Blog

The Parthenon, Nashville

2013-05-16T21:00:10Z

This is the Parthenon in Nashville, TN which is a full-size replica of the original Parthenon in Athens, Greece. The first time I saw this, I couldn’t really believe it. It’s just not what you expect to find in a town like Nashville, I guess. But it is a beautiful structure and it sits in a beautiful park, so who’s complaining?

I caught it on a stormy day with all those awesome, dramatic clouds behind it. Many people dislike when it rains or storms because it can mess up your photo hunt. That’s true, but I always find that the benefit is that you get interesting skies, and that’s normally worth it!

Antique gas pumps

2013-05-15T21:00:10Z

I swear, some things are just MADE for HDR photography. Old rusty stuff is one of those things – it’s just perfect for HDR. All the nice little details come out through the processing, and when you get some radical clouds in the background, it makes you all happy inside. Well ok, it makes ME all happy inside.

These lovely antique gas pumps sit in front of the City Garage in Salado, TX which is a great place to shoot. Whenever I drive to Dallas, I make it a point to stop here. It’s a small spot so it’s a quick stop, but it’s always rewarding. Normally I shoot toward the little building which is covered in old gas signs (find all my pics of this place here). It’s got character.

But on this day I was just loving those clouds so I turned around to shoot them behind the gas pumps. And then a red truck drove by…

Millennium sunset

2013-05-14T21:00:59Z

Do you ever feel like you will never get your photos processed and shared? Yeah, me neither :-) .

I was going through one of my old London photo batches taken over a year ago and thought I would give this shot a go. It was sunset and I was shooting along the River Thames with Mike Murphy and John Esslinger - both locals and great photogs you should follow. We were next to the Tate Modern, shooting here at the Millennium Bridge. As you can see the sunset was pretty awesome.

For some reason though, I never got around to processing this pic, and now that I have, I rather like it. It’s just that I have so many and I try to mix things up for you all, so you don’t get burned out on one place. (Ok, so I don’t get burned out on one place.)

Anyways – here it is. Better late than never, right? (And yes, I realize this photo isn’t perfectly centered/aligned. Call that “artistic license”. Or maybe the bridge is skewed a little.)

The lobby at The Grand Wailea

2013-05-13T21:00:30Z

When I travel, I try to make a habit of getting up for sunrise at least once. It’s just better. You get great light most of the time, and everyone else is asleep. But I admit, it’s hard to do, especially when traveling east. It’s hard enough losing time due to time zone changes.

But when I travel west it gets much easier of course. In this case, I was in Hawaii a few weeks back and getting up there was easy. In fact, I got up at 3am the first morning! That’s a little too early, but my body thought it was 8am. Oh well, the challenges of time zone changes.

Anyways, since I was up before sunrise I figured I should get out and shoot some, and the hotel lobby at the Grand Wailea in Maui is just gorgeous. Anytime there is water running, I get pretty fired up. During the daytime the sun is just too bright to make this shot work, but before dawn it looks pretty awesome!

Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin

2013-05-12T21:00:42Z

This is the main aisle at Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin, Ireland. I loved this place. It’s just incredibly beautiful, inside and out. And although it’s a bit of a cliché to take a shot up the aisle like this, I do it anyways, virtually every chance I get (unless they don’t allow photography, of course – which oddly happens in some churches). It’s never original or ground-breaking in any way, but it’s worth doing if only to have it in your collection. Funny though, I don’t see many folks doing it. I wonder why?

If you want to see the exterior, you can check out this shot I took during an awesome sunrise. I just reread that post and guess I was feeling a little spunky when I wrote that one!

On the cover of Celebrate Austin

2013-05-10T15:00:15Z

Just a little self-promotion today - I was published on the cover of Celebrate Austin! I am very honored to be featured here, and also have the good fortune to have several of my photos grace the pages of this publication - including one of my iPhone shots!

For the uninitiated, Celebrate Austin is a hardbound visitor guide to Austin which is featured in over 30,000 hotel, motel, resort rooms, B&Bs and corporate housing rooms city wide. It’s a great book and a fabulous guide to the city as well.

