Superbowl plans...

Around these parts, I've been seeing this a lot more frequently in the past several weeks.

As with any professional sports team making a rare post-season appearance, there are a fair number of fans that are new to the Cardinals bandwagon. Call them fair-weather fans if you will, but they are a staple of the game.

The Cardinals are still breaking in their new stadium, which is an impressive sight even from the nearby freeway:

So what are your plans for the SuperBowl on Sunday? Any projections for a winner? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are doing and who you want to win. As always, feel free to give me a shout over in the Twitterverse.

After the rain...

...comes the rainbow.

The rain really helps cool down the desert. The nice thing about afternoon desert storms is the rainbows after words before the sun sets.

I saw this rainbow over the Huhugam Heritage Center in November. I love the shape of this building and the rainbow was bright and just sort of framed it nicely.

What do you think? Do you like it? Let me know in the comments or holler at me on Twitter.

It's just a game

Cribbage can be a lot of fun. My Grandpa taught me to play many years ago and I've taught my boys to play at least a bit. My youngest son sure seems to enjoy it.


Click on the picture to see more of my pictures. In the meantime, please share a bit with me.
What traditions do you have in your house? What games have you taught your kids that you grew up playing? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter.

Don't know the words?

Then just hum the tune.



Once again I was rewarded for carrying my camera with me on an evening walk. I saw this hummingbird across the street from us and managed to get pretty close before he decided to leave the area. Unfortunately, it was dusk and the light was too far gone to get a great shot. Next time, we go for a walk 30 min earlier. You can see more of my pictures at my photo site.

So what about you? Have you seen anything interesting lately? Did you get a picture or did you say "I wish I had a camera"? You can use the comments here or tweet me.

Airplane

(click the picture for a full view or here to go to the photo site)

On my way to work the other day I saw a plane overhead. Nothing unusual about that, but this plane was lower than most planes fly and it was smaller than most planes as well. I like the way this one turned out for a few reasons. One is that is was close enough that I was able nice clear detail so I could see what appear to be pipes or tubes that make me think this is a cropduster. Entirely possible since there is a fair amount of agriculture in the area and I have seen them flying before.

Another thing i like about this shot is the jet trails in the background. They just add to the airplane "feel" of the shot and stand out nicely against the blue sky.

You can click the link below the photo to go to my photo gallery with other sizes available as well as other vehicles. I hope you like it. Please leave me a comment either here or on the photo site. Even a quick thumbs-up on the photo site would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Finish the sentence

In the spirit of letting you get to know more about me, it is time for a game called "Stephen, please Finish the Sentence..."

Q: My favorite photography accessory (lights, modifier, bag, tripod) is...
A: Tripod because I like taking night pictures.

Q: I’ve learned the most from...
A: Blogs and web tutorials.

Q: If I could go anywhere in the world it would be_____ because….
A: Africa because I enjoy wildlife photography.

Q: My most-used software program, add-on, plugin, action set (etc) is
A: Gimp or Picasa

Q: I love the fact that ...
A: I can straighten and crop a picture in Picasa in under 30 seconds.

Q: I hate the fact that ...
A: it takes so long to preview RAW files in Picasa

Q: If I could turn back the clock 10 years ...
A: I would use Program mode less on my SLR and shoot more pictures.

Q: In 10 years...
A: I hope to have pictures hanging in many places.

Q: If I could give one piece of advice it would be
A: Shoot a lot and make notes to learn from.

Q: Your readers can find out more about me
A: By visiting my photo website or my personal blog

So what about you? Please tell me something about yourself. You can use the comments here or tweet me.

Book Review - Portrait Photography: Secrets of Posing & Lighting

Right off the bat, I liked this book when I read the first chapter about lighting accessories. The author included a great deal of detail on the benefits of all the different flash and lighting options and gave some examples of when they may be best used. The other thing that jumped out at me was all the pictures. Some things I have read will show a picture and explain how they took it and what tool (flash, etc) they used. This book goes a step beyond that and shows examples of too much flash, not enough flash and explains what you are seeing.

Chapter 2 is called Poses and Expressions and is filled with examples of details that amateurs can easily overlook. It is filled with gems like this: "If the head is tilted too far forward, ... the pose becomes submissive." When I read that, I thought about it and realized that is true. More importantly, depending on the goal of the photo, this may be what you want, but for a typical, customer portrait, that is generally not the case and while the average customer may not put it in those words, they will probably feel like that picture is "off" or just say they don't like that one as much as others in the set.

