BOOM!!

Ah 4th of July in America.  Wouldn't be complete without a nice fireworks show.  Just like the past few years I headed down to the local large college with friends and family to watch the show.  UNT puts on a nice one each year.  I went there wanting to capture something a little different than the normal fireworks photo's you see everywhere.   During the explosions, a couple stood in front of me, partially blocking my view.  At first I was a little frustrated over it.  But I kept shooting.  I then looked at my LCD screen to see I had caught them moving back and forth during the long exposure.  This looked very cool to me!  Something I hadn't quite seen before in a fireworks shot.  Exactly what I was going for.  Again proving my theory, no matter what happens... just keep shooting.

Hanging Out

Yes, even when I go out with friends to just shoot some pool and have fun... my camera isn't far from me. When Brian invited me out to shoot some pool at a dark, local hole in the wall bar, I knew that would be the perfect setting for the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 lens.  Oddly enough no one even batted at eye at me walking around shooting photos while playing pool.  I like that.  I tried to capture the feeling of night life in these photos.  Either way, they were fun to shoot.

The 13th Stranger

Despite putting it on the back burner I am still working on my 100 Strangers Project.  This is Candie.  She had come to town along with The Done Deals (the band from the previous post) to support them.  I saw her sitting there talking to just about anyone and being the opportunist I am, explained my project and took her portrait.  As you can see, she was more than willing to strike a pose for the camera.  I really loved her smile and tattoos.  She really had a lot of character which made for the perfect subject for this project.  Thank you Candie for playing along! 

The Done Deals


Doing a little blog catch up here.  Back in June I got the chance to setup a Canon Speedlight inside a local bar called Banter and shoot the band of the evening.  The Done Deals come from Paris Texas and came to Denton for the evening to perform.  They're a really good band if you are ever in the North Texas area and get the chance to see them.  From a technical aspect, these are probably the best photos I've ever captured inside Banter, which is known for its cave-like lighting.  I hope to shoot there again in the near future.

Officially Summer!

For me, the official start of summer always seems to correspond with the Denton Air Show in early June. I guess its because its just the first event of many throughout the summer months. For a photographer, this is a golden opportunity. Everywhere you look is a photo waiting to be taken. Aircraft sit, lined up on the tarmac. People roaming around, looking at the details of these great machines. And a chance to get up close and personal with the aircraft.

Later in the day the real airshow gets started. Formation flying, aerial acrobatics and military aircraft demonstrations fill the afternoon skies.

This years airshow was a hot but fun day. I was able to get about a dozen photos I was truly happy with.

So... onward to summer!!

New Kid on the Block


Since 2006 I've been a loyal member of the Flickr community. It's been a great place to post my work, view and comment on others work and participate in discussions. I have long had a few gripes with a few things on the Flickr site, but what could I do? It's not like there was another quality photo community to go to. Sure there are other photo sites, but their "free" accounts were extremely limiting, or their look and feel left something to be desired.

Say hello to 500px.com. I hear they've been around since 2003, but somehow Id never heard of them till recently. I checked them out, opened a free account and gave them a test drive. My findings, highly impressive! You get more options with a free account than you do with most paid or "pro" accounts at other sites. But what really put a smile on my face was the sites layout. Everything about it is designed to present your work in the most eye catching manner possible. It even lets you create a portfolio slide show. It's really all quite beautiful and rivals some photographers official websites!

After setting up my account and uploading a few photo's, I began noticing a few things. As I browsed through other photographers galleries, I found there seems to be a high level of work across the board on 500px. It was very difficult to find anything that looked amateurish. Unlike Flickr, there were no profiles where they just used it as a "photo sharing" site and dumped their entire memories cards contents onto their account. No profiles with 5000 photos of a family reunion. No profiles with an endless stream of someone taking self portraits in a bathroom mirror. None of that non-sense, just jaw dropping, amazing photographs. In fact the quality seemed so much higher than most sites, I was very selective in what I choose to upload into my new gallery. The standard just felt... higher.

Now of course there are a few complaints with 500px and even a few notes they should take from Flickr. After all, Flickr didn't become the Goliath it is by accident. But it's their slowness to change or innovate which has led photographers like myself to be open to their options and try new sites. Ok, so here's a short list of dislikes.

