Our Christmas card photo is complete! I just wanted to share. Merry Christmas!



Greg

This weekend was the Christmas in November show in Yuba City, CA where I live.  The first day over 700 people came, but Sunday there were less than 300.  Still, it was a neat show, and I had a lot of fun.  I got to meet lots of people, and certainly got my name out there!  Please forgive the image quality of these.  I was using my cheapie digital camera.

 

There's so much I wish I would have been able to do, but time was going fast, and I didn't have the most money in the world.  Since it was at the fairgrounds, I was under the impression they would have booths like they have at the normal fair... booths already standing.  I was wrong and had to buy the EZ-Up thing at the last minute.  If it hadn't been for my friend letting me borrow a bit, I wouldn't have had a booth at all.

I ended up with 13 8x10's, mounted in Dollar Tree frames.  I also had matted/framed pictures which gave the illusion of them being bigger, as well as an 11x14 mounted larger on an easel in the front of the booth.  I also had a sample Baby Collage on an easel.  This got the most response out of everything.

I had specialty items as well.  I had some photo bracelets, and photo charms, both of which went over a bit TOO wonderfully.  People wanted to buy the charms and bracelets by themselves!  So finally I told them that if they wanted to purchase them outside of a photo session, the minimum order was 5.  I didn't want to become a jewelry dealer.  Another item I had was photo ornaments, which again, people seemed to like.

On one table I had a few copies of Clipper Magazines if people wanted them.  One woman said she had seen the ad and wanted to use a coupon, but didn't know where the ad was.  When we offered her a magazine, she refused.  Refusals seemed to be the order of the day; I was giving away a package of a photo session, 1 8x10, 2 5x7's, and 10 Christmas cards... most people who walked by said they weren't interested!  Still, I did get quite a few people to sign up.

So in the end, I got 31 people to sign up for the drawing, which means I now have 31 people on my mailing list.  The woman who ran the booth next door worked with me about 13 years ago, and ended up booking a photo session.  There were at least 5 or 6 people who seemed excited enough to call me post-show.  While I didn't have flyers or postcards to hand out, I probably gave out 150 business cards.

So for a booth cost of $65 plus $12 insurance, and about $350 worth of booth implements, with the one photo session booked for next Saturday this booth has paid off more than the Clipper Magazine ad.  I think targeted marketing is the way to go!

The next booth will be the Christmas Stroll in December.   That one shouldn't cost much at all, since I outfitted it all for this one.  Hopefully it'll go as well as this did.

Greg

OK, now THIS one I'm a bit excited and proud of.

 

On October 3, I got an email from the promotions person where I work.  He had two tickets to see John Hiatt & The Robert Cray Band in West Sacramento, where our company is.  I immediately responded and said YES I want those tickets!

 

I also asked if I could have the name of the person he got the tickets from.  My thoughts were, hey, here's an opportunity, so I may as well try to get in to take pictures.

 

CONTACTS

--------------

Did I mention this was Friday at 3pm?  The contact person he had was a promotions person from the Sacramento Metro Chamber of Commerce.  After talking to her, she referred me to an events coordinator with Raley Field, the venue.

 

I called this person but got voice mail, so I left a message saying hello, I'm a freelance photographer and would like to know what's necessary to take pictures at the show.  At 4:30pm, she called back and said you need to talk to artist management for that sort of thing.  She gave me two separate contacts, one for each group.

 

I called Robert Cray's management and immediately got in touch with someone.  He said I would need to send him email explaining who I was, and who I had taken pictures of in the past, plus any publications that I have worked for.  I got his email address and wrote a message, specifically referring to NYI Photoworld, and mentioning that I planned on offering the images to the Sacramento Bee, Sacramento Magazine, Sacramento News and Review, and the Appeal-Democrat (my local newspaper).

 

Next, I called John Hiatt's management.  Nobody was available, so again, I left a voice mail.

 

The next morning, I went to my aunt & uncle's house to take their pictures.  We did some outdoor ones, but my uncle wanted my help putting up an awning on the side of his house (isn't family great).  In the midst of this, my cell phone rang.

