My good friend Andrew Verboncouer helped me out with a new gallery script base that I tweaked to fit with my site. I am pretty impressed with it so far and I love the ability to view images in a larger format as opposed to the internal galleries that limited the size greatly. For those of you that are interested I have included a link above ( click the picture ) to the new gallery and some recent infrared wedding and vacation pictures. Let me know what you think. If there are any suggestions for changes you are welcome to leave a comment.
Last Friday my Landlord and good friend found a bird that was trapped in our screen porch. Frightened and exhausted from trying to escape the invisible prison of screens we decided that the bird might need saving. I used to be in charge of the Specialty Department at the PetsMart in Plymouth, MN so I knew exactly what to do and how to handle the bird without hurting it. The specialty department consists of small animals, reptiles, fish, and birds. I even had the chance to hand feed a cockatoo chick until it was ready to be adopted. Most of our business was fish but quite often we had to catch finches that had escaped from our cages. Someone would call us saying there was a bird flying around the book isle and we would have to go track it down. All in all one of the most memorable and fun jobs I have ever had.
I really think that Andy enjoyed being able to be that close to nature and to this little bird. We tried to show the young boy that lives next door to us but by that time the bird had caught its breath and felt comfortable flying off to its home.
I was hoping to find some migratory birds on there way through Minnesota a few weeks ago but all I found was a group of gulls and ducks. I was hardly disappointed as these birds really gave me a lot of practice using a long telephoto lens. I recently purchased a Sigma 300mm f/2.8 HSM lens from ebay only to be horrified at the focusing problems that plagued it. I took over a thousand frames over the weekend including nature, birds in flight, football, volleyball, and really any other thing i could find. The lens optically was probably the best it could be but when autofocusing the lens exuded a loud high pitched squeaking sound and the focusing slowed. Thankfully the ebay seller was more than willing to work with me on it and I ended up writing up a little description of what was wrong with it and sent it off to Sigma Repair Center in New York. Hopefully in the next few months I will find a replacement for the one I returned as the few pictures that were in focus sure did pop! Even with the focusing problems it was hard to pry that lens out of my hands…
The WSU Womens soccer team ended up losing to No. 6 Seed Nebraska-Omaha on Sunday of this week. The game was 0-0 for the first two halves and the first two regulation overtimes as well. Regulation shootout was tied for the first 4 rounds as well until the warriors missed and Nebraska-Omaha advanced to the third round of the tournament.
In case you had not heard this year I was hired as the athletics photographer for Winona State University. So far this year I have covered events such as soccer, football, indoor volleyball and rugby. I am really looking forward to attending more softball, gymnastics and basketball now that the seasons are starting again. As I have the chance my portfolios online will be updated. I am trying to make sure that I keep updating content so people will stop back. As always I appreciate the support! Feel free to comment as well.
The end of the wedding season this year marks an important point in my life. While the last few months have been hard work I am excited to have a short break before next season. Last weekend I shot a wedding in Rochester Minnesota for a military couple, I was really impressed with the whole event. All in all it went without a hitch ( other than the bride and groom that is ). I am also happy to announce that in light of the season being over I am going to have a lot more time to bring you some more pictures from my misadventures recently. You can look forward to some light painting, startrails, wildlife, sports, weddings, and kayaking pictures.
I am also ramping up my services to help provide my customers with a better product in the end. This includes custom CD trays, Flushmount albums, and more. Check back to see my progress as I will be updating often.
