Tag Archives: photography

Sandhill Crane Migration

Hi all! Last weekend I went to see the Sandhill cranes, who spend their winter in and around Wilcox, AZ. The total bird population ranges from 30-40K, although this year it has reached over 47K! These images were taken at Whitewater Draw Wildlife Area. You can view my full Sandhill Crane documentary here.

Trying something new

Since teaching social sciences and photography at high school, I’ve lost the time and motivation to continue developing my photography skills. It’s been years really – with the exception of helping out yearbook, teaching my students how to handle a camera, or shooting the occasional senior portrait – since I’ve purposely picked up my camera for the pure joy of it. Then @timothyeyrichstreet, a guest judge for my photography class end-of-semester final, reignited my photo soul via a simple 10 minute conversation.

I realized that I’d been mentoring students, but hadn’t had someone mentor me for a long time. In those 10 minutes, Timothy Eyrich opened the wonderful and thrilling street photography door back up for me, one that had been all but shut for years. He also reminded me of some good advice I received years ago from Leanne Cole. Find your niche, develop it, and stick with it. She gave me this advice because my portfolio of work was all over the place in terms of style and genre. Still is….

Street and night photography is my favorite genre in this artistic world we call “painting with light.” I think I learned that when I lived in Korea, spending day after day walking neighborhood and city streets with another photographer who also happened to be my good friend.

So, here’s to developing my own personal and identifiable style, sticking to one specific genre, and actually getting good at it! Here is a look into my home life. We are old car junkies and big time gear heads. Expect website changes and updates!

Catalina Mountains from Windy Point and the Wildfire

Last night a group of my former photography students and I went to Windy Point to photograph the skyline. We didn’t think we’d see the fire from there, just the smoke. In a matter of hours the fire had climbed over the next peak and was visible from our vantage point. As of 10:00 am today, people are being evacuated from the area at the base of the mountains. In this photo you can see the fire cresting the ridge (far right).

Here we are as a group earlier in the evening. You can see the smoke pluming behind us.

 

Lensbaby Composer Pro II with Sweet 35

For years I have been wanting a Lensbaby. I first heard about them when I noticed a college’s new twist on portraits. When I asked how she took the images, she said, “with a Lensbaby!” I thought, “what the heck is THAT?”

Needless to say, I immediately looked into it and ever since, have been waiting for the day when I would own my own. Well, that day has come, and I must say, this fun, creative lens was worth the wait! It takes some getting used to (all manual focus on a tilt!), but what better way to crash course yourself than with highly spirited, fast moving Arabian horses?

Breakers Water Park

One of the rewards of staying in touch with former students is that you get to be a part of their life even after they’ve graduated. This weekend one such former student, Caleb Trainor, arranged for me and a handful of my current photography students to do some night photography at Breakers Water Park.  Caleb had done some drone imagery of the park recently and the owner happened to see it, making a connection which led to official access of the grounds this weekend.

Originally constructed in 1982, Breakers Water Park provided the people of Tucson, AZ with cool, family fun for nearly 35 years. Today the park is officially closed, and while it is kept under lock and key awaiting a buyer, people still illegally enter to vandalize the property. The graffiti makes for neat photography, but I’m sure the owner does not appreciate it. As a former patron in my youth, it was very odd coming back to the park in its current state. Pangs of sadness were mixed with nerdy, photography exclamations like, “Oh! Those paint cans make an awesome picture!”

Remember trying to get up the ladder at the deep end of the wave pool? That was quite a feat! What are your favorite Breakers memories?

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High Dynamic Range

Despite my dislike for HDR photography, I can understand its advantages. This week I decided to try it out myself as I am introducing the concept to my high school photography students as an end of the semester project.

In the below two images, I layered three images for each, taken in the middle of the day. I used Photoshop as my processing software and used Photos in Color as my tutorial. These images were taken at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson, AZ. For my full post on this visit, please visit my other site.