Nick Dewar – Early 1970s

Nick Dewar - Early 1970s

Nick Dewar – Early 1970s

This is a portrait of the late son of some dear friends from my days in Scotland. It brings back some wonderful memories from my time in Scotland. Nick was drawing on his mother’s hand that afternoon, if you look closely you can see a face in her palm. The special part is that he went on to become a very accomplished illustrator like his dad. He called me Fotographie because I always seemed to have a camera. Sadly he passed away much too young, you can view some of his work here nickdewar.com. Click to view a little larger…

Floating in Pink

Floating in Pink

Floating in Pink - D700, 70-200mm

We took a trip last week to visit my niece and see their new home. I always look forward to taking some photos of my great niece and nephew. While we were there we took a trip one afternoon to the local town beach. Hard to loose my great niece in the water with that pink float, guess what color her new room is…PINK is the word for everything. We had a great visit and got some good family shots. Here’s my great niece mugging for the camera…notice the pink polish on the nails.

Lilly Giggles

Lilly Giggles - D700, 70-200

Catching Minnows

Catching Minnows

Catching Minnows - D200, IR converted, 18-35mm

Went for a walk along the creek today with my IR converted D200. Some young boys were in the creek catching minnows in a net for fishing. Brings back memories of my youth when I spent the summer days in the creek catching minnows and went fishing all day long…

Processed this in CS5 using some Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0 filters, the high contrast effect seemed to work well for this image. Click on image to view larger.

Cloudy Day – IR Bike Ride

Magnolia & Spanish Moss

Magnolia & Spanish Moss - D200, IR converted, 18-35mm

It was pretty cloudy today, NOT a good pool or beach day so we went for a bike ride in the morning. Not the normal IR kind of day, big white puffy clouds and hard light, but I took the IR camera anyway to see what I could find. Along the road I spotted this magnolia and some Spanish moss… Continue reading

Dreaming in the Clouds

Dreaming in the Clouds

Dreaming in the Clouds - D700, Lensbaby Composer

Experimenting with the Totally Rad – Dirty Pictures plug-in using some of my own textures. This is a combination of a Lensbaby Composer image of my niece and a bunch of blended texture cloud layers using Dirty Pictures. Don’t ask for the exact formula, I was just going with what felt right and did NOT write it all down…radial blurs, flipped layers, soft light and screen blending modes and a few masks just to recant some of the process. Oh yeah, through in a little Nik Color Efex Pro too…

I think I’ll just float off to dreamland for a while…

Lensbaby Soft Focus Optic – Family Photos

Kellen - Lensbaby Soft Focus Optic

Kellen - Lensbaby Soft Focus Optic

During the holidays we visited my brother-in-law and all the nieces and nephews. I took a bunch of photos mostly with the Lensbaby Soft Focus Optic. My main problem was trying to find the optimum focus point in low light with moving children, quite a challenge. All of these were shot in available light at ISO 1600 because the light was really that low. The more I use the Soft Focus Optic the more I like the effect you can get. Now if I can just learn how to manually focus quick enough to get the shot!

Here are a few more of the Lensbaby Soft Focus Optic images…

Lilly Rhys - Lensbaby Soft Focus Optic

Lilly Rhys - Lensbaby Soft Focus Optic

Kellen 2 - Lensbaby Soft Focus Optic

Kellen 2 - Lensbaby Soft Focus Optic

Lilly Rhys 2 - Lensbaby Soft Focus Optic

Lilly Rhys 2 - Lensbaby Soft Focus Optic

Lensbaby – Soft Focus Optic

Ben - Lensbaby Soft Focus Optic

Ben - Lensbaby Soft Focus Optic

Here’s a image of my great nephew, Ben, shot  with the new Lensbaby Soft Focus Optic. I shot this in available light using an off camera fill-flash with a LumiQuest softbox. This is the first time using the new soft focus optic and I think it will be useful. As always, it will take some time to see what situations will work best with this lens.

Lilly Rhys – My Great Niece

Lilly Rhys Upsidedown -  D700, 70-200 f2/8

Lilly Rhys Upside-down - D700, 70-200 f/2.8

We were over at my brother-in-law’s home today and of course I took the camera to shoot some updated family photos. Today’s subject, Lilly Rhys, my great niece. I set up an SB-800, clamped to a tripod, and had one of the well-trained family lighting grips hold a 32″ multi-disc diffuser in front of the flash to make for soft shadows. These were shot on the porch because it was raining. A few adjustments in CS3 and we have updated photos of the family for the fridge.

Lilly Rhys Rightsideup -  D700, 70-200 f2/8

Lilly Rhys Rightside Up - D700, 70-200 f/2.8

Summer’s Coming

Summer Fun - D700, 70-200 f/2.8

Summer Fun - D700, 70-200 f/2.8

We were at a family picnic this Memorial Day weekend and my niece was having a good time running in the yard. Of course I had a camera handy and managed to get a few good shots. This was processed using Topaz Simplify and a few other tweeks in PS3. Really caught the moment for me…feel the sun in your hair and the grass on your toes?