Another beautiful album complete. It makes for a special kind of Christmas gift… I’m finding that this kind of work warms my heart.
Take a look:
Also, take a look at the rest of their photos if you need a smile: http://photos.codyjbennett.com/event/Ren-and-James
Title: Good morning world. #shouldbeatwork #anothersunrise #brr
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Title: Creme brûlée, birthday art. #happybirthdaytome #familytime #cremebruleemanisntfamily
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Things have been slow on the blog as of late – went from an extremely busy fall at my day-job to holidays and illness and other priorities. That’s not to say I haven’t been doing things – it’s just I haven’t posted much!
Take a look at these images from a recent workshop I attended in Orange County, California. It was nice to meet several other photographers and of course I love to learn more about the craft. That, and as you’ll see the weather didn’t suck either!
Getting a portrait of an animal in the wild isn’t the easiest thing. I’ve done it before, but basically it’s a once-a-year type experience. It’s a matter of enough light, the right path, anticipation of their path, quickness behind the camera to get the appropriate focal point & composition, and then on top of all of that, it requires the animal to cooperate with it’s expression.
But, every once in a while, you get a break and all those things come together…
This is from a few weeks ago, take a look:
See more wildlife and fine-art images from 2012 here: http://photos.codyjbennett.com/fine-art/2012/
I have a few things to mention about this post, and I’m not sure where to start… How about ‘brain-dump’ style?
It’s been an excellent few weeks. Starting with the return from a Spokane conference, I’ve been committed to some personal and business goals that have stretched me beyond my normal comfort zone. Nothing that would make me go home crying at the end of a day, but enough to give me butterflies and to live on the proverbial edge. It means that as we’s recently ramped up into the start of the UAS semester, I’ve been getting up earlier and earlier so that I give my best and least-distracted time of the day towards my goals. To encourage me to do that, I’ve given myself permission to get up before the crack of dawn to go hang with the bears near the glacier at first light.
How does that play into this post? Good question. I think in two ways… First, I have my camera with me nearly all the time now; it’s never farther away than ‘in the car’. And second, the portraits below are a little bit different for me – it’s a stretch for what I’m accustomed to.
I don’t normally insert myself into the photos that I am capturing. If you see me at weddings or events, most of the time I am across the room, using a long lens to capture moments shared by others. In portrait sessions, I would rather have some distance, and let the person/couple be relaxed and authentic rather than to be actively involved in adjusting every bit of minutia. I don’t particularly enjoy posed shots – I want natural expressions of people living their life!
So… Back to these photos. This is me walking around a busy crowd and stepping within arms reach of someone and holding up my (giant) camera & lens directly to their face. It’s slightly scary for me, as strange as that sounds. I found it was fun to see how some folks reacted. Too many ladies were self critical, and a few guys were over-the-top. It’s interesting to see the interplay of personality and self-image.
Most of these folks are people I’ve known over the years at campus and other places, so it wasn’t too off-beat to have me arrive with a camera, but it was still a stretch. We’ll see what the next outing holds!
Anyhow, here’s a snapshot of most of the thumbnails:
After posting the images to Facebook, I realized the feedback exceptional, so I’ve also posted them in their own portraiture gallery on my site for future review (and in case any mom’s out there want some beautiful photos of their children!)
As I was driving along the road, in the distance I saw what looked like a cat just sitting and relaxing in my lane. As I came closer I realized it was a baby porcupine ambling for the woods. The sun had just set, but there was still enough warm light in the sky to capture some images of him… Take a look:
Check out other wildlife/fine-art photos here.
My friend Herbert Law of Minute Sixteen is in town, and invariably, we have insanely mis-matched schedules. The other night he invited me out to join him and a couple others to photograph the Perseid Meteor Shower which came “flying through” (haha) this month. And while I had such great intentions to connect before the night was through, it turned out that another dear friend, Stacy LaMascus was going to leave town for a year at school… In this case, the mini going-away party trumped the meteor outing… But as we hung out and the ladies took a dip in the hot tub, I put my gear to use in the back yard to capture a few starlight photos.
Take a look.
The first image here has a shooting star. I also like the framing of the house and surrounding trees. It feels like we’ve got a portal to another world!
This one is (I believe) a satellite moving through the night sky. The milky way really stands out in here.
I noticed that the yard, lit by a light from inside the garage, had some interesting features contrasted against the starry sky. Fun!
See these images at the 2012 Fine Art Gallery.
I had a meeting tonight that fell through, and so in the next 15 minutes or so I explored the undeveloped back lot of some condos… I love to look. I love to explore. Tonight I found a Daddy Long Legs and MAN, are they UGLY! Plus, while photographing a pretty little buttercup, a fly happened to land on it for my enjoyment. It was great, except all of these are handheld and with a 200mm macro lens so I spent a lot of time trying to breathe slowly and not move a muscle (while wobbling in my crouched-to-the-ground position.) I don’t know how those sharp shooters get so well trained to slow their bodies… Maybe it’s just practice. Anyhow, take a look:
See these and more in the Fine Art Gallery.
I’m slowly catching up.
Heather’s mom is back in Nevada. Weddings have slowed a bit (though I have another this weekend!) Travel has subsided, and Juneau weather has been poor. The perfect storm of catching up with my personal photo backlog!
These are from an early-morning outing to North Douglas. I think I was out the door at around 4:15, so the first few shots of the deer were still a bit on the dusky side of things (thank goodness for high ISO options). It was a good morning for variety. I don’t think I’ve ever captured bunnies/rabbits/hares/whatever-they’re-called before…
I heard one story of a photographer’s wife receiving a phone call early in the morning because a police officer had found her car parked in the median of the highway with the driver nowhere to be seen. It turned out he had gone for a walk when he saw the perfect light, and eventually returned to find police company. Go figure. Maybe we’re a bit absent minded when it comes to those sort of details?
I call this “A Photographer’s Car”… For obvious reasons… 🙂
As I’m driving around and see something I like to photograph, I often park the car and hop out. This photo was me realizing that I left it running, door open, in the middle of the road for nearly 20 minutes while I wandered down an unmarked path.
And my favorite shot from the day? It was one of the first ones I captured… I had gone out in search for some deer, and whatdya know, there they were:
