Well, Liz talked me into do another food shoot for SunUp Brewing. They have a new chef and he is turning out some amazing food. Nice to see some significant changes and some really fresh ingredients added to the mix. Sunday August 1, 2010 is the start of the new menu, so you should really go check it out. Anyway, here are some of the new dishes.  Click the image for more detail:

So I attempted to photograph some food for the restaurant my wife manages. I figured, hey, it's food - how hard can this be? Well, as it turns out, pretty hard. Food is a whole new world that works against the skills we learn to master. It requires a meticulous eye, a robust light kit, and a whole lot of creativity. Here are a couple shots from the first two dishes. I spent a little under three hours shooting the two dishes, so I have a long way to go... More to come.

Here's my first attempt at making a baby video with my canon 5d mk2. I'm not quite set up to shoot really pro stuff yet, but some of the shots are pretty clean. Anyway, enjoy the first images of Ainsley Nicole. More in the gallery (link in upper right corner.) Make sure to view it in high def and click the link at the bottom to make it full screen. If it studders, hit the pause button for a couple seconds.

This is a letter I wrote my representative tonight.  I'm no writer, but I felt better when I clicked send.  I was a bit pissed off that his response page said that it was too difficult to respond to letters given the ease at which electronic means allowed questions and comments to be submitted.  I'm sure he gets a lot of email (especially lately,) but let's keep in mind that these reps have a part time job  -  I expect more, even if it's a minion sending a canned reply.  I would encourage you to send your representative a letter to ensure if nothing else, that it was not your fault that the country went to hell in a hand-basket on our watch.   ~ sb Mr. Pastor, I'm a registered republican in your district that has voted for you in the past two elections. I lead off with this to ensure that you know that I'm not about partisan politics and I hope you are not either. I live in the historical part of Phoenix because I believe that it’s worth saving and I’m surrounded with great people that are of similar minds. Our neighborhood is not rich, yet we are not ...

When I began this article, I set out to prove that RAW was king and JPEG was for the naive. While I still think shooting in RAW mode is the best strategy for overall image quality and creative control, I did learn a new way to improve JPEG images using Adobe RAW processing techniques and exposure compensation. In this article, I compare RAW and JPEG by running them through the same processing techniques. The results are startling. For this post I'm making the grand assumption that you are using Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Raw. If you don't have those two programs and have splurged on a Digital SLR and corresponding kit, you should seriously re-evaluate where you are spending your photography dollar. Like it or not, Photoshop will give you far more control over your final image than any other piece of hardware you can buy. If you don't believe me, download a trial version here and see for yourself. Exposure Compensation: RAW vs JPEG I started off with an underexposed image that I shot last month on the Oregon coast. The image was composed on a Canon 5d with a 17-40L lens and was shot from the balcony of our hotel. Now ...

  Last October I was faced with one of my toughest challenges as a consumer - I was getting married and I needed to hire the photographer.  My now wife knew this would be an impossible task and was not going to touch it with a 10 foot pole - no, this one was mine.  Here's how I went about hiring my photographer, the steps I took, and what I feel is important to know when hiring your own wedding (or any event) photographer. The Process of Hiring a Photographer Figure out what you want in a Photographer - My process started with a long period of procrastination.  Periodically I would scan local photographer's websites, but was often underwhelmed by the stock poses and overwhelmed by the "packages."  Not that it put my wife's mind at ease, but all this waiting and perusing allowed me to get clear on what I wanted in a wedding photographer. To me, wedding photography is all about image quality, style and story-telling.  Our venue was not the traditional pew lined isle of a church, but rather a pecan grove in central Phoenix.  Liz and I both love the outdoors, so it just made sense to make that a ...

I have long been a pursuer of the ancients.  Maybe because these relics of the past add complexity and rhythm to the landscape.  Be they old cars dissolving into the ground, a half collapsed hotel, or a sagging barn; my camera inevitably drifts towards the past. They gage our past and our progress, and serving as reminders of where we've come from.  They provide endless textures, muted colors, and forms that defy convention.   These modern day monuments tell stories of an ever mobile society carried on the winds of change. So in honor of these weather beaten-buildings and bullet ridden jalopies, I present the Decayed Earth Project.

If you're like me and enjoy the shallow depth of field and graceful lines of macro photography you have undoubtedly explored ways to extend your macro capabilities.  My quest to improve my macro work started out as a quest to gain Tilt and Shift capabilities on my Canon Digital SLR. While that goal has remain elusive, I have improved my macro capabilities in the process.   Enter the macro bellows.  Similar to a large format view camera, the bellows attachment give you the ability to increase the distance between the sensor/film plane and your choice of optics. None of the lenses that I had for my camera did a particularly great job with the macro, so adding extension tube, while an option, would not be a complete solution for my dilemma.  One of the primary purposes for the macro bellows was to duplicate slides.  A secondary attachment to hold a slide or film negative would be mounted in front of the lens and the bellows  would allow for the focusing on the image.  Snap a picture, and now you have a duplicate.  Keep in mind that these were popular in the days before drum scanners and other digital reproduction solutions.  But with the duplicator attachment removed, the bellows ...

Liz and I decided that it would be a good idea to go camping for my birthday.  We set out from Phoenix to do a loop through Prescott, AZ up through Ash Fork to Williams, then down the dirt roads from Williams into Jerome, AZ before heading home after this short two day, one night get away. Storm clouds threatened us nearly from our door step, but we felt good that we were finally getting the little M416 Jeep trailer on the trail.  This was a project that I took on just before the table saw incident and has been a long time to completion.  She ran perfect; straight, quiet, and took the harsh beating that Arizona roads are known for.  And, this trailer setup is so light, you hardly remember that you are dragging it along.  Our day started early and we were in Prescott for Breakfast.  We hit the store for supplies, then headed north on 89 to the town of Ash Fork.  The skies were dark and as we approached I-40, they opened up and flooded the streets.  We slowly motored up the street through what seems to be a deserted town, then picked up interstate 40 and headed for Williams.  More to ...

Well, we’re off again on this year’s trip. Tonight we find ourselves in Overgaard, AZ. It’s about 4 hours north east of Phoenix and was a good choice to avoid the traffic getting out of town. Tomorrow we push to Taos, NM where we have what looks to be a great B&B to stay at. This trip was a long time coming and both Liz and I are excited to be on the road last. The road out of Payson travels up on top of the Mollogon Rim which reaches into the sky some 7000 feet. On our way up, we passed through a summer storm that dropped rain in front of us most of the way up. We were greeted at the top by a double rainbow and a bright orange sky that looked as though the surrounding pines were ablaze. Not a sight unfamiliar to this area as the surrounding hills are still charred from wildfires in recent years. Thankfully the BLM is wising up and cutting down the underbrush that fuels these fires and we saw plenty of evidence of that on the way here. Tomorrow will be a mildly long day in the truck; traveling from Overgaard, through ...