 

It was the tour manager for John Hiatt!  I explained to him who I was, and that I wanted to take pictures of the show.  He asked which publications I took pictures for, and again I mentioned NYI Photoworld and the other publications I had name-dropped earlier.  He said ok, I'll leave a photo pass for you at the gate, and that I had permission to take pictures of the first three songs without flash.  No problem, thank you very much, sir!

 

A few hours later, the guy I sent email to regarding Robert Cray called back and said I had permission to take pictures of him too!  I could take pictures of the first song, with no flash, and again, thank you very much, sir!

 

THE SHOW

-------------

At Raley Field, I went to Will Call.  The woman had ONE ticket and ONE photo pass with Robert Cray's picture on it.  There were supposed to be TWO tickets, and I had brought my wife along.  This was not good!

 

I talked to the person in charge of guest relations.  He wanted to know who I got the tickets from, so I mentioned the promotions guy from work.  I also said hey, this pass only mentions Robert Cray, not John Hiatt.  He went back inside and came out with two tickets!  He also told me the pass would work for both John Hiatt & Robert Cray.

 

My wife and I took our seats, and I took my camera up to the front to get the lay of the land.  As I approached venue security, they said who are you?  Why are you here?  You know there are only two photographers in the entire venue who have permission to take pictures!  I said yes, and I'm one of them.  One guy said wait here and went off to talk to someone.

 

He brought the person back, and I exchanged business cards with him.  I said yes, I'm a freelance photographer and have permission from the tour management of both artists to take pictures tonight.  I also mentioned that if there was any problem, we could go talk to the tour managers, and mentioned them by name.  He said oh no problem but you should really talk to that man over there, and pointed to the venue's head of security.

 

No problem, so I went up to the man, and he was quite friendly.  He reiterated that I could only take pictures during the first 3 songs of John Hiatt and the first song of Robert Cray.  I told them those were the instructions given to me by management, and he said ok, you're fine.

 

I also made one last visit with the venue security guy, and asked specifics about how much I could be in front of the stage.  He said it really didn't matter because people would be dancing... at this particular show, the entire front part of the stage was cornered off and TABLES were set up.  People were eating a catered dinner there, and the security guy said that once people started drinking, they wouldn't care where I was.

 

So once John Hiatt started, I began taking my pictures.  Not only did the audience members not mind, but the band didn't seem to mind either.  A few times they smiled when I was taking their pictures, and obviously they enjoyed what they do.

 

About the third song, I was stopped by one of the guys I had talked to previously.  Who are you shooting for, he asked again.  I said once again, I'm freelance but specifically I shoot for NYI Photoworld and gave him my business card.  He left and I finished the task at hand.  When the third song was over, I took my seat.

 

When Robert Cray started, I did the same thing, only for the first song.  No hassles here, either.

 

FINAL COUNTS

-------------------

Contacts before show: 4

Contacts during show: 5

B&W Photos taken: 96

Color Photos taken: 24

 

I offered photos to the Sacramento Bee and Sacramento News & Review, but neither one was interested.  One person during the show approached me and asked if I would be selling photos, so I gave him my business card.

 

OK so for others who are looking to do the same thing, here are my suggestions:

 

* Get in touch with band PROMOTIONS not MANAGEMENT.  They are the people in charge of this sort of thing, and hassles can be avoided by doing this.

 

* Be courteous, kind, and do whatever they want you to do.  You're on THEIR turf, treat them like kings.  Not only do they hold the keys to your success, but they can eject you and confiscate your film if they so desire.  They can also back away from their word and not allow pictures at all.

 

* Don't stumble on whatever you tell them, and don't lie.  Above all, act professionally.  You're SUPPOSED to be there, so act like it.

 

THE PICTURES

------------------

I wish I had more to share, but my flatbed doesn't do color negatives the greatest in the world, much less B&W.  To save a bit of money, I had them print contact sheets instead of prints, which saved me probably $50.

