I'm all about country. If it has horses, cowboys, cowgirls, bulls, country musicians, or traveling in or out in the country (any country), I’m interested in photographing it! I also have a love of teaching. I am based in Phoenix in the wonderful state of Arizona. I invite you to visit my links below.
I'm mainly an outdoor/travel/sports photographer. Yet I just loved capturing the images of an infant. In this case, Anevay, about two weeks old as of 16 April 2012. I shot Katrina and Gregory's wedding a few years ago, so I was honored when they asked me to photograph their newborn daughter.
I avoided flash. And why not when I had a nice north face picture window at grandma's house.
Anevay was a pretty good girl through it all. Well, except the time we put her in the vegetable bin. That wasn't a favorite of hers. But I think she has the makings of a great little model.
One interesting factoid that came out... during her birth, they say the nurses yelled at Katrina "BEAR DOWN!" So I figure little Anevay is destined to be an Arizona Wildcat!
To the left, Anevay peeking at me over her daddy's shoulder. She has more hair than I do!
Katrina and Greg's wedding, 28 March 2009 in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Million dollar photographer and photo educator Clay Blackmore visited the Phoenix area on 22 and 23 April 2012. The Sunday session was a public workshop where he demonstrated his lighting and posing techniques. Monday's workshop was limited to twenty and this is where we got experience shooting models, both outdoors and in the studio at Tempe Camera.
Clay is to the left, outside at a bus stop, showing how he would pose this model.
While we were outside Tempe Camera, I noticed this reflective glass and asked the young man to the right with the camera if he'd pose. Clay ran up and said, "get his face right up on the glass." I must admit that worked a lot better than my original pose that had his face further from the glass. Here, you can see Clay's reflection as he's giving instructions. Clay teaches the importance of knowing your models name and using it. Ummm, the model at the top is Tommy, I do remember that!
The young lady pictured below is obviously gorgeous. This was taken outside while she was covered with a palo verde tree, providing even light over her red skin and hair.
Later in the day, we worked with models in the Tempe Camera studio. One of the interesting things Clay did was take a video of the model, then project it over her while we took photos.
These are photos from the 1 April 2012
finals of the Cave Creek Arizona professional rodeo. Now I’m a
veteran of the Fiesta de los Vaqueros (Festival of the Cowboy) pro rodeo in
Tucson, but the Cave Creek rodeo is pretty darn good. One thing I like is the arena is smaller;
there just isn’t a bad sight line for fans and photographers!
I got lucky this time around as Traci
Casale of the board of directors got my students and me into the arena with
media badges and a bit of a discount on tickets. My perch as next to the announcer, right
above the broncos and bulls.
This was a daytime event. Although we had more than enough light, the
biggest problem a photographer has to deal with is shadows. I found I had to spend a good amount of time
in post processing with Lightroom 4 and Photoshop CS5 on some of these
shots.
I also experimented on a few photos with
HDR toning in Photoshop and Topaz Labs Simplify program. You might see some here and think, “it looks like
a painting.” That’s the result you can
get from these programs.
I used a Canon 7D with Tamron 70-200mm
lens and a Tamron 1.4x (sometimes) extender.
All hand held. ISO 100 on all
shots. By the way, see why I like rodeo? Prettiest girls around ride horses it seems.
Next year, I want to photograph during
the night sessions of the rodeo. Of
course, less light and uneven light will prove to be very tricky I’m sure. I’ll bring my fastest lens and a monopod for
more stability. I’ll no doubt have to
shoot in higher ISO, 400 to even 800.
Auto racing has its funny cars. I guess this is the equivalent on horse tracks: camel and ostrich racing.
This is an annual event at Turf Paradise in Phoenix.
The fans got a chance to see the camels at least up close, or behind a chain link fence. Watch out that they don't spit on you!
I took all photos with my Canon 7D and a Tamron 70-200mm lens. Post editing mostly in Lightroom 4, with the exception of the panorama which I did in Photoshop CS5.
