Monday, February 22, 2010

Intro/Outro

Top image is of Josten Thomas, one of CSI's top players. Due to violation of team rules the man-child was not allowed to play in Saturday's game against NIC. I always wonder what "Violation of Team Rules" means. Did he get arrested? Maybe he just pissed off a coach. Who knows, either way I think the general public probably assumes the worst which is why I just wished the college would come out with the real reason instead of burying it in jargon.
Image two was taken during a really cool pre-game introduction to the likes of which rivals Utah Jazz games. TV guy and I both got goose bumps during it. Image three was a stall tactic for me making a dumb mistake. I sat at the defensive side of the court at the beginning of the game and instead of wasting valuable shooting time I decided to shoot on that side for a few moments waiting for a foul to take place in order for me to move to the other side.
The bottom two images were just moments that I liked so here they are.




Cardinals Vs. Eagles

You ever wonder if teams mascots could really do battle, which one would be left at the top of the food chain? Anyways, after an extremely long day Friday (15 hours) I was worn out pretty thin for my two night games. I did my best but mediocrity crept in a little I think. It was that or the fact my batteries were fading and it was affecting my AF. Either way here's two I liked.

General News

This was about as general as General News can get I think. A glorified Ribbon-Cutting ceremony with Dignitaries, a newly Constructed, Educational, "Green" building, and a self-guided Tour. All of which are considered general news on their own let alone combined all into one. I had so many theme images I really had no clue what to turn in. With no knowledge of what the angle was I finally called the reporter and asked, he was so burned out on covering the new building he didn't really care and said just go with the cool architecture. So after turning in several different images including "cool" architecture the desk ran this top image five columns with no secondary art.


"Butch"

Hazelton, a small town in Southern Idaho became the "Capital for a Day" on Friday and the Governor with most of his cabinet were in attendance. This was my first time meeting Idaho's Governor and he seemed like a fairly down to earth kinda guy wearing blue jeans and a big cowboy belt buckle. I worked the scene like a typical photog, shooting wide at first and slowly working myself closer to the front row. Once in front and while the Gov. was talking about tourism in Idaho I noticed he was wearing a Park City, Utah belt buckle and had to make this photo. It didn't run and I almost didn't even turn it in but I was in a giddy mood and figured what the hell. Once I made the second image during a recess I knew I had what I needed and headed out.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Hospital Tour

While images 1 and 3 are tweaked number 2 is straight as an arrow. For the first one I had to snag a quick self-portrait, number 2 was graphically cool I thought while 3 was a huge mistake with my exposure. I had went from a very dim hallway to a very brightly lit cafeteria. lol.


Flag Burner

Sure, my title makes it sound like I've got some anarchists burning old glory but it's all about the boy scouts on this go around. Bottom three images are straight while the top one is still only one image I've de-saturated a portion of it making it an illustration. Normally I hate shooting outside in the wind but for something like this it was a blessing.



Portrait of Self

Ingredients: Boredom and a $420 flash that has a repeater function to it. I had tinkered with the RPT mode and the Hz on my flash in the past but it had been about 3 years so I figured I'd better reacquaint myself with it. Now that I have I've got a few fun-filled ideas to play with. Wish me luck.

A Red Hat

Alright, for one I'm on a dual B&W/Color kick as of late. Two, I've been really playing with some off camera flash, even through I only get about 3 feet out of my cord. Three, I know I don't have any detail in the eyes which as we all know are the gateways to the soul and all that jazz but at least I have a glimmer of a catch light right? :)

Until the Cows come Home

I was doing a quick test to make sure the glass on a 1.4 tele I picked up was good. I ended up taking a picture of my neighbors. Side note: I decided instead of going into LAB to turn this into a B&W I would use a {Black and White} adjustment layer. I think I may adopt it as my new way of going that route, lots of control over how the image converts.

High Dynamic Range

I know this isn't the best image. However, it has become my first example of using the HDR technique making this a "standard dynamic range" photograph. Basically, when I tried to expose for the sky I was underexposing the foreground and my flash just wouldn't pick up the slack. So I decided to stand really really still and do some bracketing. In post I simply overlapped the two images and well, you know the rest. I never ended up using the image in print for a variety of reasons. Was it ethical? Was it really even good enough to run? Etc etc... Anyways, toss me some feedback people. Have you ever tried it? Do you recommend it? Questions, comments, concerns are always welcome. :)

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Box your Ears

I hadn't shot amateur boxing since high school so this was a lot of fun for me. Due to deadline I was only able to shoot the first two and a half bouts but I came up with so many usable images that I ended up putting together a slide show. My only regret was not being able to shoot the entire event and capture audio along with it.

Coffeehouse

This was a last minute assignment I was given but I thought it went quite well. Nice little coffee joint at the college. Might be a nice place to tune up images if the need arises.

New Moon

After shooting the moon assignment I decided I'd destroy the straight image and mix it up a bit. This is what I came up with on the fly.


Moonshine

Assignment: Photograph the moon because its the largest it will be all year. Now, I was given the assignment long past the time it was coming over the horizon so I did what I could. To be honest I had never really went out of my way to shoot the moon so I googled what the exposure might be. 400 ISO, 5.6 @ 1/2000 of a second. After making some equivalent exposure adjustments I came up with these images. I found trying to find a good WB was difficult but si la vie. Overall I enjoyed getting out and shooting some night images, just wish it had been on some 120 instead of digital.

Swimming Along

So the public pool puts a huge bubble over the whole pool and it makes the light just nasty in there. Never mind the humidity. No matter though this event is put on by the YMCA so once again it was put together extremely well. Always a pleasure working with those guys.




The Game

Just another game but boy was it sure fun. Some really nice action along the wings. I can't believe I get paid to do this stuff.