I got some new photography gear last week.  I thought it would be a good idea to give everything a “test run” prior to the wedding I’m shooting this weekend, so grabbed my daughter and went to the park tonight. I always use my flashes off camera with radio controlled slaves, but my old ones would only sync up to 1/200th of a second. This is okay, but it’s almost necessary to use a tripod to avoid any image blur due to camera movement at this shutter speed with my zoom lens. Another downfall is that I was unable to shoot at low apertures because they would require a high shutter speed for proper exposure. Thanks to these nifty little devices, my problems are solved! I bought two PocketWizard Flex Transceivers and a Mini TT1 Transmitter for my flashes. These bad boys will sync at shutter speeds up to 1/8000th of a second. The image of my darling daughter was taken at f2 @ 1/3200th , they worked great!

Well, I finished processing the third session from this weekend just in time to leave for Palm Springs. This little cutie is a co-works daughter. I have been trying to use more natural lighting lately. I really don’t think you can beat it when comes to photographing babies. The top photo is taken next to a window and the bottom is flash. The problem is you need a lens that can handle the low light. Speaking of which,  I have a nice two week break before the photography stuff starts picking back up again so I decided to ship off my 24-70 2.8L to canon to get it fixed. It will focus in auto mode, but it wont in manual. Clearly this is something that needs to be fixed before wedding season! I’m already in the hole $40 with shipping, hopefully it wont be too much to fix!

Oh man it’s been a while since the last blog entry. Between vacations, moves and pure laziness, the blog hasn’t seen much love lately.  It’s been so long I even forgot my password to write an entry! I have a good backlog of things to write about, so I guess I will start with the oldest. This is my co-workers daughter, Riley. The last time we attempted photos of her it didn’t go well. She was a little tired and wasn’t in the mood for my camera poking around. This time she was in a fairly good mood, but has since gone mobile. When she wasn’t moving out of the range of my strobes, she was sitting with her back to the camera. This was one of the few shots I got with the help of her mother grabbing her dress to slow her down a bit. When I first took the shot I thought it would be a “throw-a-way” but I started to like it more because it really does a good job at telling a story about a time in life. She doesn’t want to stay still, so why should we have a photo of her trying to do so!

I got a new lens last week: Sigma’s 50mm 1.4 I have only owned Canon lenses to this point, but so far I am really impressed with this product. Canon has a 50mm 1.4 lens, but from what I could tell, produces mediocre photos; especially with a $300 price tag. It’s obvious that Canon puts a majority of their effort into the “L” series lenses. Don’t get me wrong; it’s an astonishing line but they’re expensive. It’s nice to see a 3rd party company realize, and fill, a gap in the product line in terms of quality and price. Good job Sigma! Both of these shots are stopped down to 1.4. While other lenses will get soft at this aperture the Sigma remains fairly sharp.
ps. This is really the only “hood” you can live in Portland.

It was 70 degrees and sunny yesterday so we took our Boston Terrier, Elli, to the dog park. As we parked and began walking towards the park we started to see several other Boston’s. Typically we see a couple every time we go to the park, but this time there were lots of them. We entered the gates to find 30-40 Boston Terriers running amuck. Apparently all of the Boston owners meet up on the first Sunday of the month at 2:00 pm, I just happened to have my camera with me.

This little girl got hit by a car a couple of months ago, so she wasn’t feeling well yet.

I would have loved to get a photo of all of them together, but that would have been nearly impossible considering the chaos that was taking place. So, I just tried to focus on some of the ones with the most personality.   

I have never seen so many variations in one breed. Some are 25 + lbs and some are like mine. (I don’t think she weighs 12 lbs with a mouth full of food)  Some are cross-eyed, some are wall-eyed and others….  Well, as my friend would say, “one eye watching the poll and the other is dig’n for bait.  Some are black some are brindle and I even saw one that was tan. In all, they are a great breed and just aim to please their owners.

These were taken two weeks ago at the Go-Kart track. We went for my brother-in-law’s birthday. It was extremely fun. Kian got to play some games, although I think he really wanted to go on the track.


