My feet again......and a few other shots....

International Surfing Day Thursday, the 21st 2007


"International Surfing Day is the unofficial surfers' holiday that gives us a chance to promote and celebrate the sport while bringing awareness to the state of our oceans and beaches."

For all you surfers or beach lovers, the day is coming for you. International Surfing Day is this Thursday the 21st. Finally a holiday that makes sense. Head down to your favorite beach, catch a few waves and then pick up some trash to keep that beach nice and clean. What could be better? Check here for a list of all events and information. Have fun Surfing and check here for photos from that day.

New Photos....kind of...


We are having a pretty bad start to summer here on the west coast, the waves have been, for the most part, FLAT... I guess it has been good for us over here at TidalStock.com. We are still in Beta and would love feedback on our site. We have been adding new photos everyday. Also we have some new amazing photographers joining out team. Check us out and let us know what you think.

Here are a few tandem surfing shots that I shot a long time ago...I like how abstract they are. I remember that day I was shooting with a 50mm lens which isn't really wide. I was a little disappointed because I kept getting too close, but some of photos actually gave a pretty cool look, definitely different.

Link corrected....

It was brought to my attention that I had a wrong link in my list of surf housing manufactures for Mike Waggoner, sorry about that Mike.

Here is the new link www.surfhousings.com These are custom housings built by Mike Waggoner. I have shot with his housings and they work great. He has just released his new housings for the D200 and the Canon Mark II, check them out.

The Perfect Photographer

I wish I could say that every picture that comes out of my camera is perfect. That is far from the truth. I am still learning new things everyday. Even things I know, I forget. I have found with digital that it is easy to click and go. I get into this habit all the time. Have you ever heard someone or even said it yourself( I know I have) say,

---"Hey it is digital it's free so I will just take a ton of pictures."

or the one I love...

---"I will fix it in photoshop."

Trust me I am guilty of saying these statements. I think these statements can get you in trouble if you rely on them too much though. I guess I come from the old school, what you see is what you get, I know times are changing and if you shoot RAW every photo need post. Even old school photogs like Ansel Adams shot film a cretin way knowing he would controls tones/details/exposure in developing and printing.

I think the goal is to get that one amazing shot. So if you take the time to slow down, look at all angles, look at the light, look at what is in your foreground and background, look at your crop and then shoot, you won't have to take 3000 pictures to get it right. You also won't have to spend the time in photoshop correcting everything. This ultimately gives you more time to be shooting and doing what you really love.

Now to contradict myself, I don't think it is a bad thing to take a lot of photos of the same subject as long as you go back and critique your work. This is the best way to learn. See what you did wrong, right, etc.

After critiquing my work from my recent travels. Here are a few tips I can offer. I think I need to remind myself.

---SLOW DOWN (this is my biggest problem) If you have time to think about the shot do it.

---Try shooting at different angles. Get low, high, on the ground something different than shooting at eye level.

--Look for beautiful light. Even at 12.00 noon there is beautiful light
somewhere.

--Push yourself to try different kinds of photography. If all you shoot is
landscapes, try portraiture you will be amazed
how much you learn.

-- If you are shooting for stock photography. Think about composition, leave
room at the top for copy, if you are
shooting a horizontal think about where the magazine seem will go( right in
the middle). Try not to have the main
subject in the middle of the photograph.

--Also for stock when you have that perfect shot, shoot one vertical and one
horizontal then change lens and do the
do the same. You never know what the buyer will want.

These are just a few simple things to remember, I noticed improvements that I need to make in my own photography and thought I would share.

Some recent photos...
Soooooo I just got back from a little adventure. First we drove to My brother's wedding in Convict Lake, it was an amazing wedding my friend from Brooks Institute of Photography, Blaine and his wife Bethany took the pictures and they did a great job. Check out the slide show here. The next day we planned to meet our friends at Lake Nacimiento. We had two options, drive though Bakersfield(yuck) or drive though Yosemite National Park. Well of course we picked the the second one even though it was going to add hours to our drive. It was so worth it. I haven't been there in years(20). I need to go back and spend some major time in there. Being considerate to my girlfriend I kind of kept the stopping to a minimum although she is a trooper we still spent about 6 hours in the park. Next stop was Lake Nacimiento. Another place I haven't been in years. We had a great time here, we got to wake board, shoot guns, inter tube and relax. It was a great little road trip. Here are a few mostly from my water housing and Velvia Film......yes Film!!!

Something about hands and feet and I. I guess we all have a pair....this is my girlfriends. The water felt great to me but she was freezing she's a great sport.

My hand....what else would you expect...these two are at Convict Lake.
I know... feet again....so the wake boarding picks below this shot were really fun to shoot. I haven't really shot wake boarding before. The guy wake boarding was really good and I wanted to shoot from a different angle than just the standard from the boat shot. He was game. I was on the inter tube which had a shorter line than his and we got towed at the same time. It worked great but the inter tube had a hole so we only had a few goes at it. Next time I want to get closer and even maybe behind him. But it was still fun to try it. One of my friends took a picture of us in action as soon as I get it I will post it here so you can see how we got these shots.

At one point as the boat was doing a little turn and the inter tube went over the wake, I knew I was in trouble, all of a sudden I went flying in the air, off the tube holding on to my camera. It must of looked so funny from the boat. No damage was done just a little water enema...


These two are shot from the boat.


Well that's all for now...I'll post more soon. Thanks for stopping by.....

Out of Town

I just got back from being out of town for a few days. I have tons of pictures to go through but for now I leave you with one. Can anyone guess where this is?

Hint: It is somewhere between Ventura and Mammoth.