Random Pictures

So excited to be in the car!

noreply@blogger.com (James L. Davidson) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 23:00:00 +0000

My Nephew

noreply@blogger.com (James L. Davidson) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 22:59:00 +0000

I met my nephew for the first time this weekend. He's 6 months old,
this was an early morning exploration on the room.

Now serving Dogs!!

noreply@blogger.com (James L. Davidson) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 07:09:00 +0000

New Year Sunset

noreply@blogger.com (James L. Davidson) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 01:05:00 +0000

While my broken thumb is making it difficult to take pictures, a
beautiful sunset is hopefully telling of a better year to come!

Post Wedding Reflection

noreply@blogger.com (James L. Davidson) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 07:22:00 +0000

Kids

noreply@blogger.com (James L. Davidson) — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 15:47:00 +0000

Monkey in an Archway

noreply@blogger.com (James L. Davidson) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 04:51:00 +0000

Sitting Monkey at Bhuvanagiri Fort

noreply@blogger.com (James L. Davidson) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 16:47:00 +0000

Golcanda Palace

noreply@blogger.com (James L. Davidson) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 16:22:00 +0000

Golcanda criminal court at Dusk

noreply@blogger.com (James L. Davidson) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:01:00 +0000

The same view, about 20 minutes earlier. This was 25 seconds at f/11, ISO 100.

Golcanda criminal court at night

noreply@blogger.com (James L. Davidson) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 08:12:00 +0000

I went back to Golcanda to pass the time, and while I was doing some long exposures in the criminal court hall, it became late enough that they turned on the lights. The harsh Mercury Vapors, and of course two types, made the color hard, but this was a 20 second exposure at f/11, ISO 100. There was a continuous flow of people, so anything fast than 15-20 seconds, people would continuously show up in the shot.

Inspiration

noreply@blogger.com (James L. Davidson) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:29:00 +0000

I went to a Joe McNally Lighting class through Kelby training on Friday, which inspired me to Lash my Camera to my handlebars, throw my dog in the basket and try to take some pictures!! While I am not 100% pleased with the results, I need to rework my rig a little bit to be able to have a little more control, I got a couple of pictures that worked out okay. At least no equipment was dropped and no one got hurt! I will revisit these photos again, but unfortunately I crashed my bike yesterday, so it will be a while before I am ready to risk my gear and dog!

Old Photos II

noreply@blogger.com (James L. Davidson) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 07:39:00 +0000

I was scrolling through my photo library and came across some of these older photos of my niece and nephew. I always enjoyed this one of my Niece Jade and my brother Travis from my other Brother's wedding in Vermont, however I wish there was a little more space on the side to adjust the crop, I haven't found a crop that sits well with me yet. This is the full frame image.
For a bit of contrast, this is Jade's brother Sage at my sister's wedding a few years later... I have been going back and forth between the wider crop showing the other kid and the tighter crop of just Sage.

The Fickle world of Stock.

noreply@blogger.com (James L. Davidson) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 06:17:00 +0000

It has been hard to guess what is accepted at one stock agency versus another. The photo from the previous post with the empty Piggy Bank & coin jar juxtaposed across from the fat wallet, was rejected at half of the stock sites, yet I have had up for only a two days at another, and I have already sold a few, including today with an "On Demand" download (which means more $$$!) I guess it is just hard to predict, what one site feels is a lack of composition, another site seems to think it is just fine. I'm currently on 5 sites with Shutterstock being the best so far with 130 photos in my portfolio, BigStockPhoto is next with 48 photos in my portfolio, then Dreamstime with 42, Fotolia with 37, and iStock with 28. However different photos are selling on different sites, so I never know what is really going to sell...

Stock Photo Shoot

noreply@blogger.com (James L. Davidson) — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 19:54:00 +0000

Rejected Photo

noreply@blogger.com (James L. Davidson) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 06:21:00 +0000

It is unfortunate that hist picture is slightly out of focus, I was watching the spider weave it's web, so I ran and got the camera, but it was extremely difficult to see and focus on. This photo is just slightly out of focus, plus some of the sites stated it wasn't stock material. Oh well, I still like the picture, it kind of looks to me like the spider is dancing a jig!

Old Photos

noreply@blogger.com (James L. Davidson) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 03:27:00 +0000

As I search through my library looking for possible stock photos, I occasionally come across several that I like but can't use for lack of model releases or the quality is not high enough. This first one was taken on my way to work one morning, my coworkers were waiting for the manager to arrive to let us in, who was running late as usual. To me it captured the overall vibe of the morning shift, and the angry glare from the trash man, who unfortunately is slightly out of focus and blurred, fit with the overall sense I had of the "Real" Santa Monica vibe. I received many glares, even when my camera still had the lens cap on and was hanging around my neck, nobody wanted their picture taken!

The following two are of my Grandmother, a few years ago at a small family reunion. These were all taken available light at 1/60th of a second at f1.4, so unfortunately they are a little soft and the focus is not at the best located with such a shallow depth of field, and with the slow shutter, a little bit of motion blur. However I still think they came out nice, and I think the 3/4 one might be a nice Black and White or sepia.

First Download from iStockPhoto

noreply@blogger.com (James L. Davidson) — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 07:20:00 +0000

Had my first download from iStock today, the image below of the black widow.

My house seems to be crawling with them, just going outside tonight I saw 5 full grown black widows and 7 baby black widows... Being slightly arachnophobic, in hindsight I wonder if it was such a good idea to go exploring...

