Mike Cameron Photography Blog

More from Tennessee

2012-01-21T17:00:00.000-08:00

Here are a few more images from our trip to Tennessee. These again were taken with an infra-red camera.

Rock City

2012-01-18T19:39:00.000-08:00

I recently took the wife and kids to Tennessee for a family vacation. One of the touristy things we did on the trip was to visit Rock City on Lookout Mountain (near Chattanooga). This is an amazing park that has paths and passages flowing throughout the natural landscape of the mountain. My favorite part of the park was a passageway in between two gigantic rock formations that was very narrow. The passage was called "Fatman's Squeeze". My kids were making bets on whether I would make it through (I did with no problem).

The day we went was a dreary rainy day so I opted to use my infra-red camera. Below are a few of my images from that day.

My Boys

2012-01-09T18:32:00.000-08:00

Every year right before Christmas I take my boys into my studio to get their yearly portraits. These portraits go up in 16x20 frames in our living room for my wife to see on Christmas morning. It is a nice little tradition that that my wife looks forward to. These are the shots that we put up on the wall this year.

Merritt Reservoir

2011-10-30T18:49:00.000-07:00

A group of friends and I went up to Merritt Reservoir to near Valentine, NE last weekend to get pictures of the Milky Way. We shot from sun down to sun up. I could not believe how clearly you could see the stars out there. This is my favorite shot from that night.

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Aksarben Planet

2011-10-15T16:10:00.000-07:00

This image was from a series I did at Aksarben Village. The images I got were your standard variety location shots so I decided to spruce the images up and did this funky rendition. This provides a total 360 degree view of the main strip in Aksarben Village.

Work

2011-10-12T16:06:00.000-07:00

I have been kind of busy with work lately so there hasn’t been many blogs. The good news is I have been doing a lot of work related photography. So my next few post will be some images from these shoots.

This first image was from a shot of the new TD Ameritrade Park in downtown. It was taken right at dawn so I got some awesome lighting.

Last Night's Storm

2011-08-06T20:18:00.000-07:00

We had some pretty nice storms last night. When they started developing I jumped in my car with my trusty camera and hit the gravel roads. I was only able to get a few images before the wind and rain kicked into high gear. Here is one of the better shots form last night.

Hidden Image

2011-07-13T18:55:00.000-07:00

Today I was going through my image banks trying to organizing my files. While I was doing this I discovered this image that I totally forgot taking. I really can't tell you much about this image except that it was taken near Indian Cave State Park in Nebraska. This is why I regularly go through my old images, I always discover pictures that I have overlooked.

Rosenblatt

2011-07-11T18:45:00.000-07:00

Here is an image I took last year before they moved the Road to Omaha statue to Ameritrade Park. I finally finished the final touches on it today. Now that this last image is done maybe I will start working on some photos of the new stadium.

Baby Mantis

2011-07-07T18:22:00.000-07:00

My boy Logan caught a small Praying Mantis this weekend. He couldn't wait to help me take pictures of it. My favorite is the image of Logan looking at the little green guy.

Omaha Part 2

2011-07-05T18:14:00.001-07:00

Here are a few more or my downtown images of Omaha.

Omaha

2011-07-04T07:46:00.000-07:00

A group of friend and I went out to take some shots of Omaha other night. It was an awesome night for photography, though when we got back I realized I was eaten alive by mosquitoes. I think I was bitten over 50 times. But you know, it is all worth it if you get a good shot.

Country Road

2011-06-17T20:27:00.001-07:00

A good friend of mine and I went out to take sunset/full moon pictures the other night. We spent 2 hours driving around for a good vantage point to capture our subject but had no luck. On our way home, after giving up, we stumbled on this farmstead and cloud formation. Slamming on the breaks we got out of the car to set up our equipment. After taking a few images I set my exposure for 30 seconds and had my friend drive my car down the road. This gave the cool ghost line going through the image. I hope you all enjoy the image.

