Black & White Mood

Whenever it starts becoming dull and gray outside my urge to go out and take pictures drops pretty dramatically. Maybe it's the lack of color, or the fact that there isn't much contrast or interesting lighting. If you do force yourself to get up and shoot in these types of conditions you would be surprised at the interesting images you can get back.

The above image was taken on a day that was just like the one I described above. A low carpet of gray clouds, and a lack of interesting color. These are the perfect images to turn into black and white. By going out shooting on these cloudy, seemingly dull days you have to remember that your eye sees things much differently from your camera. To your eye it is a dull, uninteresting scene, but with the help of your camera (along with a healthy boost in contrast in post processing, graduated neutral density filters, and maybe a wide angle lens or two) you can turn that boring sea of gray into something interesting. Here is another example,

This image was recently published in the Capture Rochester book. This just goes as proof that great images can be captured no matter what it looks like outside!

Thanksgiving Photos: Part 1

Thanksgiving was a great time this year. There were some pretty funny moments. Here are some of my favorite photos:


Good luck getting them all to pose for a picture


Feed me!


Jay cutting the turkey


Jay cutting his finger off


mmm


Delicious yams


The turkey guard




Ready to eat


Lighting the candles


Passing the food

I love yams


Lots of good food

Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a great thanksgiving! I'm back safe in New York again. It's great to be with my family and everyone. As you can imagine I took quite a few pictures at our thanksgiving meal which I'll be posting up later. Stay tuned for more stuffing filled fun!

Farewell South Carolina!

I've really loved my time here in South Carolina working for BMW. Tomorrow morning I'll be off to drive back to New York. It's a bitter sweet experience for me. On one hand its going to be much colder, snowy, gas is going to be about 30% more, and I'll be back in grad school with homework and much less free time. On the positive side I'll be seeing my much-missed family, friends, and girlfriend! I also have several weddings booked this winter and I will enjoy meeting with all my clients that have been patient enough to wait for me to come back in town. Farewell Greenville!

Foggy Tree in the Wind

It seems like I've been doing a lot of lot of night photography lately. When I was out in the fog the other night and saw this cool looking tree. I loved the colors on it. I liked how long exposures kept the branches in focus but the leaves were blurry. Pretty cool stuff.

Nature by Night

Have you ever gone into the woods to take pictures at night? It is one of the most unique places to shoot. Make sure that you are either near some street lights, or it is a full moon (exposures will be long enough already!). If your patient enough to wait for the shutter, you will be rewarded with some very magical and unique pictures. Here are a few of my favorites from the other night

Fresh Updates to Main Site

I know my main site was getting a bit dated so since I was stuck at home this weekend I decided to update it.  I got rid of the "Landscape" section and merged its contents into the "Around Town" and "Nature" sections, to make room for the totally new "Portraits" section. In total there are over 30 new images on the site. Go check it out!

How to build your own SLR

One of my readers sent me this amazing video of how a DSLR & Lens is constructed. It's totally incredible! Its a bit long but makes you really appreciate the engineering behind these cameras we use. Check it out!

super cars wallpapers and pictures gallery

A splash of color

You know what I noticed? It seems like everyone always shoots the fall colors during the day! I always wondered what it would look like to take some pictures of the fall colors by night. Here is some proof that fall foilage can be even more spectacular during the night! These wild colors are straight off the camera!

Star Trails

Well its 4am now and I can't sleep at all... so what did I do? Wander outside and set up my camera and tripod. I love seeing all those star trail photos so I figured that tonight (or this morning?) would be a good time to try.

So here I am at 3:30am in my slippers and bathrobe, outside taking pictures. I'm glad no one saw me because I'm sure I would have been reported for "suspicious activities."  Anyways I set up my camera on bulb setting, f/10, and went back indoors to warm up. I came back almost 8 minutes later to this picture.

Star Trails - Nikon D300 w/ 50mm f1.8 @ f/10, ISO 125, 511 seconds

Not too bad! So I set the camera back up in another spot and tried again! This time I promised myself I would be a bit more patient...


Star Trails - Nikon D300 w/ 50mm f1.8 @ f/10, ISO 125, 706 seconds

Pretty cool if you ask me! Because the earth is rotating and the stars stay in the same position, over the course of time it looks to us like the stars are moving! Anyways enough astrology for tonight, I'm going back to bed!

super exotic sports cars

Linear Park

I don't know what it is about long exposures that makes images so interesting. I think it has to do with the fact that you can make a still image that somehow shows motion.

A few months ago I went with a friend of mine to take some pictures of one of my favorite parks. As I was growing up I spent a lot of time at Linear Park in Penfield, NY. It was right down the street and had playgrounds, creeks, trails, and mud pits to play in. I had a chance to visit it again and take some pictures of the trails and beautiful creek that runs though the park. It was close to sunset and this allowed me to take some longer exposures and capture the motion of the creek flowing through the park.