• Zero Photo Protection - All these beautiful photos are yours for the taking with a simple right click, "save as". Even Flickr puts an invisible layer over the photos which will only show up as a 1 x 1 pixel when you attempt that same technique. 500px MUST give photographers some options to protect their work. Many deny it but photo thieves are out there and are stealing photos daily. They will publish your work as theirs, they will create websites with your work, they will put together entire portfolios based on your photos if you don't do something about it. I use a light watermark across my photos. Some people say it detracts from the image. I'm fine with that because that's the same thing being said by the person trolling websites for that perfect image for their latest Ad campaign.
• No Lightbox View - When I'm viewing someones 500px gallery, give me the option to go "lights out" and use my keyboard to move from one photo to the next. Its sleek, elegant and really lets you get into someones work. Not to mention looks great. Right now you have to manually click, click, click... ugg. Even Flickr has a series of keyboard commands to control and navigate their site. Its nice.
• Lose the "Dislike" Button - People either click "Like" or just move on to the next photo. I feel like im giving someone a kick in the stomach by clicking "Dislike" before moving on. Not to mention, most photos are so nice I can't say i really dislike any of them. Anyhow, it just seems un-necessary. Save the dislike button for songs I can't get through on Pandora.

Ok, that's all I really have for dislikes about 500px. Im sure these are things they've already looked at and for all I know, might be rolling out soon. It seems like a rather young website still and changing fast. It also appears to be very popular with Russians. haha It seems like 3 out 5 profiles is written in Russian. Which is fine, their work is amazing. Just seems like a high ratio.

Overall 500px.com is visually everything I wish Flickr was. I can see this website growing very quickly. It will be interesting to see if they continue to grow and improve, or stagnate like Flickr has now. I hope they grow and continue to really cater to photographers and not people who want "photo sharing". I was so impressed with what 500px has to offer it only took a quick search to find the promo code for $10 off their pro, or "awesome" account, bringing it to $40 for a year. I felt it was worth it, i'll give the site a year and see how I feel. Oh the promo code is friends. :)

So check it out, see what you think, see if it could fit your photography needs. You can check out my profile at www.500px.com/thorpeland.

Xoom, Xoom!





Where to start? Well, this is a Motorola Xoom. An Android tablet. There are a few Android tablets out now and I'd wanted one since the moment I saw them. I didn't think I'd be buying one quite so soon, but after stopping buy Best Buy for a hands on test drive I was sold. Most of these new tablets are running Android 3.0. Which ill say, is quite a bit different from the 2.x version currenly runing on Android phones. Its a bit more polished and optimized for tablets which really provides a nice experience. If you've used Android at all, 3.0 is even more intuitive and solid feeling. I've had the Xoom for one full week now and this is my opinion and review of the device.

Hardware:
The device has a 10.1 inch screen, dual-core 1ghz Tegra 2 CPU, 1gb of ram with 32gb of hard drive space, expandable to another 32gb via SD card. Really nice specs and actually tops the ipad2 in hardware terms. One of the key features I was happy to see was Motorolas choice to make the screen out of Gorilla Glass. This stuff is incredibly tough and practically scratch proof. So no need for one of those annoying stick on screen protectors. The Xoom is under half an inch thick, so its very easy to carry around. Its light but definitely feels solid and not like some cheap, plastic toy. I really like that it has a micro USB and HDMI out. Transfering files and music to the tablet is as easy as pluging it into your computer and dragging files over to it. The HDMI allows you to connect it to you TV and show movies or photos from it, to the TV. So cool. Do that, crApple. It has a 5mp rear camera with dual LED flash and 2 speakers. On the front its got a 2mp camera for vid chats.....but which doubles nicely as a mirror. :)