Spring break
mid-March 2012 and instead of heading to the beach like the younger folks, we
headed to San Francisco. I’ve
photographed Korea and Malaysia and New Zealand, among other places, yet have
never really photographed closer to home.
By the way, the Grand Canyon is this summer, I promise!
Staying on
purpose a few blocks south of Fisherman’s Wharf, I was close to a lot of action
and of course... SEAFOOD! It was easy on
foot because everything was close to the hop-on hop-off bus and the cable cars.
I had my
Canon 7D and my Tamron 18-270mm “travel” lens with me on this trip. This is how I am outfitted when I’m not
driving to my destination. The Tamron is
an all purpose lens, not great at anything, but certainly good enough. What problems I might find after coming home
I can normally adjust with Lightroom 4 or Photoshop CS5.
The Red and White Fleet’s Twilight Cruise is two hours long and takes you around the bay,
out to Alcatraz, and under the Golden Gate Bridge, then back around to give a
night view of San Francisco. WELL WORTH IT. They say light snacks, but seriously what they put out to eat on board was a meal. While there
was still sun, even dusk, you could get away with 1600 ISO. The night shot I was able to capture at 6400
ISO, f/3.5, 1/15 of a second exposure time; not bad thanks to my Canon 7D. I sat the camera down on the rail while
taking the night photos to give a bit of stability. Tripods are a no no in many venues. I could have taken a monopod. Better yet on this boat would have been one
of those gorilla pods with arms that could wrap around a rail.
What do see,
what to see. Fishermans Wharf. On the list of restaurants was Alioto’s and
Scoma’s and ohhh both were as I remember, soooo good. North Beach and Little Italy... taken by
foot, heading south from Fisherman’s Wharf. The photo above is part of a window display at a restaurant featuring Sicilian food. I walked in and the aroma was incredible. This was after I had lunch but I had to have a piece of pizza.
Keep on
going south ‘til ya can’t read the signs anymore and welcome to Chinatown!
Golden Gate
Park has a Japanese garden. While enjoying
the scenery, I saw a couple having their photos taken to celebrate their
engagement.
Heading back
to the hotel after my last dinner at Scoma’s, I took a photo of some boats at
anchor and turned it into a painting, courtesy of Photoshop CS5 and Topaz Labs
Simplify program.
This was a lovely day in Carefree, Arizona... Sunday 19 February 2012. The draw for me was the Native American hoop dancing! And what dancers we saw today. I was lucky enough to have a front row seat, but there were challenges.
The people were GREAT. The two shows I saw were fascinating. You can learn more about the dancers here.
I used my Canon 7D and one lens: the Canon 28-135mm, which gave me sufficient reach and speed for action that pretty much stayed in front of me.
As I teach and have been taught, ALWAYS look at the total photo composition. Look not only at your subject, but your background! On a few of the images, I had a #$%$ lousy yellow yield sign visible. Now, many ask me how often I used Photoshop. Not often, but when I do it is to "fix" little problems like that. What I did on one of the shots was to add a bit of blur to the background in Photoshop, then return back to Lightroom, which I use about 95 percent of the time.
Lightroom or Photoshop? No. Lightroom is a MUST have used WITH Photoshop! In fact, many pros tell me they use Lightroom and Photoshop Elements.
Opening day for the "Festival of the Cowboy" in Tucson was Saturday 18 February 2012. I sat in the Canon section at east far end of the huge rodeo arena. This is big time professional rodeo, and the Tucson rodeo is one of the best and oldest around. Having spent so many years living in Tucson, this is coming home to me in a lot of ways.
The action is not that fast. Well, compared with NASCAR! Today I came with two lenses I would use with my Canon 7D: the Tamron 70-200mm, which ended up being my workhorse lens; and the Tamron 200-500mm for a bit more reach when the action started out on the far side of the arena.
