I have been going through a bunch of my old photos and ran across this photograph that I took back in 2005 with my first digital camera. It was a 3 megapixel Canon point & shoot. When I first ‘discovered’ the old image I liked the photograph, but was a bit concerned with it’s lack of resolution. Then I had the thought of “Well, let’s take it into Topaz Adjust and smooth it out a bit”. Of course, it still does not have a lot of detail, (actually even less than before) but with the painterly effect, you don’t really need the detail and you end up with what I would consider a very pleasing photograph.

One of the standards of Austin’s South Congress or SoCo area is the old Air Stream ‘Hey Cupcake‘ trailer serving up outrageously yummy cupcakes. (No they are not paying me to say that.) This was actually shot as a test for an upcoming photo shoot. More details (and photos!) regarding that soon.

The day I shot this photograph I was not actually out “shooting” but simply playing tour guide to some out of town guest. I actually captured three marketable images that day. Two exterior shots including the garden (one vertical & one horizontal), and a photograph of the “Texas Marquee” inside. As a side note, I was not actually supposed to shoot inside the the museum, but I just could not help myself. Subsequently they became a vendor selling my images in the gift shop including the clandestinely photographed interior shot. I’ll include the Marquee images in a future post. You can see my other Texas History Museum Images here or other Austin images here.

I got a call from the National Guard Magazine today to license one of my ‘Austin’ images for their magazine. Although they were looking for a night image of 6th street, perhaps I should have also suggested this one?…
Actually this is yet another pin-up from the session I did recently along with a group of other photographers. I have so many great images from that session that I’m really having a hard time limiting the number of images I post. It really was great fun trying to recreate this classic vintage style. You can see the same image here. with a different treatment. Which do you prefer?
If you are interested, you can see more of my portrait work here.

Not too long ago I was in PA doing a bit of driving around looking for photo opportunities & passed a road closed sign blocking the turnoff that led into this tunnel. Personally, I kinda I enjoy going places that have signs telling me to go somewhere else. So, out of curiosity, I asked my hosts to pull over so I could take a few minutes to explore the road less traveled. As you can see in the photo, it’s pretty obvious why the tunnel was closed. I just hope they take the time to replace the fallen bricks with more bricks to keep the amazing character provided by the original artist and don’t just patch the scar with a big blob of concrete. To really see the detail, click on the photo to go to my Flickr site & look at the ‘Original’ size.

As I promised in an earlier post, this is another pin-up from a session I did recently along with a group of other photographers. People that know my work probably don’t think of me as a portrait photographer so much as a landscape or Fine Art photographer. Actually I love photographing portraits.  It was great fun trying to recreate this classic vintage style. If you are interested, you can see more of my portrait work here.

Last week I was on an assignment in Portland Oregon to shoot a book cover for a new soon to be released novel “The Blue Light of Portland”. (BTW, the book is very good. Watch for it.) The assignment basically consisted of: “Shoot a nondescript door in an alley in the Pearl district of Portland in the rain”. Well, it was not raining & if there are any alleys in the Pearl district, I didn’t find them. I did find some nondescript doors & with a bit of Photoshop magic the publisher & author seem to be pleased. While was on my quest for the perfect door to illustrate the “Blue Light” cover I ran across this door. I knew immediately that this was not the door I was looking for, but it was pretty interesting.

It was a fun past few days. On Wednesday I flew to Portland & did some shots for a book cover. Then, this past weekend I did a photo shoot with a group of photographers, stylist and five beautiful hard working models shooting some fun retro pin-up shots. It was all ‘G’ – ‘PG’ rated and tons of fun. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday.  I’ll post more images from the shoot in the coming weeks.