If your travel plans ever take you to Austin, be sure and check out the book! It will be in your hotel room!

Thanks Celebrate Austin!

Sunset on the Panama Canal

2013-05-09T21:00:23Z

I was in Panama City, Panama a while back and had the opportunity to get out and shoot around sunset one evening. I grabbed a cab from downtown Panama City and headed out to the Amador Causeway, which stretches out into the sea a bit and provides a nice view back toward the town in one direction and a view towards the Panama Canal in the other direction. I chose the canal view.

Having arrived early, I grabbed a quick dinner and then as the light began to change, I hurried up and started walking along this little bay. What you are viewing here is technically the Pacific Ocean (Panama City sits on the western side of the country) though it’s known here as the Gulf of Panama. This is the mouth of the canal, so to speak, and the Miraflores Locks begin several miles from this point, way around the bend to the right. You can always spots ships lining up, getting ready to change oceans.

Miraflores Locks is probably the most popular place to see the canal, since it is closest to Panama City. While viewing the canal is something worth doing, viewing the actual movement of the ships through the canal is pretty uneventful. It’s slow, for starters...and it takes a while. But it’s fun to say you did it - and I did!

Why travel makes you a better photographer

2013-05-08T21:00:22Z

My thoughts on why travel makes you a better photographer (accompanied by some random shots from my travels) - hope you enjoy this article!

If you have been here before, then it’s pretty obvious that I am a fan of traveling. I love to travel. I love to see new places. And of course, I love to photograph them. But it’s not all just fun. There are things that happen when you are in strange new places that are often beyond your control as a photographer. Learning to deal with them and work through them not only helps you get the photographs you are seeking at that moment, but also helps you become a better photographer all the way around.

I have found that being out there in this big world and exploring it with a camera has actually improved my photographic skills more than just shooting the things I shoot at home. There’s nothing wrong with shooting at home of course. I love to shoot in Austin. There are some great sites here, like this one:

But things are different out there, and you have to approach things differently and make adjustments along the way, and that is always a good thing to be able to do. You are forced to be creative, to think different, and to look at things differently. I find that it makes me a better photographer...and here’s why:

Freedom from routines

We all have our daily routines and rituals when at home. We tend to be creatures of habit. We do similar things each day, often in the same order. Does this sound familiar?

At times being in the same place for a while can make you feel “stuck”, creatively speaking. You can lose inspiration, and your creative juices are just not moving. I believe this is because of our routines at home. There is nothing wrong with a routine, but at some point your internal auto-pilot takes over and you don’t have to think creatively. In fact, you can probably do things without having to think about them much at all.

That’s why travel is beneficial to a photographer. All of a sudden, you’re in a new place and things are different. You have to pay attention, you have to act, and you have to think. Your synapses start to fire again, and you are stimulated. This is both rejuvenating and inspirational. It’s good for the creative part of your brain, and that’s where you are getting your photo ideas. Feed that by traveling.

Go with the flow (even in the rain)

If there is one given with travel, it’s that things are unpredictable...especially the weather. As photographers who like to plan their shooting spots in advance, we like predictability (and we want to arrange a gorgeous sunset every night, too!). These ideas are obviously at odds, and of course we do not have any control over any of it. And although we cannot control things when shooting around home either, at least there we have the option to return most any time. When traveling, it’s not easy to make a return trip, especially if you have gone a long way.

So my recommendation is to take a deep breath and just go with the flow. I have been in some pretty magical places and gotten horrible photo conditions. That happens. The best thing to do is to go in with limited expectations, knowing that it’s just awesome to be seeing these spots, weather-good or weather-bad.

This can also be beneficial in that if you get much different conditions than you were hoping for, you have to look for different shots, and you may have to stretch in post-processing to create something interesting from them. You can learn from disappointments, because you can’t always get the incredible sunset you are hoping for. You have to adapt from behind the keyboard later, as well as behind the camera at the moment.

But don’t forget to always have the gear ready, because in a split-second, the weather may change and the light might turn magical!

