Dream Tomorrow, Live Today, Cherish Yesterday

One Too Many Conversations

Fuji X-T1

From the lovely and interesting Canal District in Indianapolis.

Tuscan Series - Day Seven (Fun Friday!)

This was in Florence. Okay, how cool is that?

My Finest Image of the Year

Canon 6D, 24-70 F/2.8, f/2.8, 1/800, iso 400

Without further ado, my very best image of the year. I know, you are nearly speechless, just like I was when I saw this scene and it captured my heart. Compositionally, I mean how can one do better? I did agonize for several hours whether to share it with you in a vertical/portrait format, or this landscape version.

In the end, they were both so superb I just went with this because it fits better on the computer screen.

But back to how all my skills have coalesced to enable me to make such an image. The lighting... As John Barclay would say "yummy lighting." You could spend hours, perhaps days, waiting for just the conditions under which I have captured the scene.

The green, representing the new growth of Spring, a Spring which just won't be harnessed. It is erupting from the Earth, as you see here. And the blue, representing man's structure and form we impose on the planet. Strong, determined, but yet subtly imperfect. Part of what makes this image so compelling is how I juxtaposed man vs nature.

I could go on for hours about the pure magic in my master work, but I must post now in order to share it with the world.

Fun Friday - the Wine Club

I'm a rookie in a winemaking club.  Two of the guys above made wine last year. Now we are turning it into a Big Operation.  Being the photographer/graphics person of our group, I have to come up with the labels.  Last weekend we got together to do some bottling, and I presented five concepts for the labels.

This one was the runaway winner!

The picture was taken when we were loading the barrels back in January. Tripod, self-timer.

Our vintage is called 2009 "Cablo" - meaning a blend of Cabernet and Merlot.  It tastes pretty good. We'll see a year or two from now after sitting in the bottles. And here is what we will be putting the labels on:

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Yummy!

Shiny Brite Memories

You know how sometimes you see a little "vignette" and it triggers a bunch of memories?  That's what happened to me recently on another shoot at The Tattered House.  There store is all decorated for Christmas.  I saw this box, and it took me back to my childhood.

We had many such boxes.  In those days, I would not have paid attention to the box. But I really do remember taking ornaments out of boxes like this to hang on the tree.

Max Eckardt & Sons.  Can you imagine deciding you want go into business, and specializing in Christmas tree ornaments?  Hard to fathom, but it's nice that some people do. Here's a wikipedia page on the company.

We (i.e. my family when I was a kid) had a lot of special ornaments. Not fancy, but special to me because you just see them once per year.  Unfortunately after my Mom died, my stepfather said I was not welcome to any of our family possessions.  So my brother and I have just the memories. Not to be a downer, but the moral of this story is if YOU want your kids to have something, YOU had better give them the goods while you are alive.

Well, let's get back to those "Sleigh bells ringin and jing jing jingling" shall we?  It's that "most happiest time of the yearrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr"  SING IT WITH ME!  Have a special Christmas ornament memory to share, with a comment below?

Friday Funnies - How to get up early

First Light

Most of us serious photographers know that the best light is early in the morning or late in the evening. We have all kinds of tricks to work around this, but there's no escaping the basic fact.  And it can sure be hard to be in position when the sun comes up, am I right?

That means getting up practically in the middle of the night, getting the clothes and gear, doing all we gotta do, probably driving to a location.  What about the coffee? Gotta do that.

In fact, the image above was a "second day attempt" because on the first day we tried it, my daughter and I missed the sunrise by like 10 minutes.  I think we left the condo (in Mammoth Lakes CA back in 2002) at 5 am, and we needed to leave at like 4:45 am.

So after this frustration, I fixed all of that. Watch the instructional video below to see how I did it:

Photographer Alarm Clock

Now I have NO PROBLEM getting out of bed. And, everyone else in the house is awake to wish me good luck on my morning photo adventure. I really do appreciate that and I know they like the chance to see me off.  Since putting together this alarm clock, I find that coffee is even optional on some days. Once I did wet the bed when it went off though, so do be careful.

Tune back in tomorrow, and I'll show you one of the pictures we took that morning, that is hanging on quite a few walls now, including in Sydney Australia.  Also, on Friday's, of course, the comment button below is completely free of charge! So comment away!

Friday Funnies: The Wedding Ceremony

So you know how when you were planning your wedding, you wanted to do something, uh, different.  Something that would make your ceremony memorable, something your guests would never forget.  But you couldn't just quite come up with it.

And then you were talking about the cake.  You wanted white cake, and your fiance wanted chocolate.  And rather than turn it into a big thing, you said, "hey! let's have both! Alternating layers!!"  And whoa, now we are talking different.

You talk to the bakery, and they say they have never done this before, but it is oh so creative.  And the next thing you know, Bridal Magazine is phoning you and they want your cake on the cover, because man, you guys are different.

Well, that's what this couple Jill and Kevin did.  Watch this video:

This is really worth watching all the way through, about 5 minutes. Go get a cup of coffee or something, but try not to spew while you are laughing!

Youtube made this couple quite famous, and they set up a website to do some good with their notoriety (www.jkweddingdance.com/).  Good for them! I sure hope they are doing well.  Better than Jon and Kate anyway.

I would have liked to have been there.  Not to mention to the reception!?!?  I"ll bet that was something different!  How did you like it? Leave a comment with the comment link below.

Friday Funnies: Man's life in three pictures

What can I say, this just cracks me up.

Friday Funnies: How the pro's do it

For professional photographers, it is often about positioning.  In order to have a great composition, you have to be able to get into position for the shot.  Today's post will be a brief course in proper technique for getting the kinds of shots that professionals get.

Let's get started.

One thing you won't see pro's do is simply walk around with their camera at standing height-eye level, and blast away.  Anyone can do that.  One way of making your image more dramatic is to get down low, so it looks like a child's eye view.  Your subject now appears tall in the image, it's very effective. Good technique by this pro.

Click on the continue link for the rest of the lesson...

Friday Funnies

Every once in a while, I'll just have to let you in on my sense of humor.  Friday funnies!

You know those posters that became popular in the 80's - the motivational ones?  Like this:

Over the years, I guess people are getting tired of them, and come up with some spoofs which are pretty dang funny, and work with my sense of humor to be sure!  Click on the continue link for my favorite.