This was a fun image to make. You don’t see many rocks like this on Florida beaches in the northeast. In fact, these don’t appear to have been there natively. I could be wrong. The tide was high but still allowed me to walk into this area as the water wasn’t coming up very high. I didn’t plan on shooting anything like this so I didn’t have a tripod. I did have a light stand because I thought I might do some portraits with the kids. So I screwed my camera on to light stand, held it as firmly as possible with the water crashing around it and used the timer to get the image. It was shot at 1/3 second at F22 to capture as much detail as possible. I did some minor saturation adjustments and sharpening in post. Click the image for a larger view.

I had a great time during this session and 6 year old was an absolute natural in front of the camera. Her little sister seemed to be more interested in the ocean that was steps away but she did great. More images after the jump.

Here are some more portraits from Darren & Crystal’s session. More after the jump

These are wedding/bridal portraits like no other. Darren & Crystal were actually married over 18 months ago. The reason they had me do images is they wanted some more around the beach and St. Augustine. We split the shoot into two separate times in order to help remain somewhat cool. This shoot was a lot of fun. More after the jump.

Our church had only one service this year for Independence Day. It was actually supposed to be outdoors, but a steady rain did away with that. Getting images became more of a challenge because of the low amounts of light, but the Nikon D90 has better capability in low light/high ISO territory than the D80. These images were made at ISO 2000-3200. More after the jump. We enjoyed the music of Channing Eleton and heard testimony from several veterans. Afterward, there was a great fireworks show. It was an excellent service. More images after the jump.

The days of film. Slide film to be exact. These images were made over 15 years ago when only a select few could afford any of the digital cameras that were available. I love New York City. My wife and I went there a lot when we were dating and after we were married. It’s just a great place to walk around. You’ll always see different things and no city in the world can match its skyline which can be seen from several different angles. I haven’t been up that way in in quite some but we will go back especially now that my kids want to go. More images after the jump.

I think everybody’s first light modifier is the umbrella. Why not? They’re cheap and pretty easy to use. It was my first and I still use them, especially when I need to work quickly.

But I did want a modifier that still created nice soft light, but also was more centered around my subjects and didn’t splash light all over. I knew a softbox would do the trick, but I wanted something that wasn’t too expensive while being relatively easy to set up. I also needed it to work with a speedlight.

Enter the Westcott Apollo 28″ softbox. Reasonably priced, I had seen Zack Arias speak highly of it and have read the positive reviews. This is a great modifiers for several reasons.

1. It’s compact. They designed it so that it folds up like an umbrella. Easy to open and close.

2. Easy access to your flash. All you have to do is grab the front and pull away from the velcro lining and you can adjust your light accordingly.

3. It works great. It’s good for 1-2 (maybe 3) people and produces a really nice soft light.

4. It’s priced right. Softboxes are not cheap and this one isn’t either, but it’s also not super expensive. At $114 it wouldn’t take long to save the cash (no credit!) to purchase.

The above image of father and son was made using the soft box along with a SB-900 flash unit.

I go to the local Starbucks all the time. While my wife and I are not on a first name basis with any of the employees (yet) some of them do know us and we kind of know them. The biggest fault of this particular store is that it is only open until 9:00pm which is crazy, but I live in a town that practically goes dead by 8:00.

That being said, I’ve never had issues taking photos inside of the store. The images of my church’s pastoral staff were taken inside this Starbucks. I’ve used my camera phone and also my Nikon DSLR to shoot pictures in there.

Recently, I was in Ormond Beach testing out the AlienBees CyberSync triggers I had purchased and afterward, we stopped by a Starbucks in Ormond to grab some coffee. While I was on line ordering, my wife took my camera and started taking some photos. I didn’t notice, but apparently, one of the employees came out from behind the counter and went over to my wife and told her she was not allowed to take pictures in the store and offered no reason why.

I imagine she couldn’t offer a reason because she probably could not articulate it as Starbucks corporate cannot even say what their own policy is.

The story above revolves around Starbucks setting up an official Flickr group but then having issues dealing with photographers who were getting hassled at stores for taking photographs. The group’s last message from the administrator says:

This group has helped inform us of the inconsistent experiences photographers have in our stores. We have put group discussion on hold until we have more updates on an official policy for photography in our stores. We appreciate your patience and encourage you to check back in the following months for an update.

Months? Why should something like this take months? That message was posted in January so it has been nearly 6 months at this point.

It’s absurd, especially for a company that people cheer as one that “gets” social media. Well, they’re not getting this part of it. Granted, Starbucks is well within their rights to restrict people from taking photographs in their stores, but why would they? Taking pictures is part of the overall social media landscape. It’s almost impossible to purchase a phone these days that doesn’t have a built in camera. People post images to their Twitter and Facebook accounts all the time. Why wouldn’t Starbucks want to take advantage of that?

What do you think?

I connected with Tom & Meghan in the virtual world, specifically on Twitter. I made a recent trip to the Atlanta area and it was great because several online friends became in person friends. My wife and I had dinner with Tom & Meghan and some others one night and had a super time. The next morning I met both of them out by their place for some portraits. It was great meeting them and we’re hoping to be able to see them again.

I was able to recently acquire a Nikon D90 and will use my D80 as a backup. This weekend, we took a ride up to Mayport, FL where there is a place called ‘Singleton’s Seafood Shack’ which was recently featured on Guy Fieri’s ‘Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.’

We then drove over to Fernandina Beach which has a historic downtown area with shops, art galleries and restaurants. There’s many colorful textures to photograph as well as a lot of people. More images after the jump.