On Location Portraiture's Jpeg Blog

Post 500 - Taos

Wow - this is my 500th post to this blog!

In late September of last year, Erin and I took a vacation to New Mexico. We hadn't visited that part of the country before, and I wanted to check out the art scene in Santa Fe and Taos. The weather was fantastic (except for one night when there was a deluge of rain), and the atmosphere of the place is wonderful - I can see why there are so many artists in the area.

We wanted to see the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe. Unfortunately, it was closed the one day we were there. On a whim, we stopped nearby in the Andrew Smith Gallery (the house in the first photo), which sells photographic prints. I've been to numerous photographic galleries (the Amon Carter Museum and Photographs Do Not Bend are two good galleries in DFW), but I have never seen a single place that even remotely comes close to the Andrew Smith Gallery. Just about every famous photographer has prints displayed in the gallery, and all of them are for sale. It even had one of my favorite Ansel Adams images, Moonrise.

I saw a painter who does fantastic work, B.C. Nowlin, represented at another gallery.

In Taos, we stayed at the Old Taos Guesthouse Bed and Breakfast. Tim and Leslie Reeves are wonderful hosts who have renovated and maintained a gorgeous adobe home. It's just outside the town of Taos -the view was spectacular and the setting very peaceful. You can tell Erin and Ibiki enjoyed it - all the remaining photos except the second to last image of the trees (photographed at Taos Ski Valley Resort) were created while we were relaxing at the Old Taos Guesthouse. The last image is a magpie - you don't see them here in Dallas.

A show of recent work from just artists living in Taos was impressive in scope and quality. There was one piece that fascinated me by Ken Draim - here is a video of it - and it introduced me to automata. Another Taos artist (also mixed media) whose work really struck me is Lynda Jasper-Vogel.

We had an adventure on the way back to Dallas. My phone routed us home to take New Mexico State Road 120. The road starts paved, then quickly becomes gravel, and then gets continually worse while climbing and descending the foothills. Some parts reduced to one car's length and are just dirt, holes, and boulders. The phone lost reception at mile 4 or so, and we were supposed to stay on that road for around 75 miles. But, after about 12 miles the road became a two-lane, well-paved highway past a wonderful view of savannahs and desert. My poor car probably aged a year, though.

You can see more images from our Taos trip on this previous post. The photos aren't watermarked, but please do respect my copyright on them. Thank you!

 

 

 

 

Sights of the Past Year

Wow! Another year! I've been super busy the past few months. I moved from my studio at the end of June, I travelled to Williamsburg in August to photograph my best friend and his family, Erin and I vacationed in Taos for a week in September, and then I photographed over 40 portrait sessions (including a trip to Wichita, KS) and several weddings in the fall. I managed to get everything completed in time for Christmas - but it was close.

I'm seriously backed up on this blog, but my intent is to post something from everything I shoot - and I'm planning to keep that up. I'm going to show a shoot from the past 6 months each day in January and February.

This first photo is actually from 1992. That's me in full colonial waitstaff garb and my Uncle Al at the King's Arms in Williamsburg, VA. I worked there for over two years while I was in college. I recently asked my Aunt Barbara to find that photo - I didn't have any personal ones of myself during that time.

The second photo is the Governor's Palace in Williamsburg when I was there in August of this year, and the third is the moon right after a portrait session there in Williamsburg. The next 6 are some scenes in and around Taos, New Mexico. Number 10 is Ibiki in Taos (she went with us), and the next is a possum behind the studio at the Hickory Street Annex.

Okay, I totally saw my doppleganger at an elementary school this year. Look in the middle of #12. I think that completely looks like me, but it's actually an illustration of Tchaikovsky.

Occasionally, clients ask to photograph me at their wedding. #13 is an image of me with two gorgeous ladies at the Blaire and George Thornton wedding in June at the Hickory Street Annex. The next is the Milky Way above Erin's parents' home, and the last is a spooky moon over downtown Dallas in November.

 

 

 

 

 

I haven't watermarked these - but please do respect my copyright on them. This final image is the homescreen of the ordering software from my photo lab - H & H Color Lab - Professional Photo Lab. Those are my images from Bonnie and David Webb's engagement session - pretty cool, no?

