Rocky Road

little guy: f/4.5, 1/60, 105mm

road to Durango: f/16, 1/160, 105mm

So, Norman and I are in Colorado!!! I must say, this is the all American experience!

It started off somewhat roughly. In Santa Rosa, NM Norman discovered that the tire had a nail in it and was slowly leaking. Thank god, we found a tire shop open on Sunday. The little guy in the first picture
came out and checked out me and my camera very inquisitively. His daddy worked at the shop. Every time I pointed the camera toward him, he would run to his daddy and then soon after turn his head toward me and check me out again.

We stayed at a place called Walsenburg last night and for the love of god I could not get my photoshop to work. Highly frustrating.  Today we were on highway 160 all day long, visited Great Sand Dune National Park, and settled in Durango. On the way, I dropped my rental polarizer filter(big sigh) and scratched it real good. MEGA SIGH.

Durango seems to be a grungy little ski town. Pretty cool, I must say.
Miraculously, photoshop is working here. I think it only works in select geographic locations.

I rented a super wide 11-16mm Tonika lens and polarizer from a website called LensProToGo.
So far, all my wide angle shots suck. Hope to improve more during this trip.

Yoga with Orada!

Spring Yoga: f/8, 1/320, iso100, 24-105 @82 mm

amazing bending: f/4, 1/60, iso 200, 24-105 @32 mm

amazing bending: f/6.3, 1/125, iso 100, 24-105 @32 mm

7 hours and over 400 snaps.
Orada and I had a lot of fun today and worked real hard. I'm getting more and more pleased with my ability to control exposure, and since my last outdoor shoot with Brooke, I figured out how to make the camera focus exactly where I want it to.  Composition was very difficult with this yoga shoot, because of all the unusual poses.
All these pictures were taken at St. John's UMC. They kindly let us use the church garden room. The first picture is probably my favorite of 'em all. I think I have better pictures than the second one, but I posted this one to show you what Orada can do. Amazing.
Norman and I head to Colorado for spring break tomorrow. Hope to get some interesting pix again.

New light stands and the money

The doorbell rang around 5:00 pm and I knew it was the UPS guy!
My load of stuff came from B&H today. For my friends who aren't familiar with B&H, it's like
the Amazon.com for cameras. They have everything. They have a gigantic store in NYC too.
That's like the Disney World for photographers.
Amongst all the things, probably my most anticipated item were the 3 Manfrotto light stands and Wescott reflector arm. I got the less cheaper ones, and they are so sturdy it's making me wonder if it was over kill. Mounted on the light stand is my LED mini light panel.
To be honest, I feel a bit intimidated by my own gear as I yet have figured out how to use the reflector arm (seems like I need to get some clamps). However, I truly anticipate these tools to help me expand my creative horizon. Next, I'm planning to get some strobes.
When I first thought about doing video a couple years ago, it came to my attention that I would need at least ten grand to get the bare minimum of equiptment. No way, I thought. And it made me very sad. So, I started looking for jobs that could pay. A couple years that include several unsatisfying jobs and lots of counseling, I am finding myself acquiring close to ten grand worth of gear which is really the bare minimum. My ten grand is coming from years of savings, years of tax returns, and some unemployment benefits that I'm getting from working on True Grit. Very little credit card debt.

If there is someone out there who is also thinking "no way" just because of money, I think I can tell you there is a way. It may not be immediate, but a way seemed to exist for me.

The Eye and I: Prepping my next project: Yoga with Orada

The Eye and I: Prepping my next project: Yoga with Orada: "Norm on Hill (Matador): f/4.5 , 1/125, iso 160, 24mm round hay things = bales: f/16, 1/200, iso 125 research for our yoga shoot..."

Prepping my next project: Yoga with Orada

Norm on Hill (Matador): f/4.5 , 1/125, iso 160, 24mm

round hay things = bales: f/16, 1/200, iso 125

research for our yoga shoot: beautiful Thai yoga poses

My Thai friend / yogi Orada sent me information about a photo competition in Yoga Journal.
We're going to try some shoots this weekend. So, I've been trying to do some research on how to go about doing this. Orada sent me some pictures from her Thai yoga book which I think are beautiful.
The biggest challenge is the location. We don't have time to go out far, so it will have to be some place in Lubbock that's not brown, or just completely make peace with the fact that everything is brown around here this time. 
There's Norman on one of the strange hills in Matador. We took this one at sunset. You can see some of the burn. That's really nothing. Don't know how those hills became. That area used to have a fence around it, but it was all burned so we just walked up the hill. It was freezing.
The hay bales are also from Matador. I always  wanted to take a picture of one of those. On this one,  I practiced how to use a small aperture on this one so I could get lots of depth.

My Landscape Experience in Matador part 2 (HDR practice)

little T: f/4, 1/60, iso 125 24-105@ 24

whole lot of nothing: bracketed exposure, iso 125

Okay, so we went to Matador which is about a two hour drive from Lubbock. I did what my books told me to do. Went out at sunset to get the, duh, sun setting across the land, then got up at 6:00 am to take photos at the "golden hour" of sunrise. The weather was okay in the evening, but truly friggin cold early in the morning and I couldn't function well.
The burnt landscape was quite dramatic, but as I expected, it was truly hard to get the picture of its entirety.  I got a very compelling shot of a wild pig that died in the fire. It's truly very compelling. It tells a story. But I think it falls into the objectionable category (so gross), so I don't know quite what to do with it.
Today, I tried what is called HDR (high dynamic range) processing. It's a technique that is popular for landscape these days, and one achieves the effect by manipulating exposure. Anyways, I tried it. I don't know if I'm such a huge fan of such trendy effects but I wouldn't even know this if I didn't try 'em!  It does make the landscape look sort of freaky and eerie though. I'm pleased with the composition of little T: it has a foreground, middle ground, and background just like my books suggested. Little T was not actually shot in HDR because I didn't know how to bracket then. Whole Lot of Nothing was shot in exposure brackets. It only took 5 minutes to learn how to do that.
All in all, I don't think I can ever be a landscape phtographer. I like lifestyle and fashion a lot more, and people. Also, I hate getting up that early all the time. Still, I think I can do better in landscape with more practice. enjoy!

Matador, TX 1

electric post near Plainview: f/9, 1/250. iso 100, 24-105@24mm

the ever dependable Allsup's in Matador: f/7.1 (?), iso 250, shutter speed 0.8, 24-105@24

After hearing all the news about the wild fire in Matador, Norman and I decided to check it out.
I'm so used to this West Texas area now, it's really hard to find something fresh. Nevertheless, I tried.
I think this Allsup's shoot came out cool: I set my camera to aperture priority mode, placed it on a tripod and used the shutter release for minimal shaking. I like the ghosty motion blur of the two truck guys.
More on my landscape experience tomorrow...