I'm on top of the world, looking down on creation

Yep! I did it, after years of not being able to get back up to the in-laws house for the Holidays Tina and I set off on our great adventure. We decided to drive from Maryland so a certain four legged creature of ours could come along on the trip. The drive took a long time but went swimmingly. We got to the Phillips house on Saturday evening and exchanged our Christmas gifts. Sunday was a bit of a down day with Church in the morning, and then nothing major that afternoon. We called it an early night because "This van will be leaving our house promptly at 6:00 AM Monday Morning. That's right, Mr. Phillips had planned a ski trip. We headed to Stratton Lodge in Vermont. The complex there is amazing, multiple lifts, a gondola, and many buildings that different paths lead to. It was VERY cold, it was -1 when we arrive and hovered between 0 and 10 degrees all day.

Luckily I was rather warm all day as we were bundled down in gear nice and snug. After doing some little paths, a few slows and what not we decided that it was time to head to the top of the mountain. The gondola right to the top actually took awhile and as this small enclosure we were in got farther and farther to the top my confidence in my skills was lacking.   By the time we go to the top of the mountain I was worried that I would never again see my great state of Maryland. But to be serious the view of the mountains and Vermont was fantastic. Given that we had just had lunch I was nice and full and we began out trail to the bottom. The first time we took a longer winding green that afforded us multiple picture opportunities. The hardest part about shooting in this environment was keeping my lens clear and keeping the camera in one piece. Luckily Tina decided that she felt confident that she would not fall and opted to take the camera. In fact the picture your looking at to the right was taken by her!

Check out these trees at the top of the Mountain!

The day progress without me taking too many falls, and overall I was able to hold my own but but the time the afternoon had set in fatigue was setting in. Having gone past it once before Tina decided to shoot some video of this awesome slope that as built under a bridge. So I proudly present, me skiing.

Pier 5 - The Tasting!

Okay, so if anyone who knew me and my wife read this blog and you asked them about us and the things you read here they would not be surprised to tell you that were random, fun, energetic people who jump head first into all things we do. Tina accepted my proposal on December 26th 2008, and let me tell you have I have never been happier.  What a great year 2008 was, however come December 26th 2009 we still had no place to get married, no plans, no dress, no invitation, not even an announcement. Our families never ended up throwing us an engagement party and by the end of that year we were thinking that we would be engaged forever. Now don't get me wrong it was never for a lack of trying, we had visited thousands of places, Tina may have tried on every dress in the Tri-State area but looking back on our wedding when its not right its not right. In January of 2010 I started a new job, and that put an even bigger hamper on things happening for us. Until we found Pier 5 in Baltimore.


Fitting very snuggly on the Harbor and inside our budget it was a great place to get married. The view was fantastic, the staff enjoyable. It was a hotel, it was a ceremony ground, and it was a reception all in one. What we had left to do was taste the food we were preparing to spend an enormous amount of money on. Never fear, we booked the place in February and the "Wedding Blitz" began. Come May almost everything was on cool down mode when we went in for our tasting in hand. Having just got my T2i a few days earlier of course the camera was in hand to grab pictures.  It was a dream day, could not have asked for better weather and in reality, it was really exciting because it served as a prelude for what to come. We were sat down by our coordinator and began to iron out the specific details, she showed us all sorts of dishes and she sat us down and we began to indulge ourselves in some of the most fantastic food we've ever had. The crab cakes (pictured above) were some of the best I personally have ever had and in sitting in the heart of Baltimore Harbor I would not expect less.

What I had not realized going into this was that there would be so many decisions that needed to be made that day. If we were to do it all again I really would have asked for a cheat sheet so that we could go in with some answers. I think in that two hour session with Pier 5 we made about 70% of the decisions for the wedding. Everyone goes into the wedding knowing that they want a cake but when presented with 30 different cakes picking out the "perfect" one can lead to a prolonged argument. We spent most of that morning picking out napkin styles and what types of wine we wanted and in what order we wanted things server. The picture to the right is what we finally decided on, yes we had a conversation about what folding of napkin we wanted. Needless to say my my Dad and I were enjoying the food and the drinks while Mom and Tina worked out the fine details. I don't want to sound uninterested but in reality Dad and I could only argue about the color of the tablecloth for so long.

After it was all said and done we all headed outside and took a look at where we (less than a month from then) would be getting married. Shooting in this light was a little difficult but I was able to get some of my favorite pictures perhaps ever of my future bride. She just looked so calm and in control that day. Which considering everything we had done was surprising because of all of the decisions we had made. Needless to say, a lovely May day.

As Always I would LOVE some comments people. I see the hits your leaving, I know your here. Say Hi!

HDR - High Dynamic Fun in Washington DC

I read quite a few photography blogs and the more I do the more I find photographic techniques that I would really appreciate being able to try. Having seen HDR photography years ago I have always been fascinated by the idea that you can take three independent photos shot at very different EV compositions and combine them into one incredible photo. Being that we live about 40 minutes from our nations capitol I figured that a trip into DC would be the perfect chance to take some HDR photographs. Taking them can vary from camera to camera but I was able to find an excellent guide on how to configure the Rebels to automatically change the exposure in between shots. This allows you to take the three shots quickly, and reduces the risk that the camera will move in between shots (which ruins the photo). That being said, I would not recommend attempting this without a tripod, seriously you need one.