Likes:
So, what do I really like about it? Actually lots! It's small, light weight, has an awesomely sharp screen and its fast. I was recently asked if this will totally replace my laptop? In short, no. But it does manage to replace about 80% of what I used my laptop for. Which is what I bought the Xoom to do. Things once handled by my laptop such as email, facebook, twitter, flickr commenting, web browsing and online shopping are now easily handled by the Tablet. But tasks such as working in Photoshop or Lightroom are really best left for a laptop/desktop where you have the precision control of a mouse pointer and a bit more graphic horse power. Not to mention those applications are not available for tablets at this date. But I do love the "instant on" of the Xoom tablet. Being able to hit the web, running in just 2 seconds is very nice. Another thing I like is that Adobe Flash is supported. So when you go to a website that uses Flash for parts of the page, you still see the page as it was meant to be seen. Things such as embedded video's work nicely. If your'e wondering about battery life, you'll be happy to hear its VERY GOOD. I can easily get a full day of tinkering and web surfing in one battery charge cycle. In fact the first few days I had the Xoom I was bringing it to work and doing lots of "show & tells" with it all day. By bedtime, I still had 35 to 40% battery life remaining. Nice! Now, movie watching can change that. When watching a movie I had the screen brightness really turned up and it did eat a good chunk of the battery. But that is expected. Overall I can carry the Xoom around with me during the day and leave the charger at home.

Dislikes:
Now the question, is there anything I DON'T like about it? There are a few rough edges I'm sure will be addressed in time. I think my biggest gripe is Honeycombs (Android 3.0) webkit/browser. Using Facebook is a perfect example. The page loads, but using it is a major pain. You cannot close incoming chat windows. I click the X, but they just don't close. So I now have 5 old chats at the bottom of the screen I cannot get rid of. Frustrating. Typing in text fields are also slightly delayed. Now this only seems to happen on Facebook. Which leads me to think its something to do with the way the page is scripted. I haven't encountered this on any other website. Now, I did download the Opera browser from the Android Market and Facebook performed quite a bit better. Another option is to just use the Android Facebook app. Which works pretty well.

Bugs:
There are still a few bugs with some apps since weren't written for the tablet screen resolution. Some won't download to the tablet. Some will download but won't open. Some will open but crash when you try to use them. It's only a small percentage which do this and I'm sure it will improve in the months to come. I also found myself trying to download all the same apps I have on my Android phone. Then I realized I didn't need some of them. For example, my banking app. I no longer need an app for it. I can now just go to the website. Which really does work better.

Wrap up:
In conclusion, I absolutely love the Xoom tablet. The most common question people ask is 'how does it compare to the ipad'? Well, I chose this over an ipad so that should answer that question. You get more tablet for less money. I feel its a better device overall as well. Then again, I'm not sucked into the apple PR machine and tied to itunes. The Xoom does everything I need it to. I am a power user... not a beginner so I ask a lot of a device. Despite going through a few early adopter bumps with the first Android Honeycomb tablet, I see huge potential from the device.

Race Day!



After a months wait, the weekend was finally here. I was headed up to Thackerville Oklahoma to shoot some photos of my good friend JB and his son in a cross country race series they participate in, known as the TCCRA. As the week came to a close, weather reports were all saying we were in for a good soaking the coming Sunday. Perfect. That was race day. Now, most people would dread the idea of doing any outdoor activity in the middle of a thunderstorm. But I knew cross country dirt bike racing takes on an all new dimension when you mix those bikes, with dirt and then throw in a little (or a lot) of water.

JB informed me his race was the first of the morning, starting at 9am. I accepted the reality that I would not be able to get myself out of bed early on a cold, rainy Sunday morning and drive 45 minutes north into Oklahoma to find a rural race track. So I decided to camp out with JB and his family in their RV, at the track. Wise decision on my part. Saturday evening was gorgeous. Warm temps, perfect sunset with clear skies. But at 4am I was awoken by the loud crack of thunder, followed by a torrential downpour which lasted all the way till the race start time. And with the rain came a cold front. Saturday's temperature was a balmy 85f. I stepped out of the RV camper and into windy 40f temps with monsoon-like passing rain showers. The rain held off just in time for the start of the event, which had to be delayed as they re-routed the course because some parts were impassable now.

Even though I had brought a few cold weather clothing items, I was woefully un-prepared for this change in temperature. I layered pretty much everything I brought with me and headed out with my camera gear. The race course was just as I suspected... a muddy quagmire which always makes for some amazing action photos, but would make for a challenging day for me as well. After being outside for just a few minutes, the rain started. I could only stand there thinking, this is going to be a long, cold wet, miserable day. It was just then that JB's wife Diana offered an extra rain poncho for me to use. THANK YOU!! Now I was able to prevent my clothes and camera gear from being soaked to the core. I then moved to the starting line and got on with my day of photographing the event. It's so much more easy to concentrate on the task at hand when you're not shivering and soaking wet.

