Wednesday, November 11, 2009

The Good-The Bad-The INEFFICIENT TIME WASTER

Digital Photography Age-How cool! Today's digital darkroom is an array of RAW converters, cataloging software, plugins, photoshop actions, lightroom presets and other filters to streamline the digital "workflow" process. I know I have just lost most of you who do not lower yourself to such pixel depth- and who could blame you.

Needless to say, the digital darkroom is a wonder and jungle. Both streamlining the process and adding an extraordinary amount of time to you self imposed budget.

For instance, the four photographs below:

This first one was taken with a 2800K white balance. In other words, the cameral was adjusted to match the color of a tungsten light bulb because I had small tungsten neon light pointed at the shoes. As a result the stained glass widow became much cooler (bluer) which I new would happen-thought it might be a cool effect-you be the judge. So lets just develop the picture using a RAW converter, save as jpeg file and be done, but no-that's not good enough-lets waste some time seeing what else is possible after all we have such wonderful tools.



This next picture was adjusted to match the color of the sun shining on the window, so now you can see a little bit of the tungsten (yellowish) light on the shoes.





Then it was go through a list of filters and presets looking for another combination of development configurations that may produce a cool looking image.  This next image is similar to the first but has some punched up colors.






That's not enough. He is another adjustment to a sepia version. I would not have thought that it would of turned out since it had so much color in the original, which is what I was attacted to in the first place.







One more, of course there are hundreds of ways to develop a picture, but that would be a waste of time- or is it?

Friday, November 6, 2009

$500 Grand Prize

Holiday Extravaganza Open House

Come See




And 17 other Local Vendors


We will be located in

Wedding Planner Tharp and Associates' Studio

which is adjacent to

The Jefferson House of Flowers


Located at:


4300 West 100 North

Kokomo, IN 46902

Any Bride who stops in to see us and mentions this email is eligible to receive a free engagement session with the purchase of
Wedding Day Coverage

Also sign up for a free Portrait Session



Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Aleshia and Ryan's Wedding -October 10

Many thanks to Aleshia and Ryan for the opportunity to photograph their wedding in Rochester last month. It was a picturesque fall day. A little crisp in the air, the fall colors beginning to bloom and a clear blue sky-overall a great day for a wedding. It was easy taking pictures of a beautiful bride and great guy. We wish you both all the best for a great future together.



















Monday, October 26, 2009

A Visit to Rainbow Christian Camp

Way overdue on a post- so hopefully I will catch up in the next couple of weeks as we are already moving from fall to even colder. The last couple of weeks we have had some great fall weather and I have tried to get out an enjoy the fall foliage.

Last week I had the pleasure of visiting Rainbow Christian Camp
in Converse, Indiana. I received a first class tour from Scott Schoberg. He spent almost an hour showing me the different campsites and cabins. The tour started off with a look at their conference center. The foyer of the conference center is lined with exotic stuff game. I am not a hunter, but this was amazing. It is a got to see! After the tour of the conference center, we toured the grounds. They have a wide variety of accommodations from huts that simulate a small village. (I can't remember if it was Africa or South America.) They had dorm type cottages with bunk beds and even cottages for couples who want to get away for the weekend or longer.

Besides the accommodations they have plenty of activities and team building events like wall climbing and paintball to make your group's stay extremely memorable. The camp caters to all people in all walks of life from children to adults.

I had my camera with me as we toured the site. I did not have a chance to take any pictures during the tour and I had another appointment that day but I did manage to take a parting shot of their barn as I left. The barn has rabbits, chickens, horses and a few other. (I am pretty much a suburban boy- I only know subdivisions and manicured lawns.)

Rainbow Christian Camp is a well kept secret only 30 minutes from Kokomo. I certainly recommend a visit. The fall colors were gorgeous too!



Nikon D700 Nikkor 24-70/f2.8

Monday, July 20, 2009

Mackinaw City Michigan

Continued.... We also met photographer Monte Nagler from Farmington Michagan during our trip. He studied under Ansel Adams and has had his images shown in galleries throughout the United States.

The last two days of our trip took us to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Seashore and then up US31 to Mackinaw City. The weather was a little gray both days but we managed to find a few slivers of sunshine hear and there. The sunrise on our last day was pretty awesome again. Now that we are back we have about 1600 images to edit. Here is another small sample.



This first image taken a sunrise. We got lucky with a small sliver of open sky between the water and the clouds. (Nikon D300 Nikkor70-200/f2.8G VR)


(Nikon D300 Nikkor 70-200/f2.8G VR)



Mackinac Bridge at Night (Nikon D700 Nikkor 70-200/2.8G VR)



Mackinaw City Lighthouse
(Nikon D700 Nikkor 24-70/2.8G)



Sleeping Bear Dunes National Seashore- It's a 450 drop to the bottom. Gray day but the people in the picture give you a sense of scale for the dune.
Nikon D700 24-70/2.8G

We are back home but would still love to be on the road.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Traverse City, Michigan

Angie and I decided to take a quick photo excursion to Traverse City, Michigan. We have been up to the Old Mission Point and the Leelanau State Park as well as several points in between. The sunrise on the first morning at Old Mission Point was one of the best sunrises I have ever seen. It seemed forever for the sun to come up over horizon and then break through several bands of clouds. After a morning (which started at 4am) we headed back to town for a quick breakfast and nap. Headed out to Front Street in Traverse City to see the shopping district. After a late lunch it was off to the Asylum ( a mental hospital that is being redeveloped into a mix use of retail, office and residential housing). It still has a ways to go and was a little creepy. Late afternoon it was up the coast of the West Bay to Omena for dinner before heading up to the Grand Traverse Lighthouse at Leelanua State Park and then finally ended up in Fishtown for sunset. We finally made it back to the hotel about 10:30PM. It was a short couple of hours to 5AM to get to Cherry Bend for some more sunrise pictures at a marina. This afternoon its off to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and the Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.









Wednesday, July 8, 2009

4th of July at Rozzi's Continental Ballroom

I had an opportunity over the 4th of July holiday to take some images of ROZZI'S CATERING AND CONTINENTAL BALLROOM. It wasn't red white and blue but was lemon yellow and lime green...that is the whole Continental Ballroom was decorated with lemons and limes...it was awesome. It was a lot a fun and a challenge to capture the essence of the ballroom. Hopefully I was able to do that. Here are few images: