Archive of ‘Travel’ category

Autumn Leaves

Last Sunday, a walk at Accotink Park in Springfield, VA yielded some leafy color from the autumn leaves. I thought it would be a little better with the wetter weather. Additionally we had cold starting to hit the area. However, it was a little disappointing. Some shots were worth hanging onto.

At this time, there were some very tall trees along the walking trail through the park. To get a photo from the ground to the top of the trees, I used a fisheye lens on the camera. Although there is some obvious distortion of the image, it does capture more of the length of the trees.

The autumn leaves did have some color left on the trees. Against the clear blue skies, they complimented each other especially well. Being that this was a photo where the focus went all the way to infinity, it was important to have this non-distracting background.

Comparatively, these close-up detail of a grass could not be taken without having the background competing. In other words, the background is the same color as the subject. Moreover, there is not much distance between the subject and background. So, I opened the aperture as wide as I could to blur the background in camera.

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Winter Coming!

It was a pleasant summer in Northern VA this year. However, the change of seasons reminds us that winter is coming. For my uncle, he has had another amazing year for flowers! He takes a lot of time and effort to plant, feed, water, and maintain many roses, lillies, pansies, and other flowers in front of my mother’s house.

They always give me great opportunities to work out my macro lenses! These are film scans of Fujifilm Velvia 50 that I had left over from school (the sloppy border is added for fun). It’s amazing the amount of color and saturation this film provides.

Looking through slides is very old-school these days, but my eyes have a vastly different reaction when looking through transparent chromes. I don’t know if it really is a more analog/organic process, or if my eyes are just “used” to looking at pictures through a computer monitor. However, I really enjoy viewing pictures this way!

Unfortunately, it is just getting harder and harder to find good labs that will process E-6 films locally. Not to mention the up-front costs of film, the time to develop, the time to scan into the computer, etc. But I do have a collection of slides that I’m proud of. Additionally, I have some black-and-white negatives that I processed myself. I’ll see if any others are worth posting!

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703-864-8208

Another diversion!

Yup, I was trying to do a lot of weddings this summer, but they didn’t pan out for me as a solo shooter. I did assist for a number of weddings with some awesome results. But for most of the summer, I concentrated on an event called the Northstar Dance-o-rama held by the Arthur Murray studios of Minneapolis, MN.

Ballroom Dance Photography

Ballroom dancing gets my wife and me from the front of the TV for at least a few times a week. We have been doing it since before our wedding in 2004 and have continued since. Thanks to our local studio owner, my company, TimeLine Media got the opportunity to provide the photos and videos for the event. With both needed from us, we needed to bring a lot of equipment. With flying fees the way they are, it was nearly impossible to fly. So, we decided to drive from northern VA to Edina, MN. This would be the longest car trip I would ever take! My uncle helped us to drive by taking most of the driving load up to Chicago, where we dropped him off to visit family. We then finished the trip stopping to see friends in Madison, WI before arriving in Minnesota.

The event was a lot of fun – but a lot of work for us! I had not been to a dance-o-rama and stayed for the entire time on the dance floor. I ended up taking close 5000 pictures. If you’d like to see them, they are posted at

http://www.timelinedc.com/client/Northstar08

We had a good team that worked exceptionally hard for the participants, and I hope they enjoy the results of that work. Following are some pictures of the poor Chrysler Town & Country that was loaded down from floor to celing, back to front with photo equipment, printers, video cameras, and computers for over 2000 miles. Thanks to everyone that helped! We hope to see all the students and instructors again next year!

Program at the Northstar Dance-o-rama
Program at the Northstar Dance-o-rama
Rented van for trip from Virginia to Minnesota
Rented van for trip from Virginia to Minnesota
Mileage driven from Virginia to Minnesota for the Northstar Dance o Rama
Mileage driven from Virginia to Minnesota for the Northstar Dance o Rama
Charle resting after the Northstar Dance o Rama
Charle resting after the Northstar Dance o Rama

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