Rosenblat

2011-06-14T20:06:00.000-07:00

So it is that time of year again. That time where talk of the College World Series is a buzz throughout Omaha. It is the first year that the games will be held at Ameritrade Park. I can't help but think about how they use to be held at Rosenblat Stadium. To me it will never be the same now that the Series has been moved away from this classic place. Here is a picture from the last game I attended at Rosenblat last year.

B&W Photography Magazine Merit Award

2011-05-27T10:30:00.001-07:00

I just found out that a few of my images have been selected for publication in Black & White Photography Magazine. This is a national magazine that specializes in high end black & white photography. I was selected for a Merit Award for my insect photography. My work will be shown in issue 84 that will hit news stands in mid June or early July. Below I have included some of my insect images. These are not the ones that are in the magazine though. If you want to see those rush out to the news stand.

Hard Drive Adventures

2011-05-09T19:56:00.000-07:00

The other night I was looking for a specific image I wanted to print out for a Mothers Day gift. I grabbed the hard drive the image was on and plugged it in. Well to my surprise I found that all the data on the hard drive was corrupted. Yup that is right, my hard drive and all my pictures on it were gone. The bummer was that this was the only back up I had for my Kansas trip I took last year. I was freaking out because there was two really great shoots from the trip that I did not want to loose. Well I was up to about 2 in the morning looking for the images. I eventually found them. These were the only two images I was able to find from the trip thought.

While I was looking frantically for these images I did find some other pictures I love that I have never done anything with. Since I have previously posted the Kansas pictures I decided to show you the other images I found. All these images are taken from rural Nebraska. The first is of Carhenge in Alliance. Next is of Courthouse and Jail Rock. The last image is of a misc country road outside of Papillion. Hope you enjoy.

Baby ELi

2011-05-03T10:43:00.000-07:00

My youngest boy just turned 4 months and to mark this joyous occasion he took it upon himself to learn how to laugh. When I saw this I instantly grabbed my camera and started shooting. Though I did not get any good images of him laughing I did get some great smiles. There is something about a babies smile that brightens up your day :o)

Special Effects Fun

2011-05-01T17:58:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I got the idea to do some fun special effects shots. Basically I wanted to combine people with elements (fire, water and air). This is an idea that I have had for several years but never forced myself to do until now. Here are the image I have come up with so far. I have a few more advanced concepts like these that I am itching to do in the future so keep an eye out.

Orta Lee Cameron

2011-03-24T15:05:00.001-07:00

Recently I was given a few very old images of Orta Lee Cameron (better know as my Grandma) to restore. Looking at these images I started to think how interesting it is that we associate people only with our own personal experience with them. For instance with my Grandma I have always known her as the caring person who was always there to take care of me with a smile. She was always the one person I could run too if everything was falling apart. Whenever I visualize her in my head it is in my personal frame of reference though, a woman in her golden years of life. Never do I see here as (in physical form) as a different person. With looking at these images I am reminded that she was also a child not some much different from my children now. She was also a young woman about to experience love for the first time (with my Granddaddy). I am left thinking about the hundreds of other pictures of her that represent the history of my family. It is great that we have this media of photography that can capture not only an image but also one’s emotion and sense of being in time.

This all got me thinking, in the future how we will reflect on the past? Will we still have hard prints of images like the generation before us or will everything be digital. Will we be concerned with the older images or will they be forgotten and erased for the latest and greatest profile pictures. In the past people cherished family pictures because you only had a few and they usually were one of a kind. Now everything is digital and you can have hundreds of images at a click of the button. Does this devalue the images? Are pictures going to be less important to a family’s heritage? Time will tell. Me I still miss the days before digital where you had to work in the dark room for hours on one print. Man I’m getting old!!!

