Happy Birthday Jimmy and Clesie

Today Jimmy celebrated his 50th Birthday. Also celebrating a Birthday is Clesie, born on the same day 49 years later.

Happy Birthday Dad

New 2008 Summer Olympic Event: Mini Platform Dog Diving

These pictures may not be the best, but we had fun making them. It's amazing what you can capture in near blackness. It was late last night and Clesie desperately wanted to play. I would have rather sat in my recliner doing mindless channel surfing, but Clesie's persistence paid off, so we went out to the pool. We might as well do some night photography!

These photo's were taken around 9:30 pm with little ambient light. Focusing was done manually since auto focus didn't really have anything to grab hold of. Shutter speed was used to stop motion and wasn't low enough to capture ambient light. Aperture was used for dept of field and tweaked to best capture flash without burning out any highlights.

Amazingly enough, Clesie sat and jumped when I asked him to. You can see from these photo's his eyes focused great in the dark. He had but one goal, catch the toy! He did a fantastic job!!!

Here's a few shots from last night.

"Look Dad, I can catch it in the dark!"
Score: 5 out of 5 bones for effort.

Clesie performs the Kangaroo Jump, grabs the prize with his paws, and pulls in for a perfect catch.
Score: 4 out of 5 bones for style.


Great job keeping his eye on the gold!
Score: 5 out of 5 bones for difficulty.


Clesie captures the gold in the Mini Platform Dog Diving Event!
Congratulations!

OneLight DVD set from Zack Arias

This weekend I received Zack's Arias OneLight DVD. For those of you who haven't heard of Zack I suggest you check out his blog. Zack does a great job explaining the relationship of flash, shutter speed, and exposure. He shows you how to create fantastic photo's with an inexpensive off camera flash such as the Canon 580ex , Nikon SB80dx ,more powerful Sunpac 120j, or if you have the big bucks a Quantum flash. Add a few pocket wizards and you add so many more options.

To get beautifully lit photo's add a simple modifier to your light, such as a tasty 60 inch umbrella or a Westcott Soft box. These simple soft-boxes open and work much like an unbrella, they fit in a simple umbrella adaptor.

So, if you are interested in photo's that don't have the deer in the headlight look, check out Zacks blog where he has great tutorials or visit the David Hobbie over at the Stobist, another great photogrpher. David does a great job with his Lighting 101 and Lighting 102 series. He also has a great section called On Assignment.
I will have some samples of Zacks lighting for you to see soon.

2008 State Fair - Part 1

This year I did a first. I visited my first Fair in Sedalia, Missouri. Though I had a great time, it wasn't like the fair Ma and Pa Kettle visited in the movie "Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair (1952)" It had a lot of activities, but seemed very commercial and lacking in animals.

Two days after the Missouri's Fair, I went to the Indianapolis State Fair, which was much more what I expected. I saw the worlds largest boar, acres of farm animals, and all types of cows and sheep. They demonstrated how to milk cows and shear sheep. I even saw a small bee farm!

Here's but a few photo's from the Fairs.