Under the Bridge

It's been awhile since I shared a photo gallery, so now is as better time as any. Last summer the DC Crew went up to NYC to take in a couple Reds games and chill with our ex-patriot Eric, who had recently moved back to the East Coast from the much sunnier skies of California.

While Dboy and Dr. Dan caught 80-degree sunburn at Yankee Stadium, I accompanied E and Kelly down to The Banks, a legendary skate spot beneath the Brooklyn Bridge. It also happened that it was Skate NYC Day, so there was a phalanx of skaters, from novices to pros. E and Kelly fall somewhere in between.

Anyway, it was a cool day, if nothing else because I finally got to shoot some skate sessions and the photos actually turned out good. Kelly liked all the photos of him, except he keeps bringing up the fact that it was one of his lousiest sessions ever, so even though the photos are nice, he can't acknowledge or appreciate the large prints of them that I made because it reminds him of his failure. Great. That's just great.

So go over and check out Kelly "looking" awesome, while Eric impresses some onlookers while hitting the quarterpipe. As always, if you want more galleries check out the menu in the top-right corner of the page.

Creepy And Cool All Over, Part 2

It's been awhile since I last shared some of my HDR photography, so here is another gallery for you all to enjoy. You may have seen my first gallery from the abandoned asylum in Maryland that Bill and I got some great shots from. Well, here is a second batch of photos. As always, feel free to use the drop-down menu on the right-hand side of the page to access from of my other galleries that I have posted.

Creepy And Cool All Over

I'll get half-sappy for a moment. One of my big mentors (though he never really knew it) is my buddy Bill. He's a bigshot photog on Capitol Hill. I knew a lot of the photographers at the newspapers I worked at, but Bill and I were cool with the same punk bands and making fun of our co-workers Sheila and Kelly.

When I first started taking interest in photography, Bill was cool about it, but I am sure he was skeptical and probably heard that from lots of people he knew. It did take me awhile to get my first camera and some basic gear, but I think that showed him that I wasn't insane. Then it was a matter of showing him that I wasn't a total hack.

After that was proven, he started offering to have me tag along with him on photo shoots so I could see how he works. One of the shoots we went on was at this abandoned asylum/juvenile hospital out in Maryland outside DC. It was not exactly kosher for us to be on the property, so we got to play the role of photographers and spy at the same time, which added some intrigue to the afternoon.

The light was amazing that day, and the rooms, hallways and various buildings we snuck through were amazing spaces. Some great chipped walls and ashen floors. Chairs still lingered in knooks and other creepy aspects were interesting and scary to find. One building was clearly the isolation ward, and it did not look like a fun place to spend an hour, let alone a sentence. Another was the medical care center, which still had a bunch of "equipment" strewn everywhere, stuff that I'm glad there was not a woman around to comment on.

Everything just looked like the whole place was functioning on a Tuesday, everyone went home and just never came back. Totally deserted. Among the most shocking was all the log books still all over the place, describing inmate activities and all sorts of things I found disturbing. I wish we had gone back for more visits to better document the grounds and the place as a whole, but we were only there for about 5 or 6 hours. Here's the first batch of photos I'll show you. Next week I will share the second batch. My personal favorite is the one above, this ultra-spooky nursery where rusted cribs were stacked around. The one we shot had just this stream of light from a doorway painting it, and it really had a creepy feel.

As always, hope you like the slideshow. Thanks to Bill for the inspiration and constant goading to keep shooting. If you want to see any of my other work, check out a gallery from the menu over on the top right.

Showing a Different Side

This week I decided to show you a different direction of some of my photography. Up to this point I have only been sharing with you all my HDR slideshows, but I want to reassure the viewing public that I am not a one-trick pony. Because there is nothing more boring than a pony who only has one trick. That pony has glue stick in its future, for sure.

Anyway, enough with the damn ponies. As I am rather new to photography, I am always trying some new styles. I took my first photography class at the Smithsonian, and one of our first assignments was to go around the neighborhood and take pics of flowers. I think this started my initial enjoyment of photographing flowers, because as a beginner it was easy to take pictures of something that didn't run away, try to bite me or smack me for not getting their good side.