Sandhill Cranes 2011

2011-03-21T21:09:00.000-07:00

It’s that time of year again. The time where I pack 100lbs of equipment into an off-roading vehicle, drive down to the Platte River at Kearney, NE at 4:00 am and shoot images of the Sand Hill Cranes. When we arrived in Kearny, at about 6:00 am, everything was still dark. We went to our usual hot spots to scope out if the birds were there. We ended up finding a good number at our usual location, War Axe. When the sun came up it was hidden behind a sky full of clouds. Finding ourselves a little bummed, we jumped into the car to scout out some other locations as we waited for the clouds to clear. The clouds did clear about a 1/2 hour later and we had perfect lighting for the rest of the day.

The best time for taking images of these birds is when they have left the riverbed after sunrise. It is this time that they go to the fields to eat spent corn from the earlier harvest. What is really nice about this time is that it is the time they play and dance. They communicate by dancing and throwing corn stalks into the air. This is what I love to photograph. The birds are so eloquent and graceful in their dancing. This is also the most difficult time to photograph them because they are really edgy and fly away for the smallest disturbance. I was rewarded this year because I spotted a Leucistic Crane dancing. These are cranes that are often mistaken for albinos because they are all white. Instead of missing the pigment of color, which would make it albino, they have the gene to make their feathers all white. Being very rare I was pleased to get an image of one spot on.

At the end of the day we gathered on the bridge close to the Minden Exit to watch the cranes return to the river for the night. Regretfully the birds were flying in east of our location so we were unable to get decent pictures. This was until the moon came above the horizon. When planning the trip I decided to go on a weekend with a full moon. This provided a great backdrop for some night photography. All I needed was for the cranes to cooperate and fly in front of the moon for a nice silhouette. Well the cranes had other plans. It seemed as though they were trying their best to fly over or under the moon leaving me empty handed. I had just about given up when one solitary bird flew right where I needed him to go. I pushed the shutter release and nailed the shot I have been waiting for, for several years. With that the day was over and it was time for the long trip back to Omaha.

We will end with the technical stuff. This year I rented a 300mm 2.8 IS Prime Canon L Series lens. Attached to this was a 2.0 Canon extender. This extender dropped my 2.8 to a 4.5. All this fun stuff was mounted to a Canon 20D. With the lens, extender and the cropped sensor on the 20D I had about a 960mm zoom. Last year I used the same body and extender with the 400mm 2.8 Prime. That lens was awesome but really cumbersome, needing a tripod for almost every shot. I am the kind of photographer who likes to run and gun, the 400mm was so big that this was not possible. The 300mm provided great optics with less weight and smaller lens size. This gave me great versatility, which allowed me to capture some really great shots that I would have missed with the 400mm lens.

My Wife

2011-03-01T10:00:00.000-08:00

The other night my wife helped me out with a little side project. This project includes macro pictures of lips in different positions such as smiling frowning and so on. Well since she was all done up I decided to do a few head shots of her as well just for the fun of it. With looking at these pictures I realize how lucky I am to have her as a wife. I will publish some of the macro lip pictures in the near future.

Eli Part 2

2011-02-05T20:46:00.000-08:00

Eli is growing so fast, he is now five weeks old and is no longer a new born. These are my latest images of him.

Sniffin Scents

2011-02-03T20:55:00.000-08:00

When I am not doing photography I am working on graphic design. Recently I have been working on some design concepts for a new candle company called Sniffin Scents. My first project for this company was the designing of the logo shown below (also shown are some variant concept designs for the logo). Most recently I have completed some product shots for their website (www.sniffinscents.com).

Eyes

2011-02-03T20:48:00.000-08:00

I just finished a nice photo series for another blog I am part of (www.thephotoco-op.blogspot.com). It involved images of my son and wife's eyes. I took the images with a Canon 100mm macro lens and adjusted the color of the iris's in Photoshop. There are other great images from some talented photographers on the blog, so if you have time check it out.

Eli Cole Cameron

2011-01-16T12:39:00.001-08:00

On 01/01/2011 my beautiful wife gave birth to our fourth wonderful boy. So of course I am going to take tons of pictures of him to plaster all over my blog. Here are a few that I have taken so far.

