Portrait Session, Part 2

These are the last three images from my portrait session with a friend and his family at Memorial Park in Houston on Saturday. Technical issues aside, these three are my favorites from the shoot because to me they all have a greater emotional impact than the more classical portraits posted yesterday. As usual, any comments or suggestions for improvement would be greatly appreciated. :-)

Camera and lens for all three shots are the same as yesterday: Canon 40D and Canon 17-55mm f/2.8

Title: "Swing Time"


Title: "Family Plus Dog"


Shot data: 1/200s f/9.0 at 28.0mm iso320

Title: "The Little Guy"


Shot data: 1/100s f/4.5 at 55.0mm iso320

Memorial Park Portrait Session

Saturday I had the opportunity to photograph a friend I used to work with and his family. We had a 45 minute session beginning at 6:30PM in Memorial Park in Houston. This was my first attempt at trying to do this and, predictably, I made a lot of mistakes which resulted in a pretty low success rate. I only ended up with six shots from the session that I consider "keepers". This is the first three of them and I would really appreciate your feed back about how you think I did and how I might have done better. All of the shots were taken with my Canon 40D and Canon 17-55mm f/2.8 zoom and using a homemade beauty dish off camera for fill light early early in the shoot and for the key light as it got later in the evening.

Title: "The Family"


Shot data: 1/25s f/5.0 at 45.0mm iso200

Title: "Her"


Shot data: 1/80s f/4.5 at 55.0mm iso200

Title: "Him"


Shot data: 1/50s f/4.5 at 55.0mm iso200

GBF Boats

Here is a series of shots of the volunteers working from their boats at the Galveston Bay Foundation Marsh Mania event two weekends ago. This part of the event took part early in the morning and the workers were back lit resulting in some interesting silhouettes (make sure to click on the image and look at the larger size).

Title: "GBF Boats"


Camera / Lens: Canon 40D / Canon 100-400mm L zoom

Galveston Bay Foundation Volunteers

My usually reliable photo hosting site has been down for a few days which has forced me to temporarily change the way I post photos to my blog. I'm having to display a smaller size but you should be able to click on the image to get a larger version.

Here are a couple more shots of some of the volunteers at last Saturday's Galveston Bay Foundation Marsh Mania event at Burnet Bay near Baytown.

Title: "Marsh Mania Volunteer #3"


Camera / Lens: Canon 40D / Canon 17-55mm f/2.8 zoom
Post-processing: Adobe Camera Raw > Photoshop CS3 > Topaz Adjust plugin

Title: "Marsh Mania Volunteer #4"


Camera / Lens: Canon 40D / Canon 17-55mm f/2.8 zoom
Post-processing: Adobe Camera Raw > Photoshop CS3 > Topaz Adjust plugin

Official Effort

This is one of the officials that helped organize the Galveston Bay Foundation's Marsh Mania event this past Saturday at Burnet Bay near Baytown. The Marsh Mania event was all about planting these buckets of grass so I wanted to emphasize the grass in this shot.

Title: "Official Effort"


Shot data: 1/250s f/13.0 at 17.0mm iso100
Camera / Lens: Canon 40D / Canon 17-55mm f/2.8 zoom
Post-processing: Adobe Camera Raw > Photoshop CS3 > Topaz Adjust plugin

Volunteer Effort

Today's photo is of one of the volunteers at Saturday's Marsh Mania event put on by the Galveston Bay Foundation. The volunteers made quick work (2 hours) of planting cord grass on the twenty or so man made islands in Burnet Bay near the San Jacinto Battleground. I really like the perspective of this shot and was glad in the end that I let myself put my camera much closer to the water than I was comfortable with!



Shot data: 1/80s f/13.0 at 23.0mm iso100
Camera / Lens: Canon 40D / Canon 17-55mm f/2.8 zoom
Post-processing: Photoshop CS3 > Topaz Adjust plugin

More from GBF Event

Here are a couple more shots from the Galveston Bay Foundation (GBF) event this weekend. The first shot is of part of the heavy machinery used to build the islands that were to be planted on the day of the event. The second shot is another shot of the grass the islands were planted with.

