Been super busy lately. But I’m loving the busy-ness, the joy in shooting and most of all the simple fact that I am having lots of fun in the process…

a couple of things that I’ve shot recently involves panoramas. It all started out from encountering a machine that I’ve been geeking out on: The Gigapan It is simply a robotic arm that is made for a select number of point and shoot cameras. Essentially the Gigapan allows a photographer to stitch multiple photos “stacked” on one another and build a high resolution panoramic image. From my understanding the prime Gigapan photo ends up being a couple of hundred photos stitched together….

Now, if you haven’t heard of this incredible tool, you may have seen THIS which is arguably the most famous Gigapan image….

Well, since I’ve been thinking about panoramas, I decided to use the next best thing: Canon’s photo stitch software, that came free with my camera. It does a relatively good job of making panoramic images from shots I’ve taken.

This is the view of the place I’ve been spending quite a bit of my time at… the view from Courtney’s new Seattle apartment.

A photoshopped panoramic image that I created for clients of mine who wanted to use the image in their wedding invitations….

Click on the images to see larger versions…..

I know I’ve been blog slacking lately. But wordpress theme surfing just recently happened and I feel the urge coming along… I’m hoping to post something about cool things I discover in Courtney’s new neighborhood soon….

More to come, I promise!

Happy Travels…

It’s ready.

And I’m as excited about it being done as you are.

Now mind you, this obviously isn’t all of the photos. There were a lot of shots that didn’t make it in here, and not because they’re unusable, it was really for the sake of getting something out there quickly but also in a manner that didn’t require my painfully going thru the 1600 plus images multiple times.

For those of you who didn’t get your copy and want to order the disc, I can take payment via Paypal or checks. Please click on the “I want one!” button below, and this will send me an email. Include your Name, Address, Telephone, and form of payment you’d like to use. I will email a reply with Paypal and/or address info to send a check. Cost is $14.95 and shipping is included!

And without further adieu….

Wow. It’s been a hectic few days. After finally getting home (I spent Sunday evening stuck in Vegas), I started the massive project of downloading the photos from Inspired, and also started catching up with the other life stuff going on around here. In all of the Inspired fun I forgot that I have another photo gig that I have coming up that will require some prep work. So as I am finishing up the slideshow, I am also doubling up on some other work… No rest for the determined

And to those of you wondering, did I just mention that I am “finishing up” a slideshow?! Well, glad you asked, because Yes! there is something that resembles a slideshow almost ready. In fact, as far as I’m concerned its done. But there is that lag time from when you click the mouse button to generate the show and when the computer is actually finished doing its stuff. The little pop up window showing the progress says 101 minutes to go. and I say Go MAC! Go!

So while that’s going I decided that I would blog a bit, reflecting on some of the cool things that crossed my mind about the weekend.

Talent.
How very cool to be a part of such an awesome event with extremely talented teachers. I felt like I intentionally had to have conversations so as not to get wrapped up into the projects and start working myself. Seriously, I was jealous of the cool techniques and textures I was witnessing that I essentially had to “sit on my hands”. So thank you to you teachers for not minding me as I floated around from class to class causing student disruptions. My high school teachers would tell you that some things never change.

Old Friends.
Oh goodness. I can’t even begin to tell you how fun it was to see alumni and to remind myself how much fun these events are. For me, it is such an honor to be around and hear stories and laughter and to see pure enjoyment beaming thru smiles. I remember many meaningful conversations. A lot of sillyness and tons of focus while still being goofy. Thank you for letting me be a part of it, and thank you for welcoming me back… I’m totally looking forward to next year…

New Friends.
Dude. Kelly Rae, awesome. Ali had warned me, but her warnings only expressed a small amount of how cool you are. As I was on the plane home, I was reading your book. How inspiring you are. How your Keynote speech reminded me that I can do anything that I set my heart to, and how in those creative desires and longings, I am not alone. Thank you. So looking forward to sharing some of our Seattle Hotspots with you….. Oh and by the way, I won an art contest in 3rd grade too. It was some PSA for the dangers of fire…

The Photobooth.
What began as a small idea in my head turned out to be a big hit. The seemingly easy set up took tons of hours of research and equipment hunting, and after loading the photos. I could not help but laugh. This photo though made all the hardwork and effort worth it though. Cheers Kandi. I love that in all the busy-ness you took the time to snap a shot with your fam… this is priceless.

