Nature

I really enjoy shooting people.  I think there's an art to finding a way to capturing their personality, and then embellishing their physical presence.

But I also love nature.  Even more than people, nature is unpredictable.

We'll start with flowers.  Here's a rose from my front yard, followed by a sunflower that grew all on its own in my backyard:

I was at a park in Detroit one day when I saw this cantankerous duck really being belligerent to any other duck that came near him.  I decided to hang out with that duck, in the hopes that something interesting would come out of it.  I set my camera for a slow shutter speed (probably 1/100) as if anything happened, I wanted the wings to have a natural motion blur.  I didn't have to wait long.  It turned out even better than I'd hoped when he chased another duck straight at me.

Here's the shot:

I love sunsets.  I just can't get enough of them.  The colors can be so rich.  Here's my all-time favorite sunset shot:

You just never know what to expect with animals, even at a zoo.  I love shooting giraffes mainly because their eyes are so expressive.  I stood there with this giraffe for quite awhile when it finally just looked directly at me, as if to say: "Really, haven't you shot enough already?"  By chance, the out-of-focus angled tree behind the giraffe worked perfectly in perspective to the angle of its long neck.

If you haven't read Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach, you must.  When I came upon these seagulls floating in the air above the beach at Galveston, I must have fired off 100 shots.  It was just intoxicating in a weird way.

This little finch one day began banging on our window one morning.  I couldn't figure out what was going on until after I took some shots of him and I realized he was all agitated (you can tell by the red feathers all fluffed up on his head) by the reflection of himself in the window.  It thought there was another male bird messing with him!

I was driving to a shoot in Provo, Utah, one evening, about an hour before dusk, when I looked over at this orchard and found dozens of deer hanging around.  I pulled over and parked the car, got out, and I really liked the way this shot looked, with the row of trees on each side of this deer checking me out.

Here are a few other random nature shots:

Three Generations

Kim's mother was in town and wanted shots of all three generations, including Kim's daughter Lucy.

We went to a small lake in our housing area and the first thing that happens is that I realize that my favorite lens, my 70-200mm lens that produces some sweet bokeh, is kaput.  I manage to hide my disappointment pretty well, and besides, I've got a very sweet 24-70 lens that is masterful at shooting groups of people, and can still produce some pretty nice bokeh when needed.

For me, that's the mark of a professional.  Things can go wrong, and the client never even knows.  Of course, you've still gotta deliver the goods!

We found a pretty cool waterfall that served as a backdrop for several of our shots.  Otherwise, we just walked around and found neat little areas to do our shots.  We even shared a bridge with some high school girls who were shooting a short video for a class.

We pulled out some great shots on this day.  Here are some samples:

Eric & Shannon Engagement

Eric and Shannon are getting married in August this year in Chicago.  We managed to get an engagement shoot of them in while visiting in Houston in March.

They obviously like to have a lot of fun, so we incorporated that into the shoot.  But there's also a romantic side to both of them, and one of their favorite shots from this series is the one where they're walking into the sunset.

Here are eight samples of their shoot:

Odyssey Dance Competition

I was the offered the opportunity to shoot my very first dance competition with the Odyssey Dance Competition here at the University of Houston.  Wow!  These dancers had some moves!  There were some girls as young as 6 years old up on the stage just shaking it and moving and grooving in ways I just couldn't imagine they could do at such a young age!

This was my first opportunity to check out the Hintze Dance Company, and boy, did they bring it!

They had some great individual dance performances as well as small groups, but what was absolutely amazing was their large group ensemble dancing.  They had probably 25-30 dancers on the stage at a time, with dancers constantly going on and off.  Their costumes were fabulous, as their best number was a riff off of Alice in Wonderland.  Sweet!  It's pretty clear Ginny Hintze is getting these dancers ready for a potential professional career in dancing.

Here are some shots from the compeitition, but not all are Hintze dancers:

How often do you find three dancers who can kick like this?  Okay, now let's do it in unison:

If you ever need a dancer to underline the name of the competition, look no further:

Alexis, here below, won my BEST OF SHOW competition -- my best dance competition photo as judged by my visitors -- with this excellent shot of her with hair flying on a spin move and a big smile out to the judges and audience.  

 Take a look at this next series of three shots.  This was all the same dancer in an individual performance during the morning.  Three great shots, one right after another!