Title: "Tools of the Trade"


Shot data: 1/1000s f/5.6 at 17.0mm iso100
Camera / Lens: Canon 40D / Canon 17-55mm f/2.8 zoom

Title: "Waiting to be Planted"


Shot data: 1/500s f/8.0 at 400.0mm iso100
Camera / Lens: Canon 40D / Canon 100-400mm L zoom

GBF Bucket O' Grass

Yesterday I volunteered with some other Bay Area Photo Club members to photograph a Galveston Bay Foundation (GBF) event. On Saturday volunteers planted grass on sand bars the GBF had built in earlier weeks. Eventually the grass planted on Saturday will spread and create wetlands in Burnett Bay in Baytown (the original wetlands were lost due to subsidence). We were there to document the event. Over the next few days I'll be posting some of my photos from the day.

Title: "GBF Bucket O' Grass"


Camera / Lens: Canon 40D / Canon 17-55mm f/2.8 zoom
Post-processing: HDR image created by Photomatix Pro from three hand-held exposures (-2, 0, 2) > Photoshop CS3 > Topaz Adjust plugin

Mega City

Looking at the photo I posted the day before yesterday I decided that "my town" wasn't big enough...so I fixed it! :-)

Title: "Mega City"

Tubing on the Guadalupe

Tubing on the Guadalupe River is all about relaxing and having fun. Style points are important too! :-)

Taken two weekends ago on our trip to Canyon Lake.

Title: "Tubing on the Guadalupe"


Shot data: 1/800s f/7.1 at 275.0mm iso400
Camera / Lens: Canon 40D / Canon 100-400mm L zoom
Post-processing: Adobe Camera Raw > Photoshop CS3 > Topaz Adjust plugin

Barry, Texas

This past weekend we went through a small town called Barry, Texas on our way to Grandview from Houston. It turns out that my wife's grandmother was born in this town! If your first name were Dallas or Houston your wife's grandmother may have been born in a town by that name, possibly but not likely, but if your first name is Barry...forgetaboutit! :-)

Title: "Barry, Texas"


Camera / Lens: Canon 40D / Canon 17-55mm f/2.8 zoom
Post-processing: Photomatix Pro to combine three hand-held exposures (-2, 0, +2) into one HDR (High Dynamic Range) image > Photoshop CS3 > Topaz Adjust plugin

Town Folk

This past weekend we visited Beaumont Ranch in Grandview, Texas to attend an event hosted by an old friend of ours. Part of Beaumont Ranch's amenities is a recreated old west town complete with reenactors as shown in today's photo.

Title: "Town Folk"


Shot data: 1/800s f/2.8 at 28.0mm iso200
Camera / Lens: Canon 40D / Canon 17-55mm f/2.8 zoom
Post-processing: Photoshop CS3 > Topaz Adjust plugin > Virtual Photographer plugin

Big Rigs

Taken at a Dairy Queen in Corsicana on our way to Grandview, Texas this weekend.

Title: "Big Rigs"


Camera / Lens: Canon 40D / Canon 17-55mm f/2.8 zoom

Dandy Dog

I noticed this hot dog place in Wimberley a couple of weekends ago (guess what caught my eye?). I have a real appreciation for micro-business, a term I using here to refer to an operation conducted from a relatively small location like a cart, trailer or very small building. To me these types of tiny operations are the fabric of capitalism.



Camera / Lens: Canon 40D / Canon 17-55mm f/2.8 zoom
Post-processing: Photomatix Pro for creating High Dynamic Range image from three handheld exposures (-2, 0, +2) > Photoshop CS3 > Topaz Adjust plugin

Old Hays County Jail #2

Here's another shot of the old Hayes County Jail in San Marcos. This one was taken from the sunny side of the building and has a much warmer feel to it than yesterdays shot from the shadow side.

Title: "Old Hayes County Jail #2"


Camera / Lens: Canon 40D / Canon 17-55mm f/2.8 zoom
Post-processing: HDR (High Dynamic Range) from three hand-held exposures using Photomatix Pro > Photoshop CS3 > Topaz Adjust plugin

Old Hayes County Jail

Last weekend I located the old Hayes County Jail in San Marcos. Enclosed in tall cyclone fencing partially overgrown with vines it isn't that easy to locate even with good instructions to follow. This structure is supposedly in line for renovation which, as you can see, would be a major undertaking! If it actually gets restored I'll be one of the first ones to visit!

