Really. I am not a bird photographer. I don’t have the patience. Birds don’t pay me to to take their picture so why would I bother. There are those who photograph birds and actually sell the pictures. I call those people lucky. The only reason I mention any of this is because I caught myself taking a picture of a bird today. Worse than that I took several pictures. What’s even worse is I was crawling through the sand on my hands and knees trying to get a good close angle on a bird. No, I haven’t lost it! I did that a long time ago when I turned to photography as a career. What got me doing this was the fact that I had a neat little Canon point and shoot with me called the G12. It’s about the best “point & shoot” style camera you can buy.  The second thing that got me looking like an idiot, lying down in the sand with the waves crashing over my feet was there was a rather rare bird called snowy plover that was actually getting close enough for this shot. I hope I never stoop to this level again, but I can see what gets those bird guys & gals hooked. So here he is, my Snowy Plover in front of the Gulfside Place condominium, Sanibel Island, Florida.

Wow! Are we here already? Nine days away from a whole new year and eight days away from my birthday. Very cool! I have gotten a lot smarter and better looking over the past year as I’m sure you have too. This year took me all over the country shooting weddings, portraits and architecture as well as having workshops and fun with some of the most amazing people. The best part was getting to do more work in my home town of Sanibel Island. 2011 promises to be even more amazing. Lots of new friends and old from years past already booking their sessions for the coming year.

I am looking forward to a little peace and quiet over the holidays. I will be building my new computer over the holiday. For you techies I am going with the new Asus Sabertooth X58 motherboard, an Intel Core i7-950 3.06Ghz chip, 6 gigs of this cool RAM by crucial that has flashing red lights on the top of it (how cool is that!), a 4 hard drive RAID, Sapphire Radeon 6870 1GB video card all installed neatly in a Corsair 600T mid tower case. This system is upgradable to 24 gigs of RAM. All I ask is three years of service from it but I am secretly hoping for 5.

I know I have been really bad at managing my website. I doubt anyone can really tell what I do from looking at my web page, I am a professional portrait and wedding photographer by the way who can’t say no to architectural stuff. I am hoping to redo that as well. Sounds like a lot but should just take 4 days. A shout out to my pal Ray Lindsley for teaching me how to build these machines over 10 years ago and Polo, the kid in the Philippines who taught me HTML code and WordPress over the Internet.

Virginia wedding

Since moving to Florida in 1984 I have usually been referred to as “The kid” in most situations. Even today at the age of “39″ I am often the youngster in groups here in the Sunshine State. Every year I attend a couple of workshops taught by great photographers. When I arrive I usually receive a warm greeting from all of the other attendees. That’s because they think I am the instructor. Since photography has gone digital it’s mostly a young person’s game. At these workshops I am usually the only one with any gray hair.
Nobody made that mistake at this workshop in Rosemary Beach, Florida. Everyone knew what the photographer looked like. Mike Colon is one of the top 10 wedding photographers in the world. I had attended another workshop a few years ago taught by one of his students and it was the best I had ever been to. I had high expectations for this one and it did not disappoint. Mike’s workshops usually cost around $5,000 and take place on the other side of the globe. I felt I had gotten my money’s worth in the first 30 minutes. Mike is a very talented photographer and communicator and a lot of fun to hang out with. At the end of a very long day that wrapped up after a sunset beach shoot in 100 degree weather we went to dinner where he continued to answer any question I had. Here are a few of the photographs from that day.

I decided to try to sell my “old” car to get something more practical for all the stuff I tote around as a photographer. I looked at the methods used by the photographers for the automotive magazines. The one tip I can give you that makes these shots look their best is to get down low and have the headlight from the opposite side of the car just visible in your shot. Give that a try. That alone will take your automotive shots from good to great.

Okay, maybe I got a little carried away. You can see the entire gallery of images in a slide show here.

Kids ride in the wagon on the way to the beach to meet the photographer. It just goes to show you don’t need an exotic location for great pictures.

Last week this lovely couple met me for a beach portrait at Bowman’s Beach. It had rained an hour before and rained again after we were finished. We made the most of those few minutes and walked away with some spectacular shots.