I completely stand behind my statement that I tell a lot of people about my photography. There’s certainly a lot of luck involved. Right time, right place. As I gain experience, though, it’s becoming easier to be in that right place at that right time.
As the double rainbow was strengthening, I was able to spin it around and catch the lightning! | Order a print of this image.
The magnificent double rainbow over Winchester tonight. | Order a print of this image.
Happy Palindrome Day! At least it’s a palindrome if you use the format 6•1•16.
Wish I could find a decent reflection image, but this one’s nice to look at, too.
Has your heart grown fonder? It seems like it’s getting longer between posts for me. I suppose that means I’m busy these days with my studio work, which is good for me, but I need those days wheere I can just go out and shoot what moves me and just be creative.
One of the few landmarks around Winchester that I haven’t really shot – The Museum of The Shenandoah Valley. | Order a print of this image.
This may make it onto NBC news somewhere – hopefully in some sort of commencement round up from the area/region/nation. Fingers crossed. What a great day to fly.
The graduates of Shenandoah University 2016! Congratulations to all.
My home office is in the basement and has absolutely no connection to the outside world. I need to get out every once in a while. If not to see what the weather is like, at least for my own sanity!
I don’t think I’ve shared this. I remember posting an image of this incident, but never the full video. If you pay close attention at about 45 seconds you can see the quad level out (it’s so very subtle) and that was my fatal mistake because it didn’t clear the hill and I still had legal room to climb. Once the forest starts to appear in the shot it’s not long before it happens, but I end this video before that point. It won’t take much imagination to figure out what happens next. A shout-out to my brother and son for heading off after it. After all that, I still got the shot!
Wow, it’s been a long time. Not that I’m lazy, but I’m going back through all my photos to see if I can dig up some good ones. Someone recently gave me a great quote about what separates a pro from an amateur photographer. Basically it come down to size matters. Now, get your mind out of the gutter…
The size of their “trash can.” Pros take a crap-load of photos and most are never seen by anybody. In 2015 I shot 6478 “general” photos. This figure doesn’t take into account all the paid gigs that my studio handled. That would bump the number of images up to 29,925. Still not an enormous number compared to a lot of pros, but when you factor in the fact that I only considered 90 good enough to post here, that’s a lot. A mere 3 tenths of a percent were deemed decent enough to represent my studio.
Wow, long story short, here’s one of those images that never made it here (at least I don’t think it did).
It was almost a year ago that we had our first snowfall and two weeks ago it was nearly 80 degrees!
Did you ever purchase something based on the hype and the credibility of person pushing it? I just did and so far I’m underwhelmed with the results. I’m not giving up, I’m just saying it just may not be worth all the hype just yet – or at least, I’m not seeing it.
Meh. It’s a decent photo, but not much different than what I’ve already been doing with the software I already had.
Waking up early is no big thing when you know it’s gonna look like this. It doesn’t matter what brand of coffee you drink, I still think this is the best part of waking up.
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What do you remember from college? I was on my alma mater’s campus today during the annual parade of champions marching band competition, but I was more focused on what I remember from my days at the school – D-Hall. I worked in food services throughout my entire college career and have some great memories – from farm parties, bowling leagues and overnight camping trips. What a blast! I wanted to capture a few images of the building I called “my office” before it’s demolished and replaced by a more up-to-date facility next year. Check out this page for an image of the construction of D-Hall.
D-Hall is the circular building with Bridgeforth Stadium top left and the iconic Wilson Hall (from behind) top right. | See more like this in my online gallery.
That would be the Northern Shenandoah Valley. I’d love to come up here and shoot aerial during the sunset, but there are too many people and I don’t want to disrupt their experience with the noise. I don’t want to be “that guy.”
Just some much-needed alone time at Bears Den in Bluemont, VA. Awesome place.
That’s my high school. No, not PMS, the school in the images. Although it IS now called Wilbur S Pence Middle School. Local folks call it Pence – Pence Middle School. Fun, huh?
I graduated with the class that was the last to attend all four years in this building. Coincidentally, my mom graduated in the class that was the first to attend all four years in this building. Cool.
It felt like a surgical scene as I was reassembling the drone last night, but I’m back. It’s back. My nerves are going to really keep me in check for a while after that incident. Perhaps that was a good thing.
I think I’ll need to go through all the settings again. The rebuild must have sent everything back to factory default. I typically shoot at 100 ISO, but this one was shot @ 1600!
Let’s lead with this…
Just 8 frames later was how quickly I lost the camera.
I now join the ever-increasing number of UAV pilots who’ve crashed their aircraft. I should make it clear that it was 100% pilot error. Luckily it did NOT involve any other people, buildings, or vehicles (including aircraft). I can tell you that it had everything to do with me being rushed in the moment trying to capture the perfect lighting on an incredibly cinematic scene. And guess what, I got the shot! I suppose that’s the photographer’s mantra (after “ƒ8 and be there”).
Long story short (here goes) reception officially starts at 7pm:
My brother and son immediately volunteered to go after it. We all put our heads together (and our smart phones) to determine its last known position and they went after it. It was about a kilometer from its ground station and 30 feet up in the tree! I just didn’t have the altitude to clear the terrain, but it was so close.
Just look at my face – that expression says it all!
This is about 10 minutes after the incident. Yeah, still not at the reception…
Bucket list item – henge road trip:
What’s next – suggestions?
I’ve got a lot of traveling to do – this would be a fun RV trip. “Stonehenges” in the United States.
I have so much more respect for the RC community now that I’ve had a chance to fly with some of them. And I’m talking strictly RC, not the new wave of folks who’ve purchased drones and are flying them around referring to themselves as RC folks. I’m talking about the RC enthusiasts that go way back to flying with gas-powered craft. I’ll equate it to talking with photographers who used to shoot on film and develop their own images. These RC guys (and gals) were around long before we started slapping FPV cameras on the bottom of multi-rotors. I only spent about 45 minutes around this group in Florida and gained a lot of respect. It was really cool to watch and listen as they literally flew circles around me (I asked them to – made for better images). For the record I am NOT an RC guy. I’m just a photographer that uses an aerial platform. I have so much to learn.
The RC field in Satellite Beach where I met some really cool RC folks. That’s an RC plane (top right) and that was as close as I was willing to get.
This one has cover photo written all over it. Or I might hang it on the wall. Either way I really like how it turned out.
Enjoying some quality time at the beach. I figured I’d shoot the sunrise a little differently this morning.
It’s been a while since I did a video here so enjoy.
Let me start by saying that this is, in no way, a judgmental post. I suppose It doesn’t really bother me that much, but I know it does bother some people. So take it with a grain of salt and calm down – I’m not on a soapbox here. No, this post is intended to simply show it from a new and pretty cool perspective.
You can usually spot these “graffiti” markings on the roads of Winchester just after high school graduation. Do you have this in your town?
So it’s time to start traveling with the aerial rig. I’m starting to think that my galleries are getting a little saturated with Winchester images (makes sense, right?). Anyway, I know this isn’t very far from me, but it’s a start. I recently shot some aerial footage for the town of Front Royal and, as always, I grabbed some stills while I was up there. Gonna see if I can snag a Disney panorama while we’re in Florida this year.
It’s been a while since I’ve “framed” one of my images, but this one fits the bill. My goal is to do this up and down the valley with as many towns as possible…a little local traveling. | Order a print of this image.
Cedarmeade Studios 