Thanks to my friend Shawn Reeder for inspiring me this morning with his beautiful work.

A few images from my walk:

technical notes: I took the Canon 5D, 100mm macro and 16-35mm f2.8L II - I often use a fairly high ISO for macro shots to allow a higher shutter speed and minimize camera and subject shake.

This is their ‘front yard’

Thanks for looking - go for a walk, wherever you are, it’s worth it.

~Bill

Erin and I decided at the last minute to go to the workshop and also check out the Photo Plus Expo at the Javits Center in Manhattan.  We got plane tickets and a hotel reservation just a couple days before we left. (!!) Jason recommended the Belvedere Hotel and it was perfect, just 3 blocks from Times Square, we walked to lots of cool sights.  Manhattan is another world, even the short buildings are 10 stories, the taxi drivers really are crazy, the sights, sounds and smells are intense!  We got in Monday afternoon and took a taxi into town from JFK - had dinner at an Italian place in Hells Kitchen and then headed to Jason’s studio for a pre-workshop meet and greet.

At the workshop on Tuesday we spent half the day talking business and then headed out to shoot.  Jason had lined up two sets of bridal models (they were great to work with!).  We did two shoots, one in the afternoon where I was carrying the cameras and Erin was working the lights and one after the sun went down in Times Square where we traded off and I worked the lights while Erin shot.  It’s always a little crazy shooting with a large group of photographers but we got some fun stuff - check it out:

These are from the night shoot with Erin shooting, the first one is down in the subway with one of the subway cops.

I love this one! Great job honey.

Here’s a shot of the instructors and the models - great job and a huge thanks from both of us!

We spent all day Wednesday seeing the sights and doing SO MUCH walking! It’s such an amazing city. We started with a bus tour through Times Square heading south, we got off at Macy’s and did some shopping (we both needed warm hats, it was cold on top of that bus!). Macy’s is more than 2 million square feet of shopping (ya, I said million)… Then we got back on the bus and rode it to Greenwich Village. We had lunch and walked through the campus of NYU and then walked 40+ blocks back up to Times Square for a drink at the Hard Rock Cafe. After that we walked to the Rockefeller Center, rode the elevator up the tower and took in the view from 68 stories up. After that we took a horse drawn buggy ride through Central Park and back to the hotel. After all that we headed to Jason’s famous yearly party. He had over 200 photographers from all over the country at his studio - it was packed - we got there a little late (about 10pm) so it wasn’t super crammed but there were still lots of people there - it was fun to catch up with people I’ve met before, meet new people and get to introduce Erin ( ).

Here are a few pictures from our sight seeing:

Times Square from the top of the bus

The Bus Tour Guide - a character for sure

It’s good to be home. But we didn’t even come close to seeing everything, we’ll just have to go back.

2008 Mason County Dodge Truck Rodeo

EDIT: This image was included in the promo video from the Leaving Las Vegas shoot where I took it.  You  can watch the video in HD here: LLV Video   Cool!

~Bill

These shots were all created in the desert outside of Vegas using bright mid-day sun and my little portable off camera strobe:

I had such a great time at WPPI and at the shoot on Thursday, I can’t wait till next year!

~Bill

I didn’t go outside to check it out till it was just past ‘total’, so by the time I set up my tripod, it looked like this…

The drive down took me 12 hours, basically sun-up to sun-down. The mountain pass as you go from southern Oregon into northern CA was sun and snow covered ~ basically a beautiful drive.

The sunrise as I was pulling out at 7am:

Mt Shasta through the windshield at 75mph:

I stayed in Sonoma with my new friend Trevor Meeks, photographer and pilot, he has an awesome studio in the middle of the wine country and let me crash on the floor.

A few behinds the scene shots (click image for a bigger view):

Night shooting; everyone got out their off camera lights and pocket wizard channels were overloaded!

So instead of using my flashes, I opted to shoot with my favorite low light lens (200mm f1.8) and get the mood of the street lights rather than the flash. I think it worked out.

There were also some kids posing…

Again, just lit by the fluorescent lights from a nearby bank parking lot.

We also had a chance to visit a couple beautiful wineries and work with some great ‘models’ (really friends and clients of the local CA photographers). What a treat! The first day I was a group leader, so I spent more time working with other photographers than actually shooting, I still got a couple shots I like of our model Kayla (who is actually a makeup artist from Sacramento — correct me if I’m wrong). Kayla had never modeled at all before (sorta like most of my clients, lol) and did an amazing job ~ Thank you Kayla!

The second day, Sunday, I had more time to shoot and our ‘models’ were all dressed as brides and grooms. Fun and relaxed bridals and couples portraits were the order of the day. These are the types of images that are hard to get on your wedding day when their is a tight schedule and lots of other demands. So doing a fun bridal after the wedding is an awesome idea, no stress and not a big deal if the dress gets a little dirty.

a few more:

A big thank you to everyone who came out to model and all the photographers that volunteered there time to help organize the event. I really enjoyed it ~ again.

Looking forward to next year.

~Bill

Good friends and good food ~ nothing better

(click an image to make it bigger)

Then we went from the restaurant downtown to the performance at the Capital Playhouse. It was very dark in the theater, so I was pushing my fastest lenses to their limit to get these shots without using any flash. Sorta like the lighting you might find in a romantic candle lit wedding ceremony ~ fancy that.

It looks like he’s looking right at me, but the lights on him and the darkness where I was meant that he couldn’t see me at all… In fact he said in an email today that he didn’t see me taking pictures at all… Ninja Bill.

Here is the response from Denny to the first couple images I emailed him:

Wow, Bill, just Wow! Thank you! I was completely unaware of you taking photos . . . as was Paula. Wow! Thank you.

Doesn’t get much better than that. Thank you Denny.

Overall a great evening, and although I didn’t actually get to meet Denny in person, we had to leave right after the performance, I’m looking forward to doing just that in the near future.

~Bill

So yesterday, on day 3, as a reward, we did just that. Here are few quick images of our new friends: classmates, teacher, and the resident dog Kiesha…

Liana glances up from her computer…

The whole group looking over Liana’s shoulder as she edits some images and shows off her famously simple workflow.

Kristin smiling as I sneak a headshot with the long lens.

We all took turns getting headshots taken by Liana. Erin and I got ours done together too, I can’t wait to see those and post them in the bio section!

A crazy scene with a bunch of cooped up photographers shooting each other…

Erin and I both hit it off with Julie Watts, she’s able to talk motherhood with Erin and old cars with me (we both own quirky Porsches).  I got a bunch of good pictures of her, she’s expressive and fun so it was easy…

On Tuesday night the whole group went out to dinner at Jai Thai in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle. We had a blast…

Just a few more of the group, I wish we’d had better weather and more time so we could have gone outside and done some more, but it was cold/rainy and several people had to leave quickly to go to the airport and/or beat the traffic home. Erin and I decided to spend the rest of the afternoon in Seattle shopping and hanging out, so we didn’t beat the traffic, but that’s OK.

And last but not least, Kiesha, the dog that made sure we all stayed awake by running around the house and barking loudly at random intervals…

I’m so glad we both went, it was money and time well spent…

~Bill

My iBlog blog links dating back to February 2006 will continue to work, you can find the catagories here:

Portraits

Weddings

Sports

Outdoors

GOYA

Events

Family

If you don’t see the catagory you’re looking for, just click one and look to the left to find the others.

~Bill