Costa Rica

I recently spent a week doing a corporate photo shoot in Costa Rica. We stayed at the Guanacaste J.W. Marriott. Here are a few images around the property, and a few off property.

Trip Out West and WPPI

I just returned from a two week trip out to California and Las Vegas. The California side of the trip was spent with cousins in San Diego and L.A., and my brother in San Luis Obispo. The Las Vegas side was spent at the Wedding and Portrait Photographers International (WPPI) trade show. This was probably my 5th WPPI and I still seem to walk away with some new info on products and the business. I also seem to walk away a bit conflicted as well. Some of the best wedding photographers in the world are at the show talking about their work. It can be a bit intimidating because I realize there is still a lot of room for my photography to grow. That should motivate me, and it does; but it also frustrates me because I don't want to put myself in a position of trying to copy or imitate other photographers. So I am conflicted.

If asked whether I had any guidance for new photographers, I would offer this standard but true advice: stay true to yourself. Understand your style and how you like to shoot and capture images, and build on that. Perfect it. Make it your signature. That is what I should be practicing myself, rather than trying to recreate a style mastered by someone else. So much of photography, like so much of everything else in our lives, relies on confidence. Just like a pro athlete's performance can suffer when they are lacking confidence, I know my own photography suffers when I am losing confidence in my abilities. So yeah, I do have plenty of room to grow and expand my photography, and I want to continue to learn and experiment. But I also want to stay true to my own style. I know what I like and I know what I don't like. There are photos taken by some of these "rock star" photographers that are absolutely beautiful, and there are images that I really dislike. These photographers seem to see something wonderful in these images. I see cheese, or a weird stance, or blown out highlights. So why would I want to try and imitate their work if I don't like it?

I guess for any artist there is this conflict. We respect the work of other artists, and perhaps secretly wish we had their level of talent. At the same time we believe in our own work, proud of it in fact. I think the most successful artists, and probably the most respected ones, are those who have perfected their own style, and stayed true to it. In the end, that is what I want of myself.

Church and State

Lately it seems that the concept of separation of church and state works great at keeping the church out of the state's business, but it does a lousy job of keeping the state out of the church's business.  In a climate of an all powerful state, where the state is intent on imposing its will on all aspects of our lives, diminishing the importance of religion in a person's life is job one. Oh, they won't say that. They're too smart to tell people what they are really up to. Just go ahead and formulate extreme policies, then back off a bit to make it look like you are willing to "accommodate" the people, and there you are: one step closer to state run religion, and one step back from personal freedom. How benevolent of you.

Anyhow, today there is a very good article related to this that I would like to recommend for your reading.

Many have argued that the left is fighting for freedom from religion.  No, there will always be religion.  Fundamental change was promised; change from God given rights to state granted rights are being delivered.  When the state eliminates God, the state becomes god.  And the state is a jealous god, especially when it takes guidance from a bookdedicated to Lucifer.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/our_father_who_art_in_washington.html#ixzz1mqpOQjTe

Grammy Awards

I hope you had a chance to watch the Grammy Awards Sunday night. I thought overall it was one of the better Grammy shows produced over the past several years. There seemed to be an underlying theme throughout the show: let's celebrate the voice, the instrument, and the song. That was the cry of the FooFighter's Dave Grohl in his acceptance speech. Too often musicians rely on electronic tricks to cover their imperfections, or their dancing ability or looks to cover up that they really cannot sing. It is refreshing when you have musicians and singers who rely purely on their voice and their talent, stripping away all the hype and lighting.

Highlights for me were Bruno Mars, Adele, Taylor Swift, Jennifer Hudson, the Beach Boys' medley, and the Civil Wars. Falling a bit flat I thought were Katy Perry, the Glen Campbell tribute, and the first Paul McCartney song. Everything else was entertaining, but nothing memorable. In absolute stark contrast to what was otherwise a quality lineup was Nikki Minaj. An absolute waste of 5 minutes (glad I dvr'd the show). Her presentation really was an unwelcome contrast to talent. Give me anytime one minute of Civil Wars with just two voices and a guitar over that Minaj mess. Five minutes of the Civil Wars would have been awesome.

