A Pair of Eagles

I drove down to Larose, LA today to photograph a well test.  It's about a three hour drive from home.  On the way, I received a call from the client stating that the well test was delayed and that I didn't need to be in a hurry.  I decided to take a detour off of highway 90 and run by Bayou Black near Gibson.  I stopped at the marina there and inquired about Black Guidry.  Mr. Guidry runs the best swamp tour in the state under the name Cajun Man Swamp Tours.   The marina operator said that Black has been laid up with a hip replacement and isn't running the tours until he recovers.  Oh well.  I was hoping to catch a ride out in the swamp to photograph the bald eagles.  And I wondered about the eagles that Black had trained to circle his boat.  Did they miss the snacks he fed them?

Well, I drove out of the marina and headed back toward highway 90.  As I drive, I always look for interesting birds.  Well, sure enough, right up ahead I spotted a pair of bald eagles cruising toward me right above the roadway.  I pulled over on the side with no traffic.  I looked out the window and up at the eagles with no time to grab a camera.  One eagle flew on by.  The other slowed down to take a look at me, almost as if it was looking for a hand out.  Could this be the same pair of eagles that I had seen Black Guidry feed during many trips to Black Bayou?  I wondered.

Here are some old photos from Black Bayou.  This is one of the eagles that Mr. Guidry "trained" to circle the boat before picking up a piece of fatty raw chicken that he had thrown into the water. 

The first photo is the one that I licensed to the Drug Enforcement Agency (a bureau of the Department of Justice) for inclusion in their poster design celebrating the 35th anniversary of the DEA.  They sent the poster out to all the agents around the world.  They also used the photo on coffee mugs sold in their gift shop. 

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I may take my boat down to Black Bayou this year.  Let me know if you want a ride.

At The Edge of the Shadow

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Lake Martin Sunset

Sunday evening, I finally made time to go out to Lake Martin for a paddle in my kayak.   The clouds were blocking the sun and making a drab, overcast light.  I paddled out across the lake in search of the osprey, or something else interesting.  After about an hour, I headed back toward the launch, disappointed in the light and worried that I could get caught out after dark.  Then, for a few brief moments, the sun poked through the clouds to make a magical light shining on the eastern shore.  I was not in a good position to get a interesting composition, so I paddled on back to the launch and turned around to see the stunning sunset.  Here are the best from that evening...

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Face

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Earth to Jason

My son, Jason, came by my studio recently when he was home from college.  He's always a good sport for posing.  Here are a few from that "session".    In the first one, I noticed that a lot of footprints were showing up on the black seamless paper.  Well, instead of hiding them in post-processing, I decided to emphasize them.  I think it looks like jason is floating out in space above the earth's atmosphere.  What do you think?...

I Am Nothing

My son, Jeremy, plays in a metal band called "I Am Nothing" (biblical reference).  They played a gig last Saturday night at a club called "Underground Sea", in New Iberia.  He invited me to come take photographs.

When shooting in a venue like this, I really don't like to use a flash.  The flash blinds everyone and typically overpowers the ambient lighting from stage lights.  Therefore, you lose the feel of the stage environment.  Well, this stage was really, really, dark.  There were some color gelled utility lights and some florescent tubes lighting the stage.  I still stuck with no flash and just cranked up the gain on the sensor.  I used a shutter speed fast enough to stop camera blur, but not fast enough to stop the motion of the lead singer, who was quite energetic.  I left the aperture wide open most of the time.  I used a 20mm lens (wide angle) on a full sized sensor (D700) so that I could get as much of the band and crowd in the same shot.  I also carried a D300 with a large, fast, zoom to try to get some individual band member shots.  However, it was simply too dark to get an accurate focus with the big zoom.  The focus assist on the camera can't work well around a big zoom with hood.

Here are some shots from that night...

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Miss C.

Miss C. and her mother walk or bicycle down our street just about every day at about the same time.  Sometimes Miss C.'s dad gets off work early enough to join them.   They stopped by the other day long enough for this shot of Miss C.  Quite photogenic isn't she?

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My First Photography Job

In 1980 I worked as an intern in a NASA sponsored program.  I was assigned to the Geology Department of the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff.  I worked on a research project in conjunction with the United States Geological Survey.  My job was to analyze images of sand dunes on Mars and compare them to photographs of sand dunes in the northern Arizona desert.  Naturally, this involved aerial photography.  The pilot flew me around on two trips over the sand dunes, with detours over some of the volcano fields, Meteor Crater, the Painted Desert, and other points of interest.  We had to obtain permission from the various Indian Reservations to do this, because we were flying at very low altitude.  I was given all the slide film I could possibly use and I was allowed to make duplicate slides of every photo I took.  I just started looking through these old photographs with the intention of scanning them digitally to preserve them.  Here are two of my favorites that happened to be in the top of the bag...

Sunset Crater (a volcano)...

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And, Meteor Crater...

I left these uncropped.  If you look in the upper left corner of the first photo, you can see a reflection in the plane window.  In the upper right corner of the second photo, you can see part of the plane's wing support.

I remember flying a tight circle over the top of a volcano and photographing while looking down directly into the crater and asking the pilot if he could slow down just a bit.  He said we were only going about 80 knots at about 500 ft altitude and he didn't think he could slow down anymore!

The Grand Tetons

I travelled out west for 11 days in May with my son, Jason.  We visited Zion National Park, North Rim Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and the Grand Tetons.   I haven't had time to finish processing my Yellowstone and Grand Tetons photos yet.  But, I thought I would throw this one up on the blog as a teaser...  I print it on a large canvas.