So hang tight for the Slideshow. It’s uploading now….

Happy Travels…

After being turned away from last night’s oversold non stop from Charlotte to Seattle, I headed out as far west as I could and ended up spending the evening in Las Vegas. (No fun, just rest…)

And now I’m finally sitting in front of my home computer and a few minutes away from getting started with the Photos from Inspired. What a great weekend to be able to have witnessed and been a part of. My hope is to get a slide show together and start cranking out discs and sending them to those who ordered…

So hang in there! I’m working on them as we speak and will try to get them out as soon as possible!

Happy Travels….

marks one full month since a blog post. Wow. It’s gotten away from me and now that spring has finally arrived around here, I’ve done a little bit thinkingandplanningandstrategizing about how I can address my blog lulls…. I’m concepting layouts, and content structure in my head, and in the next few weeks, in between photo shoots and trips and other social events, I’ll get something launched.

Hope all of my blogging friends are enjoying themselves. I’ll come out of my quiet creative shell soon

Happy Travels…

Met up with the boys for one of my best shoots yet. It was an awesome time.

The photographic lessons that I am taking from this situation are the following:

1) expect to learn on the spot: i.e., lighting sometimes takes care of itself.
2) hire an assistant
3) give yourself ample amounts of time
4) sip on a drink while shooting. It’s just photography!

Thanks for the opportunity gentleman. Click on the photos to enlarge.

I’ve obviously been without much to say for the last few weeks. And instead of forcing and pressuring myself to come up with something to write about, I decided to just let it be.  And I knew that I would be inspired to write when I needed to…

With me that much is for sure. My creativity comes in cycles. And while I can seem scattered and inconsistent, my creative process is always cyclical and manifests itself in different ways. Simply put, it’s about problem solving: and sometimes its large philosophical what-is-the-meaning-of-life type problem solving, other times its simple, practical, everyday problem solving.

What I’m trying to get at here is nothing other than respecting our own unique processes of creativity. And if we do, we are practicing LIFE which for me is the greatest creative project of all…

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On a photo note: Tonight I scouted a location for a shoot I am doing this weekend. Last September I did a shoot for the gentlemen of the local cigar club and they’ve asked me to do an official shoot with them again. This time I decided to step outside of my little studio and after some string pulling got a local bar to agree to letting us use the space. I’m looking forward and am already  concocting some scenarios in my head… can’t wait to share some of the results…

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So Happy Travels to all of you. Wherever your creative process has you…

Since I haven’t redesigned and updated the blog to incorporate a gallery of my work, I put up a makeshift gallery using iweb to help make it easier to direct people to some of my photo samples. Click HERE or you can click on COLLECTION in the left Nav.

Happy Travels…

Spent the last week+ sick. It’s been annoying and just lingering and after 12 days, I’m finally feeling semi back to normal.

This morning I even felt up for taking a couple of shots of Margeaux- something that I realized that I haven’t done for a long time. She asked me to sit by her and play catch with oranges. She also mentioned that she needed to be careful because I was special and she didn’t want to throw the orange and hit my eye…

How adorable…

Happy Travels…

Last week, I nabbed an excellent deal on a  used Macbook Pro off of Craigslist. Since my Windows Laptop died several weeks ago, I had just started to peruse for something new.

Price-wise, this particular instance was one which sat on the fence between “too good to be true” and “deal of lifetime”. But since I have refined my ability to walk away, I felt like there was no harm in finding out about this particular machine. It ended up paying off.

There are a lot of people who believe: “if it’s too good to be true, than it’s probably not true.”  While I would say that I understand that perspective and appreciate it being grounded in reality, I’ve also learned that deals of a lifetime happen everyday and the people who usually end up taking advantage of these deals are the ones who take action. By quickly gathering data and letting facts (instead of fears, suspicions or excitement) dictate your decision, there is no reason that a quick decision, could become something really awesome. (hmmm a lot like photography isn’t it?!?!?)

Happy Travels…