Naples Florida Pier at Sunset

I was recently down in Florida and revisited the Naples Pier for some sunset photos. The first night gave me some great cloud formations, adding some welcomed drama to the sunset. The next night I went back with a tripod, wanting to take some long time exposures. The clouds were pretty non-existent that night, so the sky was not as great. Shooting longer time exposures softens the water, giving it almost a painted look. I'm happy with both images, although they are quite different. This is the kind of image that works well with all kinds of digital filters and effects, each one giving the image a very different look. These two images were mostly just enhanced and corrected in Adobe Lightroom, with mostly just some changes done to the exposure and white balance, with some added dodging and burning. Click on image to enlarge.

Wittenberg University: My Alma Mater

I just wanted to give a shout out to my college, Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio. This past December I watched online the Wittenberg's women volleyball team defeat Christopher Newport University for the NCAA Division III National Championship. Wittenberg has long been a football/basketball school. Their football program was the first (and only) Division III school to reach 700 wins. The basketball program, celebrating its 100th season this year, has more wins than any other Division III school. Additionally the basketball program has not had a losing season over the past 50 years, as well as appearing in the Division III tournament more times than any other school. While I attended Wittenberg, both the football team and the basketball team won a Division III national championship. Overall, the football team holds five national titles while the basketball team holds two.

The Princeton Review named Wittenberg as number 18 on their list of most beautiful campus in America. It also came in at number 19 for top professors. More Wittenberg professors have been named top professor of the year in the state of Ohio than any other school in Ohio, including Ohio State.

I enjoyed my time at Wittenberg. Last November I went by the campus for a quick visit and was impressed with how well they have improved the facilities over the years. The school makes a good first impression. Not sure I could afford the cost of today's Wittenberg though, but that is probably true with most private schools today.

The Updegroves and Bethany Beach

Our family has been going to Bethany Beach, Delaware for pretty much my whole life. It is like my second home, wanting to be my first. Anyhow, I've been wanting to put together a photo book for the family, revolving largely around my brother Dave's family. This past Christmas was a good time to finally put it together. Here is a preview. Click on the large version for best viewing.

A Better Finder Rename

One of my pet peeves with digital photography is the random filenames people use for their photos. Most people seem to do one of two things with their digital files: 1. they leave the filename as is from their camera (ie, dsc001), or 2. they rename the file with something like "Doug&Joanne_front_of_house". I guess for some people this all makes sense, but for me it does not. I like organization; and for me, with hundreds of thousands of photos on various hard drives, I need organization. I want my file names to make sense to me. So what do I do?

When I download images from my camera(s), the very first thing I do is batch rename all of the images. Now, I usually shoot with two cameras. That means at least two cards with photos taken trading off cameras throughout the day. When I bring all the images from all the cards onto my computer hard drive, I want to be able to organize all the photos by the time they were taken, and then rename all the files in a manner that makes sense to me for that particular photo shoot. Most people do not use two cameras, but those who do, here is the important step you need to take before shooting: be sure to sync the time clock between both cameras. You want to get them at least within maybe 3-4 seconds of each other. It does not matter if you are using two different kinds of cameras. Of course if you are shooting with only one camera, the time stamp does not matter, although I would strongly encourage you to set your camera time clock to the accurate time.

With all your images out of the camera and now on your hard drive, you want to be able to batch rename the files into a file name that makes sense. I use a very powerful program called A Better Finder Rename. To me it is the most intuitive program out there, with loads of options for all of your files, not just photos. Have 2000 images you want to change the file name . . piece of cake. Want to put all your images into chronological order AND rename them . . that is the whole idea of this program. So for something like a wedding, I will take the first initials of the bride and groom, add an underscore, then start the numbering with 0001. This will change my camera file name of "dsc6382", which means nothing to me, and changes it to "AB_0534". Or, as way of another example, photos taken on family vacation are changes from "_dsc3861" to "beach2011_0103". Like I mentioned before, there are loads of options: add text to the beginning of the file name, remove a couple digits in the middle, etc.