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Here is a link to my flickr website where I posted some photos from Zion...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cajunphoto/sets/72157621114919378/

And here is a link to my flickr photos from North Rim Grand Canyon...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cajunphoto/sets/72157621811804185/

A Pullback Shot

This is called a "pullback" shot.  It is a photograph that shows the studio setup a photographer is using.

In this case the pullback shot was taken by my paid assistant for a shoot I did for a private party.  The party was a surprise birthday party for a local businessman.  I was hired to shoot candids of the party and to set up a studio in the next room for portraits.  It was an absolute blast!  There was a live band and a Cher performer.  The biggest problem was shiny foreheads from the dancing.

I took about 94 usable portraits of nearly 30 people in various ensembles and poses that night.  I used a black seamless paper background, two softboxes, and a snoot for a hairlight.  I also used a second background to cover a large wall mirror.   For the candids, I used a Gary Fong lightsphere.

Following are a few portraits from that night...

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Engaged Couple from New Orleans

This was my first engaged couple.  I really appreciated the fact that the mother entrusted me to take their photos instead of shooting them with her point and shoot camera...

I met them on the beach in Fort Walton in August of 2008.  There were two engaged couples in the family as well as several other family members and friends accompanying them.  They were from New Orleans.

At one point, I climbed up on a dune to get a better perspective.  I was wearing flip-flops, and got loads of sandspurs as a result.

Here is the first photo of the first couple...

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And here is my personal favorite from that shoot.  The best photos are usually the ones that were not posed, but were spontaneous.  That is the case with this one.  They were just relaxing and looking down the beach while we were setting up another shot.  I saw them looking like fashion models and took the shot.  The black and white conversion really suits this photo...

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The Value of a Photograph: Part I, 1935

In 1935, a policeman in Dothan, Alabama, recognized the value of a photograph when he took his 3 year old granddaughter in to see the local portrait photographer.

The policeman was my great-grandfather and the little girl in the photo is my mother.  This is one of our family's most treasured photographs.

Five Beautiful Granddaughters

Here are my Mom and Dad's five beautiful granddaughters...

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No retouching here! ; )

Rock On!

Here are a couple of shots I took of some of the band members of "Redemption Hill" on Saturday.  My son, Jeremy, plays drums for the band.  They have quite a following on facebook.

Sean

Sean again

Aaron

I love shooting bands because of the emotion, the composition, the props, the lighting, everything comes together.  One of my favorite band shoots was when I shot the band, Third Day, for the venue they were playing.  You can see those photos on my flickr page at this link:  Third Day set

Practice, Practice, Practice!

I probably have more photos of myself than anyone in my own family.  Here, I was testing a portable lighting setup which uses a Nikon SB800 flash, mounted on a light stand, and a shoot-through umbrella with black backing.  The umbrella was only a couple feet away using about 1/8th power.  The advantage of shooting low power like this is that the batteries will run all day.  I shot this with my old trusty D80 at ISO 200, 1/100 sec to control light on the backdrop, with aperture set at f/7.1.

Tim, does this qualify as "fierce"?

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A Big Yamaha...

I met Ken and his wife at a yard sale.  Ken said that his wife made him buy the motorcycle because she wanted to ride.  Being retired, he thought he was too old for this, but he did as she asked.  Ken said he and his brother rode small Harley's when they were young.  I told him about how I idolized the Honda 50 that the kids' down the street had (Sue's cousins:  Jeff and Greg).

I had been wanting a portfolio portrait of a motorcycle rider and here was my chance.  Ken graciously agreed to pose for the camera behind his big Yamaha.  His bike was too big to fit in the door of my studio, but I'm hoping to someday get my neighbor, Mitch, to bring his Harley in for a shoot.

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THE NATIONAL PARKS: AMERICA'S BEST IDEA

This afternoon, I caught parts of episodes 3, 4, and 5 of  "THE NATIONAL PARKS: AMERICA'S BEST IDEA", a PBS special airing since September.  The Ken Burns documentary did an excellent job of demonstrating the importance of photographers in the early years of the national park system.   Due to the difficulty of travel in those days, photographers were able to produce "coffee table" style books for passing around in Washington, DC and among constituencies for demonstrating the value of setting aside pristine wilderness.  Without the photographs, the wilderness would have been more abstract in concept.  Chief among the photographers was Ansel Adams, who travelled to and photographed every national park in America during an 8 year period, except one.  He regretted that he never made it to the Everglades.
Here is a link to the PBS site...  http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/
I think you can view episodes online through that site.

She may be moonlighting as a model...

Here is my lovely wife, modeling for me while we checked out a new location.   I was amazed at how well she posed at the spur of the moment.  What a good sport!  It was overcast and about 4:30pm, but there was enough light to shoot at iso 220-450, with f/5.0 and 1/250sec using my 80-200mm f/2.8 lens.  No flash was used.

Front Door Light

When we moved in our house, our dear friend Kenny talked us into painting the front foyer red.  I'm glad we did!  It provides a beautiful backdrop when photographing with natural light coming in the front door.  The key is to not let any direct sunlight to enter the door, only indirect.  This is accomplished simply by the time of day, or by using a large scrim over the door.  

The wall that I shoot on is really narrow and has a light switch on it.  The light switch is easily removed in photoshop.  And the narrow wall can be easily expanded in photoshop to make a nice wide canvas.

Here is one of my favorite photos from the front door.  It was shot in November at about 1:48 in the afternoon.  The front door faces roughly northwest.  This was shot on a Nikon D300, ISO 200, 50mm f/1.4 prime lens, using f/2.8, exposed for 1/60 second.

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Here is another from the same wall, this time in a bronze split-tone version...

I usually use a white reflector to provide a little bit of fill to the dark side.

Tony