Selective Focus, Fast Lenses & High Speed Sync

I made a decision a long time ago to only buy fast, pro lenses.  Here are a couple of portrait examples of why fast lenses allow you to be more creative.  The drawback is that these lenses are bigger and heavier, and can cost 5 to 10 time as much.  Ouch!

Both of these photos were shot in bright daylight at an f-stop of 2.8 @ 70mm.  Slower consumer lenses at f/4.0 or higher would render both subject "in focus."  In order to get great looking skin tones with no shadows in bright daylight, you need to add some type of fill light.  Be it a reflector or flash.  Notice the nice catchlight in her eyes.  There was a flash positioned off camera right with a warming filter attached to give a warm skin tone.  The flash was on high speed sync using a shutter speed of 1/640 of a second.  Without high speed sync on your flash, you could not get this shot.

Dos Lagos

So, last night we decided to go to Dos Lagos.  A nice outside shopping and event center in South Corona.
The three images I posted here were all shot with the Nikon D3 and Nikon 16-35 f4 lens.

This beautiful horse. was busy pulling her carriage around the event grounds.  Shot at f4 @1/20 ISO 200.

The band that was playing was great!  Playing beautiful spanish style music.  Maybe they were just happy because Spain is going to the World Cup Soccer finals for the first time ever!
I really like this picture because of the kids running around having fun.  I wanted to capture their movement so I shot this at a slow shutter speed of 1/10 of a second.  Not bad for a handheld shot.  what do you think?

My wife, who is also an excellent photographer, took this shot with the D3.  I love how she captured the shape and scale of that bamboo covered walkway.  This, like the previous shots, was taken using only available light.

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!