Bride, Groom, Matron of Honor
Finally, it was time.
All of their friends and family threw wheat grains as they left the church. The sun was in the perfect position to just make those little grains glow!
After they drove off, and everyone headed off to the reception, Alan and I sat down and took a breather. I was a bit confused–shouldn’t we be heading off to the reception? Alan said that he told the bride and groom to drive around the block, make out for 5 minutes, and then come back so we could shoot a few more portraits to take advantage of the amazing golden sunset light.
Boy, did we ever.
At the reception: the first taste of sweetness as a new couple.
As it turns out, it was also Amy’s sister’s birthday, so there was plenty to celebrate!
Thanks a ton for letting me be a part of your (almost)* perfect day!
*The Wildcats lost to Iowa St, 20-31.
on campus
This spring I had the chance to shoot family portraits for some friends of ours from around town. He’s a big K-State fan, so, in order to convince him to show up for the portraits, his wife said they would do the shoot on the campus of his favorite team!
We met there on campus and had a great shoot, starting with a location that they had spotted.
One of the locations I had scouted out previously was the old football stadium where they now hold a lot of intramural events. It’s always open and a very cool location to play with!
I was super excited to see that one of the tunnels leading onto the field was open.
Their daughter was the cutest little bug–she followed me around everywhere, just unleashing her adorable eyes on me, especially once I broke out the bribes candy.
In turn, I started following her around.
Thankfully, they were very open to some of my crazy ideas, especially because one of these turned out to be their favorite image from the session!
Thanks for such a fun session, you guys! You were a wonderful first family for me to shoot.
“7 years later” is semi-featured in jpg magazine!
If you’re not familiar with JPG Magazine, it’s a photography magazine by the masses. Anyone can sign up on the website, upload pictures, and submit them for consideration in various themes that might appear in future issues of the magazine. Website viewers can vote on whether they think a particular image is good for the theme in question, but the ultimate decision rests in the hands of the magazine editors. You can subscribe to the magazine and get it in your mailbox or buy them in most bookstores. You can also download every issue from their website in pdf format. It’s very cool.
One of the themes of the most recent issue was Family. Since I’m a family guy, I submitted a picture I took of us on our 7th wedding anniversary this past summer, appropriately titled 7 years later:
This image did not get selected for publication.
However, JPG Magazine just started producing outtakes: images that were cool enough to catch the editors’ attention but that, perhaps, didn’t quite fit the issue well enough. Or maybe they ran out of room for that theme. Or whatever.
The important point that I’m trying to make here, besides the fact that JPG Magazine is cool, is that my image above was included in the outtakes for the Family theme. You can get your own copy of the outtakes (I’m on p. 15 of the pdf) from JPG’s downloads page, along with pdf versions of whatever issues you’d like.
stacea: my first shoot. ever.
My very first shoot ever–as in, planned, set aside, executed–was for our babysitter. She was a senior in high school, nearing the end of the year, when we discovered that she hadn’t had her senior portraits done. I was wanting to try my hand at photography work, she wanted pictures done…it was an easy arrangement to make.
We shot most of the session at Wamego City Park around sunset. I really was just starting out, so most of the images are, in my opinion, passable, but nothing to scream about. I wanted to present a couple of the images from the session anyways, just to have a reference point to look back on to see progress.
So, here’s a couple of my favorites:
And this is the one she sent out as her graduation announcement:
