A cool shot at the park

So...here I was at a park at 5pm yesterday and I was teaching a co-worker how to shoot pictures with her DSLR. And damn it was hot! I was explaining the concept of shooting with a fast shutter speed in order to get a clear shot and also mentioned that there are times when you want to use a slow shutter speed. She looked at me and said "When would you want to do that?" So I set the camera for 1/25 of a second and went over to the swings in the park (asking the parents first) to shoot some pictures of a little boy having a great time swingin' high. I took a couple of shots and knew that I needed a flash to do it right, so I ran back to my car, grabbed my 580EX II flash and got this shot. I love the motion blur in the background with the boy crystal clear in the shot. Too bad he didn't have that huge smile on his face when I grabbed this one!

Fourth of July on the Lake

We spent a couple of days at our friend's cabin near Nevada City and took a short break from the city life. They have all kinds of toys for the kids and adults; motorcycles, boats, air guns (yike - keep these away from the 14 year old boys!)... We spent Saturday on the nearby lake and relaxed and played in the water. As always, I broke out the 5D Mark II and 100-400 lens to grab some shots of everyone riding the wake of their boat.
There is nothing better than seeing your kids having a blast! I am amazed at how many hours the kids could play on this raft, getting bounced around like rag dolls. I lasted about 30 minutes and I was done. But, I think I was smiling and laughing like this too. It is good to be a grown up kid!
Who is this hot babe on the single ski? Oh yeah, that's my wife showing the kids how it is done!
And here is the "Con Man" chillin' out on the wake board. He makes it look so easy out there.

Critters and Views of Colorado

I am not sure why I love photographing animals as much as I do, but it is fun to capture the beauty of animals in their natural habitat. It must be some of Moose Peterson's influence rubbing off on me. We took the better part of a day in Colorado to visit Estes Park. What a cool place!
The entire drive from Boulder to Estes is magnificent. Great views of the majestic mountains and endless trees in all directions. Even the kids were impressed with the scenery.The park is known for their Elk, and there are plenty of them to view. When we first pulled into the town, we saw a bunch of people who had pulled over to the side of the road to look at the Elk on a golf course. Not exactly the picture I was looking for! As we headed deeper into the park we encountered some really beautiful animals like these and they were very close to the road. Let me tell you, this stops the traffic in the park as everyone wants to do a "drive-by shooting" with their cameras out of the windows of their cars. We parked and walked back to get this shot.

Photographing my sister's wedding!

So many people told me that this was a bad idea. Many other photographers said to me "Never photograph a family event!", but I have to tell you that this was not the case for me. My sister and her new husband were relaxed and looking great! I had a chance to capture the day for them and deliver a gift of images for which I am proud. I also had a chance to spend more time with them because of this. Like I said, Sue and Ross looked amazing and made it easy for me. Having the beautiful surroundings of Boulder, CO didn't hurt much either.

My family and I stayed at the Boulderado Hotel which is located in downtown Boulder. This is a very old hotel which has a ton of character and old world style. When I first walked into the lobby area, I knew that I had to capture a picture of my sister and her fiance in this place. When they came by the hotel to meet up with me, I dragged them inside to get some shots.

And then we were off to capture some images at a local park. We had a beautiful day (in between two days of thunderstorms) with bright sunlight which made the shooting conditions tough but we worked around that.

Having fun with photography! - "Midnight snack"

So...it was late on Friday night and I needed to finish an article for Digital Reproduction Magazine (in Australia). I was writing about using fish eye lenses and how to use them to create interesting images. A friend and editor suggested that I write a side bar article on fun uses of a fish eye. This, and the fact that I could not sleep, led to a funny picture. I thought to myself "wouldn't it be funny to put my camera in our refrigerator and take a "fridge eye view" picture of me raiding the ice box?" And there it began. I cleared an area of the middle shelf, repositioned some food, set the camera to manual focus, set the 10 second timer...and...got this shot. It makes me laugh!
I call this one "Midnight Snack". :)

I shot this with the Canon 5D Mark II, Sigma 15mm fish eye lens, Lexar 4GB 300x CF card.

Graduation Time!

Connor with two of his teachers

Yesterday was a great day for the Cable family! Connor is happy because he graduated 8th grade. Annette is happy because she no longer has a 50 mile commute in the carpool and I am thrilled to be done with the rather large tuition. :)

Me and the graduate

Now we have a child in high school and I am starting to feel old.

Swimming action!

Saturday was the first swim meet for our swim club and the kids did great. It was also a good time to capture some images of the kids in action. This is the first time that I have used the Canon 5D Mark II for sports and it came through nicely. At only 3.5 frames per second, it is not the fastest camera out there, but it takes a hell of a picture.
Since I have shot many of these swim meets, I tried to find some new angles and new images to capture on Saturday. I tried to shoot at times that I would normally not hit the shutter release. This gave me some cool images of the nontraditional swim team shots.
And then after trying new angles and action shots, I decided to put that new Sigma fish eye lens to work once again. This gave me some totally different perspectives of the meet.
After shooting thousands of shots of the swimmers, I had never had a shot showing the timers doing their job. The fish eye lens provided a very cool image of the swimmer coming to the wall with the timers ready to record the race. Damn - this lens is cool!

Three more Bar/Bat Mitzvahs

I just finished shooting my third Mitzvah in the last two weekends. The last one, like the others, makes for a really long day of photography. I think I shot close to 2000 images throughout the 10 hour day. Even though it is a really long and exhausting day, I feel lucky to capture these important family moments. Not only am I there as the recorder of the day, but I feel as if I am included in the celebration. Numerous people commented that I am not like other photographers, since I immerse myself in the event. But, after thinking about this for a while, I think that this is what separates me from so many other photographers. I don't look at these events as another day of work, I see the day as critical moment in these people's lives, which I get to experience with them. Am I happy to get paid for this? Sure, but it is so much more than that.