Now, I want to take a moment for a bit of gear talk. My main equipment for the day was my Canon 7D, with an attached Canon BG-E7 battery grip. I only used two lenses all day, the Canon 24-70 f/2.8L and the Canon 70-200 f/2.8L IS. According to Canon all of these items are "Weather Sealed" which was actually a strong selling point for me when I first bought the 7D. But, I'd never truly put it to the test. Today was about to change that. By the end of the day I can honestly attest to the weather resistance of the camera body and lenses. I stood out there shooting in virtually non-stop rain, ranging from light drizzle to a complete downpour. I hid the camera under my rain poncho when not shooting. But it was fully exposed to the elements when I did shoot. I used the sleeve of my hoodie to wipe down the camera body when I could. But other than that, it was pretty much soaked. The 7D didn't even blink. No errors, no lock ups... it just worked. Even the next day after it all dried off, it still operated completely normal. It's a huge relief to know the camera can take that kind of punishment and not fail. So if you were ever wondering what exactly "Weather Sealed" meant, shooting in a steady rain, falls under that category.

As for my cameras set-up for the day, my goal was to freeze this high speed sport the best I could. I wanted to capture as much detail in the bikes, riders and flying mud as possible, but still use the telephotos lens to separate them from the background. For the most part, I kept the 7D set to Aperture priority mode. Focus mode set to AI Servo so it could track fast moving subjects and the drive mode set to high-speed burst. Although the 7D shoots a blazing 8fps, I really only shoot in bursts of 3 to 5 on average. From those shots I can usually pick out the one I'm looking for which best captures the moment. I kept my aperture at f/3.2 for most of the day. A lot of people seem to think you can only get a nice DoF by keeping the lens set on f/2.8. This isn't true with a telephoto and shooting at f/3.2 enabled me to lock focus on the bikes numberplate and get most of the bike and the rider in sharp focus. It also gets the aperture into a sharper range than the wide open f/2.8. But at the same time is a wide enough aperture to maintain a speedy shutter. Obviously, a high shutter speed was important in this type of motor sport and on this very cloudy and very overcast rainy day, I had to really bring the ISO up. I found the sweet spot to be ISO2000. This allowed me to keep a shutter speed of 1/1000 or better throughout the day. Because of the sport and the camera's ability, I wasn't really worried about digital noise which can come from shooting at a high ISO. I knew it would blend in well with the editing style I had in mind for the photos.

Images were shot in RAW and processed in Adobe Lightroom 3. I use a couple presets which I use as a starting point, then I tweak each image for the desired effect and adjust highlights, darks and color tones in order to try and capture the intense, gritty feel of off road racing in bad weather.

I actually left the event a little early. My pant legs were soaked from having no cover from the poncho. My hands were numb from not having any gloves and the rain showers were getting more intense. I had taken plenty of photos and I was just exhausted. After I got home I heard it started hailing before the end of the event. Glad I came home. :) Overall it was a blast to photograph. Big thanks to my friend JB and his wife for letting me crash in their RV the night before the race.

So long... until my next adventure!

Clearance

Clearance, a photo by Thorpeland on Flickr.

A quick, short posting for tonight. I was recently invited by my friend Beau to come along with him to his daughters final track meet of the season. Since Id never photographed a track & field event before, I jumped at the chance! Although I was restricted to the side lines I had a good time shooting and was able to get quite close to the action. One thing about shooting track compared to other team sports is with track, you know exactly where the athletes are going to be and where they're headed. Which made it much easier to photograph than say... ice hockey.

Anyhow, the weather was great and with the event happening with some nice evening light, I was able to capture some nice images. And, Beau was happy to see the photo's I took of his daughter in her final track event of the year.

Just a quick post here to introduce one of my favorite Flickr photographer friends. This is Jennifer Sosa. She is a very talented wedding and lifestyle photographer from New York City. She was recently in Texas to shoot a wedding and we had the opportunity to hang out. I was really happy I got the chance to show here Denton Texas.. where I live. Great seeing you again Jen! Looking forward to getting to see some cool sites next time I make it up to NYC again!

Rock The House!!



