My Bro and Studio Lights

Today I got an opportunity to go all out with a bunch of White Lightning 800's, umbrellas, snoots and reflectors.  I asked my brother to model for me and he didn't mind at all...So I took my rare opportunity and ran with it.  I really hope that I get to use these lights again in the future because I had a ton of fun with them and now understand why everyone who likes light wants to use it more and more!  Click here to view my images

Welcome back football fans - its the fall semester WOOT

So here is another season of ASU football, and another potential year of greatness for 2nd year coach Dennis Erickson.  I was able to shoot this game being an assistant to Jason Wise.  Hopefully the coming weekends I will also be at Sun Devil Stadium as a Intern photographer for the Arizona Republic.  I have yet to start that adventure but it is soon to come.  All last year I shot mainly the action side of the football game, being a assistant or second shooter, I kind of split the bunch and tried to go for more feature stuff.  So I tried my hand at that and was more or less impressed with what I got.  So here is a link to my favorites of the bunch.  Hope you enjoy

The beautiful big puffy clouds from 26th!

As I was leaving school today from downtown I was cursing myself all the way to my car as I didn't have my camera with me.  The big tall sky scrapers with the amazing sky we had today was just screaming at me to take its picture.  So I decided to make it up to myself and treat me to a small adventure to the edge of civilization just past Riggs and Dobson.  As I shot the tumbleweeds across the desert I started to miss the beauty (I think its pretty) of the desert we live in.  If any of you never went out to Maricopa then took a small 40 minute ride to Gila Bend going through highway 238, you are missing out on a truly beautiful sight especially right after it rains.  I was truly blessed to have lived out there for 12 years and experienced what it was like to live where cell phones, ipods, and the next model of shoe werent so important.

falling in love with HDR!

In my perpetual quest to gain experience in photography, I came along HDR (High Dynamic Range) images - You can edit these photos in 2 different ways - for a more realistic type photo - like one of the crane - or a detail enhanced way like the 2 water fall ones.  an HDR image is made by layering 3 bracketed images together and by doing so the detail and color is amplified to get a broader range of color, making an incredibly vibrate photo.

DIY Beauty dish hard at work

So good ol' strobist taught me a thing or 2 about DIY and now I have a very beautiful Beauty dish for my Speed light! I spent about 2 hours (it should have only taken 30 minutes) going to the store getting an 18" planter bowl some screws white and black paint for plastic, then jumped on over to Staples and got myself a case of 50 blank CD's (I needed some) and I the case they came in.  Then I jumped to Auto Zone and got myself a 3.75" convex mirror - threw them all together and Walah! a beautiful beauty dish.  Here are some photos that make me happy! lol this is my 13 year old cousin helping me out in my  needs to test it!

A new way to shoot lightning

I have recently just discovered the power of many photos and I have been captivated by the motion of the clouds and the intensity of the lightning can all be captured in many photos.  I am looking forward to adding more "movies" like this in the future.  Look at the stars moving in a westerly motion and the cloud sheering and the formation of the clouds moving eastwardly, then for some reason just head due South.  

Rompin' in the destert in search of the allusive meteor shower

My initial idea for this rare opportunity was on a clear stary night go out to Table Mesa Road North of Phoenix and point my camera at the North Star and get the rotational affect on an Hour + exposure with lines going through it due to the shooting stars.  But clouds and the moon had other ideas for me.  We went offroading on the trail in a jeep and got about 2 or 3 miles off the main road up there....Where we stopped there was the river that feeds into lake Pleasant.  We walked over that found some cacti that was going to make for a good foreground.  So as we waited for the clouds to go away I decided to see what I can do with the moon and this is what I got.

Wedding in Texas!

Well, I was hired to be flown out to Texas for the marriage of Sarah and Chris.  They had a beautiful ceremony and a great team to produce the wedding.  I had my hands full as the only photographer there, but the party was awesome with me and gave me all the time and room I needed to get the shots I wanted.  Here are a select few of the days activities, and I'm sure Sarah and Chris are going to love these!