 

That said, here is one of each.  John Hiatt:

Robert Cray:

Would I do it again?  ABSOLUTELY.  Will I try to take pictures at other events?  Again, ABSOLUTELY.  This was one of the greatest, most exciting experience I've yet had taking pictures.

Greg

First off, this isn't a political post.

Did Arnold Schwarzennegger grant a 30-second photo session for this week's cover of Time Magazine?  Even if they did it in the midst of a 5-minute interview, I've seen better pictures taken off the David Letterman set.  This has got to be the worst professional "portrait" I've ever seen!  He was moving his hands, so they're out of focus, which I don't mind too much... but his face isn't 100% sharp either.  His hair's out of place and he's sitting on what looks to be a plywood box.

 

After seeing this, I can say that even my 11-year-old niece can be a successful Time Magazine photographer.

A little background here, I live in Northern California, where summers get very dry, and very hot.  We recently had a week or two with consistently over-100 degree temps, mostly 103 and higher.  We got a reprieve this past week, when a nice little thunderstorm rolled into town.

Thursday night I went to see my friend's band play, and as they were tearing everything down, I saw the storm in the distance.  You couldn't miss it, the lightning was striking literally every 30 seconds or less.  I told my wife I would have to ditch her, as this was an opportunity I couldn't pass up.

As I was driving out to the Sutter Buttes, the lighting was striking directly in front of me, and I kept worrying that I would miss the storm.  It's happened to me before, I've had to eat dinner when it started, and when I finish dinner, the storm is gone.  This wasn't the case this time around.

Out in the buttes, I have my "favorite" spot for nighttime viewing.  I've used it for stargazing, used it for daytime photography, even used it for daydreaming.  When I got to this spot, I got out of the car and started taking pictures.  I already had some of the Portra 400UC film that Kodak had a sale on last month.

Once the camera was on the tripod, the first thing I did was point the camera down towards the street, which was heading beyond the hills.  I did this because that was the direction the lightning was striking on my way there.  Boy did I get a surprise when it struck directly behind me and to the right!



Even though there's no lightning in the shot, I love the surreal effect the light gave.  The only thing I wish was that there was something better to look at in the sky!

OK, so I turned the camera to the right, which was where the storm seemed to have moved to.  Now this was more like it!



The only thing I was afraid of was missing the lightning, so I took all the pictures at 28mm.  All the pictures were f3.5, f4, and f4.5.  The times varied, due to not knowing when lightning would strike... anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes.



After shooting the rest of the Portra, I drove another 5 miles down the road to the Sutter Bypass.  There, I walked through a field and saw an interesting sight: the lights from the city beyond a distant bluff were reflecting off the clouds in the sky!  I loaded the camera with some Fuji SuperHQ 100, and at f4, I shot a 5-minute exposure.



This is the most fun I've had taking pictures in a long, long time.  While out in the middle of the night (midnight to 2:30am), with the nice summer breese blowing, all I kept thinking was this is what it's all about.

I also learned a few things.  First off, I think I should have used a smaller aperture for the lightning itself, f8 perhaps, which would have made the bolts a bit more defined.  I think that I should have taken some at 28mm and some at maybe 100mm, instead of taking them all the same.  Finally, for the pictures at the end of the night, when I was shooting the affects of the lightning on the sky instead of the lightning itself, I should have used faster film.

If you've made it this far, go here for more pictures from that night.

This entry is a test of AvantBlog, a neat little site that (hopefully) will allow me to post blog entries using my Palm. I connect to the site with a browser called AvantGo.



If it worked, I can now post entries wirelessly! Woohoo!

Well, it's been a while. I hope you had a wonderful 4th of July! Please excuse that bright light in the middle, it's the one light they left on at the ball park to let people navigate their way out of the stadium.  At least they turned off the main lights!

This year I definitely had the best seat in the place.

I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July!

I just HAD to follow up Wednesday's blog entry.