This past weekend I attended my first 35 Conferette (No, not Confederate)here in Denton. This is a music event with over 100 bands playing in bars, coffee shops and on stages in the center of Denton over a 4 day span. If you enjoy live rock music, this was not to be missed! Now, I believe this is only the third year of this music events short life. But it grew leaps and bounds from last years when it was known as NX35. Last year I didn't even know it was going on until the coffee shop I was sitting in told me I had to leave because they were about to start a show only for those who had already paid. Um, excuse me?? This year, they had outdoor stages setup, streets closed off and made more of an effort to advertise what was going on. I still don't think many people really knew, because everyone I asked during the week if they were going looked at me and said "going to what"? I have a feeling next years "35C" will be even bigger than this and will get more attention. I really hope so.

Ok so my experience. It ROCKED! I'll admit, wrist bands (which give you access) were a bit on the pricey side compared to a normal Denton music festival. Yeah I know all you 35C die-hards are screaming "But SXSW is like $200!". Well, this isn't Austin and this is nothing near or like SXSW (South by Southwest). So paying around $95 after tax for the 4 day wrist band is a shocker for those who aren't college kids in the know, or die hard indie rock music fans. But, I still really wanted to experience this event and get some photos. I bought a one day pass ($73) and headed out with my camera gear at noon, determined to make this a marathon day of music and photography.... and by George get my monies worth! :)

I arrived at the Denton town square, picked up my wrist band and a band schedule. The first band started playing shortly on the "Square Stage", I had no idea who they were but started snapping a few shots anyhow. I quickly realized how many of the bands start times were overlapping and if I wanted to get photos of all or most of them, I'd need to really hustle. So, I spent from noon till somewhere around 1:30am bouncing from stage to stage all over central Denton. I was tired, sweaty, pretty stinky and even a little sore. But it was worth it! I discovered some really great music and captured some good images from the day. I got to meet up with some good friends and even made some new ones. Most of the day my ears were ringing and I was bounced around by dancing crowds, but that was fun! I ended up shooting somewhere around a 1000 photos, which later narrowed down to a few dozen I was really happy with. This can really be an epic experience for those willing to really get out there and enjoy live music at its best.

Now that I know what the event is all about and how it works, I think im going to try to make all four days next year. I think one of the positive results about the event price was unlike other Denton music festivals, at this one I didn't have to fight my way through an endless traffic jam of family's pushing baby strollers and dragging their kids in-tow. It was really a crowd of true music lovers and people who really wanted to be there for what it was. Which was nice. Now that its said and done, I can honestly say this was the best music event I've been to in Denton since moving here and by far the most fun and memorable. Im already ready for next years 35C!!

Check out my flickr for a few more images from the day.
http://tinyurl.com/4da5kf9

Photowalk Meetups are one of the best things you can do with other photography friends! The only problem is, such an event requires lots of time, planning and schedule arrangements. Or does it? Enter the wonderful world of photographers and Twitter. This particular photowalk meetup was arranged in a matter of a couple hours, less than a day before it occurred. It was Saturday evening and while driving I saw the tweet come through from fellow photog Kevin Hail (@khail) asking who would be up for such an event the next day since the weather here in Dallas was to be beautiful. Immediately replies began to fly back and forth as everyone interested tweeted their availability and interest. Just two hours later the event was a "GO" and my Sunday afternoon now had plans. Not an email sent, not a phone call made... not even an Evite created. Just awesome.

Many of my friends laugh at my use of Twitter and say they just don't understand it. Today's event is a prime example of its power and usefulness. In such a short amount of time on a very short notice, photography friends scattered all over the city were able to arrange a fun event. Let this be a note to those not in the-know. It works. ;)

And a fun day it was! With temps in the mid-70's and clear sunny skies we all met up in the Deep Ellum area of downtown Dallas. Kevin was nice enough to bring out his rolling suitcase of photography gear, which included flashes, a softbox and reflectors. Virtually everything you need for a mobile studio! But, not only did he bring the gear, he brought a his wife and model/photographer, Amanda. We all spent the afternoon just wanting the streets, stopping to shoot whatever caught our eye or for Amanda to pose when we found an interesting backdrop. The streets of the Deep Ellum area scattered with artistic colorful walls and painted murals. Literally a photographers dream. And we weren't the only people with this idea. All day long we must have seen 20+ other people wandering the streets with cameras and some doing actual photoshoots for clients. The area was really buzzing and it felt so nice to finally get out and shoot in good weather.