Dealing with change and uncertainty

The other side of the “go with the flow” idea is about getting access to locations. Whenever I plan out a trip, I usually have a list (normally created as a note on my iPhone) of spots that I am hoping to get to. I list everything that is interesting to me, but I don’t expect to get to them all. It’s just too hard to get to every spot, unless you are visiting a small town for an extended time. :-)

But even armed with a list and a logical route, you will get sidetracked and derailed. Perhaps the church you wanted to shoot inside of was closed (happened to me). Or it was in service, and that was the only time you could be there (happened to me). Or worse, you wanted a great shot of the exterior but there was scaffolding up around it (alas...also happened to me).

These things happen, and they force us - once again - to get creative in terms of what we want to do. Perhaps instead of wide-angle shots of the exterior, you can put on the zoom lens and get some shots of the architectural details. The options are really only limited by our imaginations. The point is that you can’t let a little disappointment dampen your enthusiasm for getting great shots. It’s up to you to make it happen, one way or another.

Dealing with pressure

When traveling, I think most of us have to deal with certain limits and restrictions on how much we can get done, photographically speaking. It could be anything - fading light after sunset, too much light after sunrise, pending family commitments (meeting for dinner!), pending work commitments (meeting a customer!), time pressures (this church is closing in 5 minutes!), or travel requirements (I can’t miss my flight!) – but usually what I find is that there is a whole lot more that I want to shoot than I actually have time for. So in some sense it becomes a game: how much can I squeeze in?

What this really means is that you have to learn to go into high-speed, quick-decision mode and figure out what makes the most sense. It’s virtually impossible to get everything done, sadly. So, hit everything you can within the time you have. I deal with this on every single trip I take. But that’s ok actually, because I think it teaches us critical decision-making and judgment skills that can translate to better photo choices in the long run.

You learn to pick your shots quickly, set up and fire quickly, and move on. It’s a heightened awareness state where you become a robot and focus on “getting it done”. The reason I think this is a good thing is that it teaches you how to handle this pressure so that it doesn’t cripple your decision-making in the future.

Looking at things from a new POV

I think that one of the great things about travel is that you are forced to open your eyes and examine things - people, culture, customs, even food - from a new perspective. And of course, I believe that also bleeds over into photography. In fact, in many ways that is what photography is really all about - finding a new perspective.

So, take a fresh look at things. Try something new. Experiment. Get creative. Go ahead and take the classic shots that everyone takes - you sort of have to - but then get creative, be original, and snap some random stuff too. It really cements the trip in your mind. Plus, it’s fun and if you aren’t enjoying your photography, that’s doubly bad!

What do you get out of your travel experiences? How has it helped your photography?

Feel free to let me know in the comments! Thanks for stopping by!

A tree in Maui

2013-05-07T21:00:57Z

I love this tree that I came across in Maui. It’s just perfect. I love the shape, I love the placement on a curving path, and I even love the little tilt to it. It’s leaning towards the ocean - and therefore towards the wind - as if in challenge. It’s just cool.

We walked past it almost every morning while there, and on this fine morn I happened to bring along my gear. This was a layup - great light, great lines with the curving path, and a great subject. Easy. All I had to do was wait for those folks taking a stroll to get out of my viewfinder, and the 7 frame bracket fired away quickly!

Trinity College architecture

2013-05-06T21:00:35Z

Travel photo tip: if you are in a new city and looking for something interesting to shoot, a University is usually a good bet, if you like architecture. Generally speaking, the architecture found on a University campus is pretty awesome. It pays off more often than not!

That’s exactly what led me here to Trinity College one morning in Dublin. I saw it on a map, and took a wild guess that I might find something worth shooting.

Trinity College is Ireland’s oldest University and sits squarely in the middle of the city. As far as history goes, it has a lengthy one since it was founded in 1592. That makes it pretty old, by my calculations. :-)

It’s also pretty beautiful, and the architecture is fabulous. It didn’t hurt that I got some incredible clouds and color while wandering there that morning.

One thing to note though if you go there and plan to shoot with a tripod - they aren’t allowed. I did it anyways, but only because I didn’t know. I was literally taking my last shot when a security guard found me and told me no tripods. I just kept him talking long enough for that last set of brackets to finish. :-)