Once the class was through after a few months, I got tired of taking flower pictures. Then last year during the winter I picked up some flowers and brought them home for the goddess of my life. But before she could enjoy them I decided to attempt some black and white studio-style shots. With the recent purchase of a close-up lens that allows a shallow depth of field, I really like the way the photos turned out and the tight focus I could get on the smallest of objects.

Hope you enjoy the gallery. If you missed any previous ones, select it from the menu in the top-right of the blog.

April in Paris, Part 2

So spending a week in Paris means I spent a lot of time behind the camera. It's just such a wonderful city to get to photograph, meaning I had a lot to choose from when editing down my photos. I liked so much from what I did, this week I am giving you a bonus gallery of some photos from Paris.

This time around, you'll get a bonus look from one of the cathedrals. You will also see a wonderful, cheery girl who had I captured having fun with a bunch of pigeons (Parisians seem to be OK with the pigeon, while in DC and NY everyone refers to them as rats with wings, which is true). Additionally there is a also a photo from Rue de Mouffetard, where my good friend Leigh lived for a year (I purposefully went and spent some time shooting the street so I would have some photos to give her). I also included an interesting photo I took of Moulin Rouge (initially I didn't warm to it, but the way the reds stand out on the most important focal points sold me as I looked at it longer). And one of the photos from the first Paris gallery actually looked very strong to me in B&W, so I am including that one also.

Lastly there is a photo of the Eiffel Tower at night. I shot this from the top of the Arc de Triomph, and it was very gusty and cold, and the high winds made it very difficult to pull of this shot at night without getting camera shake. Yet once the lights started twinkling, I snapped as many as I could, bracing my camera against the edge of the Arc, which did not make my goddess very happy, because she knows the killing spree I would have gone on had the wind whipped the camera from my hand and sent it spiraling to the ground, probably killing someone (had it been a pigeon, she probably would have been OK with it).

Click here to see the newest gallery. If you missed the first one, you can see it here.

April in Paris

Back in April the lady in my life and I went to Paris for a week. She's been there several times (her grandfather flew paratrooper planes during D-Day and throughout WWII, so her family attends reunions in Europe all the time). It was my first time to Paris, and I instantly dug it in a big way. I've always been into urban locales and given its huge history and how dense the city is, the whole area was amazing and I loved it.

I did sleep well each night, because lugging a heavy-ass camera bag around was not the best thing for my feet, back and energy level. But after checking out the photos I took, I definitely think the pain was worth it. Luckily, checking out the neighborhoods and museums was not like this:



Anyway, here's another photo gallery of some of my photos from Paris. This is just one set. I will have another gallery up soon. Also, for those who may have missed my first two galleries I posted, you can choose them from the menu on the right.

A Few Days In Cali

As I said in my initial post, part of the reason I set this blog up is to share my photography with the masses (all 8 of you who read it ... but believe me, I love your support). I don't claim to be some kind of photo savant, but I do really enjoy it. I've always loved photography, and while he may not like it, a good deal of my new motivation and desire to be good at it was working with my buddy Bill. He's a damn good photographer, and has always been willing to share his advice on my techniques and suggestion new ways to look at things. He's the silent type, so the first time he started a conversation with me was a shocker. I think it had to do with the GBH album I was listening to, but now I've digressed.

So click here or the main image above for the slideshow of photos I took during a recent trip to Napa. The weather was amazing, the wine flowed and tasted as great as I could expect, and even the food was outstanding. I don't entirely know where on the cow the wagyu beef comes from, but I hope it's relatively decent spot where I won't feel weird loving it so much.

I will probably explain in a later post how I go about creating my images. But I really like the way HDR comes out. I see the world in a different way than the next person, and while I love black and white photography, for the time being I have really attached myself to the way HDR presents itself. I dig the competition each photo has between the real-life image that I captured and the digital, almost-painted look my final images show. Hope you enjoy.