Last night my wife was babysitting the same kids again, and when her mom came to pick them up, I gave her the photos.

She *LOVED* them. She went on and on about how well I captured the essence of her kids, and was I trying to become a professional. She also wanted me to take some outdoor pictures of her kids in various places around town!

Now this was all just talk so I told her there would be a fee involved, and she said it was fine. I doubt I'll take the kids' pictures for that reason though, because this woman doesn't exactly have much money. I'd only take the pictures for materials + 10%.

At any rate, I just wanted to share this. I was blown away at what her favorite pictures were, one that she loved wasn't even in focus.

I have to think that her response would be different had she been paying me.

Well, I'm almost entirely unhappy with the results of my first shots using my Alien Bee setup. I'm still not entirely sure what I did wrong. The setup was basically, the Bee set up about 5 feet away from the subjects, 45-degrees to the left, through an umbrella. I pointed the dedicated flash to the ceiling to trigger the Bee, and my wife held a 3'x4' piece of foamcore about a foot away from the subjects on the right. I metered with my Sekonic L-358, using the dedicated flash to trigger the meter, as opposed to a sync cord, in order to better represent the fact that there was a 2nd flash bouncing off the ceiling. Finally, I used the backdrop I describe building in the Documents section.

They were sitting in one of those rockers designed to rock your baby. I didn't have a stool, and the kitchen chairs were too tall for the kids. Unfortunately this rocker was the only chair I had low enough, and the kids had a tendency to rock while I was trying to take their pictures. The chair was FILTHY, so I put some fabric I had bought with the hopes of using it as a backdrop (it wasn't wide enough) on the chair, so as to make it not look so bad.

Before I link to the pictures, I need to ask, what did I do wrong? The backdrop looks TERRIBLE! There are other things wrong with my shots, such as I was having a problem focusing, not to mention the fact that I couldn't "see" the shadows using the modeling lamp. Is it supposed to be this difficult?

Now, keep in mind I've only just finished NYIP Unit 2. I've listened to the tapes and read the books for Unit 3 once, but I still felt like I didn't know anything. I suppose that's what it's all about, right? Get comfortable with one aspect, then dive in head first into the next and feel totally in the dark.

OK, the pictures. Please let me know what I could have done to make them better. Iron the backdrop? Use a soft filter? Hire somebody to chew my food?



After a while my wife got tired of holding the foamcore. So everybody sing "Every Breath You Take" while looking at the shadow!



Finally, the last one really shows off the wrinkles of the backdrop and the purple cloth I put on the chair. Since it's big, I won't link to it inline.

Another weekend, another family trip! This weekend we took our 2nd annual Memorial Day camping trip to the Humbodlt Redwoods! I took lots of pictures of Angela and Gregory, so here are some of them.

As you already know, the Eel River runs parallel for the most part to the Avenue of the Giants, where we stayed. It's a short hike down to the river.



Gregory LOVES taking his clothes off when it's warm, so we obliged.



Those pictures could have been taken just anywhere? OK, wiseguy.



This one's my favorite of Gregory down by the river.

Before heading home, we drove up north to Eureka and Trinidad, both to see the lighthouse, and to take Gregory to the ocean for the first time. He loved the beach, but didn't care much for the water. The ocean was cold, but the air was pretty warm. The wet sand was steaming, too. We dug a little hole for Gregory to play in.



I love this one as well. Gregory had a ball.



There were plenty more pictures, but I haven't had much time to scan them. This is it for now! Now it's time for me to get back to work.

As I posted before, I took three rolls of film at Bodie... one Fuji Superia 100, one Tri-X 100, and one Provia 100.  These were Tri-X


The little smudge you see is from a dirty scanner glass, sorry about that.

Out in Bodie, it was extremely remote to the point where they tried to avoid hauling out the garbage from the site as much as possible.  To that end, they did a lot of recycling... this particular building has a wall whose outer surface is made entirely out of tin cans.



Believe it or not, this was stamped on the side of an old vehicle engine.



