Moosing Around As The Weekend Approaches

It's Thursday and the work week is coming to an end. Here's a few things that come to mind as the weekend draws near....

Photography FUNdamentals - A Free Book By Moose Peterson

+Moose Peterson is one of the most gifted photographers I've run across as I've stumbled my way through photography over the years. I had a chance to finally meet the Big Guy in Orlando this spring at Photoshop World and attended a couple of his seminars. What a huge treat. On top of being a monster in the field of photography, he's one of the nicest, most affable people, you'd ever want to meet.

Moose specializes in wildlife, conservation and aviation photography but has an incredible grasp for all types of image creation. Always seeking to share his knowledge with others, Moose has come out with a free, downloadable iPad book called Photography FUNdamentals, intended for beginners and experienced photographers alike, that covers all the basics of photography. The idea behind the book is to walk you through the minefield of photography so stuff like depth of field, exposure, composition, and other key elements to creating a Moose-like image becomes second nature. Once you no longer have to think about these things, image creation becomes much easier as you can concentrate on bringing your imagination to life instead of techie stuff.

Here's a short YouTube video that contains the details on how to take advantage of this wonderful tutorial for photography. 

Prints For FSU Head Basketball Coach Leonard Hamilton's Home

Yesterday morning, the phone rang and I picked up. It was FSU basketball coach Leonard Hamilton's administrative assistant wondering if I had a moment to speak with Coach Hamilton. Uhhhhh, yeah. The call was to inquire as to whether I could put together 4-5 thumbnail images of each returning FSU basketball player from which he would select one for each player. Coach Hamilton then wanted to know if I could make 24" X 30" prints of each one so they could be framed and hung in his home.

No problem, said I. It would be an honor to have my images gracing the walls of the Hamilton household. I've scoured through the hard drives and picked out 53 images of the ten  returning players. They have been reduced to thumbnails and e-mailed to Coach Hamilton's staff. As soon as I am notified of the selected file numbers, I will be re-processing the images,  enlarging them to 24" X30", and making the prints.

Photoshop World in Las Vegas??? Dare I go?

I've been invited to attend Photoshop World at the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas this coming September as a guest of Messr. Scott Kelby. The shootin' would start on Tuesday, September 3 as Scott has set me up with Moose Peterson's Pre-con workshop, a 7-hour Photo Safari with Moose. Seminars then run all day Wednesday, Thursday and part of Friday with the always-much-anticipated after party on Wednesday night  and lots of other activities during non-seminar hours. I had a blast at PSW in Orlando this past spring and would love to make the trek out to Vegas for this one. Hoping I can figure out some way to make it.

Hoping To Get The Green Light For A Warbird Shoot This Weekend

Heading down to East Central Florida this weekend to visit two of my favorite ladies (the Moms - Mama O and Mom-in-Law) and am hoping to nail down access to some aircraft I would love to shoot. The site has a bunch of historic and just mega-cool planes and I am drooling at the thought of being able to set up some lighting gear and shoot the daylights out of some planes.

I've gone through the list of aircraft and after a lot of hand wringing, I've decided that if given access, the three planes I will concentrate on (for now) are the C-47 Skytrain (above, L), the B-25J Mitchell (above, R) and the ME208 Messerschmidt (below).

The C-47 was instrumental in the Normandy invasion during WWII and about as iconic an aircraft as you get. The B-25J Mitchell was used to bomb Japan shortly after Pearl Harbor to serve notice that the U.S. would not go down without a fight. The ME208 (actually a Nord Noralpha painted to represent an ME208) is just a a very cool mid 1930's to 1940's aircraft that set all kinds of endurance records in its day.

It would be a sweet birthday present to have a chance to go crazy on these planes and I'm hoping everything will work out.

Ciao.