Life Through the Lens

Birthday Weekend

I had a great weekend of fun, hanging out with friends and chillin’ in Austin.  Friday night I met up with my dawg Conrad (since everyone else wussed out) at Cork & Pig to take advantage of the Happy Hour and the insanely tasty pizza.  Afterwards, I went with Yama to the movies, intending to Rise of the Planet of the Apes, but that was surprisingly sold out.  Instead we saw 30 Minutes or Less, which was pretty hilarious.  Then on a whim, I decided to drive to Austin got meet up with my friend Anne.  We hit up some Austin food trucks for a tasty Vegan lunch, headed off to the Asian grocery, walked into a random Farmer’s Market, ate some organic popsicles, saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes, ate some Vietnamese food @ Sunflower restaurant, then finished off the evening with Bubble Tea.  It was a surprisingly exhausting day.  Sunday, Anne had Tennis in the morning, but afterwards we met up for a breakfast burrito at Cucina de Consuela.  After parting ways, I walked next door to the Upper Crust Bakery and got one of their famous cinnamon rolls to go, along with a giant Cheese Brioche.  When I got home I watched Girl with a Dragon Tattoo (Swedish version) on my Logitech Revue (thanks Sis for the b-day present).

Be Careful What You Wish For – Flash Flooding in San Angelo

Well, we got a taste of rain the other night…but now it came with a vengeance.  Today, I woke up to this. Torrents of rain coming down, thunder and lightning.  I got soaked trying to take this shot…or more precisely, putting the strobe in the middle of the rain soaked me completely.

 

I was already late for the photo club meeting, but I had to navigate the rain soaked streets.  I already knew what was coming…

 

Here’s what my route home looked like. This is Southwest Blvd. Luckily, I knew a shortcut through a gas station and an abandoned Kmart parking lot.

 

This is out my front door.  That ravine is normally 6-8ft deep, but now its completely full of water.

Pray for Rain - Rain in San Angelo!

It been months since we saw real rain in San Angelo…that actually wet the ground.  But tonight the sky opened up and brought with it some dramatic lightning and thunder.  Here’s the best photos from the evening, rain drops kept getting on the lens, so there are some blurry smears.

Canon 70-300mm F4-5.6 DO IS

I haven’t bought a lens in a while…so I figured it was about time for another one :)  On my recent trip to San Diego I hauled out my 70-200 F2.8 L IS lens for the maternity shoot.  As awesome as it was, it is big and heavy, and I only used it for that one shoot.  That’s a lot of weight to carry around.  I had my eye on this 70-300 DO for a while now, and one popped up on the internet forums for an awesome price.  It wasn’t mint, but I also didn’t want to spend the $1300 retail price for one either.  So I got this one for about half that, and am pretty happy with the condition.  Its got some dust inside, some paint’s worn off, and the zoom isn’t super smooth.  So here’s the thing, its only 4” long @ 70mm, which is about an inch shorter than the 24-70 F2.8L. Now that is compact. It uses Diffractive Optics (that’s the DO part of the name) to make it so small (and improve chromatic abberations) and has a true USM ring motor with pretty good build quality.  The downside is the slow max aperture F5.6 @ 300mm.  But I figured I would be using this for travel, and if I need to take photos of something far away, its going to be in bright daylight. The other big downside is that its not very sharp.  At least not compared to my prime lenses and the rest of my L glass.  It’s a bummer, but you can’t have it all.

 

 

Here are the rings from the Diffractive Optics element.

Marc & Ericka Baby Shower

Saturday was the baby shower and my services were called upon again to document the occasion.  See the photos here. Before the guests arrived and after they left…hilarity ensued.

Pre-party goofing off…

 

After-party goofing off…

Fun with helium balloons

Marc & Ericka Maternity Shoot BTS

As you can see from the slideshow in the previous post, the maternity shoot went great, see photos here. Of course, we had plenty of fun…as well as some bodily injury during the shoot.  Nensi was my assistant/stylist/prop carrier/voice activated light stand. 

 

Here’s the shenanigans…

 

A bike flash mob rode through our shoot…probably 100 bikes blasted through Balboa Park.

 

Here’s Nensi’s scrape from falling into a garden.

San Diego – Visiting Marc and Ericka

My good friend and old college roomate Marc and his wife are having a baby. Since its about as hot as the surface of the sun in San Angelo, and I haven’t been to San Diego in a couple years, I figured it would be a good time to do a Maternity shoot for them…and of course, they needed someone to document the baby shower. Have Camera(s) will Travel. I’m still in the process of finishing up the baby shower photos, but here’s a slideshow we made of the maternity photos. The song "Lia" is what their daughter is named after.

watch in HD if your connection supports it.