 

Except they called me Monty Jim Herndon on the credit in the bottom right corner. Maybe I should start going by the Full Monty Jim. Anyway, a Happy New Year to you!

Perseids

Erin and I were at Erin's parents last night looking for the Perseids. The news makes them out to be a spectacular show, but last night we really only saw a handful after hours of watching. Still, it was peaceful to spend those hours looking up into the night sky.

I'm working on a time-lapse of stars, so I set up my camera to try and record the Perseids. In looking at the photos, though, I can only find 8 rather small meteors in about 5 hours recording time. Here's an image of one of them:

 

Erin the Marathon Woman

Erin was in the Rock 'n' Roll Dallas 1/2 Marathon this past weekend - one of somewhere around 12,000 people to do so. This is her second half-marathon, and she really enjoys them. Her strategy is to walk most of the course while running in short bursts at regular intervals. Here is Erin as she passed by me in Fair Park towards the end of the race and after she finished.

 

While I was waiting and watching for Erin, I decided to take a time-lapse photo of the racers. I like my State Fair time-lapse a lot more - this marathon time-lapse is more historical document than art to me - but it's still interesting.

I missed the first 300 or so top runners and the last 800-900 finishers, but I estimate there are 7500-8000 participants racing by me in the time-lapse. Technically, you could see them all - but you'd have to pause it at the exact right moment. You can see the frame of Erin above at the very end of this time-lapse if you pause it at the exact right 1/24th of a second!

Okay, okay, the music is edging towards inappropriate - but whatever. I checked Erin's and my music to find a song that was 1:41 seconds long - and the Beatles from the White Album was too good to pass up.

This is the low-res version of the video - you can see an HD version of it by selecting 720p instead of 360p.

Snow!

Erin and I have lived in Texas for 17 years - ever since we graduated from college. On February 11th, we had the largest snowfall I've seen in Dallas - and I'm sure it broke a number of weather records for the area.

I was at the studio for the first few hours of the snow - here are a few photos! The second is I-30 as seen from the back of my studio.

 

Sights of the Past Year

My cool personal stuff has already been posted, but here are a few more snaps from the past year: a frosty morning in Rockwall, a cool tire swing in Ocracoke, the beach in Ocracoke, the 2009 Dallas PPA Board, a flower at the Dallas Arboretum, Orion over McClendon-Chisholm, Brendan and Bryce on Christmas, Erin on Christmas, and Ibiki at the studio.

Happy New Year to you!

Merry Christmas!

I've been lax on my blog this past month, but I'll be posting all my recent shoots during regular updates in January.

I hope you're having a wonderful holiday season! Erin and I will be with her parents and family on the 24th, 25th, and 26th (I created this post on the 23rd). Here are photos of another family outing from this October. Erin and I went with Erin's parents and her brother and family (including his wife, Jodi, and their sons, Bryce and Brendan) to the Dallas Aquarium.

The Aquarium is an interesting place - I was expecting just fishies, but it also has birds, crocodiles, bats, and other critters, too.

Circles - The State Fair of Texas in Time-Lapse

I completed a personal project I set for myself this fall. I photographed the State Fair of Texas in time-lapse! I've had the urge to do some time-lapse photography this year, and the Fair provided the perfect opportunity.

This video is set to HD. You'll probably have to pause it for a while to let it download. If you're impatient to see it, just click on the red HD icon to switch it for a faster download. Below the video, I'll write about how it was created - for those who are interested in the technicals.

You can also see the video on YouTube here.

For you fellow camera geeks out there, a few cameras (like mine, the Nikon D3) have an 'interval timer' feature (it's also called an intervalometer). Basically, you use the camera's menu features to set it to shoot every x number of seconds by y number of exposures. Then, you let it go. The Nikon's fastest interval timer setting is every 1 second, but I figured out how to rig the camera to shoot every 1/2 second.

Each of the scenes in this video were recorded from 1/2 second intervals to 3 second intervals. 24 exposures compose one second of video. I shot over 15,000 exposures to work from! Because HD video doesn't need a lot of megapixels, I photographed images at the D3's smallest image size as normal quality JPEGs.

Each of the images were then batch processed in Photoshop to crop them to the 16:9 HD format and enhance the saturation and exposure a bit. They were saved as 1920 by 1080 pixel JPEGs.