Tina agreed to accompany me down to DC for the day with the explicit understand that this was a photography trip. We started the day out with almost no plan, we went to the Washington Monument and got alot of really great shots there and then continued to wander about the city setting up some fine HDR shots. Tina and I were engaged at the base of the Capital building so DC has a special fondness for us.

So let me start by showing you my favorite of the bunch, I am going to upload all three of the original images and then upload the changed. This image is perhaps the best of the bunch at showing the power of HDR.

 

So as you can see from the top three image we have an underexposed, a properly exposed, and an over exposed. What this allows you to get the best of all images, in the underexposed image you get great quality of image in the Lincoln Memorial. In addition you get great blues. In the properly exposed image you get the green of the grass and the color of the dirt path that you would expect. Finally in the over exposed image the detail of the tree is incredible. This is unseen in the previous two images and it leaves you with a wonderful image. To my luck the woman in the right third of the image was not posing for me, she was trying to take a picture of the Washington Monument and was holding really still, I set this up and just snapped away.

Final Product:

HDR Image of the Lincoln Memorial

As you can the see the end result is quite pleasing as every single part of the image is properly exposed. This is information that the human eye cannot physically see. This is why I love it. The sky is so blue and all of the colors just pop! Its HDR baby!

So the next information that people typically ask is how do you do HDR? I would recommend the HDRsoft suite, its simple to use, elegant and interfaces beautifully with Aperture. A great walkthrough can be found here.

Looking from the Lincoln Memorial.

Let me show you a few more I took, the first is a view from the Lincoln Memorial looking down at the Washington Monument. The funny part about this picture is your not allowed to use a tripod on the Lincoln Memorial without getting a permit to do professional shooting. Yes, we were told by a department of Park Services employee that my $19.99 Dynex tripod from Best Buy (classy I know) was considered professional photography equipment. Being that I am one that always gets what I want I harassed the guard a little more and he finally told me that if the tripod touches the ground I can get arrested. So using my two feet and one of my wives I ensured that the tripod was not touching the ground, it was touching my feet and we took the pictures. The guard was none too happy but I feel in the deepest part of my heard that he enjoyed the loophole.

Next we have one of my personal favorites of all time, this one is the of the WWII Memorial's the cost of freedom. Personally, I love the WWII memorial, it has everything, but this wall is perhaps the moment where you remember that WWII claimed over 300,000 American Lives and this wall goes on and on and on. I love was HDR was able to do to the reflection of the pool, the depth of the stars, and not to get too sentimental it represents all that these brave young men were willing to put on the line for the cost of freedom. And while future generations have taken their sacrifice fore granted I hope that this image shows those brave souls that their cause was meaningful.

So that is HDR, I would recommend that anyone try it and see what results you get. 

As Always Leave Comments!

Product Review: Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Lens Review

For this post I am going to review the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 lens. Called the "nifty fifty" this lens is one of the most versatile lenses of my glass arsenal. I find that I get into very few situations where I am reaching for other lenses while I have this attached. For all but one of the pictures on my blog so far I have used the nifty fifty and its the lens that is most often attached to my camera. The lens is a prime lens (see definition here) it lacks any zoom, or rather you just have to use your focus to adjust what part of what you are seeing is in focus. I was told once that if your eye was a lens, it would be about 50 mm and so you have to think of it like your eye, no zoom, just focus.

Upside - When I was looking for lenses for my new camera I started reading reviews and looking at the price. Having used one of these gems for another camera before I knew I liked the portrait capabilities of the 50mm. However I had no idea how much I was was going to enjoy this lens. The best feature in my opinion and on of the main reasons that you would want to use this lens is the f stop of 1.8. Practically what this allows you to do is shoot movement in low light. I have found countless places (night time, clubs, basements) where a f/3.5 (which is fairly standard) would simply not allow me to capture moving subjects without doing an exposure time approaching 1 second.
In addition this lens is LIGHT it weighs nothing when attached to the camera so when carrying it around for hours on end you pretty much will not notice the weight of the lens. Lets be frank here, this lens never leaves my bag, I hate letting people borrow it, I hate letting people touch it, it is my favorite lens. Period. The other upside to this lens is PRICE, with an MSRP of about $100 USD this lens is by far one of the cheapest and best investments you can make early in your photography career.
In addition what I really appreciate about this lens is you can get a taste of what not only prime lenses have to offer, but if you like the f/1.8 you can get the 1.4 for about $400 and if you fall in love with that and are making boat loads of money you can get the 1.2 for a little over $1400. Canons next prime lenses other than the f/1.8 are all over 500 so for $1000 its a steal.

