A humbling experience...

i think that its Gods hobby to humble me, and rightfully so since i can get a pretty big head at times. so last night i went to shoot a water polo game, my brothers wife helps to coach the team so he told me it would be a good learning experience. i thought it would be a piece of cake!!! i mean what could be so hard about shooting people in a pool? yeah i was wrong yet again.....the game was at night, it was hard to get good vantage points, and on and on the list went. Suffice it to say it was a nice challenge and while i didnt walk away with amazing photos i still managed to get a few decent shots. hopefully ill get to try again soon, i will say this much though, my hat goes off to the photographers that can shoot this sport well. most importantly though i had fun doing it and learn some stuff and that s all that matters.

New additions to the collection.....

aka i gots new toys....so my 80-200mm 2.8 had a little accident the other day. the focus limiter switch was torn off somehow, i have no clue how it happened but i looked down and just about fainted when i saw that the switch was gone. now i know youre probably asking yourself "whats the big deal about some stupid switch?" well the switch sits at the front of the barrel and with it gone i can see straight into the lens barrel and right behing the 1st glass element. of course this happened a week before i needed to use it for a shoot.......figures. i knew that i wouldnt get it back in time if i sent it in, so it was time to get the back up lens that i have been meaning to get. i bought the Nikon 70-200 2.8 AF-S VR man thats a mouth full. yeah its basiclly the same lens, bt i use my 80-200 so much that i needed a back up in case it went down. the new lens is incredible!!!! i love it, it has the silent wave motor in it so it focuses super fast and the VR (vibration reduction) is really cool. i can shoot handheld at 200mm at a 15th of a second and still get a good shot.......AWESOME!!!! i am such a nerd i tells ya!! second item i bought was the Gary Fong lightsphere, i have been reading a lot about these and seeing them all over the net i figured "why not" its a pretty cool little diffuser and the light just goes everywhere.......ok ive said enough heres some pics of the lovely rig.

Sorry.....

For the lack of posting everyone, if you dont know already i have a MySpace dedicated to Flux Photography. I have various blogs on there that focus on different aspects of my photography. I recently posted some city stuff that i had shot a while back but just recently got around to working on. If you have kept up with this blog then a lot of those pictures will look familiar, but you should check it out anyways and see if you can catch anything new. If you have a MySpace then send me a friend request, i would love to have you on the friends list. I will update this soon i promise..............

Chillin with Mr. Curtis Baker......

So right now im helping a HS student with his Senior Project, he decided to do photography as his project and asked me if i could show him some different techniques. I of course said yes cus it sounded like fun, plus Curtis and i go way back to the days when i was a counselor for 5th grade camp ( yeah i know, parents actually trusted me with their kids...scary ) and he was a student. We went to shoot a wrestling match at Vista HS, i had never shot the sport so it was fun to try something new. After that we went to Oside Harbor and did some night shooting, it was fun to do something i love and pass on some of the knowledge. It was fun to hang out with Curtis and just chill and talk while we waited for the camera to finish doing its thing and just be able to catch up and see how hes doing.........hes a cool guy. Looking forward to the next time we do this, the following shots are mine. I will post his wrestling shots later when we get together to process them, but i will post his night shots in this post. Sooooooo heres they are. Enjoy!!!!










The image below is a 3 minute exposure with my D70 resting on a rock and me holding the shutter lease button the ENTIRE TIME!!!! it was the longest 3 minutes of my life......thats what i get for not buying an extra shutter release cable.....

and now ladies and gentlemen....i give you Curtis Baker.......

Ominous weather.....

How cool is this weather?!?! Woke up today and saw all the dark clouds and that there had been some rainfall and immediately took off. Continued the blue experiment today, and shot pretty much everything at 2500k, it makes for some dark and cold feeling pictures. Ive also been playing around with my Speedlights, its great that they are wireless and i can put them just about anywhere and control the output right from the cameras menu. While im nowhere near mastering the technique of using multiple strobes its fun to experiment and learn new stuff. With all these dark clouds hanging around i love doing long exposures to show some movement in the images.......what does all this mean? It means that i had a BLAST!!! Not all of the pictures from today will be in blue, i converted some to B&W but i will post the alternate ones tomorrow probably. Well thats all for now, heres the shots from today, and remember that bad weather makes for better pictures. Enjoy!!





This is the alternate "blue" shot

A trip to the bank....

Had to go to the bank today, so i decided to take some of the gear along. It was overcast all day so it wasnt to exciting, i kept hoping for some breaks in the clouds but no such luck. It was a little cold though so i decided to give the pics a little "mood" and set my white balance to 2500 K. Didnt have any set agenda so i was just experimenting really......thats why i only got 3 pictures that i liked. So here they are. Enjoy!!

Michael and Nellie....

So towards the end of last year ( yeah i know this one is long overdue) my friend Michael Chan got hitched to his lovely bride Nellie Roth. Making him Mr. Roth..............err i mean.......Mr. & Mrs Chan......yeah thats what i meant to say. Anywho, I have known Michael for a long time now and we have an interesting relationship. It usually consist of insulting each other and somehow that has made a bond between us. So i had the pleasure of being invited to the wedding, and it was such a cool wedding to go to. First of all everything about the wedding was perfect, there was a lot of attention paid the little details and secondly this was the 1st wedding that i had been able to just attend with my wife. While i wasnt there in an official capacity i still brought some gear and managed to get some photos, and towards the end of the reception there was a special surprise. Michael and some of his buddies performed the "dance" to the song A Million Ways by Ok Go and it was flawless, i had to stay out of the way of the pros shooting the wedding so i didnt have the greatest vantage point. Still, i manged to get some shots off, and now ill shut my mouth and leave you with some photos. Enjoy.