Keep up with this posing....

I'm always trying to find new ideas from the internet.  There's so much out there that the problem is narrowing down the field.  A while back, I stumbled upon this video by Mike Kobal on his blog.  Perhaps a bit too over caffineinated for me, but the pace matches the whimsical music.  What I enjoyed was the model's creativity and fluid ability to pose.  As a photographer, its best when you have to tell your model very little.  Directing a person is the hardest thing that I've had to learn when shooting portraits.  It's a new challenge with every new person I work with.  It's always a sigh of relief when they just get it.  But when all else fails, my assistant is always there to help.

New landscapes added

I've been going through all my photos to add to my flickr website as examples of what I've done. This weekend was spent adding some more landscape and cityscape pictures. All have minimal edits, unless noted. I mostly just crop, straighten, and correct the color. I have quite a few destinations to pick from. If you follow the blog or know me, you've probably figured out that I'm a national park lover. I try to visit at least one new park per year, but I've had a couple trips planned where I've visited several at a time. Of them all, I enjoyed Zion National Park the most, but Yellowstone National Park was the most awe inspiring. If you enjoy nature, I encourage a visit. The closest national park for me is Isle Royale National Park, but there are several other national forests and lakeshore closer.















Speaking of color, the next addition I'm looking at for my equipment addiction is the Spyder3Pro from Datacolor. I've often had to take extra time to print first, then to give a final color edit. I have a nice monitor, but it just isn't calibrated. From what I've found, its a bit too bright, so my prints turn out too dark. I've adjusted accordingly, but it'd be nice to further streamline my editting process.

As always, if you see something that you like, please contact me and I can give you a reasonable price for a print.

Just a quick entry...

While looking at some photoshop techniques on the web, I came across an illustrator/painter by the name of Zso. The artist's real name is Sara Blake and she works in New York City. She creates some great ink and watercolor paintings, but then takes them into photoshop and turns them into works of art. One that really caught my attention was a time lapse video of a 16 hour piece she did. It's condensed down to about 7 minutes. If you got the time to give it a watch, it's well worth it. To add to the presentation, be sure to read the story behind the illustration.

While we were at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore as I described in my last post, I met a photographer for the Indiana DNR. He gave some insight to what made the park so beautiful and the surrounding area. His pictures are published in Outdoor Indiana Magazine. I couldn't find a website of his own, but his name is John Maxwell. Long story short, after a short chat, he asked us if we wanted to be in a picture. Now, I enjoy being on the backside of a camera, but have never really been on the business side of the camera, save a couple candid shots. Anyways, John set us up against the sunset and took our picture as seen below.
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Photo credit: Outdoor Indiana magazine-John Maxwell
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Back Home

Well, the trip was fantastic. We saw an incredible amount of sights and I think I now have a trip hangover. The list of sights in no particular order are: Penn's Landing, Philly City Hall,Independence Hall, Eastern State Penitentiary, American Museum of Natural History, Empire State Building, Central Park, Little Italy, Chinatown, Soho, Battery Park, Ground Zero, Wall St., Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, World Financial Center, Wintergarden, Times Square, Grand Central Terminal, and Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. There are a bunch more that I probably forgot, but that's a close list.

We drove. It turned out to be 1985 miles in the car with many more in subways and on foot. Total driving time was 32+ hours. I love all the info my gps records. The only problem was that it took me the wrong way a couple times and detours for construction can be really annoying ("turn left, then turn left, then turn left..." ugh). I was resistant to getting one in the first place, but love it now. Thanks Mom, best present ever.

A bit of advice if you're planning on travelling to the east coast: research tolls! I was surprised to find out how expensive Ohio and Pennsylvania were to drive through. I think total to go from Milwaukee to Manhattan, we paid ~$80. On the way back, we dodged some of the toll roads and paid considerably less.

Due to the short planning time, airfare was out of the question. Instead, we took my car and got a respectable ~47 mpg. With a bit of luck, we were able to park on the street in front of the place we stayed, so that cut about $40/day from our costs. In the end I think it cost less and we got to see more of America, though the drive was not nearly as scenic as my trip to Wyoming or Utah.

As this is a photo blog, I'd be remiss if I didn't talk photography. One of my must do's while there was to visit B&H. For anyone who has ever seen their catalouge, you must know its a photo geek warehouse of anything you can think of for a great price. The store did not let me down. Any photo product you can think of and much of it available to try out. I really enjoyed trying out the Canon 5Dmk2. It's one of the bodies I'm really considering to replace my aging 1Dmk2 which is around 4 years old. It works fine, but I'm missing the higher resolution of today's camera and the added bonus of live view and HD video. Lots of creative oppurtunities, but the hidden cost to that upgrade is more hard drive space. I'll definately be waiting till Canon announces the next 1D and 1Ds that Canon Rumors says is coming soon. Maybe those will be worth looking in to or the price of the 5D will come down. Either way, win-win.

New York was beautiful, but hard to take in. There is just sooo much. Its difficult to capture with the equipment that I brought. I either wanted my shots to by wider or more zoomed in. Another problem, due to the density of New York, is isolating your subject. I didn't do enough research into this before leaving and found it difficult to get shots without a busy background.

I felt way more safe than I expected. Perhaps I'm paranoid or naive, but no matter what it was, I was way more comfortable than I expected with all those people around me. Chinatown was the worst, but still bareable.

I found a New York photographer that I really liked, not only in style, but also in person. Her site is here and her blog is there. Great person with some good answers. I wish I was able to capture moments like she does. Give her portfolio a look. If you ever are going to the New York area and need pictures taken, I would highly recommend her based on her customer service skills and portfolio.

What I do recommend for anyone willing to drive out to Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, is to go during the late afternoon. I'm sure the early morning is just as good, but the afternoon was some of the best portrait light I've seen in a whle. Evidenced below at the top of Mt. Baldy....

Wow, the is easily my longest entry. And for those who are friends with me on facebook, you already know what I hinted to last time. More pictures on the flickr site. I continue to post more pictures as I get through them. Thanks for reading, I'm almost at 100 hits!