This was taken just before Ashley’s first lap around the track. These cars go fairly fast, so you don’t race other cars like most go-kart tracks. Instead, you race by time. In other words, after you have completed your lap you can check the official clock to see what your time was. She looks like she was ready to lay down some rubber, but in actuality she drove miss daisy around the track on the first attempt. She blamed it on driving with heels on, but I see her speed on the highway everyday in heels.  

 

We hung out at the hotel and got some work done Monday morning before again returning to the river walk. Everyone was fairly subdued. It could have been the combination of beer and BBQ from the night before, but I believe nerves played into it as well. It’s tough to get to the National Championship game. Think about it, 64 teams play in the tournament and only one gets to end their season with victory. We had a chance to be that team. I was going to have a chance to experience it.
 
A bonus to the day was that one of my favorite musicians, Bob Schneider, was playing a free concert. He put on a good show; played some of the favorites and threw in a few new songs as well. 
 
We arrived at the Alamo Dome about 80 min before tip-off. I wanted to grab the tivo remote and just fast forward to the start of the game, but it just wasn’t an option.
 
First Half: I was a little surprised that we didn’t play nervous. I had seen us do it in other games this year against defenses that weren’t nearly as good as Memphis. We ran our offence, worked the ball inside, and got great pressure and even a few steals with Chalmers and Collins. I believe we were up by 5 at half, but it didn’t matter. We were up by 29 at one time on North Carolina and I knew it didn’t matter. When you’re playing teams like NC, and Memphis no lead is safe. Right Billy Packer?
 
While I’m on the subject, I would have paid twice as much for my tickets not to have to listen to him during the games.
 
Second Half: I really don’t know how we got ourselves into a 14 point swing in the second half. We played fairly good and neither team was hitting from the parameter, it just kind of happened. I have watched the game several times on TV and it still surprises me when I look at the score and we are down by 9. Everyone credits Mario Chalmers for sending the game into overtime, and they should. He hit a well guarded, clutch 3 point shot. But if you watch the crowed, the vast majority of Kansas fans, including the bench, weren’t in hysterics when he hit it, they expected it. Sherron Collins is the one who gave us a fighting chance. In the final two minutes he created offence when they clamped down on us. He had an impossible steal on the inbound play and then managed to get the ball to Rush as he is falling out of bounds with two Memphis players in front of him. He then calmly rose, took up residence on the 3 point line and waited to deliver again with a 3 that cut the lead from 9 to 4.
 
Overtime: They didn’t have a chance. We ran our offence, produced high percentage points in the paint and finished it off with a fast break and a clinic on how to shoot high-pressure free throws.  When the fireworks went off I really didn’t understand what happened. 10 minutes earlier I was being called into the boss’s office to get fired and I just walked out with a raise, corner office and a shiny trophy.  UTEP, Duke, Arizona, Maryland, Bucknell, Bradley, Rhode Island, Syracuse, UCLA, Illinois, Georgia Tech, Kentucky. Off the top of my head these are just a few of the teams that have ended our tournament run in the past 20 years. It’s something you have to think about for the next 7 months until the next season. But not this year.

 
This is probably my favorite photo from San Antonio. Time was always a subject matter during the weekend. Whether it was a flight time, wanting time to move along with a 28 point lead on North Carolina, wanting more time when we were down by 9, an answered prayer at 2.8 seconds or a championship in overtime. However in this photo, time surrendered to the moment for us. We were all given the opportunity to remember when we watched the Kansas Jayhawks win the 2008 National Championship.

I believe in the one point five rule for two reasons. First, I believe it’s true. Second, the one rule just doesn’t sound as good. It suggests that if you are counting sleeping hours while in transit, whether in a car, train or plane, you take your original hours slept and divide it by 1.5 to get an accurate time of rest. My plane for Houston left the damp runway of Portland International Airport last Friday night at 11:55 pm. Hank and I were on our way to San Antonio to watch our Jayhawks play in the Final 4. With my two hours of sleep in the air and an additional two hours of sleep in Houston’s airport I was up to 4  (2.6) hours of sleep; which is enough considering my mind was quickly becoming occupied with the thought of what I was going to witness that evening. After a short 30 min flight to Austin we rented a car and drove the 1.5 hour drive to San Antonio and arrived at around noon on Saturday.. We met my Brother and His wife, Angie, at our Hotel before heading down to the River walk.
 