Title: "Old Hays County Jail"


Post-processing: Photomatix Pro to combine three hand-held exposures into one HDR (High Dynamic Range) image > Photoshop CS3 > Topaz Adjust plugin

Guadalupe River Tubers

Over the Labor Day weekend I took this shot from a bridge overlooking the Guadalupe River at a popular tubing location on Highway 306 near Canyon Lake. Due to the drought conditions in the Texas Hill Country the reduced water level made the "flow" almost nonexistent. I think it took about 45 minutes for the tubers to get from the front of the photo to the back. I had plenty of time to focus! :-)

Title: "Guadalupe River Tubers"


Post-processing: High Dynamic Range (HDR) from three hand held exposures (-2, 0, +2) using Photomatix Pro > Photoshop CS3 > Topaz Adjust plugin > Red Paw Media Beautifier plugin

Cock-eyed Dock

This was my second entry for the Bay Area Photo Club's September 2009 Honors Night held this past Tuesday. This dock is located on Canyon Lake and, as with all the Texas hill country lakes, the ongoing drought in central Texas has caused the water level to be extremely low. This dock is supposed to be floating and the ramp in the photo is supposed to be roughly level with the upper landing (where I'm standing to take the photo) but instead the dock is partially resting on the bottom of the lake and the ramp is at about a 45 degree angle between the upper landing and the lower. This photo was given a Silver Award by BAPC's panel of judges.

Title: "Cock-eyed Dock"


Post-processing: Photoshop CS3 > Topaz Adjust plugin > Nik Viveza plugin > Virtual Photographer plugin

Hyatt Atrium

Last night was Honors Program Night at the Bay Area Photo Club for September 2009. The assignment this time was "Unusual Perspective". One of my two entries was "Hyatt Atrium", an HDR taken from the top of the atrium at the Hyatt in San Antonio a couple of weeks ago. I really like the composition and colors in the photo and feel the applicability to the assignment ("Unusual Perspective") is very strong so I had high hopes for the image. It received a "no award" from our panel of judges though leading me to conclude that my opinion of my own work may not be completely unbiased? :-)

Title: "Hyatt Atrium"


Post-processing: High Dynamic Range (HDR) composite from three hand-held exposures (-2, 0, +2) using Photomatix Pro > Photoshop CS3 > Topaz Adjust plug-in

Gruene Hall Morning Delivery

We spent this past weekend in the Canyon Lake area. One of my side trips landed me in Gruene, Texas at sunrise where I took this image of historic Gruene Hall.

Title: "Gruene Hall Morning Delivery"


Camera / Lens: Canon 40D / Canon 17-55mm f/2.8 zoom
Post-processing: Photomatix Pro to combine three exposures taken from a triod into one HDR (High Dynamic Range) image > Photoshop CS3 > Topaz Adjust plugin > Nik Viveza Plugin

Rod and Reel

It has been hard to find time to process photos lately so I'm reverting to the archives today. This is a shot from my trip to Tybee Island in Savannah, Georgia in May 2008. To me it has a relaxing quality which can put one in the appropriate frame of mind for a holiday weekend! :-)

Title: "Rod and Reel"


Shot data: 1/500s f/7.1 at 100.0mm iso125
Camera / Lens: Canon 40D / Canon 100-400mm L zoom

Emma's Elevator Portrait

While in San Antonio last weekend I grabbed this impromptu portrait of my daughter Emma in the Hyatt's elevator. I used my Canon D40's built-in flash and expected the image to be extremely over-exposed (after all I was a maximum of three feet away from my subject). I was pleasantly surprised when I had time to look at the image on my PC. Not only was the image not over-exposed, it was near perfect (at least to my eye). Anyway...my lesson learned was to not be afraid of using my camera's built-in flash when the situation dictates the need for flash and I don't have my accessory flash handy. It's better to risk a bad exposure (which turns out to maybe not to be that great of risk) than to pass up the shot entirely!

Title: "Emma's Elevator Portrait"


Shot data: 1/60s f/4.0 at 23.0mm iso1250
Camera / Lens: Canon 40D / Canon 17.55mm f/2.8 zoom with built-in flash
Post-processing: Photoshop CS3 > Topaz Adjust plugin