Table Top Photography

2011-01-13T16:31:00.000-08:00

Well it is that time of year again. The time where the sun comes down early and it is to bloody cold to go and shoot. Well what is a photographer suppose to do to keep his sanity during these long winter months…….hmmmmmmmm………I don’t know…………………possibly……………….a little……………table top photography. Here are a few of my creations from last night’s experimentation.

Newborn

2010-12-01T16:28:00.001-08:00

Recently I had a photo shoot of a new born boy. I love taking pictures of babies. These images were taken in the family's home. For babies I rarely use my studio or studio lighting. I like to come into the child’s home where they are comfortable and relaxed. These images were taken using natural window lighting in the kitchen. Window light is my favorite light to work with. It usually gives just enough light to highlight a given feature while wrapping the rest of the image in darkness, giving a very dramatic element to your image. One of the best things about it is that you can use it anywhere and you do not have to worry about a back drop or how messy the background is. Since you meter for where the light is hitting (your subject) everything else should be black, that is if the window light is the only light present.

2010-11-15T18:41:00.000-08:00

The other day a friend and I went out to Schramm State Park to get some pictures of fall colors. We had been daydreaming for weeks of picturesque landscapes of oranges and reds. Well we missed these landscapes by a couple of weeks. What we found on our shoot was a lot of bare trees. Disappointed about not finding anything on our trip I started driving around Omaha the other day looking for a few trees with leaves on them. To my surprise I found some superb subjects at Memorial Park. Here are a few of the images from that shoot.

BUGS, BUGS, BUGS!!!

2010-07-26T13:02:00.000-07:00

So it is summer and what does that mean? It means its time for bug photography again. Here are some of the images I have been working on over the last few days. All images were taken with a Canon 20D and a 100mm macro lens. The first is of a juvenile praying mantis. This creature hatched from one of two egg sacs that were on a patch of prairie grass in front of my house. These the images were taking utilizing natural lighting.

This image is of a monstrous wolf spider my friend caught the other day. This thing was HUGE! When we were taking pictures of this guy he jumped of the drop cloth and me and my friend jumped and screamed like little girls. My wife couldn't stop laughing at us. Finally the spider (and us) chilled out long enough to pull off some images. Image was taken using 2 studio strobe lights.

There are some small creatures that look rather cute close up (like the above wolf spider). On the other hand there are some freaky creatures that look outright evil. Check out the below spider from my garden. This guy looks like he would be straight from a horror movie.

2010-07-15T19:42:00.000-07:00

Last night we had a few storms in Papillion. After the first storm everything turned orange and we had this full rainbow behind my house. I started noticing that the storm was still going behind the rainbow. I grabbed my camera and started shooting away. I was able to pull the image below off holding the camera and eye balling when the lighting was hitting.

After I took that shot I went to the front of my house to see an amazing sunset. There was two problems. The first was that there was not a good vantage point for a landscape at my current position. The second was that we had lost the power in the neighborhood and I could not get my car out of the garage. Looking down the street I noticed my buddy had his sons car out in the road. So me, him and another friend grabbed our cameras and took of to Walnut Creek Recreational area where I had just enough time to nab the middle shot.

After the sun went down we stuck around taking lighting shots in the dark, see the last photo. It was pretty impresive. The bummer was when we got home we still had no power so we were unable to work on our photos until the next day. Hope you enjoy the shots as much as I did taken them.

2010-07-01T11:01:00.001-07:00

Over the last weekend my dad and I decided to skip town and photograph the burrowing owls of western Kansas. After a 6 hour car ride we discovered that the owls were not where they were the previous year. So we hopped back into the car for another hour to another location we have been researching. Well regretfully the owls were not there either. Instead of searching another day for the illusive owls we decided it would be best if we switched our focus to landscapes. About an hour away from our current location was the Chalk Pyramids. This is a rock formation that was left over from a vast inland sea. The first two images below are from there. We waited at this location for about 5 hours until we had the perfect light for the pictures below. I have also included several other images from my trip as well.