...and a little closer:



This was taken with a +3 closeup filter, and I hadn't noticed before but it tends to distort in a circular pattern around the center.  I need a macro lens!

Leaning up against a building was a runningboard from an old Ford truck.  This scan is a bit off though, it looks almost as if I scanned a newspaper picture or something.  The print doesn't look that way.



This particular building has a story to it... one of the residents of Bodie was a bit wealthy and wanted a unique home.  He blew a hole into the side of a rock, then took the rubble and built walls around the hole.



Finally, here is one of the many rusty car-casses lying around Bodie.  The steering wheel is all metal!  My car's black rubber steering wheel is hot enough, but METAL?!?!?!  Ah the olden-days.



So that's it for my B&W photos.  I'll post the slides whenever I can scan them.  Since I don't have a negative scanner, that makes it a tad more difficult.  Until next time...

Hello again from Weekend-Trip Land!  This weekend I decided to take my wife and son to Bodie, CA, a neat ghost town in the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains.  My little adventure will be outlined in 3 separate posts, primarily because I don't have all the film developed yet. :)

A bit of background first, I first read about Bodie when I was online, checking out new places to take pictures.  One place kept standing out, both in travel sites and with photographers: Bodie.  At one time, it had over 10,000 residents, but became a ghost town after everyone left in the late 50s.  In the 60s, a group got together to preserve the town, and today, it's a State Park.  Admission is $2 for adults, $1 for kids over 5, under 5 are free.  Payment is strictly on the honor system, drop your $ in the box.

I asked my wife 5 or 6 days before leaving if she thought it'd be a good idea, and she said yes.  Off I went online, and started reading.  Saturday, come to find out, was "Photographer's Day".  To the general public, the park is open from 8am to 6pm, but on Photographer's Day, you can pay $30 and come into the park a half-hour before dawn, and stay a half-hour after sunset!  The ranger on the phone said that they limit the number of photographers to 50 on Photographer's Day, but in this particular case, they only had 5 or 6 people sign up.  This sounded perfect!

After work on Friday, I drove home, picked up my wife and child, and we went on our way.  5 hours later, we arrived in Bridgeport, which is 20 miles from Bodie.  We stayed the night, and at 4:30am, I snuck out and headed out to the ghost town.

Upon arrival, there was only one photographer other than myself!  He started taking pictures straightaway, so I did the same.

The sky was a beautiful shade of gray the entire time.  This made for some great light, but unfortunately, in some of the building shots here, the sky is completely washed out.

This place is a photographer's PARADISE!  I spent a good 8 hours here taking pictures, and barely scratched the surface of what was here.  This particular set of pictures was on Fuji Superia 100 film.

I walked the entire perimeter of the ghost town, trying to find the best angle towards things, and I think I succeeded to some extent.  I will admit, however, that my best pictures were taken after this, in black and white.  I also shot a roll of color slides.  In all, I took roughly 100 pictures.

I suppose I could manipulate these in Photoshop to remove the gray sky.  We'll see how the other pictures turn out before I do something that extreme.

Bodie is in what they call a state of "arrested decay" - that means that while they maintain the contents of the town, they only do so to a point.  In 1963, when the town became a State Park, they basically said ok, we can do repairs, but only fix it to the point where it looks like it does now.  So that's what they've done.

While visiting Bodie, one gets the feeling of being in the past, especially with the opportunity I had of coming early in the morning before any "tourists" arrived.  By the afternoon there were at least 200 people here.

Once again, I absolutely enjoyed myself this weekend.  I think it was a combination of things: the anticipation of arriving, being out there with only one other photographer (who I didn't see again until probably 9:30am), being able to look around and use the techniques learned in NYIP.  It was also a learning experience, since I doubt I'll make the same mistakes with the overcast sky that I did here.

Stay tuned for Parts II & III, whenever I get the B&W and slide rolls developed.

I've gotta say, I've been a little disappointed in the Sam's Club photo department as of late.

