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Halloween Dance

Wow, even though I know I’ve been out taking photos over the last few weeks, I haven’t really been posting any. Go figure. We’re about to head out for some travel, including a wedding, so I suspect I’ll be excited to post a few more pictures as the next 3-4 weeks roll by.

Anyhow, I decided to head out to the UAS Halloween Dance in order to practice my off-camera lighting on a dance floor. And, as another photographer pointed out, this lighting is nothing like a wedding reception dance, but even still it’s nice to practice the trade when there are no pressures of “getting the shot”.

Enjoy!

 

First up, Trevor & Bob. These two are a blast in their own rights. I’m looking forward to getting to know both of them better in time.


Mostly, I avoid posed shots, but every now and again, folks prompt me with a “take my picture!” and a pose. It’s hard not to turn those down (unless my settings are destined for something entirely different.)

 
And finally, some actual photos of dancing. No lights is still a learning curve for me. You try taking pictures of moving people in a dark room! Anyhow, I think they made the cut. 🙂

Dancin’ Away

Last night was the UAS Non-Homecoming Dance at the Rec Center. I like to head out to these no-pressure opportunities to practice different techniques. As an added bonus, each year as these dances continue, I’m reminded by the volume and lyrics that I’m getting older and older. Ha! 🙂

Anyhow, these were the 6 keepers from the ~450 that I took. Dances make it easy to get unusable shots! I have so much to learn!!

World Wide Photo Walk

Each year Scott Kelby coordinates an International Photowalk where thousands of photography enthusiasts come out of the woodwork to enjoy an outing with their cameras. Because of the world wide reach of Kelby’s influence, there are also some major names who come forward to sponsor the event and each participant has the chance to submit an image for consideration of impressive prizes.

Anyhow, today we had approximately 10 folks join in the Juneau fun. It was great weather, good company, and we even had the occasion of multiple forms of local wildlife.

Sadly, I don’t get the chance to submit a photo to be in the running for the grand prize, but I’m pretty sure I get to submit an image to be in the running for the Leaders competition.

These are my 5 top images from the day – enjoy!

 

 See these and more at my 2011 Fine Arts Gallery.

 

Windfall Hike

Last night, after work, I took off as quickly as possible to catch up with Paul and a few students from UAS Housing. As a “Residence Life Coordinator” he pulls together random activities which always seem like a blast, though I can’t often make. This time I was finally able to join in the fun. There were 10-15 students who were going to spend the night at the Windfall Lake Cabin, and then hike out the next day. I planned to hike back that same night, which worked out well because Bob decided to head back early so I was able to make a new friend on the return hike!

It was lots of fun, and of course, I brought a camera. Here are a few shots…

Garbage Bears

I love wildlife and I love people.

I hate it when one side of that duo become so familiar with its surroundings that it creates dangerous situation for the other.

Lately, on the UAS campus, there has been a bear who shows up to peruse the Mourant Building area looking for morsels. It’s a real bummer because now that the bear has visited on multiple occasions this week, the next step will likely be some intervention by some agency. (I presume darting or live capturing the bear to take it to some far-away area.) The bear is simply looking for a food source, and fortunately he didn’t find any on this trip, even after knocking over the bear-proof garbage can and getting up into the box recycling. The bear ambled away without much human interaction (save for my photo-taking)

This isn’t particularly a striking set of photography, but I believe that it is important to share when these things happen so that people can be more aware of the impact of their actions…

And I just noticed that this is a tagged bear (the top image, he has a blue mark near his ear). I don’t think that bodes well for our furry friend… 🙁

 

The New 300

I love new toys. Especially photography related ones. It might be a new gradient filter, or some other tech item like my iPad 2 (love it as a reader!) Recently I invested in some “Big Glass” which in photographer parlance suggests major reach and wide-wide aperture (in this case, it is a Nikkor 300mm f2.8). As I mentioned back in this post, I had been borrowing a 200-400 f4 and had fun with gathering a few images before sending it back to my friend, Herb. I’m hoping that my purchase of this lens will be a better choice for my style than the slower f4 option…

My rationale was multi-fold. The price point was more attractive than a 200-400 f4 VR II which sneaks in somewhere near the $8000 range, but more than that, I’m hopeful that the f2.8 will give me more light with decent reach for my early-morning wildlife pursuits.

Anyhow, because I was so anxious to try out the new lens, I get to add another category to the blog: sports! Here are a few shots from last night. They’ve been run through Dfine 2.0 to reduce the the high-iso noise, but otherwise are untouched out of camera. Overall I’m certainly pleased with the results and look forward to hauling the behemoth out periodically to capture the world.

 

 

Looking Close

Thought I’d take a moment to post a couple images from the hike last weekend. Macro is fun. I realized after the fact that my sensor or lens was ridiculously dusted because when I cranked down my aperture to f45, every little bit comes into focus against the soft background bokeh. I was pleasantly surprised to find the starburst come through the raindrop. Next time I’ll try planning for it!

See these and more in the 2011 Fine Art gallery.

Glacial HDR

Generally speaking, I don’t use HDR much. Most of my post-processing is done through a variety of tools within Lightroom. I lean on things like exposure, blacks/shadows, vibrance & clarity to handle my editing. It works well for me. This time, with the ice (and the extreme darks and lights) I decided to bracket my shots and then create a few HDR (High Dynamic Range) images. I think they turned out alright. What do you think?

 

 

See these and more at my 2011 Fine Arts Gallery.

West Glacier

I am ridiculously tired, but it was oh-so-worth-it. 🙂

Today I hiked out West Glacier trail to the face of the ice. After finding the first “cave” unappealing (aka boring), I decided to head farther up the ice and around the bend to find a fairly major cave. It was long enough that daylight was blocked from the entrance, and you were left with a world of blue. This is the first image that I’ll consider a finished product. It is actually several images stitched together to look down towards each end of a bend in the cave.

Enjoy!

Click here for a larger version, or to purchase a print!

Dani

Today I had the pleasure of helping Dani collect a few images for a campaign she will be launching shortly. It was a blast to run around campus to collect images; Dani has a great sense of humor so it was all smiles and laughs throughout the morning. Fortunately, the weather played nicely too!

View photos at SmugMug