Welcome to My View

Hello and welome to My View for Sunday, June 28, 2009.

Hello Everyone,

I hope you are having a nice weekend.

Today’s image is a shot I took one night in Savannah in March a few days after our Next Step workshop. It had been raining most of the day, making every surface reflective. This is a view of Congress Street. I was on my way to Molly MacPherson’s for dinner. If you are familiar with Savannah, you’ll recognize the yellow and red flag of Scotland flying over Molly’s. I racked my 50mm 1.4 lens out of focus and took several shots, some more in or out of focus. This was my favorite from the series.

As always, your comments and critiques are most welcome.

Congress Street

Savannah, GA
Canon 1Ds Mark II, Canon 50mm 1.4 lens, ISO 400, f/2.8, 1/20 sec, handheld.

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Hello and welome to My View for Monday, June 23, 2009.

Hello Everyone,

I hope you had a great weekend.

Craig Tanner, a fantastic teacher and great friend with whom I work teaching workshops and on The Mindful Eye, and I spent the weekend with a great group of people here in Atlanta at our first Inspirational Weekend with The Mindful Eye. It was a lot of fun, we saw many old friends and made some new ones. Thank you to all who participated!!

Today’s image is a whimsical shot I took in Death Valley earlier this year in the days after the Death Valley Workshop when I was out shooting for myself. I came across this piece of wood in the desert near the Devil’s Corn Field area and immediately laughed out loud when I saw it — crazy woman, standing in the middle of the desert, laughing to herself!!

I keep coming back to this image as I scan images for preparing workshop presentations or for My View. Today, I’m in a lighthearted mood and decided to post it for your amusement.

As always, your comments and critiques are most welcome.

Death Valley Dragon

Death Valley, CA
Canon 1Ds Mark II, Canon 16-35 2.8L lens at 16mm, ISO 100, f/8, 1/45 sec, Bogen Neotec tripod.

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Hello and welome to My View for Sunday, June 14, 2009.

Hello Everyone,

I hope you had a great weekend.

Today’s image is from one of the marsh areas on Jekyll Island. It was taken late in the afternoon as the sun was getting to be low in the sky. The image was created by moving the camera as the shutter was open. I converted the image out of a RAW file in both daylight and tungsten white balance and blended the two conversions.

As always, your comments and critiques are most welcome.

Colors of the Marsh

Jekyll Island, GA
Canon 1Ds Mark II, Canon 50mm 1.4 lens, ISO 100, f/22, 1/3 sec, handheld.
Composite of two RAW conversions of the same file

A Larger view.

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Hello and welome to My View for Friday, June 12, 2009.

Hello Everyone,

Happy Friday!!

I feel as though I’m getting caught up on My View and will go back to posting once a week starting on Sunday evening. Thank you for your patience with me during the hectic spring workshop season.

One of the great things that came out of the March, April, May series of workshops is that my teaching partner and friend, Craig Tanner, took a “next step” with his music. A long-time guitarist, he finally worked up the courage to play in front of other people and began playing at some of the open mic nights in Savannah. Today’s image is one that I took late one night as Craig and two new musician friends were just jamming in Franklin Square.

Here are Adam, Craig and Jeff making beautiful music in Franklin Square just after midnight on a lovely Friday night during the Street Portraiture workshop.

As always, your comments and critiques are most welcome.

Franklin Square Musicians

Savannah, GA
Canon 5D, Lensbaby Composer lens, f/2.0, ISO 3200, 1/30 sec, handheld.
Composite of three images

A Larger view.

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Hello and welome to My View for Saturday, June 6, 2009.

Hello Everyone,

I hope your summer is getting off to a great start.

Today’s image is another from the spring road trip of teaching photography workshops just over a month ago. This is the pier on Jekyll Island. The Jekyll Island workshop ended at noon on this day and it was about 45 hours before the Street Portraiture Workshop was scheduled to begin back up the road in Savannah. I went out on this evening by myself to do some personal shooting and for some alone time to re-energize for the next workshop.

As always, your comments and critiques are most welcome.

A Quiet Moment

Jekyll Island, GA
Canon 1Ds Mark II, Canon 28-70mm 2.8L lens at 70mm,
ISO 100, 30 secs, f/8.0, Bogen Neotec Tripod.

A Larger view.

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Hello and welome to My View for Monday, June 1, 2009.

Hello Everyone,

Today’s image is another from my almost two-month long road trip this spring. This one was taken in a favorite spot in Savannah for breakfast, the State Street Cafe just off Telfair Square. I love this place for a lot of reasons and one is the bright colors with which the interior is painted. It can cheer you up on even the stormiest of days.

As I was waiting for breakfast to be served, and contemplating all that had happened in the last few weeks of my life, I was staring at a table in a corner by a window. As I stared, my eyes began to lose focus of the scene in front of me. It seemed a great metaphor for my mood at the time — losing focus on all that that was around me for just a while. I took three shots of the image — one in focus, one just out and one way out of focus.

Losing focus on our reality happens from time to time. By the end of the long road trip and five workshops, I’d really lost focus — mainly due to exhaustion and the “Savannah bug” that caught me twice. With proper rest, sleeping in my own bed, and getting rid of the “bug”, I’m back in focus once again and ready to tackle the world.

As always, your comments and critiques are most welcome.

Losing Focus

Savannah, GA
Canon 1Ds Mark II, Canon 50mm 1.4 lens, ISO 1600, 1/20 sec, f/4.0, handheld.

A Larger view.

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