The section on troubleshooting is really useful. It includes how to deal with glare from glasses which presents a real challenge to many photographers. There are also many tips and suggestions for posing people to accentuate or de-emphasize different body features.

I still hope to get a lot of value out of this book as I start doing more portraits, but I already feel like I have learned enough from this book in the first several chapters to make it worth the cost. If you want to give Portrait Photography: Secrets of Posing & Lighting a closer look, head over to Amazon.

This is a book that will be on my bookshelf for a long time. I will certainly be re-reading many parts many times as I work on continuously improving my portrait skills.

Your identification please!

I enjoy taking pictures of flowers and wildlife. I generally take a picture because I like the subject and think that it will (or might) make a nice addition to someones wall, web page or commercial endeavour.

I have not been able to label some of my shots with a good name because I have not known what type of flower or animal it was. Consequently, many of my pictures are labled "yellow flower", "another yellow flower" and "bird" or "black and white bird".

For Christmas, I was given a gift that was really handy. The Complete Illustrated Encyclopedia of North American Birds. It is not just a picture list of birds. It has sections on how to identify bird types by their characteristics (long skinny legs for wading in water) and sections for different environments. The entries for each bird are also helpful in identifying specific birds. For example, if the bird you are trying to identify is black on the top and white underneath, and the entry for a similar-looking bird states that the "Stilt sandpiper ... is ... a pale buffish-gray bird with a white eye stripe", then you know you have not found it. Yet.

A little more looking and I found that "the Black-necked stilt ... has a black neck, crown and face giving it a masked appearance." I think that sounds an awful lot like this guy:



What do you say? Any experienced birders out there that can help me confirm this or point me to another name? Another shot of these birds is in my photo gallery.

From the photographic perspective, I really wish I had a longer lens than 200mm, but I still like the way part of this fellow's reflection is on the other side of that grassy patch.

Update: Nikon D60, f/5.6, 1/400. You can usually click my pictures to go to my photo gallery for additional info if I forget to include it here.

Optimist or Pessimist

Some people will say this glass is half full. They are considered optimists and they are usually paying more attention to the things they have not making lists of the things they don't have or things that have not gone their way.

Others will say this glass is clearly half empty. They are considered pessimists and can usually be found moping about things that have not gone their way.

Neither of those descriptions is always true, even for the most die-hard and extreme folks, but for broad generalizations, they paint a reasonably accurate picture. So what are you? An optimist or a pessimist?

Me, I'm just glad I got a glass and it has champagne in it. Cheers!

Growth

Well, today is a momentous day indeed. My personal blog has been up since May where this photo blog has been up for just over 1 month. In the blogging world, there seems to be some degree of growth over time so it was a surprise when I saw that my photo blog has just past my personal blog in number of visits in the past 30 days.

As a businessman, I have to ask "Why?" so that I can continue to grow my business and brand. One reason is that there is a limited degree of interest in my personal blog. I talk about my running and triathlon adventures and ongoing things in my life, family, technology, work and the like. My typical readers there are runners, triathletes and personal friends and family.

I also talked about photography and posted some pictures there as well. Those were some of the most commented on and viewed pages, so it would account for some dropoff of my viewers on my personal blog, but there has not been much of a dropoff. Even though the photo entries on my blog were popular, that would not account for all of the quick growth of my photo blog and site, so what explains the growth?

Since starting my photo site, I have started trying to photo blog ever 2-3 days which helps create a dynamic page and attracts visitors. I have also started to Twitter and have seen some traffic from that as well. Finally, I have devoted some time to reading other blogs and commenting on them. I have tried to diversify my readership by going to a variety of blogs, including fitness, religion, political as well as other photo blogs. The photo blogs have the added benefit of getting some additional inspiration.

Well, that is it for this little detour into the twilight zone of statistical analysis. Stay tuned for more photo posts in the future. Several neat ones already lined up for next week.

Need a bath?

We saw this on our New Year's Eve outing. I got a kick out of the sign, but it was also funny to see an old western town lit up with electric Christmas lights. It kind of made it lose the western feeling a bit. The campsite we were at most of the time though, had the electric lights hidden in old gas lamps so it looked somewhat authentic.