I used aperture priority, low f/stop (wide open aperture) for the most part, and shutter speed of 1/500th and above to freeze the action. I also used "back button" focusing on my Canon 7D.
My biggest enemy today? DUST of course! Now, compared to last years' rodeo, the dust problem was far less of a problem, but it still WAS a problem. Last year, a strong wind (with sand) blew directly in my face the whole time, making changing lenses impossible. This year, I just changed lenses by bending down away from the arena field. No dust spots!
I had many of my Photoshop students join me Thursday 23 February 2012 for what I called "Paparazzi at the Ballpark." In this case, it was to photograph our own Paradise Valley Community College Pumas as they hosted the Thompson River College team from Kamloops, British Columbia.
I gave my students the option to learn about Photoshop editing their own photos. I find that works a lot better than merely editing the photos of another from the textbook examples.
Although the day was not as wildly popular as I had hoped, we did have a chance at taking photos in the field with all of its challenges. Special thanks to PVCC Coach Solis and Athletic Director Silcox for giving us on-the-field access before the game. During the game, we were confronted with a huge problem of shooting through the chain link fence! That little challenge rendered many of my photos useless, but I had some work arounds.
I shot using a Canon 7D. On this day, I brought three lenses: the Canon 28-135mm for on field close ups, the Tamron 70-200mm, and the Tamron 200-500mm.
Frustrated with trying to shoot through the fence, I saw a berm that could take me over the eight foot high outfield fence, so I walked out to right field and mounted my Canon 7D and Tamron 200-500mm on my Manfrotto monopod. I was able to get some good shots unobstructed by a #$%$ fence! The challenge here is camera shake at the longest focal lengths, so I set my shutter speed to around 1/1000 of a second.
In a perfect world, I'd have loved to be in a cherry picker high above the action!
The third annual Carefree Balloon Festival
hosted nearly a dozen balloons on Saturday 21 January in Carefree, just north
of Phoenix. The big excitement was one
of the tethered balloons caught fire and broke loose. Luckily the pilot was able to land it about a
mile away in a golf course. I actually
discovered I took a shot of the runaway balloon while photographing one of the
bands performing. It’s one of the photos
in the Flickr collection at the bottom of this blog, partially obscured by a
tree. You can tell something unusual is
happening because everybody was looking away from my camera and toward the
balloon.
The time of day prevented a lot of
challenges for a photographer. While
there was still some light, I was able to take photographs at ISO 400. But as it got darker, I found I had to
increase the ISO or light sensitivity to 800, 1600, and then when it was really
dark I was shooting my Canon 7D at about 3200 ISO.
Trying to photograph the colored lights
and the band was impossible at 1600 ISO.
I was using an all-purpose Tamron f/3.5 18-270mm lens that day. Other wiser choices might have been a Canon “nifty
50mm” f/1.8 lens or even a Canon 28-135mm f/2.8 lens. Generally speaking, the lower the f/stop
number on the lens, the more light it will let in the camera. You want the “fastest glass” possible for
these evening shoots. What about using a
tripod or even a monopod? Sure, that
would enable you to take photos at various f/stops at longer exposures and
lower ISO settings, UNLESS THE TARGET IS MOVING! Then you’ll still get motion blur. In my opinion, having a camera like the Canon
7D is the best choice because its ISO setting will go to a whopping 12800! Now, at that high an ISO expect some noise in
the photographs. But camera technology
is such that you will see many of my night shots taken at 3200 and a few at
6400 were pretty darn sharp.
My digital darkroom or program of choice
is Lightroom, where I probably do 90 percent or more of my editing. Here, you can make lighting adjustments, do
some sharpening, and control a bit for noise.
You the viewer have the final decision; are the photographs still
appealing?
Locally, next up for me is the Carefree Indian Market and Cultural
Festival February 17-19. There will
be live music and Native American hoop and fancy dancing, so there should be
fun and colorful photo opportunities available.
Then after that will be the Cave
Creek Rodeo on the last days of March.
