What got me started?

There are a lot of reasons I started to take photography seriously, but the biggest had to have been my love for taking pictures at the bar I work at here in Illinois. It's a small but distinguished pub, with a wonderful crowd and even better staff. I used my old Pentax DL to take pictures for them and their website (Oscars Myspace) and to my amazement it was very enjoyable fighting the drunken crowd to snap a few shots. It's much different taking pictures in a bar and enjoying being at a bar, but both experiences are very enjoyable in there own merit. Back to the whole reason this paragraph started and my serious venture in photography spawned because I wasn't satisfied with the pictures I was taking in the harsh conditions of the bar, even though everyone else was all googly over my work. I would look endlessly into the work I'd create and make a scene about how bad it was in my mind and tell myself I can do better. Today I have the tools and the knowledge to take those better shots in the harsh lighting environment that is a bar and have a few shots and the techniques I use to help sift through the crowd and also to get the employees involved.

The first and most important aspect of taking shots for a bar is to know what they want to show and 99% of the time it's the same thing. What is it, well it's best said in the words of my boss, "we need pictures of people having a good time!" Sounds simple right? Not so much when there is 200+ people shoulder to shoulder and at f1.4 the shutter speed is a whopping 1/3 not too mention that white balancing is an art in itself with halogen lightings, christmas lighting, neons, fish tanks, natural light light bulbs, etc. You name it most bars have it for lighting and it can change drastically from one area to another. I myself love a clear shot of my subject and leave everything else out, while others love to mix the ambient light with the strobe they carry and thats fine too until you see how hard it can become. My next experiment is to go out one night and try to mix my lighting with what is available and compare, but for now I bounce flash to keep it simple in such a hectic area.

Getting through the crowd with your gear is quite difficult at times, but I've learned the rule of keeping it simple really helps. I keep a bandanna wrapped around my left wrist to use as a sweat wipe or in super hot bars a headband to keep sweat off my camera and out of the eyes. I also only carry an extra memory card, my sigma 28 1.8 (in crowds this is great and it doesn't have much distortion) and my flash attached with white card extended and flash pointed at 90 degrees. My reason for the 90 degree turn is that I want my light to not distract too many other people and when you shoot in a crowd pointing it right at your subject will also be pointed at the people behind them and to the sides which is quite annoying and have found that the straight up position is best if you don't want to disturb other patrons.

To get those "people enjoying themselves" shots I rely on the staged shot because most people will go, "wow they do look like they are having so much fun being their with their friends." I also try and snag a few people without their knowledge, but it's hard when you are no more than 5 feet away because of traffic so I take what I can get and run. When lighting is really bad and I speed is essential I crank the aperture, boost the flash and set the camera to manual focus and eyeball things as best as I can and hopefully the higher aperture and flash will give me a semi sharp image that looks good medium sized or on the net.



I hope some of these techniques help the aspiring bar photographer out there and believe me I'm no expert, but I've been doing this for about 2 years and have had a lot of compliments on the work and can honestly say that it's no picnic out there some nights.




I'll leave you with the final shot here of two staff members having a great time:

A Day for the Birds...

Thought I'd keep up with my blog and after a good couple hours out in the fields and lakes I'm back with some interesting shots hot off the SD card folks. Today I went out in hunt of birds, any birds, hopefully some nice looking birds. The bird hunt went pretty bad as all I got were a few finches, a young robin, red wings and black birds. Here are some of the shots taken with my cheap-o Tamron 70-300 telezoom (which is in dire need of being replaced by a FA* 300mm 2.8 or 4). The image quality of this lens... very poor but for under $150 it's cheap and reliable even though I'm not a fan of reliably bad, but I'll have to say it has impressed me a few times (very few times indeed).

The shots of the day brought to you by me:
I know these shots aren't up to par with most of my work, but I'm not a great bird photographer nor have ever claimed to be one, but I get the best shots I can with the worst lens in my bag and have had some pretty nice stuff come from it. I always tend to shoot in Av (Aperture Priority) Mode and have a lot of success with bird images since they have so much detail and the more I can get out the image by boosting the aperture really seems to help. I remember when I first got this lens and was always shooting in the lowest aperture so I could max out the shutter speed. That did wonders for me as I
struggled to get any good pictures out of it. Of course my background in photography never made me come to the conclusion that the lens is crappy wide open, but it did once I got a bit better at what I do and have now realized to only use this lens wide open in the most extreme conditions where I need the shutter speed above 1/100 or something along those lines. SO for now I tend to use the lens two to three stops up on the aperture and sometimes past f8 if the conditions permit. To get close enough for these crops I also used a makeshift hide (cardboard
box with two holes in it, one for air, and one for
the lens to poke out through) that was placed about 9 feet from a plethora of bird feeders and a water source. Technique works pretty good as they don't seem to fly away when they can't see you, but try not to move around so much as that also makes them fly away. In order to get a view of my surroundings I stay away from the viewfinder far enough so I can still focus through th viewfinder and also to see the outside and catch other creatures as they come into view. Hope this helps anyone trying to get some of the birds that come near their homes as it tends to work and if they don't start landing right away you're either too loud or too close and they can still sense some danger so just back off a little and wait a while and hopefully something pops into view.

Birds come in many shapes and sizes and I thought it was time for bigger game and headed out to the local swan park located on the Rock Valley College campus where they have two beautiful swans that come by every year and hang out and make baby swans. Today was definitely my day as I had the chance to score big with some shots that made me want to come out again and again for some more winners.

