San Francisco

Last year over 4th of July weekend we took a trip to San Francisco. I went out one morning and walked around for a couple of hours shooting street scenes. This by far was one of my favorites because the silhouettes of the buildings make it uniquely San Francisco.

Seattle A.M.

This is another shot I took while I was in Seattle, the same morning as the Beecher's Cheese photo that I posted a couple of posts back. I like shooting in the dark hours and capturing the people while in movement. It is something I have done since buying my first SLR and taking a trip to NYC back in 2002. It is something I plan on doing more of when I get to NYC in September.

Denver, Near Union Station

This is a shot I took one morning before work a couple of weeks ago. It was captured near Union Station in downtown Denver. I have got to get out more and shoot in the mornings. Getting your ass out of bed to go shoot is a bit like a writer overcoming writer's block. Once you do it, you realize it isn't that tough and it is absolutely rewarding.

Bridges Over The Danube

These are two shots I took in Budapest last March. The one that is horizontal was taken in the A.M. hours. It is of Chain Bridge with the Hungarian Parliament building behind it. The other, Liberty Bridge, was taken in the P.M. hours on the first night we arrived. At the top are statues of Turul, a bird from Hungarian mythology.

Khammany at Staminee De Garre

In Brugge there is a tiny alley way that leads to one of the greatest bars in the world. I was told about it by my good friend, and fellow lover of all things coming from fermented malted barley, Chris Vejnovich. If you have the chance to stop in (which I made sure we did every night we were there) be sure to have the house Tripel.

One afternoon after being caught in the rain, I captured this photo of Khammany in the alley way leading to the bar. It is a great example of how candid shots can make the best portraits.

Black & White or Color

This is where I begin to sometimes have trouble. Back in the days of film, you shot either color or black & white. You had to remember what type of film you had loaded and attempt to see through the viewfinder in either color or monochrome. In 2011, I try to have an idea of what I want the image to look like before I shoot, but ultimately I get to pick in the processing stage of the photo.

I really like this photo, shot in downtown Denver, because of the true contrast in tones and the contrast of the tiny, nimble Porsche and the massive, sluggish eighteen wheeler. The only problem is I really can't decide between the monochrome and the color image.

Beecher's Cheese

I shot this photo in the Fish Market in Seattle. I thought I woke up at 6:00 AM to go out and shoot but it was actually 5:00 because I failed to remember to change my watch to Pacific Time. I set my tripod up to get a shot of this building when a man approached me and asked me a question. It was cold out and I thought he asked, "Do you know where I can get some love?" He had actually asked, "Do you know where I can get some gloves?" When I said I don't know, he walked away and then turned around for a split second and looked at me. That's when I captured this image. I love it because of the subject being blurry and underexposed in the dark of the streets. It makes him seem mysterious.

Snow V

This photo has a bit of a story to it. I was in a photography club and we had an assignment titled “Snow.” The problem was, it hadn’t snowed for quite some time and the deadline was quickly approaching. Finally, I woke up to a blizzard and as I was walking through the park towards the light-rail station I thought, “this would be a good place to return to for the snow picture.”

So, that evening I went back to the park to shoot this picture. I set up the camera on a tripod and during the long exposure I would pop a flash off camera to the right to highlight the tree. While I was doing this there were some men in the alley to the right of the frame doing whatever it is grown men do in the alley in the dark of the night. I didn’t notice them until one of them started yelling at me asking me if I was a cop. I began to quickly pack up and head out of the park as he followed me. Not wanting to confront him in a dark park, I walked faster and faster until I got around the block and he had stopped following me.

Just as I made my way down my street and across the alley by my house, I slipped on the ice and shattered the lens on my camera. Not all was a loss though. I got a beautiful photo out of it.

First Digital Image

This is the first digital image I have uploaded to this blog, although I have been shooting digital for quite a few years now. This image is both fitting and timely. Timely, because it was taken two weeks ago while my wife and I spent the weekend in K.C. with my brother and his wife. Fitting because if you scroll back far enough through the blog, you will find one of the first pictures I took with an SLR was of Dustin smoking on my balcony.

Week 26

This is another shot I took while in Italy. I am not sure what town it is in. This style of photo is one of my favorites. I love capturing backlit silhouettes. The form and the contrast really standout.

Week 25

Porch of Maidens (Athens)

Week 24

Michelangelo sculpture in Florence. The dramatic lighting in the museum made this an easy shot. This is another very grainy image. I love it.

Week 23

This is a shot I took in the streets of Rome, I believe. This picture is beautiful for everything it is not. Yes, it could have been in better focused, and possibly better exposed, but that is the thing about street photography. It is an exact moment that you can never repeat. Even if I went back and asked the guy to walk down the road again, it wouldn't be the same opportunity.

Week 22

This shot was taken in Tieneman square in 2006. What I really like about this one is the fact that it breaks a lot of photographic rules with the horizon spliting the center of the picture and the subject being square in the middle of the frame, but I think it works in this image.

Week 21

This is a photo of a staircase located in the Putaxai monument in Vientiane, Laos. I took several shots while braced against a pole in an atempt to get no camera shake. Several of the photos have blurred images walking down the stairs, which is actually what I was going for. But after looking at all of them, the best images were the ones without people in them.

I took this photo in 1999. We returned in 2002 or 2003 and went back to this same room. I couldn't even recognize the staircase. Everything had been painted with bright lighting and vendors all around. That is what I love about travel photography. It records an exact moment in time that will probably never be replicated.

Week 20

Food Vendor, Beijing 2006

Week 19

This shot is one I took while on a boat trip down the Li River near Yongshuo, China back in 2006. It was a bit of a frustrating trip, but made for some nice shots. About an hour into the trip they pulled the boats over and made everyone get on the banks......for several hours. Apparently, the police were up river and we were not on an "authorized" boat trip. So we skipped rocks and bitched half the day, then they put us all back on the boats and we returned down river. At least I had my camera with me.

Week 18

Ok, I have gotten a little behind on this blog, so I may need to be doing some double posting to catch back up. I should have more time as the Holidays approach to get back up to where I should be.

This is a shot I took in the Spring of 2006 in Athens. This photo really makes me appreciate the simple workflow of digital photography. One problem with negatives is that you must store them properly and it is not nearly as easy to find the image you are looking for when you have thousands of images. This photo only brings this to mind because I found this image in the trunk of my car when I went to turn in my lease. I'm not sure how the pictures ended up there, but for anyone who has seen the trunk of my car, you would know something as small as 36 images on film could easily be lost. Luckily, they were not too damaged.

Week 17

This is another photo I took in the Insadong neighborhood in Seoul. They were having a parade with traditional performers dancing and playing music. Insadong was always a great neighborhood to capture some unique images.

Week 16

This is another shot I took of the Terracotta Soldiers in Xian, China. Although it is not exciting at first glance, the thing I find interesting about this shot is this is how most of the soldiers were found. Most people believe that when the Chinese unearthed these soldiers, they were all in perfect shape and perfectly preserved. This is not the case, as illustrated by this photo.