My wife quietly says “lightning”, and I pull back the curtains on the door to our small balcony. Although the storm wasn’t hitting us, it was definitely hammering folks up north.  The clouds would ignite like big hot air balloons getting a blast of fuel. I reluctantly stumbled back downstairs, and halfassedly snapped these quick shots with my f1.4 50mm lens. Long exposures made them kind of blurred and weird… give me a break, I was half asleep and in a hurry.

Although they’re a bit glowy, ghostlike, and strange… I like them.  Let me know what you think. I know I’ll be able to use them somewhere, sometime.

Click an image below (obviously) to see the bigger image.

I’ve been wanting to get rolling on a new site specifically for photography, which continues to become a bigger and bigger part of my business. I’m excited to be able to post new images, and in some cases, some old ones as well.  I look forward to your comments, and don’t be afraid to contact me if you need some photo work done!

I decided to visit Uconn (Storrs Campus) where I used to work, study, and play, and take a few nighttime shots. It was really quiet on the campus… kind of creepy sometimes; steam grates were billowing out smoky clouds (as you can see in the pictures. I was using my new Nikkor 50mm f1.4d prime lens, and wanted to give it a run through in a number of different scenarios.  It really did a great job. Take a look, and let me know what you think! One of the shots that I took is an HDR rendering that really did some crazy stuff when I tonemapped it.  The combination of steam and lights create a strange UFO effect that really startled me.  Really cool. Talk to you soon!

With the purchase of a new lens comes new learning curves, and time spent getting to know what to do and what not to do. I shot a lot down in CT, mainly testing the performance of my new lens with a number of different settings, many of which I would never even try regularly.  Putting a lens through it’s paces can be fun, and you can get some great results (as I did when I was shooting at night). Here are some shots that I ended up keeping for one reason or another (stock mainly).  Cows are awesome. I’ve always been a huge fan of their big, dreamy eyes, and their big happy noses. So anyway, here are some cows.

The conditions weren’t really great… there was a combination of drizzle and really wet snow (not good for keeping lenses clear and cameras safe from harm), but nonetheless we put on our boots and crampons, and hiked up to access the climb. As you can see by the shots, the ice was a really neat yellow-gold color. It was a fun, short bit of shooting, but I was most definitely excited to get out into the fresh air and shoot.

Goddamn that’s an orange jacket. With the ice having that yellow – gold hue, it really kind of complements the shot.

When it comes to climbing, and climbing hard… Kevin Mahoney is the man. You can check out his website by clicking here.

Comment or contact if you want to know the nitty gritty on the technical stuff before I post it up here in the post later this week…

It was cold. Cold as all hell.

The need to create, practice, test, fail, try again, reshoot.  Some folks have to just do it. I need to just do it. Solving problems, testing new ideas, and practicing skills is important in any line of work.  It’s especially important for creatives.

It’s like muscle memory; the more often you do something, the better your brain is at remembering how it was done, and how to do it efficiently. My thought is this… the more I do something, the less work I have to do performing the regular movements, which leaves me more time to be creative.

So, freezing my hands off, I decided to set my camera up, and shoot a few long exposures (30 seconds). After I had remotely triggered the camera, I grabbed one of my SB600 flashguns, and started running around, striking a pose, and triggering the test flash.

You can see the result here.

I was cold, but it was kind of fun to go after it, and get it done. I want to see what Anne did. She gave herself the same assignment.

Burnt Meadow stables is a pretty cool place. It’s a 50 acre horse boarding, training and lesson facility. The facility offers a newly renovated barn with 10×12 box stalls with rubber mats and open spacious aisle ways. The property has a spectacular view of Bald Ledge and trails that lead to thousands of acres of forest. Attached to the barn is a well lit indoor arena with plenty of room.