2010-05-25T06:23:00.000-07:00

Recently I have been working on a project for Thanksgiving Lutheran Church. They have asked me to get some images for their web page. This is one of my favorite images from the project. If any of you have been to this building you know that it is rather large. I had difficulty fitting the whole building into the image. Even with the 5D (full sensor) body and a 17mm lens I could not fit everything in one frame. To solve this dilemma I took six images and stitched them together in CS3. I love the colors that the artificial lights give the structure and how the clouds add a dramatic element to the picture.

Nebraska Crossing Show

2010-05-24T09:11:00.000-07:00

About a month ago I was approached to do a show with a couple of other local artist. The main purpose of the show was to share our work with local businesses. It went off great and I made a few good contacts as well as met several great artist. This was actually the first time I showcased some of my my color work so it was very exciting. The work is still up and can be viewed any time at the Nebraska Crossing Outlet Malls near Gretna.

Sandhill Cranes Part 2

2010-03-29T22:01:00.000-07:00

Here are a few more images of the Sandhill Cranes. I took more of an artistic license with these using minor adjustments during RAW conversion to give a more dramatic look.

Sandhill Cranes

2010-03-28T16:30:00.000-07:00

Last Friday a group of friends and I went to Kearney Nebraska to take pictures of the Sandhill Cranes. We piled in the car at 3:30 in the morning for the 2 hour trip. Though we should have all taken naps on the way down none of us could sleep because of the anticipation of the day that was to come. We arrived at where we were going to take our morning pictures at about 5:30. It was still dark out and we could hear the cranes all around us.

Regretfully there were not as many cranes on the Platte compared to my previous years here. The good news was that the birds were more active this year. They danced and played with corn stalks for us all morning. This is my favorite time to photograph them because when they are dancing it really brings out their personality. As the day moved into the afternoon the birds became really jumpy. So much so that they would fly off the moment they saw our car. We decided that this would be the best time to take a lunch break. After we filled our stomachs with some good barbecue we jumped back into the car for 6 more hours of shooting.

This day I tried out a 400mm 2.8 L Series lens with a 2.0 teleconverter. This gave me on my 20D about a 1200mm lens. The lens was considerably bigger and heavier than my 100-400mm L Series that I primarily use. So much so that I had to use a tripod for ever shot. Even though it was more cumbersome and time consuming to use I loved the lens. It offered superior optics and it was really really fast. If you ever get a chance to try out this lens I would recommend you jump on it, you will not regret it.

Here are a few shots from the day. I will be posting some more later this week so stay tuned.

2010-03-13T17:05:00.000-08:00

This weekend a friend and I went looking for some new camera bags. We were looking for bags that would be suitable for backpacking and camping. Personally I prefer the traditional shoulder bag for backpacking. This is for several reasons. First this frees my back for caring my other supplies such as camping gear. Secondly it provides for easy access to my equipment. And finally it provides for arm support, which comes in handy when you are caring a large zoom lens on a all day hike.

While we were looking we started talking about backpacking in the Badlands of South Dakota. This is one of my favorite places to photograph. It offers a variety of landscape types including deserts and prairies. Along with the varied landscapes there is a plethora of animal species in this region. I have seen everything from foxes and coyotes to buffalo and porcupines here. Surprisingly to my dismay, I have not found any rattle snakes yet. Maybe this will be the year I get some shots off of a rattler. There is nothing I love more than to park my car off in this remote region and backpacking for several days. Over the years I have taken thousands of images in these hills and prairies here are a few for your viewing pleasure. These were taken with a Canon 10D, 20D and 5D bodies.

2010-03-02T17:54:00.000-08:00

Well having had some down time lately, I decided to start going through my image banks to see if there were any hidden images that were forgotten about. In doing so I took a different perspective with looking at the images. Previously I have been primarily a B&W landscape photographer. With this mindset I ignored the color qualities of my images and basically looked for images that held potential for a B&W composition. So with going through my old work again I switched my mindset and started looking for pieces that would make nice color images. This brought about about a great moment of discovery for me. Forcing myself to look at my images in a different way made me notice images that I would have otherwise neglected. Here are a few of those images.