With the 15 Days in May photo contest coming up, I was getting my images ready. I wanted to get as many 5x7's as I could to make a better decision as to which one to enter, so this past week, here's how the schedule went...

Saturday: take the pictures (4 rolls)
Sunday: take film into Sam's
Sunday: pick up photos ($30), turn in several for 5x7 enlargements
Monday: pick up 5x7's ($6), turn in two for 8x10 enlargements
Tuesday: go to pick up enlargements ($10), notice one enlargement was done wrong, the other had specks of lint, ask for a redo

So this past week I spent $46. When I asked for the redo, I was treated like a lower-class citizen! When I pointed out the problems, the woman wouldn't even look me in the eye any longer, then threw the negatives onto the table in a huff.

I'm certainly not a customer service expert, but why is this happening? $46 a week isn't my average, it's more like $10 a week, but even still. Nowadays I go in there maybe 2-3 times a week, and they know my name. I'm at the point now where all I say is "Picking up 3 enlargements" and they just go get them. My point is, per month lately I've been spending maybe $75 in their department.

So why the bad attitude? I had this happen at Wal-Mart, and I stopped going there. But let's get real for a minute, at Sam's Club the 8x10's are $1.99, at Wal-Mart they're $4.99. The 5x7's at Sam's are $.69 apiece, while at Walgreen's they're $2.49. Sam's has the best price, and with the volume I've been doing lately, I can't really afford to spend much more. I could take them into Elliot's, but they charge $12 per 24-exposure roll SINGLE PRINTS. The 8x10's are $6.95.

I'll be picking up my 8x10's tomorrow... well, 8x12's. 8x10 the machine cut off the fireworks from the previous diary entry, so I had them redo it at 8x12. Hopefully they'll be done right, because tomorrow night is the Camera Club.

This Saturday, I decided to spend the day taking pictures for a photo contest that the West Sacramento is having.  They call it "extraordinary images of ordinary life", and the pictures have to taken within the city.

I started out at the riverbank, which always seems to be a good place.  At least, it is on any other day!  Apparently there was some blues concert going on, and the entire area was closed to the "public"!  It was $15 to get in, and I was more in the mood to take pictures, not pay to take pictures.

At any rate, I decided to walk across the bridge and see if there was at least a view of the city from that side.  NO!  While Sacramento has a skyline, West Sacramento does not, other than the old Money Store building, and that's where the concert was being held.

I walked back across the bridge and decided to drive around.  Close to where I was at, they've been building these odd condos that remind me of San Francisco in a way, and I saw a guy taking pictures.  Ah yes, the competition.

I drove down by the high school and walked around a bit.  There were some flowers down there with some pollenating bees, so I took a few pictures... once again, my poor lens doesn't do macro very well so that was a washout.  No big deal, I guess.

I walked down the road a bit to the soccer field, where a city team was playing.  Now this, I could work with!

After they finished playing, I talked to them about permission to use the images.  Not only were they all for it, but the referee said, "Listen, what you should do is come back with the pictures and sell them to the guys for $5 apiece."  I told him it was a good idea, but of course I'm not going to do it. :)

When their game was over, I went back down by the high school, which is directly across from the levee that protects the town from the river.  I decided to take a walk over there to see what I could find.

I heard blues music coming from the north, but the blues concert I had run into earlier was the south.  When I got to the river, there was some private party going on on some marina across from me.  I wasn't able to take pictures because of the amount of trees and lack of riverbed.

I walked back and there was a large tree stump.  I thought it'd be perfect for a backlit shot.



I'm not entirely happy with it, though, since the ground is so much darker than the upper portion.  I probably won't use it for NYIP Unit 3.

I noticed some birds that kept flying back and forth, so I decided to wait it out for a little while.  This was a good idea.



The bird's beak is obvious in the second shot, but in this small scan it's hard to see.  I also wish I had either a longer lens or an extension tube!  Oh well.

With my light quickly disappearing, and the opportunity for a nighttime Sacramento cityscape quickly approching, I took one last picture in this location... a silly self-portrait.



