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Photo,
Travel
Julie and I are currently trying to pack for our Fiji dive trip which is coming up in less than one week! The whole concept of just throwing some shorts, tee shirts and stuff like that into a bag just doesn’t work for us. With both of us being underwater photographers, we have to dedicate one ‘checked bag’ each to just our underwater photography equipment. That only leaves each of us one more bag for our scuba equipment, cloths, etc.
This one case is ‘just’ underwater photography equipment!
In the past, I’ve never really been too concerned with the weight of my checked luggage. If one bag was a little heavy I would just shift things around or at worst case pay the excessive weight charge on the heavy bag. But lately I’ve read several online articles about how touchy the airlines have become with regard to weight restrictions, and this has caused me to rethink the way I pack for a dive trip. As soon as we get to Fiji we will be boarding a dive boat for a week at sea. This means that any luggage that doesn’t make our flight with us (due to an over weight aircraft) won’t be getting on the boat with us. Being on a dive boat for a week in Fiji with no underwater camera equipment would suck… Big Time!!!!
(View Photos, Slideshows, Videos & More»)
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Computers,
Photo
Tropical Imagery Photography – Screenshot
I have just finished designing and building two new Web sites for hosting another kind of travel photography… Tropical Island Photography! These two sites are going to be mirror images of one another as far as layout and design, but they will both run seperate guestbooks and travel journals for the stats and, with a little help from Julie, some different content as well.
The new Web sites are: Tropical Imagery Photography and Island Imagery Photography. I still have a lot of content yet to upload and the gallery is not setup yet, but this gives you a good idea of what the site is going to look like when completed (I’m thinking by the end of February.)
I love designing and building Websites and even more so when they are personal sites. I get a huge high out of seeing the code take shape and the site spring to life once it hits the server. But having to maintain the sites and update the content all the time is another story. I still have two more personal Web sites to design and build when I get back from Fiji and I’m hopeing that once they’re finished I might be able to give one to Julie for hosting her own personal photography.
More on the Web sites later…
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Photo
Saturday night Julie and I drove out to Tyson’s to spend a couple of hours in the pool for a little Fiji pre-trip equipment check. The swimming pool is a YMCA owned and operated one that our local dive shop uses for scuba classes. It’s not the nicest pool in the area by any means, but most public (and private) pools don’t want to have to deal with the ‘scuba diver’ and all the equipment they like to bring into the water.
Julie at the YMCA pool in Tysons
I’ve heard lots of stories about pool owners having issues with the lead weights divers use or scuba cylinders banging up the bottoms of their pools, but until this past weekend I had never heard of pool owners blaming scuba divers for screwing up the water quality in a swimming pool.
(View Photos, Slideshows, Videos & More»)
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Photo
I have just finished setting up a new online account with ‘Smugmug’ to host and sell my underwater/travel photography. At the moment, I only have one collection of images uploaded, but for the future, I will be uploading new collections from some of the weddings and other events I have photographed. In the past I have had to jump thru some serious hoops in order to fill print orders… with the new print sales account, all that is taken care of online and in house at Smugmug.
Photo sales page on Smugmug.com – screenshot
You can choose which photos you want to purchase; what sizes you would like them printed and you even have a choice of what the images are printed on (matte/glossy or canvas). All this is done with the ease of a shopping cart system and then the order is filled by Smugmug, where their professional print lab reproduces my photographs in the size requested. They then inspect the final prints for quality, package them and ship them straight to you. How easy is that!!
If you are interested in a specific photo you have seen on this site and you were unable to find it on my print sales website, please contact me directly via email at: imagesales@oceanimagery.com
Ocean Imagery Photography – Photo Print Sales»
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Event,
Photo
This past weekend Julie and I were with another group of friends in Boston Massachusetts to help celebrate in yet another wedding for 2007. This makes the forth wedding for this year if you include our own back in July! But this time it is Karen and Dan’s turn to take the plunge into holy matrimony and we wish them all the very best!!
Karen use to live in the Washington metro area and has been friends with Julie for years, so we would have felt terrible had we not been able to be there for her on such a special day. I will say that all the travel for weddings this year is starting to burn us out though. We moved into our new home together back in August, after our wedding, and we are still trying to unpack and put our lives back into some type of a ‘normal’ circadian rhythm.
You can now browse the photos & buy prints online here»
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Photo,
Rants
I know this is probably not a subject that most people care about and even less want to read about, but I have come across a situation where I feel the need to clarify what most professional photographers already know. I was recently asked to ‘proof’ a collection of pictures online… after viewing over 1000 images I was flat out depressed! The saturation levels for all the images were way too high… at least that’s what it looked like on the three different monitors I use for digital photo editing. “How could that be” you ask…!?!
