Dallas City Arts

A surefire way to get some interesting photos is to attend an arts festival event.  Dallas' CityArts did not disappoint last weekend.  It was a great eclectic mix of folks, music, art, fun stuff, and heat.

Heat?  Yes... the acclimation to summer has not really set in yet.

I recommend the evening for these things.  I may still be dehydrated.

Some of the art was cars

And some was people

Some art was music


There was some "Do It Yourself" art


And "Don't try this at home" art


Beautiful moving art is always good


And kid art is good too


Intriguing inside art gave us time to cool off a bit


Curious outside art was....   curious


I even brought some beautiful art from my house!


So much art, it could really wear you out

Any time you get a bunch of people together, interesting photos can happen.  Snapshots? Yes... but also good opportunities to practice watching backgrounds, waiting for expressions and catching moments quickly.

Happy Shooting

don j.

In-Lightning

As a bit of a wanna-be photojournalist and weather geek, having large storm systems roll through the region makes me a bit antsy.  Sitting home with lightning flashing in the distance proved to be too much to handle, so I grabbed a camera, tripod and shutter release cable and found a bridge to sit under.  I like to sit by a road so that the long exposure times also give me a trail of lights for visual interest and perspective.

First thing to note for Lightning photography is that you cannot wait until you see a bolt to push the shutter button.  Patience is the name of the game.  

You have to manual focus your lens, so choose whether to focus on something else that will be in the frame (for visual interest), or set it out to infinity to get the lightning bolts as clearly defined as possible.

After that, it is a matter of taking a lot of pictures and some good luck.  Inevitably, great strikes will happen between frames, off to one side or the other, behind you, and as you are driving away.

Some of the lightning will just light up the clouds.  If you put something in the foreground of your shot, even that can be interesting.

Point and shoot cameras can be somewhat effective with a lot of patience and luck.. use the "fireworks" preset for longer shutter speed.

I took a 14mm lens on a Canon 40D in hopes that the wide angle would catch more sky in each shot.  This worked, but the lens is also very prone to flare from direct light, so there was a lot of interference from the car headlights.  Also, these pictures are all cropped down a lot from the original wide angle view.

Here is one from June of 2008, this time looking at an approaching storm.  This was without a tripod, so you can see that the foreground elements are fuzzy.

Without a tripod, it is possible to use the dash of your car and shoot through the windshield.  Use a t-shirt or sandbag to keep the camera positioned.  

Well, enough of that.  If you can get out to shoot safely, lightning photos can add some electricity to your portfolio.

Did I just say that? 

Happy Shooting,

don j.

Another Quick Pic

OK, so I need to get back to real blogging..  but for now, I will share this little fellow from Renee's garden/back yard.



Back soon with actual useful information!

Happy Shooting

don j

Quick Pic

With a rare free evening to myself, I went back to Reunion and wandered around downtown Dallas a bit. DMA's Jazz Under the Stars is alive and well, with the largest crowd I have ever seen there.

Here is my fave of the evening so far... Saxaphonist Shelley Carroll.


Have a great weekend everybody... go take some pictures!


Happy Shooting

don j.

Photo Stuff from the Web

Hello folks... welcome to the first post from my new Mac. Still getting used to this funky keyboard, but the screen is a wonderful thing.

Quick note... the new iPhoto face recognition feature is crazy. Seriously... if face recognition is this good on a consumer computer, what does the government have? GPS tagging is pretty cool too, especially for the newer cameras that do this automatically.

Photo District News annual photo contest winners are worth a look here.

I especially like the portraits by Sumit Dayal.

A site dedicated to finding art, photography and design ripoffs.

Our taxes bought a really nice camera upgrade for the Hubble, about $132 million worth. See what you got here. I was in high school when they put the Hubble up there, and the images that come back have always amazed me. I will be a bit sad when it finally dies.

I have stopped by the demolition site that is Reunion Arena occasionally to take some photos. It is eerie with sounds of creaking metal and a view of the interior that isn't natural.

As of May 18, the lower seating bowl was a pit of rubble.

Reunion and a pay phone... seemed appropriate.

One more, having too much fun with lines. Which is a future blog post, aren't you excited?


Full set of Reunion shots (more will be added as time goes by) is over here.

Happy Shooting,

don j.