Prime Digital Photography

Super Catch-up

2008-01-10T20:55:00.000-06:00

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!

2007-05-19T14:11:00.000-06:00

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.

Gary Update

2007-03-24T21:04:00.000-06:00

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.

The other site he has put together is http://www.georgefarmermusic.com/ .

George Farmer is Gary's brother in law. He is a classical music composer and writes beautifuly. You should check it out.

Checking In

2007-03-22T20:22:00.000-06:00

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.....

Smokeshadows

2007-02-06T21:09:00.000-06:00

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.

My Friend Gary

2007-01-28T00:20:00.000-06:00

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.

Jury Duty

2007-01-22T21:33:00.000-06:00

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!!!!!!!!!!!!

Punk Snowman

2007-01-21T18:47:00.000-06:00

Here are a few pics of the snowman Jordan and I built this afternoon. The midsection was so heavy, we had to cut it in half with a saw so we could lift each section up onto the base. Then we "welded" it back together with more snow. This was very heavy wet snow. We used a broom for the mohawk, two spray paint can lids for eyes, a carrot for a nose and a large blue roll of tape for the mouth. We also had a little snowball fighting going on.

Snow in KC

2007-01-21T00:26:00.000-06:00

Well It's snowing like crazy here in the KC area. Me and my son Jordan just shoveled 6" of snow off of the driveway at 11:30 pm. We even got a head start on the snowman we will be building tomorrow. People were driving by looking at us like we were crazy, but tomorrow we will have a lot less to shovel and it should be easy. Just a couple of inches vs. 8-10.

I got my daughter's shampoo bowl installed in her beauty salon she has set up in the basement today. Got all of the plumbing hooked up and everything. Now maybe she will stop using the kitchen sink and slopping hair dye and perm solution all over the place. Also got Jordan's drums moved into my studio space in the basement as I really don't need it any longer. I am sharing a nice studio downtown with a friend of mine Chris Dennis who is a commercial photographer. 4 or 5 thousand square feet with 15' ceilings woo-hoo! I finally have enough room to set up my strobes exactly where they need to be.

Well not much else to mention at this time so I guess I will call it a day. Adios!

Cross Link html Hell

2007-01-15T22:47:00.000-06:00

Well it's been a few days since my last post so I thought I would drop a post. We had a killer ice storm over the weekend here in the KC area so my senior portrait session has been rescheduled. I hardly even ventured out of the house over the weekend. It was downright nasty!

I've been working on gaining visibility for my website so that it will come up higher in the search engines and it is no easy task, (it also leaves little time for sleep). First there is keywording the thousands of photos on my site, entering gallery descriptions, photo captions, putting bits a pieces of html code into my control panel etc etc etc...............

Then there is the whole issue of getting my site cross linked with other sites which also helps. If any one would like to post my link on their site or blog, I would be more than happy to post a link to your site/blog here and on my website as soon as I get a links page built. Just leave a comment and be sure to include your url or link and I'll take care of it.

New Camera

2007-01-10T20:40:00.000-06:00

My new 5D came today! Click here to read a review http://www.stevesdigicams.com/2005_reviews/5d.html Didn't have much time for testing, just took it out in the yard and reeled off 20 frames or so to look at on the computer. The files look really smooth! I will be testing with studio lights and doing focus testing tomorrow. On a totally unrelated note, I am very tired and I think I will go to bed early tonight. Exciting stuff huh?

Commercial Shoot

2007-01-09T21:25:00.000-06:00

I assisted a good friend of mine on a commercial shoot today. His name is Chris Dennis. He called me yesterday and asked if I could help him out today. It was short notice, but his regular assistant couldn't make it, so I took a day off and lent him a hand. I really don't mind because he has helped me out a lot in the past. Chris and his girlfriend Allison really are super nice people and it's always fun to help them out with a shoot. Here's a pic of Chris at the annual halloween party they have at the studio for clients and friends. A good time was had by all!

I'm totally stoked! I bought a new camera over the weekend and it should be arriving tomorrow. It's a Canon 5D and it's going to be great to have more resolution to work with and finally have my wide angle lenses be wiiiiiiiide on a digital body. I have a senior portrait session scheduled for Saturday and I can't wait to review the images after the shoot.

Well, that's all for now. I have to get to bed and finally get some sleep. I was up untill 1:00 am yesterday trying to get my blog set up the way I wanted it. I must be getting old. 5 hours of sleep just doesn't cut it any more.

1st Post

2007-01-09T00:40:00.000-06:00

Well this has been an eductional experience setting this thing up. It took a little poking around, but I think I have figured out the basics. This is my first post, so I would just like to say hello and welcome anyone who visits.

I am a professional photographer and I originally set this up to get some cross linkage going on with my website to make it come up in the search engines more prominently , but this looks like it could be kind of fun!