Downside - Okay lets start with some practical stuff, for $100 your getting an all plastic (minus the optics) lens. So no metal boot and from what I have heard the lens is quite fragile. While I have never dropped it, after reading these reviews I actually keep the lens in the box in my camera bag. Most of my other lenses just get a cloth container but this one kept its box. In addition I was not pleased that this (and no other entry level canon lenses) come with a lens hood. Its something that after getting too many pictures washed out by sunlight I went ahead and purchased on Amazon and I have not regretted. In addition this lens is quite noise when going from Macro to Infinity but since most of my photography takes place outdoors I had never really noticed it till an portrait shoot. When manually focusing as well this lens's small ring can become a hassle. I will tell you this, the downsides are outweighed by the versatility.

In review, I would recommend this for anything but intermediate shooting, because the lens has no zoom because its a prime lens, and I don't shoot full frame there is a bit of a magnification that takes place and this can make it difficult to get large subjects completely in the image without being quite a bit back. But for all other shooting this lens pays dividends. At 100 dollars you really can't beat the price of the lens and its versatility, f 1.8 and since it weights nothing on your camera or in your bag I would consider it one of the first pieces of glass you should purchase

Pushing up Daisies

Okay, so there are stories behind every photo I take, some interesting others not so much. In reality this post is more about looking at the pictures and less about the story. My mother had one of her coworkers living with her for a few weeks before she moved to Australia. As a thank you she got my Mom this flower, I think its a Gerber Daisy. I first saw it the morning before my bachelor party, liked it and decided to take a few photos of it. The first photo I took was this one, I liked the angle and since she had it outside I got the nice horizontal lines of our house in the picture. I don't know why this flower was so appealing to me but I really enjoyed taking some photos of it that day. 

The next morning after some rain showers (and some money showers at my Bachelor Party) I was back outside getting some fresh air. Once again I had my camera and noticed that a nice droplet set had settled in on the flower. I snapped my final photo which, to this day is one of my most requested, and admired photos. I have read a lot of places that most photographers keep a water mister in their bag for instance where they want to add droplets and I am proud of the fact that mother nature did all of this herself, I just captured the moment. These photos really show off the power of the "nifty fifty" to give great bokeh (see definition here) as well as how fine the lens is. The colors I was able to get out of this flower are increadible and I was very pleased with this image.

Let me know what you think by leaving comments!

WEB SITE: Peter Lik - An Aussie with an Eye

I think I may try to once a week hunt down a website or a post that will really help your photography. This week I would like to introduce you to Peter Lik. Peter Lik is a world renowned photographer who specializes in landscape photography. While Tina and I were on our honeymoon we got the unique pleasure of wandering into his Key West gallery. Having no idea who he was at the time we decided to wander into the gallery. The photo that he had on display was the four foot version of "Tree of Life". I was breathless. That night we went to Braza Lena in Key West, who also had his work on display. Eating in this environment surrounded by his inspiring work was a joy and worth the price of the meal (which was also good).  Peter is an astonishing photographer, and has a keen eye for showing you a side of nature that we might overlook. He has a show that is going to be on the Weather Channel about his photography this fall. His blog, located here has decided as a "New Years Resolution" to try to give DAILY updates about photography, Peter, and their galleries. I really enjoyed their pieces on taking high contrast photography and shooting in the cold. That's my site for this week. If you enjoy his photography and have NOT been to his site your missing out. Let me know what you think of the website by leaving comments!

If you did not see the embedded hyperlink the website is here:
http://blog.peterlik.com/

A Streetcar named Desire



The rusty pull leaver of a street car
designed to clear snow off the tracks.

 More and more as I being to enjoy my photograpgy I find that I want to bring my camera equipment with me everywhere. I find that some days I even consider taking it to work "just in case". Halloween was no exception this year. As the wife and I have been really looking to get a dog and we were headed into Baltimore to go to a few dog pounds. I honestly cannot explain why  I took my camera with me that day, all I know is that the bare essentials, Camera and one lens. That day I took my T2i and my 50mm f1.8 "Nifty Fifty" and as we drove to the first shelter I drove by the Baltimore Street Car Museum. I had never really seen it and its really out of the way and looked like an interesting place. I didn't stop to take pictures then as we were headed to look at dogs, but I made a point to attempt to get back there before the day was through.

The Rusted Body of a Baltimore Street Car.

After going to a few shelters and getting some lunch in Federal Hill I asked the wife if we could just go back and take a few pictures before we lost the sun. While the museum had many street cards in amazing condition I was really interested in the two broken down trains they had sitting down the track from the museum. Not wanting to get into any trouble I go into the musem and ask the manager if I can go crawl through them and take some pictures. The owner, slightly confused and amazing that anyone would want to crawl through those heaps but he obliged and we headed down away from the station to take the pictures.

The Trains were rusted and had a "steam punk" feel as switches and gauges were all over the place. I took alot of pictures and really enjoyed the museum. It represents (much like its location) a lost part of Baltimore from the Hampden area of a time when Baltimore had street cars. The lesson that I learned here is to always have your camera on you as you never know when you may encounter a situation where the perfect light, perfect sun, perfect rust covered street car named Desire.