I have a passion for the creative process, especially as it relates to photography. I feel a sense of urgency and excitement when I am behind the camera and I love sharing my vision of the world and the beauty of God's creation with others.
Hello all. I have let this blog lapse for far too long. I have been pretty much doing senior portraits all summer and staying busy as heck. Seniors are so fun to work with! They love it when I experiment and try to come up with something new and original for them. I find their spirit and attitude very rewarding and it inspires me to try new locations, techniques, and posing. It's a win-win situation. Hope you're having a great day!
I recently did a shoot for Jillian Riscoe, a young singer/songwriter.
Her music really rocks. Check out her myspace by clicking on the
banner above.
Well my friend Gary has informed me that he is feeling much better and is in much better spirits. He attributes this mostly to prayer, which I totally agree with. God is great! He is starting to regain more movement and feeling in his legs and his doctors say there is a good chance that he will recover partially if not fully from his paralysis. He has also decided not to move to a home but try to stay independant and living on his own at his apartment.
And he has been busy designing websites. His new site is called
disabilitykansas.org . It is a place for people with disiabilities to gather information about all of the organizations out there that can help them to cope with thier problems. There also is a place for people to comment and he is going to start a forum there as well.
George Farmer is Gary's brother in law. He is a classical music composer and writes beautifuly. You should check it out.
Well it's been over a month since my last post so now I'm feeling guilty. I have to write something. Haven't been terribly busy for the past few weeks. I did a portrait session with a two year old girl named Adele' a few weeks ago. It was a lot of fun, but very challenging also. Adele's mom just loved the images and she's already planning a session for her three boys as well. I also booked a wedding for April 28th, Duane and Krista. They are a fun-loving couple and I'm really looking forward to documenting thier special day.
I have been trying to quit smoking with limited results. I plan to start my next big push after this weekend. I know I can do it because I have done it before. I think that I have only now really made up my mind that I don't want to smoke any longer.
My daughter TJ will be graduating from high school in a couple of months. And my wife Becky and I had an anniversary back on February 28th. 19 years and still going strong. I love my wife! I love my kids!
Not much more to say at this time. Hope everyone is well. God Bless.....
Hello all! Been a while since my last post so time to catch up a little. I have been experimentint with photographing smoke from incense and manipulating the images in Photoshop. Here are a few examples.
You can view the rest of the gallery on my
website.
These were created using 4,800 watt seconds of power (Speedotron pack and two heads) to allow me to stop the lens down to f/32 to get enough depth of field to keep the image sharp. Controlling spill is nearly impossible at this power level in a small enclosed space, so I was flagging
light all over the place. I ended up making a 12" diameter snoot around one reflector and using a grid on the other one and facing them directly at each other with the smoke rising between the two. You should hear the "pop" when strobes are triggered at this power level. It almost sounds like a gun going off!
The images were then opened in photoshop's raw converter and optimized for saturation, brightness and contrast before converting to jpeg and moving on to photoshop where they were inverted and cropped. Quite a laborious process but I like the results.
Well a few days have gone by since my last entry so I thought I would catch up a little. We've had a few warm days so the snowman is a little shorter than he used to be, (pics to come shortly).
I have done some focus tests with my 2 camera bodies and all of my lenses and either I don't know what I'm doing or every single one of my lenses back focuses by about 1/4-1/2". I hope it's just me. I will be conducting some more
scientific tests after a little more research.
I have a dear friend named Gary who for the past year or so has been parlplegic. The exact cause still eludes the doctors and after several months of slow improvement in his condition he has started to get worse again.
Chris and I went and looked at a wheelchair van today that he could drive with just his hands and maybe buy it for him, but we went to talk to him afterwards. Turns out he will be moving to a nursing home this summer to receive better medical attention and he'll have more social interaction with other people on a daily basis. A person of his stature, (he is 6' 8"), requires a special van that has floors that are lowered 10" to allow for the height of the person and the wheelchair, so the van question is moot for the time being, (also much more expensive than a normal van). He wants to wait and see if his health improves any in the near future anyway.
Confinement to his apartment was really starting to get to him and getting a ride anywhere is a super big hassle. I can understand why. Most of his day consists of being totally alone until his roommate comes home in the evening. Chris and I were thinking that having his own vehicle would afford him the freedom that he has been yearning for.
I just wish there was something I could do for him. I love him like a brother. I guess being his friend will have to be enough. Anyone who reads this post, please say a prayer for Gary, he needs all the help he can get right now.
I reported for jury duty today and boy is it fun..........NOT!
We were there for roughly 9 hours today and I am told that it will take 1-2 more days for them to select a jury. I nearly fell asleep 2 or 3 times. They said the trial will last 2-3 weeks! I don't get paid while I am on jury duty and the great people at the Jackson County courthouse think that $6.00/day is a king's ransom. I figured it out today and if I end up serving on the jury I will have lost roughly $2,000.00-$3,000.00 in income by the time this whole thing is over with!
I'm proud to be an American!!!!!!!!!!!!
light all over the place. I ended up making a 12" diameter snoot around one reflector and using a grid on the other one and facing them directly at each other with the smoke rising between the two. You should hear the "pop" when strobes are triggered at this power level. It almost sounds like a gun going off!
scientific tests after a little more research.
