About a week ago we had some pretty awesome storms role through. The lightning was spectacular. It was a perfect storm for photography. there was lightning in the distance but no rain and I was able to sneak a bit of the sunset into the picture which was awesome! Capturing lightning is not as hard as most figure. It was my previous belief that you had to be quick with the shutter to capture lightning shots. However, that method is nearly impossible. The key is long exposures, about 15 seconds for my preference. When the shutter is open for long periods of time it will generally turn out all white unless there is little light. Any flashes of light will burn itself on the sensor leaving their image there much like if you were to stare at a light bulb and then close your eyes. You can still see it for a while. There are other key settings which have to be adjusted for avoiding over and under exposures. This is just trial and error and can be difficult because lightning generally doesn't flash that often so it's hard to get just the right setting. One question I get all the time is "Did you edit the colors?" The answer is no. Those bright purples and some pinks are exactly what came from the camera. A little boost on the contrast helps to bring it out but those are the natural colors. The human eye has trouble picking up color in dark lighting. That's why we see black and white when the camera sees purple. The same goes for stars; to the eye they are all white but with the camera you can see stars are orange, yellow, blue, green, and lots more. Just another way God reveals His glory to His people. Check out the rest of my lightning pictures on my facebook page. Thanks! http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.209265705750631.55812.100000016098276

About a month ago I had the wonderful opportunity to visit Tiger Creek, a big cat refuge in Tyler, Texas. My Grandmother Nana knew the owner and did a little sweet talking to the supervisors while i was around the corner. When I came back they asked me if I would like to go past the fences and take some close up pictures of these awesome creatures. I approached the first cage with this male lion named Stormy in the first picture. He had a really good relationship with the supervisor who was with me. She called stormy and he quickly got up and came walking straight at me. needless to say i was holding down the shutter snapping as many pictures as I could. Now this lens I was using was a 50mm 1.4 and didn't have zoom so the images you see were actually how close he was to me. In fact he walked up and layed down at my feet and I got to pet this beast. Needless to say it was an experience I'll never forget. I'd like to thank Tiger Creek and my Nana for hooking me up with this amazing opportunity. Please visit my facebook page to view the rest of the pictures from this trip. And as always, I love lots of comments! Thanks! (http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=100000016098276&aid=55812)

When most Photographers give up on shooting because the sun sets, I start to get mine out. One of my favorite things to shoot is the night sky with all the stars. However, night photography is the most difficult and requires its own unique set-up. There are a couple key components to capturing great shots of the stars. First off you need a tripod. You also need a night sky with no moon and somewhat out in the country. (The further away the better). Cities give off massive amounts of light known to photographers as light pollution. Even if you are 40 miles from a major city you will capture its light on the horizon with long shutter speeds as you can see in most of my pictures. So with a dark sky and a tripod how do you set up your camera? There are a couple ways to adjust your settings depending on the desired effect. lets take a look at the first image of the Milky Way.

I captured this shot on February 20, 2011. I was out in the country and shot it about 8:30, a couple hours before the moon came up. To me the Milky way is the hardest thing to capture. Conditions were perfect. As for my camera I had to play with the lighting a few shots. I try to keep my shutter speeds at around 20 seconds, (any longer and the stars will begin to streak across the sky) my ISO was high and f/stop was low. Here are the specs for the Milky Way shot. 15mm, 2.8 f/stop, 4000 ISO, and 25 sec shutter speed. Although this worked pretty well for me conditions may require you to adjust your settings. I took 4 pictures and merged them in photoshop and slightly brought out the colors. Another little tip is to use manual focus since the sky is too dark for the auto focus to adjust properly. Now for the star streak picture.

Star streak pictures are a whole different set-up. Unlike the first picture which was 25 seconds, this picture took roughly 45 minutes. Let me first explain how this works. The world is constantly spinning at fairly fast pace. Even at 30 seconds you notice movement in the stars. The North Star is always constant in the north so it never moves. Thus all the other stars rotate around it. Leaving the shutter open for 45 minutes poses several problems though. Like noise, or grainy dots that distort the image; and how do you hold the shutter open for 45 minutes? The correct way to solve this problem is to get a remote for your camera which allows you to adjust the length of time digitally. But I have not bought one yet. I went the cheap way and took a rubber band and a wad of tissue and fixed it to hold the shutter down. To make sure I did not shake the picture while pressing the shutter down I set it on a ten second timer so I could get away from it and allow it to take a perfectly still image. These are the specs I used for the Star Streak picture. ISO 100, f/stop 3.2, 45 Minute shutter speed, and at 15mm. low ISO will reduce noise and will keep the image from getting too dark. You may end up with a bright image which you will have to fix in photoshop but the colors will be amazing. Some of the stars will turn out orange, some blue, and a few purple and green. Now this isn't the best way to do star streak pictures but it is the easiest. The correct way is to use a remote and take about 80 30 second images and then stack them in photoshop. But like I said, this is the cheap way. And by the way, to get long shutter speeds go to BULB mode which may be marked by a B on your shooting mode wheel or in Manual Mode or M. In manual mode adjust the time to 30 seconds and then go one click past 30 sec and it should read BULB on the screen.

Night photography is a long process and requires a good amount of trial and error. But the results are all worth it! check out some other star pictures I have done.

This past Sunday me and my good friend Zach Allen hit the slopes at Loveland CO. I was really excited because I hadn't been skiing for a year but also because this was the first time I had the chance to photograph skiing with a good camera. last year at this time I had just bought my first DSLR. It was just a Canon 550D but I still babied that thing and didn't take it on the slopes. But now my desire to capture cool and unique shots over powers my fear of damaging my camera so here is what I got from my first day of skiing. To see the rest of my pictures please visit my facebook page.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=47606&id=100000016098276

Fire In Ft. Worth

On a recent senior shoot with Jordan Ellis, I decided to try something new with night photography and fire. Using long shutter speeds I was able to capture some pretty cool shots.

Most of you are probably wondering, how in the world did you do that!? Using long shutter speeds can open a whole new world of photography. You can do some neat things with light making star trails, ghost pictures, and the list goes on. For these I took a metal coat hanger and straightened it out but made a hook at one end. i wrapped fine shaved steel wool on the hook and secured it so that i could spin the wire in circles without it flying off. All I did then was put a 10 second timer on my camera and lit the steel wool and swung it around to throw the sparks outward. The open shutter will track every motion of the sparks thus creating these sweet pictures. here are a few specs on how I set up my camera.

For this shot with the truck, I used a 15mm Canon wide-angle fisheye for 5.0 sec at f/22, ISO 400. This was literally my first atempt at this shot and it turned out beautifully. Seconds after shooting this picture a Ft. Worth cop rode up on his bike and we thought we were in some sort of serious trouble. but he only asked us if Jordan was going to actually park his truck like that. I told him we'd only be a few minutes and then off he went.

Chandor Gardens

These pics came from a shoot a while back while waiting for my subjects to arrive. Evening sun casts some great soft and warm light. When this sun passes through trees it makes an awesome picture. It also helped that there is an amazing century old house to compliment. These photos were taken in Chandor Gardens in Weatherford Texas.