I took my first picture with the moon hovering above St. Regis Resort and Spa in Monarch Beach. As the day progressed, what unfolded before my eyes was awe inspiring. Everything was perfect as a picture book wedding should be. Congratulations to Charlize and William. And thank you for giving me this wonderful opportunity.
While in Vegas, I took the kids with me to find an interesting place to photograph vistas. Frankly, there were not many places I could find. Luckily we stumbled upon a park in a community called Anthem. This was such a cool park, one you won’t see in California. This was a public park but what made this interesting is that it has a small water park. All I had to do was hit the start button and water begins drenching out of these fantastic fun sculptures. Three buckets of water collect on atop one of them and as soon as they are full will drop bombs of water to whomever is standing right below. Water squirts from the ground, a serpentine snake gushes out a waterfall from it’s mouth (and tail). Shepard and Harrison was sooooo much having fun. Here are a few shots I took.
There are some challenges to photographing a sporting event among those are knowing where to point your camera where the action is. But there are those little things that can get in the way of you getting the shot you want. First off, lights. Is there enough of it? In this softball game, the sun was setting low and the park lights hasn’t kicked in yet. Easy enough to compensate by turning up the ISO to about 1600. Yes, you’ll get grain, but this is softball not portraiture. But there was another factor, I had to shoot through a chain link fence. I wasn’t allowed to be on the field so the next best thing is shooting just outside of the openings. But that gets you only some of the shots, so I had to focus between the chain links to get the others. Focus is a big problem here because even though I set my lens to manual to avoid lens erroneously focusing on the fence, nothing beats the speed of autofocus to get the shot fast. I used a 70-200 f/2.8L with a 2x II converter for these shots. So my lowest aperture setting was at f/5.6. That’s a bit too small for light to come in through the barrel. The Samy’s salesperson told me that 2x converter on a 70-200 would not be a good idea. But I told him I was going to shoot sports, then he changed his mind. He was right, it’s good enough for sport photography (as long as there is enough light). But I do agree, it’s not as clear without it. But nonetheless, this is practice to keep up with the game and what’s going on and overcoming the challenge of minor things that keep you from getting the right shots. I missed quite a few action shots on this game that I wish I had gotten. But overall, if you can’t get those shots, there’s always the before action shots or I call beauty shots.
While visiting my brothers Francis and Apollo in Vegas I decided to try out a different approach to flash photography. Mind you, I’m only experimenting and these shots are simply point and shoot with a little tweaking of the exposure to get the effect I was after. It was late in the day where the sun was about 35 degrees from the horizon. Colors at this stage of the day are more saturated. Shadows are longer and stronger. I opted to underexpose the scene by first taking a picture of the environment (without the subject) at a normal exposure. Then I stopped down -2 to get a feel of how much underexposure I wanted but still get detail in the shadows. On a Canon 5D, this is very achievable. Then the flash is turned on. I used a Canon Speedlite 580EX II for these shots. Then it was time to get my victims. I had my family pose at different places in the back yard. I actually liked these shots because it gives a sense of surreal look to it. I set the shutter at 125th of a sec. The aperture was set between f/13 – f/16. This is important to achieve greater dept of field but also import so that the subjects don’t get washed out from the strong flash. I also positioned the subjects in direct sunlight and made sure that the background were also in direct sunlight. This will not work in shadows as you would only get darkness in the background. So position them in the well lit areas as well as making sure the background is too. I took the photos and only increase or decrease the aperture to suite my taste. I didn’t have to make changes to flash settings. Overall, if the lighting situation doesn’t change, I could theoretically take the photos on the same settings to get accurate exposure, however, in different spots of the scene light isn’t so consistent. So I still needed to make minor adjustments to exposure, aperture, as well as flash settings since distance from the subject is also a variable.
It was a real treat for me to join Joanie and Patrick for lunch on board Ticket to Play. It is Patrick’s boat anchored off the Long Beach marina on Shoreline Village Dr. This boat is literally a condo on water. It’s got a kitchen, guest rooms, lots of living space like the deck where we had lunch. Overall a perfect place for a photo shoot. And Sunday was a perfect day to photograph too. It was cloudy with patches of blue sky. Joanie and Patrick were perfect hosts, as they served lunch while I photographed them doing what they normally do. Maggie, their Retriever, is very much at home on the water. She lounged around and even took a ride on the small boat. I couldn’t ask for anything better than to spend time with really good friends, really good food, and a very photogenic couple. But to my surprise, things got even better. The sky got darker as a small storm was approaching. This made for even more dramatic lighting and dramatic photos. Unbelievably, only a small amount of rain fell. I took tons of shots, but here are my favorites. I hope Joanie, Patrick and Maggie likes them. Thanks for a wonderful time! Click here to see more photos.
On August 9th I attended a multi region chamber of commerce mixer. This was pretty big because almost all of San Gabriel Valley Chamber members attended. In all there were hundreds who attended this mega networking event at the NHRA Museum at the Fairplex in Pomona. What is interesting about this location are the cars on display from hot rods to race cars to motorbikes. A real treat for the car enthusiast as well as non enthusiast. I mean I really wish I could own one of these beauties. What is striking about these cars is the attention to detail put into the restoration. What caught my interest were the dashboards in these cars. It’s like a work of art that transcends time. It almost seems futuristic. You’ll see what I mean when you get a look at it for yourself. Click on the images to see a slide show. Thanks for looking.
I shot some photos of a house in San Dimas which will be used for a wedding location by Carl’s Cajun Catering. This location has a large beautiful back yard with pool, jacuzzi and a gazebo. Carl Wilson, the owner of the catering company, will post these photos on his website (www.calrscajuncatering.com). Carl is hosting a bridal show on October 27th at the Corona Heritage Park, where I’ll have a booth for my photography business. I will post detail about the bridal show as it becomes available.
Hi, I just recently updated my portfolio with the latest photo book. I had made this book for Connie for Mother’s Day. I can’t take all the credit in making this book because I had help from my two sons Shepard and Harrison. They’re two of the main characters in this book. Connie was really pleased because it contains photos of all the places we have taken our kids. I think she really liked it because once in a while I would see her sitting on her favorite chair curled up with this book. So go check it out, click on the photo book itself and it will take you to a slide show. Thanks for looking.
As I was passing by a beautiful stretch of desert on the way to Vegas I spotted puffy white clouds across the deep blue sky and I thought how it would make a great desert shot. I was determined to find an exit and could hardly wait to start photographing. I came upon an exit called
