Get back on your Horse

Next time you visit your local rodeo, make sure you take the camera! So many possibilities for photo exploration it's insane. Simply strap on a tight pair of wranglers with a nice belt buckle and head on out to see what you can find.

For this weeks personal shoot, I headed out with one camera body and a couple of lenses (fyi - don't leave your long glass at home). I ended up shooting most of the action with a 70-200mm and 1.4 TC. which gave me a fair amount of flexibility from where we were sitting. The rodeo started rather late (8pm), so I had to plan for high ISO if I wanted to stop the action at all. At least that's how my thought pattern started out...but it's usually at this point that I have a small epiphany and think to myself, "I wonder how it really feels to be a cowboy...man vs. beast...jumping on a bull ready to buck you off with the risk of all 2,000 pounds of weight landing on you. Or how about roping a cattle or wrestling a running steer to the ground as you abandon a perfectly good horse at about 30 mph?" That's what happened as it does often when shooting and I decided to leave the ISO around 200 or so and work on creating movement and emotion in the shots through a series of panning techniques and low shutter speeds.

Slow shutter starts now...




I would usually trash this shot due to lots of out of focus areas, but I love the story it tells with the white sock.

Backyard Jam Session.

Bands do it all the time. You know, call up the buddies for a little jam session in the garage. So tonight after getting the little munchkin into bed, it was out to the backyard to catch the the fading sunset and spend a few minutes behind the camera with a tilt/shift. The jam session consists of looking for something you've never seen before in a location you know really well, the backyard in this case. If the photo mice are resting on the job as of late, this will get them back on track in a hurry...

...looking for lines and lots room for ad space :-)

Seriously, who needs an exotic trip to the Swiss Alps for new subject matter?? - (okay, just kidding, let's go!) - Well at least until gasoline drops back to the price of a King Size Snickers just step to the backyard and look around.

Projects. Projects. Projects

Always have a project in the works... (sounds simple, right?)

For me, personal projects are like the roots of a tree. Visit them often enough with a little water and they'll keep the rest of the tree alive and happy. Here is a sneak peek at what's in the personal pipeline...

• "Fire" - exploring the warm light (see pic below)
  
• "Vision of Earth" - New website and gallery launching soon!
  
• "In our backyard" - Exploration of local humanitarian efforts
  
• "Size me up" - Where will the little guy sit next?
  

Start your personal project today. C'mon, it will only take a minute! What would you work on right now if money, time and all other restraint were completely gone? (dream for a minute)

Make a list. Pick one. Set a date. Behold the birth of creativity.

blogging official

Blogging at 3:30 a.m. ::: not usually recommended
(However, the blog must officially launch by the 4th of July, so no time for sleep!)

After I recover, this will be an open forum for free thinking and artistic communication!

I expect some serious participation from ya'll including lot's of questions and discussion! I'll be posting some recent work here for your critique or simply to spark a conversation.