Then, I compiled them using just Quicktime Pro ($30 from apple.com). It's a very simple program, but it does a beautiful job at time-lapse imagery. The problem, though, is that it won't do transitions (like you see in the above video). I first tried making Quicktime clips of each scene, then put them together in Final Cut Express. The problem was that the second-generation Quicktime movie result was clearly inferior in image quality to the first-generation clip. So, I created an action in Photoshop to transition the scenes and re-save them as JPEGs. All 10,895 separate JPEGs were then put into Quicktime Pro at 24 images per second, I added the music from the soundtrack of 'Amelie', and then exported it as a 1280 x 720 HD Quicktime movie (using settings suggested by YouTube).

Phew! Well, it was fun to do something completely different.

BTW, I jokingly subtitled this, 'How to Shoot Video with the Nikon D3'. But, only a photographer will find that humorous.

Time Lapsin' Ibiki

I've photographed the State Fair of Texas in time-lapse, but I'm still working on those. In the meantime, here is a time-lapse test of Ibiki at our studio!

Cowboy Town

The week before this year's print competition, Richard Sturdevant invited myself and Jim Welborn to help him with one of his competition prints. He was photographing a cowboy re-enactor - Kip Turner. Kip's actually a real-life cowboy - he wasn't acting much. Also, we photographed Ralph Miller (he's wearing the grey suit). We travelled to Buck Creek in Glen Rose, Texas, and hoped it wouldn't rain (it did drizzle a bit).

Long story short, Richard's print from the shoot won the Best of Show at the SWPPA competition, and it helped him win the other big prize - High Print Case for the competition. He did alright, I guess. You can see his image here.

Here are a few photos I took while we were there:

 

Jurassic Hickory Street Annex

This past weekend, the Hickory Street Annex hosted a wedding and reception in the upstairs event space. Sadly, I didn't photograph it, but I did see this guy outside my studio after the wedding was over. Apparently, the groom is a special effects sculptor. He had placed the dinosaur in the middle of the dance floor!

 

Time Lapsin' the State Fair

I went to the State Fair of Texas on opening day about a week ago to photograph a fantastic fountain by Greenscape Pump Services (they just built a new website, btw, with a ton of my images). While I was waiting for the light to change, I had a sudden desire to create a time-lapse movie. It inspired me to go back some time over the next few weeks and record a bunch more. I'm hoping to do that - in the meantime, here's a first attempt. Texans will recognize Big Tex.

Also - I'm back to posting my client work with the next post. I think a few people have been waiting on the weddings I photographed in July and August. Thanks for your patience!

Ocracoke

Erin and I then went to Ocracoke Island for our 15th anniversary. The island is part of the Outer Banks, a string of barrier islands off the coast of North and South Carolina. We stayed at the Castle Bed and Breakfast for the first two nights, then camped the last night. Ocracoke is a fantastic place, very secluded (it's only accessible by ferry), with history (Blackbeard ported there and was finally killed near the island), and a lot to do and see. Perhaps our favorite thing to do was just bike around the island during the three days we were there.

Here is: the view from the roof balcony at the Castle B&B (they have a great webcam very close to where this was photographed), the lighthouse in Ocracoke, an image at night on the beach (lights from Ocracoke Village are causing the yellow-greenish and orange areas), another image on the beach (this was when I photographed Erin and I with the same background), a photo taken at the same time but pointed directly up at the sky, Silver Lake in Ocracoke at 4:49 am (the photo 'Ocracoke Morn' was taken very shortly after this), and three more images of the lighthouse and Silver Lake photographed as Erin and I waited to catch the ferry that would lead us back home.

I took my 'On Location Portraiture' watermark off of these images, because I felt it distracted too much from them - but please continue to respect my copyright on them. Thank you, and thanks for visting my blog!

   

   

  

Carolyn!

A few days later, we visited Erin's and my good friend, Carolyn. Erin has known Carolyn since early high school, and we both swear she hasn't aged a day. She's a professor of Political Science at the University of Maryland in Baltimore these days, she has an awesome husband (Asher), and two unbelievably cute children.

Here is: Carolyn and and her daughter Sky, Dax motoring on his Spideybike, and Dax being Dax.

  

 

Boating

On a beautiful August day, the entire family traveled in my parent's boat on the Chesapeake Bay.