Well I'm really looking forward to our next meet-up. As we begin to enter the spring time, so many more locations open up as options. Stay tuned as I am sure I'll be posting photos and blogging about the day.

Dallas Photowalk, Hosted by Brian Braun!



While browsing the DFW Metro flickr group last week I came across a photo by local Dallas photog Brian Braun promoting a photo walk he was organizing. I'd been itching to go on one of these so I jumped at the chance of course! Being that it was January and the weather has been a bit dodgy lately, I wasn't sure if we'd get to hold the event or if we did, how many would even show up. With a light rain falling, I loaded up my gear and drove down to downtown Big D determined to take photos even if I had to wonder the streets by myself!

To my pleasant surprise, I pulled up in the parking lot to see a few other photogs already gathering. I quickly recognized "The Braun", organizer of the day as he flashed his friendly smile and a peace sign as I got out of my car. I then knew the event was on! Shortly after I arrived, quite a few others began to pull up and park. This was turning into a decent sized turn out and I knew it would be a fun day. Just as I had hoped.

With no real destination, our group first made our way to a multi-level parking garage with the idea of getting to the top floor and shooting some scenic downtown shots. A thick low fog made this difficult and most of downtown was engulfed in it. So after a few minutes we all headed back down to the ground floor. We were met with a surprise. The garage security gate had closed, trapping us inside! We were just about to all start climbing through the side of the gate, when a car pulled up and the gentleman had an access card. We were saved!

We continued our walk for another couple hours, moving to various location, stopping to shoot for a while at each. By the end, this group of strangers all felt like old friends. I guess thats not a difficult task when everyone has such a common interest like photography. From what ive seen, everyone came away with some really cool photots. One thing about photowalks which always fascinates me is how we all will shoot the same scenes, but everyone has their own take on it. Different angles and different ways they post process gives each photo a life of its own.

Big thanks to Brian Braun (http://www.flickr.com/photos/brianbraun) for putting this together. And a friendly shout out to all the great fellow photogs I met yesterday! I hope we have another one of these in the coming months as it warms up. It was definitely a blast!

Here's a few of the photo's I took during the event. Enjoy!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thorpeland/sets/72157625708366251/

Long, Dusty Road

Long, Dusty Road
Originally uploaded by Thorpeland

I recently accompanied my good friend JB to the cross country race series he participates in. I always try to come out and shoot the action if they are racing somewhat local to me. This race was only about 30 minutes from me, so I packed up the gear and headed out for a day of dirt, 2-stroke fumes and race action.

Unlike the past events of this type Id shot, i wanted to shoot this with a bit of a different perspective. Not just shoot the riders going by and jumping. But this time include an artistic element into action photography. These past months Ive been inspired by an excellent professional sports photographer who in many ways I consider a mentor. His name is Ryu Voelkel and he truly is a master of his craft. In his words, he strives to "... Make sports photography more beautiful". I kept this motto in mind as I spend the day shooting the race event. Always looking for unusual angles and perspectives, breaking away from the ordinary and including more of the environment in frame. Ryu has really opened my eyes to a new way shooting action sports. And while he mainly shoots soccer (football), his photography philosophy really can translate to any sport. You can see some of his work here--> http://www.flickr.com/photos/ryusha/ . Not only has "toksuede" motivated me with his photography. But he's a super nice, down to Earth guy who has always been nice enough to respond to every email ive sent him, answering all my questions. You won't find many full time pro photogs willing to do that. So I am eternally grateful for his patience with me. :)

So, I spent the day laying on my belly shooting, hanging off of tree's to get more over the track, firing away with the camera up in the air trying to catch something unique and analyzing my photos in post for interesting crops. Its really changed the way I think of shooting action sports. I think everyone should find a mentor in the type of photography they want to do. It gives you new goals to reach for and helps you see things in a new light. And right when you think you've shot that same old subject to death and nothing can make it look anymore interesting, your mentors work will have you going back through all your old shots to see what you could have done different.