There have been a couple of Orb-Weaver spiders around the house as well, I don't know if it is just the summer heat that is bringing them out or why I haven't noticed them before, the I am seeing a lot more spiders around my house than in previous years, maybe I am just paying closer attention.

This guy was pretty tough to capture as the wind was blowing him around quite a bit. Overall he is about 1.5-2 cm long, including legs, and the wind was moving him around 6-8 inches. Suffice to say, a much larger distance than the depth of field, and the wind has not seemed to die down at all when I am trying to take a picture!

While the spider images are starting to sell, I am hoping that they start to pick up around Halloween.

First Fotolia Download

noreply@blogger.com (James L. Davidson) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 08:22:00 +0000

Had my first sale at Fotolia today, Stone Tile Texture:

James L Davidson - Fotolia.com

Black Widow

noreply@blogger.com (James L. Davidson) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 02:29:00 +0000

After shooting about 250 different black widow shots, I finally got one that works!! I have been finding many Black Widows around my house this summer, but they haven't made it easy to Photograph. I've been wanting to get some nice Macro shots for Halloween, but I've been unsuccessful so far, until this one, which is close, but still not what I have been hoping for. I will clean up the isolation on some of it to resubmit to the other sites, but I at least finally got one!

This Black Widow was discovered Thursday night by Ryan, my stepson, as he was getting ready to put the trash out. She set up her nest in our trash can and was hanging out, waiting for one of the flies to swing by. Unfortunately, she was a ways into the can, about halfway, and the trash at the bottom was pretty ripe, but what one will do for a photo... Needless to say, it involved taking a big breath, stepping in and putting my face halfway in the trash can, snap a few shots, and then step out to breath... Not Ideal Conditions, but sacrifices must be made!! I'm sure my neighbors are what's wrong with me... Anyway, the white trash bag actually helped provide a good background to bounce the flash off of. I would have liked to try again, but I think she went out with the trash as I haven't seen her since.

Freeway Traffic

noreply@blogger.com (James L. Davidson) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 02:14:00 +0000

I've been meaning to get around to taking these photos for a while now, so Saturday night I finally got around to taking them. They were kind of successful, but I want to go back and revisit them, hopefully a little earlier by maybe 15-30 minutes. However, these two just got approved at ShutterStock and Fotolia, so I guess they were somewhat successful, I guess I'll find out if anyone downloads them!!

One of the issues that I have with the images is that the sky is getting too dark. I wanted a little more of the Dusk look, which is what I was looking at, but it didn't come across in the image. Noise was a big issue that I had to deal with, I am shooting on a Canon 30D, and even at ISO 100 and trying the long exposure noise reduction, the sky was terrible!! I ended up duplicating the layer in photoshop, using the median filter to remove all noise, and then with masking just the sky, lay it back over the original at about 70% opacity so it brought back a little texture. I'm hoping that if I catch it a little earlier, there will be enough light in the sky to get some nice rich color, but not too early so that the lights aren't visible.

The moon was rising during the shot as well, but with needing the wide angle, it didn't fit well with the photo so I removed it.

First Download from Dreamstime

noreply@blogger.com (James L. Davidson) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:24:00 +0000

Had my first download from Dreamstime, still nothing from Fotolia or iStock, however iStock as only reviewed three of my initial 15 photos in the past week. They seem to be taking the longest to review images, plus the approved photos have not shown up in their searches yet... It is funny what passes at one agency but not others...

Engagement Photos

noreply@blogger.com (James L. Davidson) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 07:02:00 +0000

I took some Engagement Photos for a coworker this morning. The sun was pretty bright, which caused harsh shadows, but I had borrowed several canon speedlights, which did the trick with the High Speed Sync. I was surprised by how well they worked, even with shutter speeds of 1/6400! It was my first time having three separate speedlights and using high speed sync. In hindsight, I should have used a quarter cut of CTO to warm the lights just slightly, as the flash appeared a little cool against the mid morning light.

This was the image we decided to go with for the announcements, below are a few other picks.

The expressions were good on this one, but Susan's arm is a little awkward and distracting. The light colored shirts also were blowing out quickly in the bright light.

And of course, a little bit of fun doing album cover poses...

Revisited

noreply@blogger.com (James L. Davidson) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 06:24:00 +0000

After speaking with my Father on Father's Day, I am going back and revisiting a few of my older posts based on his critiques. At the same time, I just heard back from iStock, I didn't realize they worked on the weekend, too much noise in the images, I can try again in 3 days. Shutterstock also has slowed down since Friday, last week it stayed steady through the weekend, but this weekend nothing...

This first image is fairly recent, but as my Father pointed out, there was too much empty space above his head, so I re-cropped it, placing his right eye two-thirds up, which feels a bit better.

The original post was on April 13th, 2009 titled "Qutub Shahi Tombs in Hyderabad"

The following two images were from an old post, "Dirty Laundry" July 30th, 2008. My father critiqued these a while ago, I just hadn't gone back to revisit them yet. The critique was regarding the harsh white door frame on the right edge of the image. Originally I left it in, trying to find some sort of balance, and contrast to the soft reflected light, but was never quite happy with it. After cropping it out, the door frame seems to add enough balance and it helps the sliver of light on the laundry basket with not having it have to compete with the edge of the frame, but I'll let you judge for yourselves!

Cruisin' on the Bajaj Avenger!!!

noreply@blogger.com (James L. Davidson) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 07:28:00 +0000