Here is: Mike hanging out, Archer really hanging out, the family on the boat, Archer watching the boat's wake, Alistair kissing Olive, Alistair laughing with my sister-in-law Carter, Erin and her iPod, Olive being a little hot in her little life jacket, the family back in dock, my brother-in-law George with Alistair eating a banana, Olive almost ready for bed, and my parent's boat at night.

   

   

   

    
 
 
 
 

August Vacation

In August, Erin and I visited my family in Annapolis, Maryland. My parents live there, and my sister's family and my brother's family were with us at the same time. It was the first time my parent's grandchildren met each other, and the first time Erin and I met my brother's daughter, Olive!

Here is: Olive at my parent's home, a family portrait including Mama Lou, Archer pushing Alistair, my sister (Laura) with Alistair, my brother (Mike) and Archer at a creek near my parent's home, Archer and Erin.

   

  

Fools For Love

My fourth submission to print competition this year was a personal project I photographed two years ago. Basically, Valecia Sarmento (a make-up artist and friend) and I went to the State Fair of Texas with two models dressed as clowns (Alora Scavella and Chandler Davis). The album I created from it won a 'Distinguished Album' award at the Texas PPA regional convention, as well as a merit score.

It's designed as an 8x10 vertical album (you have to imagine the left and right pages in each of the below 'spreads'). It took me two years to get to it, but I finally did it, and I'm happy with the results!

  

   

   

   

   

  

Print Competition

Hiya!

I'm back and will start posting regularly again. I have the weddings I mentioned in my previous post to show, as well as several portrait sessions, but I thought I'd start with some personal stuff.

First off, a few weeks ago we had the regional print competition (photographers from Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Texas competed). I take these things pretty seriously, and I also do pretty well at them. The accolades are nice, of course, but the real benefit is that it forces me to improve my own abilities. Basically, I have to choose the four best individual images or albums (actually, it's more accurate to say they're the four likeliest images or albums that will score high in the competition), and then sit down an improve each of those choices to the very highest level I can.

I spent at least 5 hours on each image, and far more than that on an album I submitted. Then, print quality is equally important. If the lab sent me a print that I felt needed improvement, I sent it back for another version (I made 2-3 versions of each of my three print submissions).

It's time consuming, fairly expensive, nerve-wracking, and all-in-all a general pain in the posterior. But ....the struggle forces me to work on my skills as a photographer in an intense way - and that has real benefit for my client work.

At the competition, which was held in Arlington, Texas, I went 4-for-4  - which basically means that all four of my submissions received a merit score. Only 30% of the entries in the competition received a merit score - and these are the four best images from some highly talented photographers in five states. Going 4-for-4 is rare - only nine people did it at the convention (and only five from Texas did it).

This is the third time I've gone 4-for-4 at the regional convention in Arlington, although I tend to think the first time several years ago was beginner's luck.

Here are my three print entries ('Half Cocked', 'In Sync', and 'Ocracoke Morn'). I'll show the album tomorrow!

  

 

I'll Be Back!

Hiya. Some of you all might know that Erin and I were on the East Coast the first few weeks of August. We were visiting my family in Annapolis, visiting friends in Maryland and Virginia, and then Erin and I went to Ocracoke Island for our 15th wedding anniversary.

I'm going to have a post (or posts) about the trip, but for now I need to concentrate on three weddings I photographed in July and early August (the Morales & McCloskey wedding, the Townsend & Webb wedding, and the Furtado & Goldsmith wedding). It takes me around 15 hours per wedding to get the images nice n' purty, so I have a bit of work cut out for me. I'm intending to start up the blog again on a regular basis in early September.

But, below is a photo from our vacation. It was taken at 3:22 am on the beach in Ocracoke. It was our final night on the island - and while we had been in a B&B the first two nights, we decided to camp the final night on the beach. It was a good idea in theory. It rained heavily for an hour around midnight, and our camping neighbors stayed up late after that talking. And the mosquitoes, oh my God, the mosquitoes.

