Ahhh...bling!  Done two ways here.  The top photo is soft, warm ambient window light for a natural look, while the one below was shot with a ring light strobe to provide a starker, hard-edged feel.

Here are some light variations I did of the star fish in the studio.  This one was back lit with a tungsten light, which gave it the yellow cast.  It was also over-exposed by two stops to keep it very bright.

A straight shot of the star fish was superimposed over an antique nautical map in Photoshop.  The blue coloring, vignette, and drop-shadow were also created in Photoshop.

This photo was taken similarly to the top image but the color was brought back to normal balance.  All images shot on a Nikon D3s and 105mm macro lens.

While wandering around Soho I found these starfish in Evolution, a store I often frequent for photo ideas.  I thought of several ways I could photograph them.  Here is the first.  Shot against the sun on a clear day with the Nikon D7000 and Sigma wide angle zoom set to 16mm (that would be 24mm in full frame).

I found these delicate candles in a shop while I was walking through the flower district today and thought they would make a nice photo.  This is a fairly straight forward shot done with the Nikon D7000 and 80mm macro lens wide open.  The delicate pastel tones of pink, yellow, and blue are a result of mixing the cool blue color temperature of daylight from a window with the warmer tones of the candle light.  Both the candles and the surface they are on are pure white so the coloring is a direct result of the differentiation in color temperature.

Anyone aside from me remember what this was used for?  I post-processed the image to make it appear as if it had been taken on old, faded film.

The danger of mixing prescription drugs with alcohol has been a topic in the news lately.  So I thought I would illustrate some variations on this theme.  Here are a few samples, all using the Nikon D3s with 85mm tilt-shift lens.

Over the past four years I have been working on a series of photos taken from the windows of my apartment.  This morning I captured the sunrise image above with a 400mm focal length lens that "squashed" the perspective of the foreground buildings into a flat, monochromatic graphic.   To illustrate how this image fits into the series I included some other photos below that were taken earlier as weather phenomena changed the landscape..

I had so much Photoshop editing to do after the Wall Street shoot yesterday and the Mexico shoot that I decided to create today's blog photo right in Photoshop while I was at it.  The eye close-up is from a file I keep to use for creating images such as this.  All the rest of the techniques were added in Photoshop.

Yesterday the stock market was closed for a holiday and we were fortunate enough to have access to photograph in a stock trading office that was empty and available for the day.  We went with four models and reeled them through numerous situations.  Here are just a few of the hundred or so images we obtained.

All the computer screens were blank so we have to add them later in Photoshop.  We had visited this location at an earlier date and photographed trading screens created for us to use for this purpose.

Mostly I was able to shoot available light with IS0 ranges of 400-1600 on a Nikon D3s, which I find to be the best camera for this type of shooting situation.

In a shooting such as this it is all about the animation in the model's faces.  They need to have their attention riveted to their screens and appear -- with both body language and expression --  to be in the midst of active involvement in the fast-paced, high-pressure trading environment.

Over the weekend I worked on some of the Images from my trip to Mexico to prepare them for my art portfolio.  Here are a few samples.  The photo above is of the main Mayan Temple at Chichén Itzá.  I liked the way the cloud formation mirrored the pattern of the building structure beneath it.  A 24mm focal lens with polarizer to darken the sky.

This was taken inside one of the passageways through the stone wall surrounding the Mayan city of Tulum.  The tunnel is long and narrow with a pointed Mayan arch top enclosing you. As you move from the bright sunlight to the dark interior, your eyes adjust to the darkness and the other end of the tunnel takes on an eerie, almost frieightening glow.  Shot with a 9mm focal length on a D7000 for maximum wide-angle effect.

A small tidal pool by the ocean with the late afternoon sun reflecting in the water.  Taken with the Fuji X100.

Dock with late morning sun.  Taken with Fuji X100.  This photo and the one above are part of a series I did on the beach in Mexico.

A tight close-up of some prescription pills taken with the Nikon D7000 and 40mm macro lens with a fairly wide open aperture for a very shallow depth of field.

Whenever I return from a trip I try to do some still life images using items particular to the locale where I was traveling.  Here I used the passport stamp from Mexico accented by some sea shells I picked up on the beach while I was there.

And I also save some nice examples of the local currency for the same purpose.  Both images taken with window light and a Nikon D7000 with 40mm macro lens. 

The last sunrises.  This image was taken the day before I left with the Nikon 10.5mm fisheye lens on a D7000.