That afternoon and had a couple of beers at one of the multiple restaurants that cover either side of the river. Each of the Final 4 teams had their share of fans wondering around. We immediately determined defining characteristics of each of them.
 
UCLA: Tan or Asian, likely wearing team jersey with facial hair that is well trimmed, 
UNC: Old
Memphis: Speaking in an unrecognizable English accent and eating some form of meat.
 
As I was reviewing my photos when I got home I noticed the Gentleman in the bottom right of this photo. He looked a lot like KU’s Athletic Director Lew Perkins. It would make since with the huge ring on his hand (Orange Bowl Ring). After sending it to my brother we both agree that it is him. I never knew he was there…
 

 
I love this photo because my brother is typically true to his “gut feeling” for the game. Angie and Hank = nervous, but Konan was expecting the victory, that or he was drunk.  

 
This was a great backdrop for a couple of frames. The problem was the doors in the background went into hotel and convention center, so it was difficult to get a shot with no one else in the background. I put the original photos up too… before I took care of the problem. (sounds so mafia-ish)
 
    
 
 
 
 
 
We got to the arena about an hour and a half before the tip off of the first game. I didn’t take many photos inside of the Alamo Dome because they weren’t allowing lenses longer than 4 inches. For some reason they let me in, but I got several looks from staff when I had it out shooting, so I put the camera away most of the time. I was probably more nervous about the final 4 game against UNC than I was the national championship. I have wanted to play Roy Williams since he left KU over 4 years ago. Every year when the tournament brackets are released I look at our first match up and then I find North Carolina to determine what it will take to play them. You could tell who was picked to win the games. UCLA fans were lethargic before their game with Memphis and UNC fans didn’t even show up for the first 10 minutes of the UCLA – Memphis game. I enjoyed being the underdog; we just seem to play better. The first 15 min of the game against UNC was probably the best I have ever seen a Kansas basketball team play. I have seen individual performances that I will never forget, like Nick Collison vs. Texas on Big Monday, or Julian Wright vs. Texas at the 07’ Big XII Championship Game. But as a team; I have never seen a better performance. And what a better time than with Roy on the other end of the court. It was like seeing that ex-girlfriend for the first time in 4 years…. and then destroying her on a basketball court. I knew what the UNC fans were feeling. I have seen many Roy Williams high octane offence teams struggle against tough defense. One in particular was in 2000 when KU played Illinois in the Midwest Regional Semifinals. Roy had our team averaging 82 points a game. Bill Self’s Allini held us to 64 points to win the game. By-the-way, that game was played in San Antonio.
    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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So my dog isn’t getting much bigger and she sure doesn’t look very tough, but at least I can make her look big and tough… excluding the rubber chicken. J The colors from my new camera are amazing! Some people like warmer photos in regards to white balance, but I like true color and this camera is awesome at delivering it. The lens continues to amaze me too. Note the shallow depth of field. I love it!  

As most of you know I am planning to start my photography business this summer. This requires me getting lots of new equipment. Over the past few months I have been slowly buying a few of the lower priced items that I will need, like camera bags, memory cards and rechargeable batteries. This week however, I purchased my new camera body and lens. These two items along with 1 other lens that I have yet to buy are the bulk of my start up cost. For budgetary reasons my original plan was to go with the Canon 40D and then upgrading down the road, but thanks to the help of my father I was able to get the nicer full frame 5D.  I have some practicing to do. There is a big difference between my old camera and this one. The lens is a Canon 24-70 2.8 L This is my first “L” series lens. So far I am very impressed, most of my studio/wedding photos will come from this lens so I spent the extra money for the 2.8. A piece of glass and some thick wrapping paper turned to its back side provided the backdrop for these shots. Need-less-to-say these two photos will probably be the last I take with my XT for a while.