A woodworkers plane and tools to connote "craftsmanship".  Photographed with the Nikon D3x and 60mm macro at f/5.6.

The idea for this image came to me on my recent trip where all beer was served with a lime.  I tried to grab an available light shot at the time but realized that I would have better results if I saved the shot idea to do in my studio when I returned.  In the studio I have better control over the styling of the bubbles, the lime,  and dripping water on the bottle.  I used my favorite close-up lens combo, the 135mm defocus Nikkor with a short extension-tube, so I could shoot very wide open at f/2.2 to achieve the exaggerated bokeh blurs in the out-of-focus background.

Back home today where I took this shot before removing the tags from my luggage.  Photographed with the D700 and 105 Defocus Nikkor lens at f/2.2 for minimal depth of field and maximum bokeh.

The most well known monument in Puerto Rico is El Morro fort.  Here are two views done at sunset.  The shot above is a panoramic put together from two images using the photomerge feature in Photoshop CS5.  The original images were taken with a Leica M9 and 21mm lens at f/5.6 and 1/8sec exposure.

This view was taken with the Nikon D700 and 24-70mm zoom just before the sun went down.

This was the actual sunset behind the fort, photographed in two 35mm shots and combined into a panoramic later using photomerge in Photoshop CS5.

The island is full of colorful graphic opportunities.  These shots were picked up while walking around with a camera. The buildings above were photographed from a low angle to emphasize the cobblestones with the ultra-wide 12mm Voigtlander Heliar on a Leica M9.  At 5.6 everything is in focus.

I like working with the sun to create strong silhouettes.  They work well as key shots for graphic design uses in advertising -- simple but effective..

The top image of the fort outline was done with the Nikon D700 and 24-70mm zoom, while the image above of the cross was shot with the Leica M9 and 50mm lens setting of a tri-elmar.  In both cases the lenses were stopped down to around f/11 to accentuate the start burst effect of the sun.





Today I picked up some tropical themes just by walking around the hotel with the D700 and 60mm macro.  All were shot wide open for maximum shallowness in the depth of field. 

Found this flag flying on the edge of the water while walking around Old San Juan this morning.  I timed my shot for the wave crashing on the rocks behind so the flag would be set off against the white background.  Shot with a Leica M9, 135mm Apo-Telyt at f/8. 

Arrived in San Juan but our room wasn't ready.  We killed some time having lunch where I took these two shots with the Nikon D700 and 60mm macro.  I shot wide open at f/2.8 because I like a shallow depth of field.

I call shots like these "lifestle still-life" because they tend to tell a story of a person who left the objects as they are.



Spray perfume bottles lit from behind with two Nikon SB-900 flash units illuminating a white wall.  White cardboard reflectors provided front fill.

I picked up these full alphabet and number font sets to create graphics of some simple words.

Last night the moon was at its closest point to earth making it brighter and larger than normal.  Achieving a quality image of the moon is harder than it might appear.  First of all, you need an extremely long focal length of 1200-1800mm to fill the frame.  Next, the moon is actually moving at a fairly fast pace so you need a high shutter speed.  I was working from home and my longest telephoto lenses were at the studio so I had to make do with either the Nikon 200-400 zoom or 300mm tele.  I added a 1.7x extender to increase the focal length, and decided to use the Nikon D7000 because its smaller sensor added a further 1.5x focal length multiplier.This gave me an effective 765mm length with the 300 lens, and 1020mm with the 400mm lens.  Unfortunately this fell short of the ideal 1200-1800mm length so I did have to crop the final image to achieve what you see here.

I do not like to push the ISO on the D700 so I tried it at both 100 and 200.  The moon was so bright that I was able to shoot at 1/500 sec even at 100 ISO.  Camera shake is a major problem with an extremely long lens setup so I used a double tripod -- one for the lens and one for the camera.  An extremely nice feature of all professional Nikon DSLR cameras is that they have a mirror lock-up setting readily selectable from a dial on top of the body.  Mirror lock-up is necessary to further avoid camera shake.  Of course the most pleasant part of the shot was that I was able to do it right from my open apartment window.