All of these pictures were taken with a 5D and Canon 17-40mm lens. There were no filters used, so the color you see are a good representation of what I saw while taking the pictures. The only alterations to the images were basic adjustments done during RAW conversion in CS3.

2010-02-23T12:48:00.000-08:00

I am currently working with a mission team from Thanksgiving! Lutheran Church in Bellevue to purchase and ship drilling equipment to Southern Sudan. Our hopes are to aid the people in this region in drilling wells so they have a constant supply of safe drinking water. The theme of our mission is "Living Water". Simply put we are trying to bring living water to these people in Sudan who vitally need it. My role in the mission group is to provide graphic, video and photography support.

Recently I have been tasked to design a label to be placed on 5 gallon water jugs for collection of donations. Going off this theme of Living Water I had the idea of water drops falling into a pool of water for the back ground of the image. I had a lot of fun with this one (though I kind of made a mess with the water). Here are a few of the images I came up with. The bottom image is the design I came up with for the water jug. All images were taken with a Canon 5D, 100mm 2.8 Canon macro lens and two strobe lights (though I utilized the model lights not the strobes).

2010-02-21T19:16:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend a buddy and I went out to take some pictures of deer. I brought him to a spot where I have always had good luck. We walked around for about an hour and did not see anything. We saw plenty of tracks but no deer. After a while we ran into a man walking his dog. He told us that right over the next hill was about thirty deer. We hurried our gear over to where the man pointed and there were indeed plenty of deer. Our count however was over fifty. Below is an image of a small cluster of dear centered around a tree. This is just a small portion of the deer, a majority of them were spread out on the sides of the frame. I also included a black and white landscape I took that day. All images were taken with a Canon 5D and a 100-400 mm Canon L Series lens.

2010-02-11T17:54:00.000-08:00

Over the last week my boys and I have been doing a little experimenting with table top macro photography. We tried several different techniques. The kids had a lot of fun with our creations. They referred to our experiments as making planets and galaxies. I thought it was awesome to see their faces light up when they saw the pictures I came up with. Here our a few of our creations.

2010-02-08T18:55:00.000-08:00

Well cabin fever is setting in and I am finding myself daydreaming about being out in the field taking pictures. Specifically I am dreaming about Sandhill Cranes. These magnificent birds will be coming to Kearney, Nebraska in a little over a month. I go here a few days every year to get images of the cranes. Last year I got some of my best photographs of the them. But photography is like a drug and when you get a solid image it just makes you want to take more. That is where I am at right now siting at my desk just itching to get my photography fix filled. Here are a few images of the cranes from last year. These images were all taken within a two hour interval. The last picture is my favorite. I had been trying for three years to get a solid image of a crane dancing and playing with corn stalks and I finally nailed one last year. I would love to hear your feedback on these images so let me know what you think.

Winter Shots

2010-01-18T10:31:00.000-08:00

This weekend a few friends and I went to Louisville to pick up a vintage refrigerator. While there we stopped by Louisville State Park for photos. Though the frost was not as good as it was on Friday it still was very beautiful out. Here are some of the images I came up with.

2010-01-14T17:52:00.000-08:00

Well over the Holidays I pretty much put my cameras down and spent most of my free time with the family. I did however take pictures of the kids. Here are a few of them. The first is of my oldest Tristan. I got the hat for him as a Christmas gift and he loved it so much he wore for 3 days straight. The next is of my youngest Landon. This is his 7 month picture. He is getting really good at sitting up on his own and crawling around everywhere.

