World Cup Champions 1954 & My Mom!

That's my mom standing in the convertible bug!
This is a scan of an original B&W print from the 1954 Homecoming parade for the World Cup Soccer Champs! Many of the players came from the town of Kaiserslautern  including team captain Fritz Walter. That why they had a HUGE parade! The devil was (and is) the teams mascot...

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My mom almost married Fritz Walter the captain of the winning German soccer team!  He later had a stadium named after him in Kaiserslautern.  Very cool!

Wild Animal Park in San Diego Ca.

We went to the WILD ANIMAL PARK IN San Diego yesterday.  Here are a few photos:

Good Hair Day!

Natural Beauty!

Good lookin' bunch!

"I think I fell in love today, with my stick!"

"Sis, put that stick down!"

Mom and her baby


We all had a great time!  The weather was PERFECT and the park was not crowded at all!

Pretty Seniors

Here are a couple of pictures of very recent senior portrait sessions.
One of these girls just graduated from high school and the other graduated from college.  Can you tell which is which?  I'm not gonna tell you!
The picture in the middle is one of the seniors walking into the sunset with her brother.
Both of these sessions were a lot of fun for all of us!

The Band

Here is a group portrait we took a while back.  This is a young group of talented Christian musicians.

Once a month they put together a very cool event they call "Wildfire." The event is held in Corona at CCFC (Cornerstone Christian Fellowship of Corona).  The next event is tomorrow, that's Saturday at six PM.  If you are anywhere near the area and want to be a part of this awesome Christian event stop by!  Address is 611 West 6th Street Corona Ca, 92882.

New Mommie. Again!

Here is a picture of my Chihuahua Hidee taking her first look at her new baby sister.  The puppies are only four day old.  

This picture shows all three healthy puppies, two girls and one boy. The boy is the black and "wide" on the right.  He is by far the largest of the three.  He keeps stealing milk form the smaller girls.  Bad boy! This is mom Darla's fourth litter!

Nikon 85mm f/1.4 D AF

We spent some time in our local mountains, Big Bear & Lake Arrowhead, so I decided to put my 85 1.4 on my camera since I have not used it in a few weeks.  The first image is a picture of my beautiful wife.  I shot this with the aperture set to f/9.  You can see that the hotel in the background is distracting.

The second image was shot from the exact same spot only the aperture changed from f/9 to f/1.4.  

      
                                                  

I love the Bokeh (out of focus background) that this 85 1.4 produces. Even the tree branches that are only about two feet behind her are totally out of focus and no longer a distraction.  I have used this lens with great success for all types of portraits, from senior portraits to fancy wedding shots.  It always delivers with that special "Bokeh" quality!  Both images were taken with the 85 1.4 on my full frame Nikon D3.  This lens also works great on DX format cameras like the D300 my wife is holding in the picture.   The DX crop factor of 1.5 changes the 85mm to a 128mm 1.4 lens.  Perfect for head shots!

Going Wide, Real Wide!

Here are two photos taken on Sunday with the Nikon 16-35mm.  Both of these pictures were shot with the lens set at 16mm.  I like the top picture better.  This picture is a good example of getting an almost 3D affect.  You just can't do that a regular lens.

Both of these pictures appear as taken.  No lens distortion correction has been applied!  This lens, as almost all ultra ultra wide lenses, does have visible distortion at the far corners at its widest setting.  As long as you keep the important stuff from getting too close to the ends of the frame you'll be OK.  But in the end it's the subject matter of your photo that counts.  If you like volley ball or pretty girls, you'll most likely find the photo at the top more interesting.  Right?!