With so much interest on the east and middle east today, it reminded me to do a few images using antique globes.  Keeping the color palette muted and monochromatic enables the photos to be used primarily as background graphics.

While I was at it, I grabbed a number of other world vistas.  The camera was a Nikon D7000 with a 35mm f/2 Nikkor used at f/2 for its softening effect.



Archery is one of my hobbies.  We had an athletic model in the studio and set him up holding one of my bows. Shot as a semi-silhouette against white, created a mask in Photoshop, added the blur background, and created the behind him.

In addition to being our profession, photography is a huge consumer hobby, which is why I did this camera and lens image.  Sometimes the most obvious stock shot is right in front of you.

Did some food images today in the daylight studio.  Both shots were done with the Nikon D3x and 85mm tilt-shift Nikkor.

Now that the studio floors had been cleaned we were going to put everything back in the room.  Before we did, I decided to add a few more conceptual themes to the empty space.

The top image is a lifestyle still life of a couple celebrating the move into their new apartment by opening champagne.  The photo below is a home improvement shot.  We did a few other variations and then put everything back together for a shoot we have planned for tomorrow.

Close-up of a sea urchin lit by placing a Nikon SB-900 flash underneath the shell and photographing with a 60mm macro lens set at f/22.  Setting the built-in flash on the Nikon D700 camera to command mode provided complete control over the external SB-900 flash unit.

This image of a sea biscuit was shot similarly to the one above, but the color was enhanced in Photoshop.

A package arrived today with a large bar code on it.  I photographed it with a 60mm macro on my Nikon D700 and added the red laser stripe in Photoshop.

Got a little more carried away with this version. First I inverted the image in Photoshop.  Next I changed the color to blue, and rendered the red star.  Finally, I superimposed two other images for texture and light effects.  If it hadn't been for my constant need to put a daily image in this blog project, I would have simply opened the box when it arrived and thrown it away.

We were having the floors redone in our daylight studio today.  While waiting for the workers, who were late, I knocked off this shot for the blog using my Leica M9 and 21mm lens.

Today I did an update of the food scale stock shot by using newer digital scales.  Images need to be refreshed from time to time as technology changes.  This photo was done with the 85mm tilt-shift Nikkor to provide a good depth while still maintaining a wide open aperture.

I switched to a 135mm defocus Nikkor lens here to provide a very shallow depth-of-field, a compressed perspective, and a more casual, lifestyle look to the situation.

BEFORE...

...DURING...Originally this was the shot I had planned for the blog.  Once I started photographing I realized there are several concepts associated with timing that make for three different shots.  Photographed with the NIkon D3s because of its fast, 9 fps motor drive able to capture the action sequence from beginning to end.

...AFTER

This model was in the studio for another shoot, and the birthday cake was in our refrigerator for a shoot later this week.  It was a simple matter to put the elements together and grab this shot using a ring light.

In the past I had always done spa still life images in a very bright light.  This time I decided to use a darker, moodier light and background.  Constantly experimenting and comparing sales results helps fine tune my shooting script for the future  and coaxes the maximum return from each image.

As an exercise I sometimes impose a one lens restriction on myself when walking around.  Recently, that lens has been a severe wide angle.  The short focal length forces me to integrate a foreground object with a background subject.  Here it is a close up detail of the Flatiron Building with the Empire State building rising behind.  The lens is a 21mm Elmarit on a Leica M9, and shot at f/8 for good depth-of-field.

Just bought this typewriter to use as a prop.  The book shelves with books in the background is actually a large, six foot wide photo print I had made on canvas from a shot of mine.  The whole scene was set up in my studio and photographed using window light. 

His and Her robes - a concept for travel locations wanting to show they sponsor couples vacations.

One of my favorite shooting techniques is to include the sun so that it is just peeking out and forms a natural star burst.  A good wide angle lens helps.  In this case I used the Nikkor 24-70mm zoom set at 34mm.

A study in contrasts -- and I only broke two eggs in the process of setting up this shot.

Probably not the kind of subject you want to be shooting when you are on a diet -- the donuts in this image were photographed separately and assembled later to make one photo illustrating diversity.

This stack of donuts was photographed with a ring light attachment on a Nikon SB-900 flash to create a crisp, colorful graphic.