The wind was blowing fast and the cloud formations changed rapidly.  This shot was taken about 20 minutes after the one above with the same camera but with an 8-16mm Sigma zoom set to 8mm (12mm equivalent at full-frame).

Dawn on my final day. It was a bit dark so I boosted the ISO to 400 on the D700 to gain a shutter speed that would stop the action in the water.  When shooting a scene like this, timing is everything,  I like to capture the water just as it washes up on the shore, but while some waves are still cresting.  Here the color is more intense because the water had already wet the shore from the previous surge and the wet sand was picking up the color and light reflection from the sky.

This is the same scene as above but 45 minutes later after the sun had come up.  The next time I shoot a scene such as this I should have my new Nikon D800 and won't need to carry both a DX and FX camera body. The sensor in the D800 has a resolution high enough in DX mode that it can use both DX and FX lenses on the same camera body and return a high res image from both formats.

I spent the day picking up detail shots wherever I found them.

Sometimes its fun to break the rules.  I took this shot three stops over-exposed while shooting directly into the sun to give it a very light and airy feel that would work for background situations.

Hmmm...looks like Robinson Crusoe was here.

Tulum is an late classic Mayan center along the coast of the Yucatan peninsula.  In this view you can see the main Castle  of Tulum in the distance on the edge of the cliff where it enjoys a commanding view of the sea. For this view you have to descend to the water level and walk to the end of the beach.  Be prepared to get wet.  This photo was taken with a 24mm focal length on the Nikon 24-70mm zoom with a Nikon D700 camera and polarizer.

The monuments of Tulum are in a park-like setting with blooming trees and manacured terrain.  On the right is a carved human face on the corner of a Temple.  Once again, I arranged to arrive as soon as the monument opended to avoid the many tourists who were arriving by the bus load as I was leaving the park.

Not far from the monumnts of Tulum and Chichén Itzá is the quaint town of Valladolid with its colorful colonial facades

.

Across for the square pictured above is the old Franciscan Convento do San Bernardino de Siena dating to around 1560.  The shot above is one of the many minimal graphic displays in the interior of the building.

Today I visited Chichén Itzá where I arrived very early to avoid the many tourists who would come by the busload later on and make it very difficult to avoid including them in the photos.  The weather was not so great so I spent a lot of time waiting around for clouds to move and the sun to come out.

Because the clouds on the horizon were mostly dense I relied on low angles to place the ruins against the upper sky where is was blue.  A polarizing filter helped to saturate the color in the sky.

I had two cameras with me -- the Nikon D700  and D7000.  I included the D7000 primarily because of the Sigma 8-16mm zoom, which only fits a DX camera.  Other than a fisheye, there is  nothing wider than the 8mm (equivalent to 12mm on a full frame camera) focal length.  It was used to take the photo on the left above, and allowed me to include a high part of the sky for interest.  For the D700 I had the Nikon 24-70mm and 70-200mm zooms.

Happy Valentine's Day from Mexico!

Today was lightly overcast. -- not good for photographing the beach, but perfect for photographing in a tropical forest.  So I concentrated on tropical themes for most of the day.  Generally I was striving for a lush, green feel to the images.

I shot primarily with the Nikon D700 and both the 24-70mm zoom and 16-35mm zoom on a tripod at ISO 200 and an aperture around f/8.  A polarizing filter was necessary to cut though the reflections on the leaves and bring out their true color.  In the bottom photo with a waterfall in the background I also needed a Neutral Density filter to reduce the shutter speed to 1/2sec so it would blur the falling water.  The moisture on the leaves was added by a spray bottle of water I carry with me for situations such as this.

I did some spa situations today using elements I found around the hotel and a few I brought with me.

I brought the small stones and shells with me on this trip to use in stock setups such as these and also in situations I plan to do on the beach. All of these were taken with the Nikon 60mm macro on the D7000.

I arrived late last night in Mexico where I will be photographing for a week.  Here is one of my first shots, taken this morning with the Nikon D700 and 16-35mm lens at 16mm and equipped with a polarizer to darken the sky and saturate the colors by eliminating reflections.

Lunch with an ice cold beer in honor of my friend, Neale.  The grilled octopus was the best ever. Both images were shot with a 60mm Nikon macro lens wide open at f/2.8.

The place where I am staying is surrounded with lush tropical vegetation .  I expect to photograph it quite a bit while I am here.  This shot was taken with the Nikon D7000 and 24-70mm zoom lens right after sunrise when the sun was peeking through the leaves.