So, as we couldn't sleep, I thought about taking some time exposure images on the beach. This is one of them. If you're a camera geek like me, the settings were an aperture of f/2.8, a shutter speed of 30 seconds, and an ISO of 3200. Which is pretty wild - it's a setting I don't think I've ever used before. The beach was almost pitch dark. We could see the stars and some individual lights from Ocracoke Village (that's the bright area behind us) - but the photo is not what we actually saw with our own eyes (it was hard to see each other). The image is what the camera saw, though. I didn't add the stars or anything else.

That's probably Venus above us (the bright spot in the clouds) and you can see a light from a boat on the water's horizon.

Post 365!

Wowza! This is post number 365 in less than two years! That ain't bad, if I say so myself.

Here's our current 'Employee of the Month', Ibiki. She somehow wins it every month.

Dublin Dr. Pepper (Part Deux)

Erin and I went and visited Dublin, Texas again - this time with Erin's mom (who watches this blog regularly, so, "Hi, Mom!") - to pick up some more Dublin Dr. Peppers! I got a few, as you can see! So, stop in and just ask for one - they're always cold and always delicious.

SpaceX

Hi,

Completely off-topic today. I saw a news item about a subject I'm intensely interested in - space and space travel. We're in the beginning stages of space exploration, as you know, and I think a lot of people who saw the moon landings in the 1960's and 1970's would have guessed we'd be a lot further along in space exploration by now. I remember watching a cheesy tv series when I was kid called 'Space:1999' about a colony on the moon.

Anyway, I think we've been held back on space exploration the last three plus decades by an over-reliance on the government. Government budgets and priorities shift from administration to administration - and space exploration, which I think will be among the most important topics in our future, is often lowered in priority for the present.

Until now! Private enterprise is finally kicking into gear and we're starting to see advances in the capabilities of non-government entities exploring space. One of the leading companies is SpaceX - which gets me to the whole point of the news item I saw today. SpaceX has just launched its first successful orbiting satellite - it's a first step, but I think it's a great first step in furthering space exploration as a whole.

The video of the launch may seem boring at first, but try to watch it. You'll see a video feed from the rocket as it ascends into the upper reaches of the Earth's atmosphere in less than 8 minutes. Cool stuff if you're a geek like me.

Happy 4th!

Happy Fourth of July! I hope you're spending it with family. In May, I went to see the world-famous Bandacoots (hey, they have overseas fans on Facebook) - a band from Rockwall whose members include Mike McGrew (guitarist and singer) and Ryan McGrew (bassist and singer). They also happen to be the father and brother of my lovely wife, Erin.

 

Erin is Walker, Texas Ranger

My wife, Erin McGrew Herndon, is a walker. A serious one. I think I walk more than the average person my age because of my job (walking on shoots, at weddings, etc.) - but Erin walks nearly every day and usually for several miles a day. This will make me sound like a bad husband, but I swears it wasn't because I drove without her - Erin walked from our home in Rockwall to our old studio in North Garland several times (a 14-mile stretch).

Anyway, Erin participated in a Dallas half-marathon today (13.1 miles), and before that she parked at our studio in Deep Ellum and walked to the race in Victory Park (2.5 miles). The race was called the 'Rock to Victory Half-Marathon', and Erin's plan was to walk the entire route with occasional bits of running (mostly at the beginning and end).

As you could expect because she was walking, she was near the end of the pack. At one point she passed an elderly couple tending a garden in front of their home in Highland Park. The gentleman gave her a bit of encouragement by saying, '"You're ahead of someone, honey!". At another point on the M Streets, a cat walked in front of her and lay on its back expecting a scratch.

Erin had a great time, and she wants to do the race again next year!

 

 

Sights of the Past Year

Here are a handful of sights from 2008: clouds on a flight over Texas, walking around downtown Dallas, Ibiki in the studio, Erin working hard or hardly working, playing with my camera in Dallas at night, the studio, Erin's parents' home at Christmas, our nephew Brendan in disguise, and our nephew Brendan on Christmas.

2008 saw a lot of hard work - we didn't really travel much except for our trip in January. I wish I had more personal stuff to show - but what you've seen on this blog has been what I've done this year.

We're planning on visiting my folks in Annapolis in the summer, and we're thinking about going to Ocracoke Island on the same trip. I'm hoping I get the chance to do some personal projects in 2009, too. I'll still be on the board of the Dallas PPA, but I'll be the Past-President this time - which basically means I'll have far less responsibility.

Happy New Year to you all!