I can't wait to shoot other sports and apply this same type of thinking. I really believe it's the key to expanding my photography skills and opening the door to a new level of work. I feel a lot of great photography opportunities on the horizon for 2011 and many great photo's to come out of them!

Need a Lightroom 3 Kickstart?

xequals
Originally uploaded by Thorpeland

I was recently asked by Brandon Oelling from Xequals to have a look at their new Lightroom 3 mini-guide and talk a bit about my thoughts. Sine I've been a long time user of X-Equals Lr presets and a reader of their website, x-equals.com, I was happy to ablige.

What the guys over at X-Equals have done is taken a deeper look at Lightroom 3 and give us some insight into their workflow in this new version. Then, they've compressed it into this 52 page mini-guide with easy to follow screen captures and step by step instructions. Now, I've been an Adobe Lightroom users since pre-version 1.0, back when it was in beta. It's easy to say I use this program on a daily basis. So as I began reading through Brandons latest guide, I wasn't sure how much I'd learn from it. But surprisingly I found I'd fallen into a bit of a rut in my editing workflow, always doing things the same way from Lr version to Lr version. So this guide has turned out to be quite an eye opener to the many new options and ways of doing things.

As I said, the guide isn't too long at 52 pages in pdf form. Which is perfect for me since I normally have the attention span of a knatt...on crack... sipping Red Bull. But it not only kept me reading but taught me a few things. This really isn't a guide just for experienced Lightroom users. If you have the program or are thinking of trying it out, I can definitely recommend this program as a tool to give you a bit of hand-holding as you learn what is what. You'll go from beginner to novice Lr3 user very quickly with the help of this mini-guide. And being that it's in PDF format, you can quickly search it for what you're looking for. Now, this of course isn't a full length, in depth Scott Kelby Lightroom book. But it's not meant to be. This is the quick and dirty, get you importing, editing and exporting in the most efficient and least amount of time. And it accomplishes that goal very nicely.

The mini-guide sells for $7 over on their site. Considering most books on Lightroom run $30 to $50, this guide is well worth it for the amount of information inside it. Big thanks to Brandon for allowing me to review this guide! It's been an enjoyable and educational experience.

You can find and purchase the X-Equals Lightroom 3 Mini-Guide right HERE.

This Old Opera House

This Old Opera House
Originally uploaded by Thorpeland

While taking a recent walk around the Denton town square, I was looking around the old Opera house/Recycled Books & CD's building, trying to find an interesting photo. It has just finished raining and the skies were a flat grey. Nothing I shot seemed to really be of any interest to me.

I walked around the square one more time looking for new subjects. But as I came back around to the Opera House building, the clouds began to break and cracks in the clouds began to let a little sun glare through. I immediately knew this might give me some nice ominous clouds as a back drop to this intriguing old building. I attached my Sigma 10-20mm and got as close and as low to the building as I could. Shooting almost directly up and almost on the ground, I snapped off several photos. I then looked at my camera's LCD screen to better see what i'd captured. When I came to this photo, I knew I had one I liked.

Now, of course it wasn't this foreboding in person. But after a little work in Adobe Lightroom 3, doing b&w conversion and quite a bit of burn & dodge, I was able to create what my minds eye saw.

After it was complete I did my normal routine of uploading to Flickr and adding it to a number of groups for viewing. A couple days later I was pleasantly surprised when I was contacted by the group admin Stephan Becker of KERA.org. One of the groups I had submitted the photo to, Art & Seek, is a sub group to the KERA Art & Seek website. They highlight art, music and culture in the Dallas and North Texas area. He notified me that my photo had been selected as Photo of the Week and would be displayed on their site. Oh, exciting! So go have a look. The photo should run on the site until Tuesda, Oct. 2nd.
http://artandseek.net/2010/10/27/flickr-photo-of-the-week-101/

Pull, Girl... Pull!!

Pull, Girl... Pull!!
Originally uploaded by Thorpeland

This little ferocious pup is Zita. Most of you who follow my Flickr stream already know this. She appears quite frequently. She is after all my best friend. She follows me around the house, hangs on my every word, misses me when I'm away and goes berserk when I come home. She wags her tail when she licks my face or when I say "Zita, daddy loves you very much". She ignores most others commands to obey, yet *mostly* hears mine. She loves cheese and spaghetti sauce.... together or separate.

