Washington D.C. is still my favorite of course.

A quick summery of our time:

Arrived in Bangkok, Thailand and spent two nights there

Flew to Chang Mai

Went to a Night Safari, Wildlife park, and light show with the IGO students for their end-of-semester/term banquet.

Traveled to a gorgeous resort about an hour and a half away from IGO, and spent one night there

That evening we left our bags at the resort and visited the Compassion Children’s Home.

Fell in love with the kids

The next day we went to a Karen village with our English-speaking, native Karen guide/translator/missionary, the exuberant Gee.

Arrived late afternoon and spent some time in the rice fields before a wonderful meal

Had a service in which I was asked to speak. I never realized what a challenge it would be. I had no knowledge of their language, or of my listeners education level or spiritual maturity. Then, I had to trust Gee to translate my message.

Slept in the huts on the rice paddies

Ate breakfast, visited some of the people of the village, helped a bit with their new church.

That night we ate on top of Chang Mai and visited the night bazaar.

The next day we saw rode elephants and saw a show in which the elephants played soccer and painted pictures, among other things.

The next day most of the IGO students and myself took motorbikes and rode around a mountain, and soaked in the the incredible vistas. Never can I remember feeling more alive then flying around that mountain, wind in my face, a beautiful sun filtering down through trees and fluffy clouds, leaning into curves, and accelerating out of them.
That evening we flew to Shen Zhen, China.

The next day we went to a tourist trap and learned about the different historic sub-cultures of China.

We left that afternoon and rode trains to Hong Kong.

The next day we went on a boat ride within the harbor on which I was very frustrated by the combination of the the incredible skyline of Hong Kong and the inability to capture on the boat satisfactorily.

Because of my frustrations, I determined to get up, before dawn and shoot again, getting the magic hour.
After I rode the taxi back to the hotel that morning, I realized, to my despair that I’d left my camera in the cab. I did everything possible, including filing a police report, get it back but have very little hope. After briefly considering jumping out of my hotel room, I went on to experience some very negative emotions regarding the situation.

That day we took a tram up Victoria peak and visited some gorgeous gardens and temple. We then rode a boat one hour to Macau. From there we flew to Singapore to Chang Mai.

We caught a Sung Tou (sp?) to our house close to IGO.

I took my laptop upstairs and begin to type and resize pictures

That would bring you up to present

The facts, especially concerning the order of events, are not completely clear to me so the accuracy of some of the above statements may not be 100% true, even though my best efforts were put forth to an effort to give you the facts.

I do have a few pictures to share and some wisdom regarding portraits.

I have recently been convinced that a portrait photographer should chose his light first, and location second. At the resort I told you which went to, they had some thatched pavilion things. They produced some gorgeous open shade. So Heidi and I took some pictures of each other.

Our Family in the Rice Fields

That night we slept in a couple of the huts on the rice paddies.

The picture was taken by Heidi while shooting at Great Falls Park. I finally got my film developed, along with a picture CD.

Two recent random shots. What do you think?

I had the opportunity to shoot another wedding the 2nd weekend in June, as many of you know and have been anticipating. There is not much that I would add except I would love to hear feedback on them, as always…

Yours truly, sparing no effort to get the dynamic picture…

Engagement Watches

Now, for a bit of how-to. The way I shot most of the group shots inside the church was this:

I set up my Vivtar 285v (gn of 47 or so) on my tripod off to my left, as you can see. I set it to the manual power setting of 1/2, since I obviously can’t use E-TTL. Then I bounced it off of the ceiling for a nice soft, yet off-camera-axis light. I then set the camera to expose manually, because the flash is an independent light source, like the sun or an incandescent light bulb. The only difference is that the camera can’t meter for it. Thus, fully manual exposure. To get exposure close I simple shot and tweaked the f/stop until I liked what I saw. Then I didn’t have to worry about anything except setting up the people and churning ‘em through.

This one is a bit closer to correct exposure, after some adjustments.

An interesting note, I used a borrowed 20D, 70-200L 2.8, and a 50 1.4, besides my own XT and Tamron 17-50 2.8.

I decided to do a quick food shoot again. I shot tethered, which I am becoming addicted to. Kristi held a gridded flash because I was using my one and only tripod to shoot with.

This is the set-up, minus the camera of course.

This the pick of the shots, I thought about doing a whole bunch of pictures showing the creative process and the interesting mistakes and the bland mistakes, but decided it was too much work.