Basically this time I grabbed my Sigma 105mm macro and my Tamron 70-300 junker and trekked out to the small lake right on the edge of campus at RVC where I hoped to catch some shots of the local celebrity swans. Here is what I took home with me today:
He is definitely a sight to see as he is big as a 14 year old child covered in white feathers. He swam in close enough to let me snap off a ton of shots with the 105mm macro and they came out very nice as you can see here. The female tends to hide and keep her distance, but I also got a few of her so don't worry.

The second shot there is of the male as it swam by looking all menacing, but I couldn't help admire the fact that it would let me be so close without trying to run me off to the car. See the last time I came out to take pictures the male swan defended his women in glory by extending its wings and preceding to chase me and bark like some kind of strange dog. It was a sight to see let me tell you and I'm just glad he ran back to the water that day because I left my camera bag near the shore and would have had a very unpleasant day without the rest of my gear. The routine of chasing me off kept going on for about an hour (yes this time I took my bag and slung it over my shoulder so I wouldn't be left without it) until the two of them swam off together to parts of the lake I couldn't reach with my lens. The third picture is of the female swan in all her glory giving me the stare like I was even interested in her good looks anyway ;) She is definitely a pacer as every few minute she swims back and forth making me dizzy from going left and right over and over again as I try and compose a decent
shot, which can take a while and I'm not very patient at all. The last shot there is of the eggs the two have graciously left open to view and hopefully I'll make the trip on the right day and watch as the y hatch and get some great shots of young swan babies! We can all hope and now that I have a mission to do I will hopefully get the opportunity to accomplish it. My work schedule tends to change from week to week and I'm not all for going to the same spot day after day, but this could be my chance for a great capture so I guess I will tough it out and hope for the best.











































I'm going to leave you all with one last picture that was kind of fun and that is this picture of a water rat chewing up a storm on a big leaf of some sort. This guy caught my eye as I was taking
pictures of momma and papa swan, but all I had attached was the 105mm macro so I crept up as slowly and steadily as I could and snagged this shot before decided I was in his bubble. Oh well, at least I have something to remember the guy. I hope you've all enjoyed the pictures and the story behind them and maybe you'll all be given a reason to step outside and capture something that interests you!

Another day of Photography!

Hello everyone and welcome to my fresh new blog! I'll start off with a little about the person behind the keyboard (myself) and hopefully move on to some current photos that you may enjoy.

I'll start off with saying that my name is Chris and I live about an hour north of Chicago. I've been taking pictures since I was about 8 years old when my dad handed down a twenty year old Pentax ME Super and have done serious photography for the past couple years. I've currently upgraded to a new camera, a great camera, a competition beater; the Pentax K10D. In the last 3 months I've unloaded over 17000 shots and most of them are keepers, while others are just to teach me what not to do next time I go out in the same situation. Most of my pictures are of plants, animals and other nature associated items because they tend to not run away and cower when I bring out my camera. I've recently done some photoshoots with real people and have had great success with it and hopefully learn more and get good enough to start charging for my services.

Why not Canon or Nikon? I've been asked that a lot and had my share of arguments over the past 2 or 3 months and it comes down to a few things that makes Pentax a better system for me. First is price... yes price! The K10D with kit lens sells for under $1000 and takes pictures of equal or greater quality than a 1200 or 1300 dollar Canon or Nikon period. The other reason is that Pentax glass in unrivaled in the prosumer market (I know a few people are now hating me already, but it's the truth people). The Pentax "limited" line of lenses are sharper than most anything Canon or Nikon produce and are of higher build quality and much smaller in size. The last reason for the Pentax gear... technology! The K10D has the longest list of features in the price range and so the techno-savvy me just had to pick it up for that reason. I have a weather sealed, shake reduction, built in wireless flash support, sonic drive motor supporting thoroughbred. Anyone that wants to argue the point will not win me over so let's not start anything.

The most important part about having such a great photographic tool is that it takes great pictures and can take my abuse day in and day out. So to start off this blog I've recently uploaded some photos taken today that I thought I'd share and hopefully show the quality of the photographer as well as the quality of the tool.

This picture was taken with a Sigma 105mm Macro lens with the K10D today. This long gone flower is a Japanese Poppy that takes about 3 years to get it's first bloom from the seed and this was the year, but now it's paper like petals have fallen and all thats left is this wonderful little remnant. The Bokeh of this lens is wonderful as you can see and the crispness is of a very high standard for such a low cost macro lens. The Pentax DFA 100mm macro is just as sharp, but unquestionably more contrasty and the SMC coating on all Pentax lenses is unmatched in the lens industry.

This little guy was also taken with the Sigma 105mm Macro and K10D. Now I know its not super sharp, but for a hand held image taken in the breeze with manual focus I think it's darn good, but the reason I post this is not for the quality but the sad factor. You see the little leaf that looks to bee in his jaw? That is actually stuck to his body and you want to know why? Darned plant chemicals! Those sprays that make your plants look nice also make them dangerous to insects because particles end up getting attached to them not too mention that it's poisonous. I guess if you like the artificial look in your plants then keep spraying, but if you'd like your plants to be pollinated and have honey then please stop your silly spraying and let mother nature do what she is supposed to do. America seems destined to take their destiny in hand and do what they want with it instead of letting things go on as intended. Can't wait for countless lawsuits from over processed foods, miracle diets, vitamin overload and of course energy drinks. I think everyone that drinks more than one energy drink a week needs to relax for a moment, pick up a camera and go outside and take a nice picture instead of taking a couple years off their lives to keep up with the hussle and bussle of society.

Well I think I'm done ranting and raving, but hopefully you've all enjoyed the couple of pictures here and I'll leave you all with one more shot from earlier this week that will hopefully leave you with a smile! Have a great day and I'll be back with more soon.

Chico eating foot... looks delicious puppy!


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