Best Laid Plans

Well, I was going to "live blog" from the last wedding I did on Friday night. BUT a rapidly forming thunder storm kinda changed the plans. Instead of taking our time snapping shots we had about 5 minutes that were rain free. We did what we could. Here is on one of the shots.
Michael and Shanique were great, even as the chairs were being blown away
and the table linens were tossing fine china through the air, they remained calm.
I know of a few brides that would have blown there tops.

Getting Ready

So I spent a portion of the day getting the gear ready for a wedding tomorrow. You never realize just how many batteries it takes to get you through an entire wedding. I'm going to to give the new iPhone a test drive with live mobile blogging. I'll try to post a blog about half way through the wedding with some pictures snapped with the phone. We'll see what happens. .

Here's a shot from a wedding a few months ago

This little guys was a trooper!

f3.2 , 1/320 , ISO 100

Quick little picture for tonight.
Have a good night everyone!

Photo Tip Tuesday "Rule of thirds"

I'm going to start a new series on the blog.

Every Tuesday I'll post a blog about various photo tips. Most tips can be used on any kind of camera from a simple disposable film camera (if anyone still uses them) to a $25,000 medium format camera.

Today's tip is about composition.

The "rule of thirds" is a guide to help photographers easily compose a pleasing more interesting image. If you look in various magazines or around the web you will find plenty of examples of this "rule".

The idea behind this, is that if you place the main subject in one of the intersecting points or along the lines that your photo becomes more balanced and will enable a viewer of the image to interact with it more naturally

The easiest way to remember this, is picture a tic-tac-toe board through your viewfinder or on your LCD display.

(A side note most digital cameras have an option to turn on a "grid" that will be displayed on your LCD screen to help you align your image).

Now that your imaging a tic-tac-toe board, place the main object that your trying to take a picture of in one of the intersecting points.


For an end result of


Another point to remember is to have your subject moving into the frame or looking into the frame, it will give the subject a sense of movement.

Give it a try the next time you head out to take some shots. Leave a comment below if you think this was helpful or if you have a specific topic you would like covered.

Boston by Sea

Off we go for a ferry ride from Salem to Boston aboard the Salem Ferry.
For those unfamiliar with this ferry, its a large and very stable high speed catamaran that takes riders on a 45 minute ride from the North Shore into Boston Harbor. The stable ride enables you to get some great shots of the Boston skyline.

This shot was from about a quarter mile out into the harbor. I made sure to get this shot on the way into the harbor to avoid any wake in the image and I got lucky that there were no other boats in the foreground for this shot. (I would probably move if I saw this behemoth of a ship coming at me.) Image info : 1/250, f7.1, ISO 160, 28mm, PP with PS-LR2

Guess who got a new iPhone?

I did!
A little happy birthday gift to myself. This is one heck of a phone and a camera. They always say "the best camera, is the one you have with you". Here are some of the first shots with the new phone.

A little macro shot of a leaf.

My oldest. The light coming through the trees was awesome.



My youngest swimming. Another chance with great light. The sun was bouncing off a white garage wall. Makes for a one huge light box.

Zues Calendar Shoot

I was asked to take a few photos for the Grey2K calendar for 2010. Please contact Grey2K for information on adoption. My mother has been a great supporter for this organization. She has adopted several grey hounds that have been "put out to pasture" after there no use to the race handlers anymore. Many of these dogs are simply "put down" unless they are adopted. The calendar is a fund raiser for the organization.