Sunday, August 23, 2009

Senior Portraits!


Jessica
Originally uploaded by Thorpeland
As August rolls to a close, school looms just around the corner. And with it High School senior portrait season. This past Saturday morning I had a great photo shoot with Jessica. I met up with her and her mother at the Old Alton Bridge, which is now a local historical landmark and no longer in use by traffic. We took about an hour taking a few hundred shots, making use of that great morning light. We got so many good photos, this shot being one of my many favorites. Jessica was a great model and her photos came out really nice.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

People in My Life - Portrait #11

Another day in NYC and another chance to meet a long-time Flickr buddy! This is
Justin. His 365 day project self-portraits have always inspired me to be more creative with my own. Not to mention they've always been very entertaining. Justin and I even got the chance to trade prints of each others favorite photos. He's a great guy and i was really pumped to get the chance to meet him in person on this trip to NYC.

Justin is just as much a great guy in person as he is in the online world. Friendly, personable and enthusiastic about photography. And I don't even hold it against him that he shoots with a Nikon. :D Anyhow, I definitely know if I was someone living in the NYC area, Justin would be one of my photog buddies. I'll surely be calling on him again if I ever get to re-visit the Big Apple in the future!

People In My Life - Portrait #10

This fellow photographer is my good Flickr friend
Oliver. Over a year ago it was his 365 self-portrait project that helped convince me to start my own 52 week project. He's always been a great Flickr contact, commenting on my shots, replying to my comments to his photos and answering any questions I had. I also blame him for the final push i needed to drop big $$$ on my 70-200mm f/2.8. And Oliver, you were right... I don't regret it for a second! hah Getting to meet Oliver in person, in real life was a lot of fun. Its always great to get to finally meet a Flickr friend in person. Hopefully I'll meet many more as time goes by.

In this meet-up, Oliver took me down to the Queensborough bridge where we were given an amazing view of the river and bridge. it was a small park, accessible via a small sidewalk. Its this kind of place that only a local would know how to get to. Another reason its great to have a photo buddy in any city im going to visit.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Head East Young Man!


Crosswalk
Originally uploaded by Thorpeland
With Emily having a work related conference in Philadelphia, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to photograph some of the great sights on the East coast! So we made plans to spend a couple days in Philly, then take the train up to New York City.

While in Philly we climbed the "Rocky steps", walked through Edgar Allen Poe's home and found our way to the haunted Eastern State Penitentiary. I was able to get some great shots and I was like a photographer in a candy store. Well, visually speaking. :-)

From there we caught a 1.5 hour train ride north and arrived in the Penn Station in NYC! The city is overwhelming at first. So much to do and see... so many people to watch. With only 3 days there, I could tell this was a place I could spend a couple weeks in, exploring and photographing. Definitely worthy of a future trip back. We spend the days exploring the streets, seeing the sites and taking it all in. I was able to meet up with a few of my best Flickr photo buddies and do some shooting with them. Oliver, Justin and Jenn... great to finally meet you in person! We packed so much into just this one week trip, it felt like i was there a couple weeks.

I'll definitely be returning to the Big Apple in the future. As a photographer.... how could I not?!