In this photo we are doing probably her most favorite thing... tug-O-war. She's had this two foot long rope for a couple years now. But it's still the first thing she runs for when she's let out into the back yard. The phrase "Get your rope!" means game-on for her. And every time we play this game, I end up laughing my butt off as she pulls with all her might... growling and snarling, trying to sound as big and tough as possible. Yet I know behind all that noise and teeth is just my little teddy bear.

Most people when they meet me don't understand the bond I have with Zita. Through happy times and tough times, she has been there. Always. No questions asked. No looks of judgement. No wavering feelings or doubt. No change of heart. I am her world as much as she is mine. Ive grown up with dogs, cats, horses, goats and other pets my entire life, but never have I had such a close bond with an animal.

We truly are, best friends.

Heroic

Heroic
Originally uploaded by Thorpeland

It's that time of year again. Cool weather rolls in, leaves fall from the trees and the State Fair of Texas goes into full swing. I finally got down there to it on its last weekend. My friends and I had a perfect day for it weather-wise and the crowds weren't horrible. We had fun taking photos, eating the classic fair junk foods and seeing all the sights.

For those who have never been, the State Fair of Texas is a HUGE deal as far as fairs go. Its a month long event held in Fair Park near downtown Dallas. You can see everything from livestock, new expensive cars and ride all kinds of crazy rides. And then of course there's the food. The fair vendors pride themselves on coming up with new things they can deep fry. Most if it I cannot stomach. Deep fried bacon is just too much. If they can think of it, they'll deep fry it. Its interesting for sure.

Needless to say the State Fair is a photographers play ground. Everywhere you look there are interesting people to photograph and exciting scenes unfolding. Kids on rides, people trying new foods, the Fair Park architecture around the stadium or the animals in the livestock exhibits. The creative eye will have a feast with the camera lens.

I hadn't been to the fair in about 4 years. I hope to make it again next year and shoot even more photos. In the past I'd taken my full camera/lens bag on my back. This year I limited myself to my camera and the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 lens id rented to try out. This turned out to be the perfect combination and all I needed for the day. Its low light abilities and "normal" field of view were perfect for walking around and shooting what caught my eye.

Overall a very fun day at the fair. We were exhausted by the time we got home!

8\100: Nife

8\100: Nife
Originally uploaded by Thorpeland

My 100 Strangers Project slowly rolls onward. This past weekend I met Nife, a University of North Texas Engineering student from Morocco. I tend to be an opportunist when it comes to shooting my strangers. Some i have done cold walks up's to and explained my project. Others are people who have engaged me in conversation for some reason. While I have their attention, I use that as an ice breaker to grab their portrait. This was the case with Nife. He was introduced to me by another friend at the bar and I knew he'd be a great subject. He was very outgoing, friendly and very willing to help with my project.

We were all at the bar that night to watch a Burlesque show. Now, Id never been to one before but I knew what they were about. Nive didn't really know what to expect. I think he was a bit taken back at the amount of skin exposed that night. haha He also asked if it was normal for women in this town to dress as they were that night in the bar. What he meant by that was the 1950's era clothes they were all wearing. I explained to him, no... that's just kind of the theme of the night. He was amused. It was a fun night, everyone enjoyed.

The Long Road Ahead

The Long Road Ahead
Originally uploaded by Thorpeland

Sometimes you find a photograph where you didn't expect one. This photo is a prime example of that. I recently went for a photo drive, which is where I get in my car and try my best to get lost out in the country. Hopefully to find interesting photos along the way. I had been driving for about 45 minutes not finding anything that peaked my interest. The sun was dropping fast and I knew I probably only had 25 minutes or so of good "magic hour" lighting left in the evening. As I drove I kept my 7D camera with 24-105mm lens attached, sitting in my lap. Id followed this dirt road for about 15 minutes and was about to turn around. Then, I crested a hill top and saw this scene infront of me. A pickup truck had just sped down the road ahead of me kicking up all that dust. I slammed on the breaks and thought "whoa", this is a shot! I was still parked on the top of the hill in my car as I snapped away. I took several shots as the dust cloud slowly drifted away like a morning fog. Everything seemed to just fall into place... the hill top, evening lighting, tree colors, dust. Everything to make my drive that evening worth while.

Photo-drive = Success.