I love photographing the kids, especially when they see their pictures and understand what we can do together. This is my chance to show off my art.

Talia and I went over to these mirrors, at the Cypress Hotel in Cupertino, and had some fun capturing some pictures. Showing her the LCD on the back of the camera and seeing the giant smile on her face, that is what I love! There is no way to express the feeling of that moment. I guess the job of a photographer is to make people look their best, and I look forward to that challenge every time I am photographing them.

I usually do not have time to sit back and think about my photography, but sitting on this long flight (to the East Coast once again) gives me a chance to do so. People always talk about my passion for hockey, for work, for my family, for my photography... I think that passion is what drives me in everything I do!

Something different in New York

Last week I was out in NY for 3 days and had a chance to capture NY in a different way. I was staying right by Time Square, but frankly was not very excited about shooting there. I have shot so many images there that I struggle for a new look. So...this time I decided to only take my new Sigma 15mm Fish Eye lens and try something totally different.
For those of you who have been to Manhattan, you know that they have hot dog stands everywhere. I really like the perspective of this shot looking through the vendors area onto the street. What is more Time Square than hot dog stands and taxis?
I have shot images at Rockefeller Center before (when the ice rink was up and running) but found this perspective interesting for exploiting the fish eye lens.

Amateur models in NY

After working all day (real business), we arranged to shoot some amateur models around the city. We shot some images in Central Park and then, because it was Fleet Week, we headed down to the port and the girls convinced some Marines to join the picture.
After shooting by the Aircraft Carrier "Intrepid" for half an hour, we took a short trip over to a nearby building which was covered with graffiti and shot pictures there until 9pm (and no more ambient light to work with).

A Totally New Experience!

This past weekend I had a chance to capture engagement photos for a couple at the Stanford Pow Wow, which is the largest gathering of Native Americans on the West Coast. We have had this date marked on the calendar for months, since this was a good time to capture photos of this great couple celebrating their culture.

It was a special experience for me to capture people in these amazing outfits, many of which are created by hand by the people wearing them. In this case, Marcos hand beaded much of the outfit that you see Crystal, his lovely fiancee, wearing. Not only did I get a chance to photograph them, I also had a chance to learn about their culture, the music, the dance and their community.

This picture of their good friend's son is one of my favorites from the day. I love the expression on his face and the seriousness of the event for him. After playing with the image for a little while, I realized that it had to be converted to black & white to really make it pop.

At this point you might be wondering who got more out of the day, them (for their pictures) or me for the experience. I hope that we both got more than we expected (at least I know that I did). Thanks Marcos and Crystal!

Luau in Wialea

Two nights ago, we finished our dinner in town and came back to the Marriott Resort where we are staying now. We heard the music from the Luau and decided to walk down and check it out. We figured that they would fence off the area, but they don't, and anyone can stand in the back and watch the performance. So I grabbed my Canon 100-400 lens and shot some pictures from the back. I got this one really cool shot of the fire dancer being lit only by his torches. Gotta love shooting at ISO 3200 with the Canon 5D Mark II.

So...the next afternoon, I walked down to the Luau area and showed the picture to the coordinators of the show and they freaked out. They told me that they were in desperate need of images for their web site and asked me if I would shoot some more. Long story short...I shot more for them and they treated us to free drinks (a very good thing) and a free Luau the following evening. Hey, that works for us!

Cable family hangs ten (okay maybe just nine)

Today we thought it would be fun to take surfing lessons. First it was just going to be Connor and Annette, but then we all decided to join in on the fun. The kids did better than us "bigger people" but we all had a great time. What? You want to see pictures of Annette and I surfing? No way...the kids have better form!

Family pictures at Napili

Well...it is our last night here on the Lahaina side of the island (before we head over to the Wailea area for 3 nights) and I wanted to get a family picture in the same spot that we used 3 years ago. We had a decent sunset as a back drop and then the rain started. Nothing major, just some drops, but enough to mess up the pictures. I had to edit out each rain drop on our clothes since it looked like we all had a bad disease. :)

An AMAZING DAY in Maui

The day started off with Connor and I driving out to a point where we could photograph big wave surfers here on Maui. But, the swells were really small this morning and there was nothing to shoot. But we did come across some of the Maui chickens and so we spent a little time photographing some of them. Then we drove back to the condo to meet up with the girls so that we could go snorkeling in one of our favorite coves.

As we drove up to the cove in the Northwest of Maui, we noticed a lot of people looking down over the cliffs watching something. We trekked down to the water and saw a large pod of dolphins swimming in the cove. I was totally blown away, and we all tried to get our equipment on as fast as possible to make the swim out to them. Swimming with the dolphins has been a life long dream of mine, and doing this in their true environment was too good to be true! As we swam out to them, they were already making their way out of the cove and I was so bummed. Then, much to my amzement, they turned around and headed our way. For almost an hour we swam with them as they came in and out of the cove. It was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!


These Spinner Dolphins were so close to us that we could almost reach out and touch them (which I was SO tempted to do, but kept my camera pointed at them and my hands off).

Connor was dieing to get a picture of him with the dolphins and we were able to get a couple of these shots.
We did not get an exact count of the dolphins in this pod but we estimated that there were between 30-40 of them.

When we got done swimming with them (and we were exhausted from all the moving around), my daughter asked me if this experience made my day. I answered "no - this made my year!"