Portrait

Yesterday an informal photo session with my wife yielded this photo. It ended up being one of my favorites. It's amazing what a nice lens and pretty girl can produce. It makes my work easy.

James Dean's Records

Slate's "Today's Pictures" section, which features a gallery of selected photos from the Magnum archives features photos hearkening back to when kids actually bought their music in a physical medium. Being a record aficionado and photographer the gallery naturally peaked my interest. There were quite a few pictures in the series that stood out, but my favorite was this shot of James Dean listening to records.

Baby Sam

It's wonderful having an adorable son for a myriad of reasons, but as a budding photographer one the better perks of the father job is having constant photographic access to a gorgeous child. Still, even the most beautiful babies are challenging subjects. For one, they don't support themselves so they spend most of their time laying down or being held. Neither pose is particularly flattering. The key is to neutralize backgrounds and distractions to focus purely on the baby. Here are a few recent shots of my baby, Sam, as well as his "cousin", Kelly.

Football Season

While football is anything but my sport of choice (I'd prefer to play soccer or watch basketball), I look forward to and very much appreciate sitting out in beautiful fall weather taking in a game. The scale of the game is part of it's appeal but can be a bit off putting to some people. The players are big and the stadiums are bigger. If you've ever watched an NFL game you know the whole thing is just grandiose. While pro football isn't my cup of tea, I enjoy spending Saturday's with my my dad, watching our favorite college team battle it out on the green. Our team of choice, Illinois, hasn't performed at the level we were expecting so to entertain myself at last weeks game, I snuck in my dSLR and collection of manual lenses to get some practices shooting in less than optimal conditions. The results were varied, but it made a much to be desired game a lot more entertaining.

Pentax K-X

So, I have my eye on a great new camera by Pentax. It has the best features at it's price and it comes in white which would make it a great tool for informal portrait sessions with families and kids..much less intimidating than a big black monstrosity. It's small and light, and the test images show that it has fantastic high iso performance making it a great low light camera. I already have a Pentax K100D, so I could use my collection of manual primes with it. It comes out later this month so I have to scrounge of 650 dollars quick.