In the world of computer graphics and digital photography, all computer monitors and working color spaces are not created equally. Let me reemphasize this… just because a jpeg (compressed image file) looks good on your color computer monitor at home, that doesn’t mean that it is going to look good on mine. Hell, what you see on your screen may look completely different once you print it out on that expensive new photo printer you just bought! Why… you ask? Because most people don’t calibrate & profile their output devices for color… that’s why!
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Event,
Photo
Their first dance together as husband & wife!
Last weekend Julie and I flew up to Norton Massachusetts for Chuck and Caroline’s wedding celebration at Wheaton College. For Julie, it was like a little reunion, seeing all her girl friends whom she attended college with so many years ago. It’s normal for people to scatter when they get out of school and start their professional lives, but it’s nice when close friends stay in touch and can make time to get together for special events such as this one!
The ceremony was held in the Catholic Church on campus and the reception in a beautiful dining hall just on the other side of the courtyard. The entire wedding celebration was just fantastic! The location was perfect, the food was excellent and the ‘live’ entertainment outstanding! It was truly a great time for all who attended. Julie and I are so happy for you both and we wish you all the best in your new life together!!
And yes, I did manage to sneak my camera in under my suit jacket :-)… So I’ve put together a little slideshow of the wedding celebration and other festivities from the evening… Enjoy!!
You can now browse the photos & buy prints online here»
UPDATE: See their wedding photo gallery here»
:: Tags:
Photo,
Travel
Tuckers Point Club – Hamilton Parish, Bermuda
Out of all the places I like to travel to on vacation, Bermuda has to be one of my favorites! We just returned home from a week in Bermuda with Julie’s family and even though the weather was a little on the uncooperative side, the week as a whole was fantastic! We knew before the flight over that we would have to pass on some of the diving to spend time with Julie’s parents and the rest of the family. What we didn’t count on was the low pressure system that decided to stall just to the North of the island for the entire week… yes, that means lots of rain!
We did get one day of diving in before the weather took a turn for the worse and I also managed to find some breaks in the clouds for some land photography. There was also one morning that turned out to be perfect for some nice sunrise shots too! You’ll be able to see all the trip photos in my travel section soon! I’ll also be working on the Trip Journal along with the image galleries in the next couple of weeks (as time permits), but for now I have thrown together a slideshow to hold you over… I hope you enjoy!
UPDATED: Check out the trip photo slideshow here»
UPDATED: See Our Bermuda 2007 Trip Journal and Image Galleries»
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Photo,
Sports
Me and Julie at the Nats Game, RFK Stadium (10.5mm fisheye lens)As a general rule, I’m not a big baseball fan! I think the game by nature is much too slow and I find it very difficult to keep myself interested long enough to see a great play or a home run. My game is ice hockey! It’s a fast game that takes great skill and always keeps you on the edge of your seat. If i’m not playing hockey you can usually find me watching it. Now that I think about it, I can’t remember ever going to a baseball game before…!?
During our Engagement Party back in June, our good friends Jill and Francis, gave Julie and I some tickets to see a Washington Nationals baseball game as an engagement present. Francis goes to the games often and is always commenting on how much fun they are so I jumped at the offer. Knowing that I had never been to a Nat’s game before, I thought it would be a great escape for us since we had been so busy with all the wedding planning stuff.
Okay… we went,.. we watched,.. and I took lots of pictures! Yes, it was a lot of fun and very relaxing too! I think Julie only caught me reading my camera manual once… just kidding. ;-)
Thanks again for the tickets you guys… we really had a blast!!
Check out the game photos here»
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Event,
Photo
It seems that 2007 is going to be a busy year for weddings. Not only are Julie and I taking the plunge but several of our friends are also venturing into this thing called marriage. This weekend we are in Virginia Beach to support two of our closest friends Francis and Jill, who are having their wedding at Francis’ parents place. It is a very nice setting for a wedding (on the water with lots of trees and big tents)… It should be a great show!!
I normally don’t shoot weddings… some people have a real knack for taking pictures of people all dressed up and others (like myself) are more inclined to be shooting fish or large marine animals who smile at you all the time! This time I made an exception and brought my camera along just for kicks. I was really surprised how nice the photos I took turned out… I didn’t really think I would shoot many pictures so I didn’t bring a large zoom, just my 12-24 mm Nikkor wide angle lens (I will know better next time).
After I posted some of the photos online I received emails from friends commenting on how nice they turned out and asking how they could get prints… so I put together a DVD of all the image files and gave it to Francis and Jill as one of their wedding presents from Julie and myself. They Loved It… at least that’s what they told me ;-)!!
I am going to shoot two more weddings later this year… stay tuned!!
You can now browse the photos & buy prints online here»
UPDATE: I’ve just added their wedding photo gallery here»