First is a night shot taken under the full moon. Pretty much straight from the camera except a minor tone adjustment here and there.

Next are some shots I took while sitting at the park while the Ape ran around and played. Couldn’t go anywhere other than the bench I was on, plus it was getting pretty dark, so played with some high-contrast shots of the leaves overhead. Came out pretty well I’d say, they have a graphic design quality that I like very much. In fact, I’m using the first one as wallpaper on my iPad as we speak.

Lastly, some delicious tomatos from our garden, fresh picked. We’re getting dozens of them this year so far with no signs of stopping yet. Soooo tasty!

Went with the family for the day up to Presque Isle State Park this past Friday. Erie, PA is only about 1.5 hours away due North, so we try to get up to the Isle at least once or twice a year. The beaches are very relaxing and offer a good number of photo ops, plus the Ape can dig, swim, and run to his heart’s content. Of course, I always take a camera with because it’s almost guaranteed to produce some great shots, even when I’m not really trying sometimes. Beach shots are done to death the world over, but that’s fine – it’s more about fun and a day out than scoring an epic beach shot. With that in mind, here are my faves from the day.

And my favorite:

Better late than never I always say. This time I have pics for you from the 8/1/10 Cars In The Park show at Boardman Park in Boardman, OH. This was a show I had heard about, but never attended before, and turns out it was quite good with a lot of beautiful cars, many of which I had never seen before. The best thing was that there was a nice mix of classic, antique, modern, muscle, hotrod, ratrod, import, domestic, and on and on. It made for a wide variety of vehicles to enjoy seeing over the afternoon, which sometimes is rare in other shows I’ve shot.

For this show, I did something a bit different, namely that I shot it with my vintage ’72 Canon Canonet QL17-GIII camera. This is a smallish compact 35mm rangefinder film camera that is fairly common and has a very sharp, fast 40mm f1.7 lens. I did this also with the New Castle Downtown Cruise Night on 7/2/10, but used a ’63 Konica for that one instead. The main reason for this is I’ve had an itch to shoot vintage cars with vintage cameras for a genuine “authentic” period look to the photos that digital just doesn’t deliver. The resulting photos get scanned, some minor adjustments, keyworded, then saved the same as any other digital image I’d normally take. I don’t touch the color or try to PP them into something far from the original negatives as I like the out-of-camera feel. It’s also a simpler kind of shooting for shows – no fill flash, no polarizer, no heavy bag to lug around, so it’s fairly pure and as you can see, it has a definite look. If you grew up with these kind of cameras it might not seem too special, but I like it and it’s something I intend to explore further for the fun of it.

To view the full gallery, click here. Some of my faves are below for your quick enjoyment. G’night!

As I mentioned in my last post, I was in Chicago a week or so back to attend Zack Arias’ OneLight workshop. Unfortunately, I never did get around to going out and shooting the city like I had planned, but did have a great time nonetheless and the workshop itself was excellent. Running from about 9:30a to about 11:30p on Monday, 7/12, it was probably the longest yet fastest day I have ever spent in a long time.

Getting there a bit early, I started out the day greeting and introducing myself to some of the other students, of which there were fifteen total including myself. Around 9:30a, and after a short intro, Zack took us right into the meat of the material with a detailed lecture on basic lighting principals and concepts that ran until 3p or so. We then had a short break for lunch and then jumped right into the shooting setups up ’til about 9p or so. Dinner ensued, and then an hour or so was used for us to go out in groups to shoot our own ideas with whatever modifiers we wanted. We had a short wrap up and Q&A session, and then that was it. Considering we went for almost 14 hours straight, it felt like it flew by and I was actually far from being exhausted afterwards, ending up going out with some friends and staying up late gaming til 3 or 4a.

So how was the class? Absolutely great, and very informative. Truth be told, I knew the majority of it already just from studying on my own, but I wanted to experience a workshop firsthand, shoot in an environment with other photogs, and also meet Zack in person as I really respect him and what he’s done with his photography and career. He’s very personable, laid back, and excellent at explaining and demonstrating his material in a way that is very easy to comprehend for even the most beginning shooter. Our class was a mixed bag of amateurs and pros at various levels, and Zack took the time to ensure that everyone understood the material and were comfortable applying it in various situations. I enjoyed the workshop very much, and would definitely recommend it to anyone wanting to learn off camera flash in an enjoyable environment.

Here are some snaps from the workshop, mostly behind the scenes stuff so you can get an idea of what kind of environment we were working in. The last three are also a few shots from the actual practice setups we used. For more, you can check out my Flickr set from the workshop, which I posted to share with anyone interested in OneLight. Personally, I think the shots are not as good as they could have been b/c I was fairly nervous when it came time to shoot, so I didn’t take the time to really try and get top quality shots; more just to get the lighting example dialed in and understood than anything else.

Lastly, a big thanks to Zack for putting on a such a fine workshop, to the models for being such champs for putting up with all of us, and also to all of the other attendees as you were a great bunch – very friendly and helpful, and making the class very enjoyable to share with you all.

Got into Chicago last night for Zack Arias’ OneLight workshop tomorrow, 7/12. Last time I was here was summer 2007 when I went to pick up my wife and the Ape after their return from visiting her family in Japan. In case you didn’t know, I lived here for nearly 20 years, mostly during my teens-20′s, and then again in my early 30′s when I was here for school. I love this city and have a lot of friends here I haven’t seen in years, so to say I am excited to be here is an understatement. At the same time, I’m also a little bit nervous because I’m not sure what to expect from the workshop and how it’ll go. Probably no problem at all, but still . . .  In Japanese, the word for this feeling is “kinchoushiteru”, which means “nervous” or “apprehensive”, but not quite as strong a feeling as it implies in English. Anyway, should be a great experience, and I look forward to it. I’ll probably post snaps as the days go by here until I return home Wednesday, so enjoy Chicago with me as well!

Attended the second night of the New Castle Cruise Nights this past weekend. Held in downtown New Castle, 7/1/10 – 7/2/10, this event ran concurrant to the Back To The 50′s show that was also taking place in town at Cascade Park. Many cars present I saw at both events, and from talking to some of their owners, many make it a point to attend both as the atmosphere is completely unique to each event. Truth be told, I think the Cruise Night is the better of the two because it’s more open and has somewhat of a festival feeling to it. This year it also seemed to have more spectators and the ones there seemed to be having a better time. Same for the car owners too, based on what I heard from those I spoke to.

In any case, this year I went more to relax than to shoot, so I decided to try an experiment and took my ’63 Konica Auto-S with some 200 ISO print film instead of my usual gear. Lightweight and easy to use, the Konica caused no stress at all, and with its fast f1.9 lens and excellent low-speed handheld capability, let me shoot well into the evening. Considering it’s 47 years old, it did a bang-up job. Sharp, clear pics with excellent contrast and color, minimal distortion, and a nice vintage feel that went well with the cars, especially since many were contemporary to the camera in its day.

Here’s the gallery link for the full set. I only shot one roll because it was late and it got dark fast, but that’s enough to give a feel for the show. Definitely, I plan on shooting another show with this camera; I’m thinking the Steeltown Shakedown would be an awesome match-up for it!