Newsgathering

On my way to work this morning (yes, it is hard to believe no one has offered me enough money to quit my day job yet) I saw a helicopter from one of our local news stations buzzing around. He was close enough that I knew he must be investigating something so I pulled over and took a few shots. It must have been a great morning for flying, not a cloud in the sky. I slowed the shutter down just enough to see a bit of motion in the helicopter rotor blades.



At 200mm, I was at the limit of this lens, but I think it is still a good shot. Click the picture for bigger sizes as well as some of my other photography.

Dare mighty things...

One of my favorite quotes is from Theodore Roosevelt. I think it sums up the feeling of many triathletes and is a good fit for an Ironman photo collage.

Blog 2008 year in review

In most sports, numbers are used to analyze everything from a baseball batters performance to the percentage of free throws a basketball player makes. In businesses, managers will use numbers to analyze their profitability as well as well as to identify profitable products and markets. I have likewise been trying to balance what I am interested in with what the people that come to my blog like to see.

To that end, earlier this year, I implemented Google Analytics to track statistics on my visitors. Don't worry I do not track any personal information about anyone stopping by here (I don't even think I can) but rather just information about how many people, what part of the country or world where they are logged in. So how did I do for 2008?

212 Visits
9 Countries
22 states
12 posts

Since I only started blogging here in December, things are still getting rolling and 2009 promises to be a great year with a lot of exciting photos and stories to share. These statistics also include my main web page as well as the blog.

The main goal of this blog was initially to have a place to share things I learn about photography, some of my favorite photos and to have a place to discuss any random photographic topic that strikes my interest.

It has been fun watching the statistics here. The one I enjoy looking at most is the countries and states visited. I had visitors from 22 states in December of 2008. It was also fun to see visitors from all over the world. I hope that some of them find something interesting or entertaining and keep coming back from time to time.

Now here is the audience participation part. If you are reading this, please take a minute and post at least a short comment to let me know where you are. Also, feel free to post a comment to any blog entry you like or dislike and let me know what you like or don't like about it. You can also leave comments and rate individual photos in the photo galleries.

Thanks for stopping by and i hope to see you again soon.

Shooting Stars

I heard about this on Friday afternoon:

Astronomers expect the Quadrantid meteor shower tonight

So I decided to forgo my customary sleep in Saturday and get up early with my camera and try and get some neat pictures.

It was a challenge to get out of bed, but my lovely wife wanted to see the shower as well so she asked me to open the curtains on my way out. As I was getting ready, I heard her go "ooh" and "ahh". She saw enough shooting stars from bed that she got up and put a robe on to get a better view.

I decided to drive a bit to try and get away from the neighborhood lights and maybe a better foreground than my yard or a "plain sky" picture. As I was driving, I kept an eye out for any meteors, but was not able to see the sky well enough to see any. I did see a couple owls very close to the car, but would not have been able to stop and point the camera at them fast enough to get anything but dark night shapes.

I got to a place I had thought would provide a nice foreground. That was a success and I did get a nice view of a starry sky with a cactus in the foreground.

I did see some meteors, but was not able to catch any of them with the camera. In order to get star pictures, I needed to use long exposures. That means that I need to guess where a meteor is going to pass by. I had a few pass by close to where I was aiming, but managed to be looking the wrong place each time. Maybe I'll get luckier with the next meteor shower, but for this one, I guess that will have to be my best shot.

We all want to be popular

and our photos are no exception. If you have visited the Flowing Desert Photography site recently, you may have noticed the Most Popular Photos section. I like this for several reasons.

One reason I like this feature is that if someone drops by to check out my site, and they don't see something that strikes their fancy, chances are slim that they will come back again. The Most Popular section shows the pictures that other people have looked at most often. This is usually going to be a different set of pictures from your personal favorites that you may have featured for each gallery. They will likely include a selection from several different galleries which may show a picture that sparks a visitors interest in looking at more of the pictures in a gallery that they otherwise might not have looked at.

The other reason I appreciate this feature is for personal and professional growth. Reviewing my most popular pictures gives me feedback that will help me take pictures that other people enjoy.

For those reasons, please feel click a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" on any picture you do or do not like. If you have the time, comments on pictures are ALWAYS very much appreciated.

Happy New Year!

May 2009 bring you all the health happiness and joy you desire.