2009-12-14T04:16:00.000-08:00

Last Friday a group of friends and I went to Squaw Creek in Missouri to take some pictures of eagles. Every year during the first two weeks of December bald eagles come to this location to fatten up on fish and geese before they finish their migration to Alaska. I have been coming here for the last three years, braving the frigid cold, trying to get a solid picture of an eagle in flight. Thus far I have been unsuccessful. I have many images of the birds in flight but there has always been something wrong with the shot. Usually the shots have been slightly out of focus or soft because of movement. It is rather difficult to get a tact on image of something moving when you are using a zoom lens. To add to the difficulty your lens sometimes focuses on other objects in the image such as branches. This year was different. This year I scored numerous choice shots. Here are a few.

2009-12-07T19:20:00.000-08:00

Well Pat and I had the opening of our show and it went great. Hot Shops was packed over the weekend. It seemed as if there was a nonstop flow of people coming into our gallery. At one time we even had a string quartet playing in our room. The best thing about the opening was the people I met. I made several new connections and ran into some old friends that I lost contact with.

It was amazing getting feed back on my work from so many people. I have learned more about my work and the people who view it in one weekend then I could have thought possible. For all of you who are thinking about doing a show, even if it is a small one, do it. There is nothing more fulfilling than to put your work on the walls to share.

Our show will be running until the end of December. If you are unable to go I have added the images from the show to my web site for everyone to see (www.mikecameronphotography.com).

2009-11-30T04:34:00.000-08:00

I spent the weekend with family in Southern Missouri. While there my father, uncle and I decided to do some night time photography. We went to an abandoned house that we have worked with in the past. This building sits in front of an old cemetery out in the middle of no where. While taking pictures we kept hearing scratching and banging coming from inside the house. We told ourselves that this was just animals running from our lights. But truth be told, this really did not calm our nerves (I have watched to many ghost hunting shows on T.V.). Well we did not see any ghost but we did get some good shots.

Other Images Part 3

2009-11-19T19:51:00.000-08:00

This image is from Fontenelle Forest in Bellevue. I had come here to walk
the forest with my boys. Giving the kids one of my old cameras they took
off to take their own pictures. While I was chasing after them this scene
caught my eye. The way the light highlighted the plants in the background
leaving the trees in the foreground a silhouette really intrigued me.

Other Images Part 2

2009-11-11T18:33:00.000-08:00

Here are a few images that I took at Monahans Sandhills State Park in Texas. This is a beautiful park. I took these at sunrise so there was a lot of nice light to work with. It was awesome how the wind made intricate tracts in the sand. These tracts added greatly to the composition of my images. What I really liked about this park was that the Dunes were not too large like other dune parks I've been to. I was able to really get into the dunes to get some nice images. I was going to print these images for the show but they did not retain the quality I needed when printed in large format. There will be other images from this park in the show.

Other Images Part 1

2009-11-08T20:57:00.000-08:00

With working on my show I have been to over 10 states and have taken thousands of images. With these I have been working on hundreds of images that will be cut down to about 30 final shots for the show. Instead of just hiding these other images in an obscure file on my hard drive for no one to see, I have decided to share some of these images on my blog. I will post images periodically from now to my show. These images will be the ones that I have worked on but for some reason I have decided to exclude from my show.

This first image was from Great Sand Dunes Start Park in Colorado. This was the first stop on a 5 day road trip I took to the four corners last winter. I was standing on a frozen creek bed. In the distance you can see the beginning of the Rockie Mountains and to the left you can see the edge of the sand dunes. The thing I remember most about this area was not the beautiful view but rather the multitude of fresh mountain lion tracks scattered all around me. When I saw these tracks part of me couldn't wait to see the animal so I could score a few choice shot, but that was just a small part. The majority of me wanted to gather my equipment and run before I became the snack of a hungry cat. Well I never saw a mountain lion but I did get a few decent pictures of the landscape.

