Dave’s Blog

Don’t Spill Your Coffee

Tue, 8 Jun 2010 16:55:02 -0400

Last month I was scheduled to do a basic lighting seminar at the Henrys Photo and Video show and I wanted to do something a little different. Usually I show how to shoot a portrait with 2-3 lights. It’s interesting but very limited for the real world, after all how many people have a stable of beautiful models?

So the night before the show I went looking for the elements of something interesting. The goal was to shoot ball bearings in milk. At this point you may ask...WHY? Well I don’t have an answer. Sometimes my mind works like a laptop that just received an unexpected visit of coffee. Thing just seem to happen and well....

So I know I need 3 elements, 1 is milk (easy), 2 is ball bearings (not easy) and the third is a white / low dish (impossible).

First stop is Home Depot. I quickly find out that they don’t sell ball bearings so without to much trouble I find some silver kitchen cabinet door handles that will do.

Next it’s Home Sense for the dish. Well I learned 2 things about Home Sense in my hour long venture. First was the dish doesn’t exist and 2nd that I was the only male in the whole store. So I did what any man would do and that was to go to Canadian Tire.

And yes I found what I needed. In the continuation of my warped world the dish I was looking for turned out to be the lid off a storage box. (long pause) ..........Yes I often scare myself.

The final issue was the following day as it occurred to me that milk has the tendency to sourer when warm. Solved that issue with the local food vendor and with that I was finally able to create some images.

Live shoot out

Wed, 5 May 2010 10:41:07 -0400

From the Gulf Photo Plus show in Dubai. A very good and very funny live photo contest between David Hobby of strobist, Zack Arias and Joey L.

35 years ago that still govern the World

Mon, 3 May 2010 10:52:42 -0400

For many the Vietnam war is just a event that happened many years ago. It’s like a good book that still sits in the book shelve that will never be read again. But the war did change many lives from around the world and is still used to describe the current Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

The Denver Post has posted an amazing series showing the traumatic images of the times.

A first for my first

Sun, 18 Apr 2010 15:14:56 -0400

DP Review has had photo contest for the last several months and I decided to enter the Two Sides of Self last week. I submitted 2 images showing the range of my image capturing and I must be getting better because the image I took in the 90’s with a $500.00/hr model and that I was paid $5,000.00/day placed 138th but the image that I took 2 years ago just for fun finished 1st.

Sky is Falling part 2

Sun, 18 Apr 2010 14:39:08 -0400

Leave it to the Sacramento Bee has finally posted some excellent imahes about the Icelandic volcano and it’s impact on the worlds air travelers. It is amasing to see how Iceland is shitting on the rest of the world.

The Sky is Falling.....

Sun, 18 Apr 2010 14:17:09 -0400

Once again the Big Picture has post some of the best images from the life changing Icelandic volcano.

So how many of you think this is the best example of he who laugh last laughs best.

Ok I may have lost my mind from all the chaos of the last 2-3 weeks but think about it. Iceland goes bankrupt from the financial crisis and when it asks for help from Britain they got the big middle finger. So now the volcano lets go and shuts down all of Britain’s airlines and most of the rest of europe as well.

With that as food for thought, I’m still disappointed with the lack of creative images from this natural event.

Up Up and away

Sun, 18 Apr 2010 13:53:06 -0400

With the coming shut down of the Nasa shuttle fleet just around the corner the Big Picture has releases a series of spectacular images.

The current debate is about giving the future of space travel over to the private side of the economy. My first thought is yes.

In most cases the private side accomplishes in half the time and for a quarter of the price what the government does. What is even better they do it without using my tax dollars!

But my second thought is the movie Alien and the eventual greed of public companies. Lets see what happens once some company finds something of value. I mean just look around the earth with open pit mining, the Canadian oil sands or perhaps the worst example is in downtown New York. It’s been 3 years but finally the largest criminal act in the history of man is coming tolight with the charges against Goldman Sach.

Space Photography

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 10:55:14 -0400

Another million dollar idea gone.

You would think that some areas of the photography business would still be exempt from discounting. In the 90’s the commercial business dissolved with the advent of digital photography and the ease of reusing old photo’s. Then the wedding and portrait business imploded with amateurs setting up business with a cheap digital camera and a computer and now the space photography business is finished.

For a couple of a hundred dollars, Ross Perry and now MIT is taking space images that would have cost millions. When will it end? The car business has Tata motors selling cars for $2,000.00, Walmart has conditioned people to pay next to nothing for everything else and now I can get space photography with a $200.00 camera, $300.00 GPS and some Duck Tape. Good God, the world really is coming to an end.