If you just have 3 or 4 files to rename, it is probably easier to do this manually; but if you have thousands or even hundreds to change, get A Better Finder Rename. There are other programs out there, some free, but this program is perfect at what it does. You can download a trial version that limits how many files you can batch rename, but it will give you a great experience with how well this program works.

Batman Meets Lion King

This is an impressive bit of editing. Take the audio from the new Batman movie (Dark Night Rises) trailer and superimpose it over clips from The Lion King, and this is what you get:

Time To Not Get Serious About Climate Change

If I was interested in being politically and socially correct, I would blindly rally behind the global warming cause, joining those who blame humans for any change of weather. I would call for government to outlaw oil and coal, and to invest billions of dollars in alternative energy sources such as solar and wind, which admittedly are much more expensive and much less effective. I really would not care that going "green" would bankrupt our country, send millions of people to the unemployment line, and raise costs for every product out there. That is a small cost for me to feel good about saving the planet, and possibly prevent the earth's temperature from raising .3 degrees over the next hundred years.

I am willing to say it: I do not believe in man made climate change. I cannot say I am skeptical about climate change itself. That would be like saying I am skeptical of air. Air exists, regardless of what I choose to believe. The same holds for climate change. The earth we live on has been changing for thousands of years. Ice ages come and go. In between those ice ages are warming periods. If the earth is capable of shifting into a definitive period of time called an "ice age", it is also capable of shifting into less definitive periods of time when the earth temperature drifts up or down by fractions of a degree. This happened before man burned carbon for energy, it will most likely happen when man relies on some other energy source. Is it possible that the real deniers are those who just don't accept this?

Those who are climate change devotees will say that those who do not buy into man made climate change are anti-science. That could not be further from the truth. We are actually anti-bad science, and there seems to be plenty of bad science out there masquerading as "truth" when it comes to climate change. Likewise there is a lot of bad policy being implemented out there, all based on bad science. Today I recommend two articles that should help you understand why I have not jumped on this green bandwagon. Please take the time to read both articles in their entirety.

F. Fred Singer, professor emeritus at UVA, writes of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project:


What the BEST result shows is that surface thermometers from the land area of the globe (about 29% of the earth's surface) show a warming trend.  But this is not global warming.  And BEST director Professor Rich Muller explicitly disclaims that his trend results indicate a human cause.

He also correctly points out that many of the weather stations used are badly distributed, mostly in the U.S. and western Europe, and possibly subject to local heating effects, such as urban heat islands.  He cautions that a third of his monitoring stations show a cooling, not a warming.  And that 70% of the U.S. stations are poorly situated and don't satisfy the requirements of the U.S. Weather Service.  It is likely that stations elsewhere have similar problems.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/01/fake_fake_fake_fake.html#ixzz1iJI6w7Oz

And Clarice Feldman writes about the impact of biofuel farming in Africa:

The collapse of the London-based company Sun Biofuels, which grew jatropha in the district of Kasarawe for biodiesel, has left hundreds of villagers landless, jobless and in despair. In Mhaga village alone, a quarter of the land was acquired by the company  in 2008, with a promise of financial compensation, 700 jobs, water wells and improved schools, health clinics and roads. But the villages have not been paid for the land, and their neighbors in Mtamba tell the same story of broken promises and unpaid  compensation. Tabu Koba is one of 9 in this village who received no payment for their land.We are very angry.' He says.'My children have left school and have nowhere to farm.'

'The situation in Kisarawe is heartbreaking, but the real tragedy is that it's not unique, comments Josie Cohen of Action Aid. 'Communities across Africa are losing their land as a result of the massive biofuel targets set by [the UK] government.' Legalbrief Environmental

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/01/two_silly_notions_biofuel_mandates_as_carbon_neutral_and_rhino_horn_medicine.html#ixzz1iJQb9snM