After leaving the levee, I headed to the other side of town, and quite a ways downstream, where Sacramento is visible.  I was hoping for a nice shot from the West Sacramento side of the river, looking downstream at the city, reflected into the river.  I spent a good 2 hours walking alongside the river, but realized that with the water being high after the recent rains, there's no riverbed any longer!  It's all underwater, including the bottoms of the trees.  The closest I was able to get to the water was still behind the trees, so there was virtually no view of Sacramento to take pictures of.

I also reached an impasse about a mile downstream from the Tower Bridge, so I headed back.  When I was almost at the bridge, someone stopped me, asking me if I was aware of the fact that it was a high explosive area.  NO, I was not!  He asked me where I was headed, and I said well, back where I came from, and pointed.  He said no, because they were about to light off a fireworks display for the Rivercats game, and could I please leave a different way.  He pointed out that different way, and I went on my merry way.

Still... fireworks.  Yeah, fireworks!!!  I spent another 30 to 40 minutes trying to get a good spot to get both the Tower Bridge and the fireworks in the same shot.  I didn't think I could get a picture of the stadium, since the lights were so bright.  Later, I found out they turn off all those lights when the fireworks go off, but that's neither here nor there.

At 10:30pm, the stadium crowd counted down for the fireworks to go off.



Not the greatest location, to be sure, I had to zoom out to 28mm in order to get both in the shot.  I did, however, get the shot, and that's the important thing, right?  I'm going to try and get a better vantage point again sometime, now that I know they have these displays for the games.

My Saturday came to a close and I headed home.  I'm still going to take some more pictures of West Sacramento, since the deadline for the contest is 5pm on May 15th.  Still, out of these pictures, I think the second soccer image will be the one I enter.  I'd love to say I was going to enter the fireworks, but they're just too far from the bridge.  The next time, I'm going to try and get the bridge larger in the frame and the fireworks visible BEHIND it.  We'll see.

I wanted to go out to Beale Falls badly on Saturday, but it had been raining all day Friday and most of the morning Saturday.  The forecast had said it would stop raining by afternoon, so at 2pm, I took my wife and headed out.

My idea was to duplicate the shots I had taken a few weeks ago, but this time, with overcast skies.  That would have been possible, had it not been for the rain.

My valley mind seemed to forget what happens in the mountains (and in this case, foothills) after a large rain.  I got to the locations, but they didn't quite look the same as they had been before.  In fact, I couldn't even get to a few of the locations due to so much water.

I thought it'd be neat to do a side-by-side comparison.  The images on the left are from 4-19-03, the ones on the right from Saturday, 5-3-03.  First up is what was barely a trickle on 4-19, in fact, I didn't post it originally because I thought it was too boring.

What a difference the rain makes!  Next is the actual falls themselves.  There was so much mist from the falls this past Saturday it was incredible.  I had to work fast, and used my skylight filter to minimize the amount of water on my lens.  I took pictures for maybe 5 minutes before deciding to finally give it up.

I did have a lot of fun, though, and this time, my wife came along.  She didn't want to get as close to the edge of the rocks as I did, so she remained a bit up the trail.

Now, the NEXT time I go, I hope there'll be a bit less water!

Sunday was Easter, and Gregory had a blast! He had his first Easter Egg hunt with his cousins, at his Grandma's house.

He really enjoyed himself as he hunted for eggs. Angel put eggs all over the yard (Gregory's Grandma had probably 200 plastic eggs), and he had a hard time at first figuring out which eggs to pick up. Then it took him 3 or 4 tries before he knew to put the eggs in his basket.

Gregory's growing up so fast! It's hard to believe that a little over a year ago he was so small I was afraid I'd break him.

It's events like these that really make it worth being a parent. I shouldn't get too gooshy though, I don't want everyone to squish when they read.

This next picture was taken for the New York Institute of Photography, for my Unit 2 assignment, Converging Lines. Lines have to converge towards a subject, and who do you think the subject was? Of course.

How can you not love our boy?