An English breakfast

Ruins of a castle framing a parish church in England.

Visited an antique book bindery today -- many opportunities for stock shots.  Here are a few samples.

A re-bound ledger book from 1885.

This is two shots put together with the photomerge feature in Photoshop.  I often do this instead of cropping because it effectively increases the quality by increasing the total megapixels used to make the shot.

I took a number of shots from the plane window of a beautiful sunrise on the trip over.  Later I plan to combine them to make some conceptual images.

Changed some dollars into pounds.

I will begin traveling today for a week.  I will continue to photograph the entire time and post whenever I have an opportunity.

One of the things I have learned from this project is how many stock opportunities exist just in your daily life.  The photos this past week are a good example.  Each one relates to something that occurred during my normal routine. The Daily Stock Shot Project is working as a catalyst for images that otherwise would not have seen the light of day.

On this trip I will be taking my Leica M9 outfit, equipped with everything from 21mm to 135mm lenses.  Last minute I threw in the new Nikon D7000 with the 18-200mm zoom and a fast 35mm f2 Nikkor with some close-up filters.

Checked in online and printed my boarding pass.  Now it's off to the airport.

It's snowing in New York!

 

Shot this with a Nikon D700 set for 1600 ISO to bring in the background.  The snowflakes were lit with the on-camera pop up flash.  I used the 80-400mm Nikkor zoom set to around 100mm.

Merry Christmas!

I always grab some shots when the children are around for holidays.

The Empire State Building on Christmas Eve 2010.

Now this is what I call "bokeh" -- Christmas tree lights out of focus using the 135mm defocus Nikkor at f/2.

Both images were done with the 135mm f/2 de-focus Nikkor lens to emphasize the out-of-focus areas.

Toasting to a friend's birthday last night with champagne and a fine Brunello.

The photos were lit primarily by candle light at ISO 1600, and taken with a Nikon D7000 with 50mm f/1.4 lens plus close-up attachment.

Happy Birthday, Neale!

The sun was shining through this giant flag as it was hanging near an intersection where I was walking on Broadway -- a ready-made concept.  Since beginning this project, I always have a camera with me to take advantage of opportunities just like this one.

Two of my favorite lenses are the 50mm f/1.4 Nikkor (used for this shot), and the new 85mm f/1.4 Nikkor.  Both produce a delicate bokeh in the out-of-focus areas when used wide open.

Blur images like these are used a lot as backgrounds in advertising.  I did a number of variations to allow for various type placements.

At a recent auction I picked up this navigation map of the Atlantic Ocean dating to 1780.  It arrived in the mail today.  I will proceed to photograph this map for stock over the next few years. Once I have exhausted the photo possibilities, I will auction it off again.  Usually this results in a profit on the map,or at worse breaking even.  End result is an expensive prop that I use for free.

The photo above this one is a straight shot of the map, and in itself a simple, but effective stock shot.  In this photo I begin to add technique to the map giving it a different look and increasing its stock sales potential.

This sextant is another prop I picked up the same way as the map.  I wanted to do a combination shot of it with the map, but before I did I grabbed this quick image of the sextant by itself -- a stock photo in its own rite.

Finally, here is the combination of the map with the sextant.  So in all, this one new prop of the map along with the sextant resulted in four quick photos, none of which I would have taken had it not been for this daily blog project.  It's  beginning to look like this idea may become quite profitable.  Can't wait to see some results.

The compass rose on the map is emphasized because of its importance as a conceptual element.  It will be interesting to see how many more times this map will be used to create a photo during the year of this project.

One of my favorite ways of shooting macro subjects is to use an unusual lens with an extension tube.  This shot was taken with a 400mm Nikkor lens in a studio setup.  Notice the difference in the squashed perspective between this image and the one below.

On this variation I used a 135mm f/2 defocus Nikkor wide open to achieve a tight perspective and distinct bokeh in the out-of-focus lights in the background.  I also added the cell phone and lipstick smudge on the glass to convert the shot into more of a lifestyle situation.

We had this cat in the studio for a shoot situation we were doing of a veterinarian.  During a break I did some closeups of just the cat.

The idea for this image of time zones came to me while I was on an international conference call last night.

This model was in our studio as part of a  lifestyle couples shoot.  I noticed her large, dark, expressive eyes and asked our stylist if she could put together this shot from props we had on hand. 

I've been waiting for a cloudy day with good detail in the clouds to pull off this "saving for a rainy day" shot.  I used a ring flash converter on my Nikon SB-900 flash to brighten the foreground and keep the clouds dark and ominous.

Best time of year to photograph the facade of Grand Central Station in NYC is December when the sun is very low in the sky at midday, the only time it hits the state head on.

I'll be looking for a lot of Christmas grab shots as I travel about.

Grabbed these shots with the new Nikon D7000 late last night at a Christmas party.  I've been carrying the D7000 around lately to test it at high ISO levels.  Great camera, by the way.  It can take professional stock shots, push to a very high ISO, has 1080HD video, and is small enough so that you can always have it with you for grab shots like this. With the 18-200mm zoom you only need to have one lens with you.