2009-11-05T16:44:00.000-08:00

If you haven't heard I have been working on a show for about 6 months. This show will be featuring a lot of my latest black and white landscapes. My opening will be Saturday, December 5th, noon - 8 pm and Sunday, December 6th, noon - 5 pm. I will be at the gallery during these times. It will be at Hot Shops Art Center at 1301 Nicholas Street, in Omaha Nebraska and will be up all December long. Below is the poster I am making up for the show.

Candy Buy Back

2009-11-01T20:50:00.001-08:00

This Sunday I volunteered my services at Aesthetic & Family Dentistry in Bellevue (my father's practice). They were having a candy buy back event where kids could sell their unwanted candy from Trick or Treat'n. The candy will then be sent to our troops in the Middle East. My role was to take pictures of the children in their costumes. It was a fun day. There were lot of activities for the kids to do and everyone had a blast. Below are some images I took that day. The first three images were from the event. The last image was a fun shot I staged with the team before the event.

Wild Flowers

2009-10-22T19:40:00.000-07:00

I have had several people ask about what I do in post processing and why it is important. For me what you do with your image after the shutter has been opened is just as important as taking the initial image. Here is an image that I took in the southern part of the Bandlands in South Dakota. The first image is the straight Raw image without any conversion or enhancements. The next picture is the same image after Raw conversion and other Photoshop enhancements. I had to take the first image the way it was to guarantee that I had enough info to work with in the bright sky and in the darker flowers. If I exposed for the sky I would lose details in the flowers and if I exposed for the flowers the sky would be washed out. To solve the problem I metered for an exposure in between the sky and flowers, knowing that I could do a few adjustments in Photoshop. Keep in mind that I do not use Photoshop to fix bad images but rather I use my camera and Photoshop together to produced the image I pre-visualized before I opened the shutter.

2009-10-18T21:50:00.000-07:00

Over the last weekend I had a wedding to shoot. The wedding was a blast. We have done so much work for this family that my wife and I practically consider them family. The Ceremony and Reception were held at Bayliss Hall in Council Bluffs. This is a beautiful building. The wedding day started out cold and overcast but by the time the ceremony came the sun had come out. You could not have wished for a more perfect wedding. Below are a couple of images from that day.

I also had a senior session. I always enjoy these. This session went very well the subject was very excited to get her picture taken. Her enthusiasm made it very easy to get some awesome images. Here are a few of the images from my senior session.

2009-10-04T19:12:00.000-07:00

Well Saturday the family and I went to the Pedestrian Bridge connecting Omaha and Council Bluffs. I was hoping to get some images of the bridge and the river together with maybe the cityscape in the background. When we got to the bridge I found that the lighting was not the best for the image I had in my head. Instead of gong after a scenic landscape I decided to concentrate on the form of the bridge. While walking across it I found myself intrigued by the strong lines of the cables on the structure. I spent my whole time there looking up at these cables. These are some of the images I got.

2009-09-28T20:25:00.000-07:00

I have been taking a lot of grief lately because I have not taken 3 month pictures of my baby (Landon). I guess I deserve it, I have not been taking as enough pictures of him. He is a really cute boy and I’m already noticing him growing up too fast. It’s hard to believe that it was only 2 ½ months ago he was barely pushing 5 lb. He just seems like a different baby now with all his rolls. Anyways for my friend's and families' Landon fix, here are a few images I took this weekend. These were just some quick images using natural light.

My Blog

2009-09-26T22:13:00.000-07:00

I want to welcome everyone to my blog. Blogging is new to me but I feel that this is the best way to share what I am currently working on with everyone. With that in mind let me share what my last shoot was.

Last Friday a friend of mine (Pat Mingarellie) and I joined another local photographer, Jeff Bebee at River City Round Up for some charity work. Here we took images of handicapped children with professional rodeo cowboys. This was an awesome experience for me. I loved seeing how happy the children were with their cowboy mentors. Below is one of my favorite images from that day. I love how this kid carried his little teddy bear around and had him pose for the picture with him. With looking at the cowboys smile it was hard to tell who was having more fun, him or the child for whom the event was for. This was my first year doing the event but I will be back again next year.