It has been a long time eh!

Well it sure has been a long time since my last post, however I check this site daily for my favorite blogger's that I follow, kinda ironic lol.

Nonetheless, I have been busy, busy, busy, and with the Holiday season I will be even busier YaY!!

A project that I will be working on 12/6, I must say, I am overwhelmed with joy and excitement because I am collaborating with a long time friend to shoot at Cheli's Chili bar in Detroit.
Now you may be wondering how exciting could that be, and well the owner is a former pro hockey player, Chris Chelios and it's not only a bar but also his home away from home from time to time.

Chris has a rather nice loft that doubles as his apartment sooooo, needless to say I am honored to be able to shoot in Chris Chelios's apartment.

The shot opportunities are endless from a private gathering room, to the roof a deck overlooking Downtown Detroit, and the Fox theater, to A private full bar.

So come back and see what I come up with, wish me luck.....







Shawn,

Suite View!!!!

Well lately I have had a lot of opportunity's to shoot landscape shots and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. Landscape Photography is best done in early or later hours of the day.
Below is an image I recorded from the Greektown Casino in Downtown Detroit.
Enjoy,

AT&T Behind the Scenes.

Here are some behind the scene images from AT&T's commercial they shot while I visited Hoover Damn in Las Vegas.
Enjoy,

Las Vegas!!

Here are some images from my B'day trip to Vegas Wooo Hooo

Passion.

Well this is what I am thinking for today.

Today I sit and surf the net and see so many different photographers, and I have a million different thoughts that go through my head.

One thought that I have is competition, and to me that is kind of a bad thing, not because they are competitors, but because I don't think competitors share the same feeling, I could be wrong, but to me as a photographer my drive is because of passion.

I love photography because I am passionate about it, now the problem with competition is they may share passion but they are mostly looking to get your money and to me as a photographer that is not what I am about.

To me, I want to earn your business.
I can not say my best work is out there because I personally believe the best is yet to come. I can say that I am proud of all of my work and that there is a story behind all of it, but a lot of people I meet or talk to do not share the same passion about creating art or documenting an event which all becomes history.

History is the reason for your existence where did you come from and where will you be and most importantly what is happening today.

Today I hope I can share my passion with just one person. Who will or what will it be.

I am hoping that it is you.

Big C,

Paradise!!!

Well it's mid winter here and I thought that I would try and warm it up with an image that I captured in "Paradise" commonly known as Puerto Rico.

Enjoy,

Bling!!!

What it's like to be a Misch!!!
Well I know it has been a day or two since I posted anything so I thought that I would document my most recent Photographic experience.
Below are a few images from Dr. Misch and his new bride Dr. Silc.

Enjoy,

Prom Time

Year after year it seems as though it sneaks up on us,
yeah it's prom time again, and well next thing ya know it's graduation then who knows but for now it's prom time 2009.


Here is an image in a park that I am very proud of, I believe it captures so many different aspects of youth,maturity, the past, present and future.
Enjoy,

Friends

I'm back from Florida and I had a blast but I couldn't find any models to shoot with except these guys.

Enjoy,

Puerto Rico

San Geronimo











Well I don't think that it's a secret that I love Puerto Rico, The island where my father was born.

I try to make this trip as often as possible now.
I use to go to Florida as much as I could but not as often however, I will be there soon.

Here is an image I captured on my last geteaway to
Puerto Rico.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Enjoy,

Bettie Page

I believe our society has lost it's of sense and value. Here is why, We recently lost Betty Page 1950's pin up queen.

Now I know that not everyone knew or gave two shits about her, but not only was she an icon for her era but she paved the way for people to live alternative lifestyles and most importantly freedom of expression.
She allowed people to have a sense of relief and outlet for individualism.

In February I participated in the DEAC,
which stands for Detroit Erotic Arts Collaborative.

It's where photographers and alternative models participate in a weekend of photography and art making (take it how ya want).

So a couple of the people I worked with aspire to be models and I wish them all the luck.

Lushes Lamoan and I shot together and this is what I came up with.
Enjoy,

Mia Lynn

Hello Kids,

Today I am exploring some of my images that I really enjoy and well I couldn't help but think of this image in two ways one was in a pin up fashion and for me that would be old school, but I am what I think would be old school and for what my old school would be is Polaroid.
So here is my contribution to pin up and old school.
Enjoy,

Just cuz

Well I haven't posted anything in a while and so my page went blank.
I guess that meant I needed to add a post.

So, I made this image couple of weeks ago at the DEAC. Look it up. I had a blast and hopefully more business comes from it.


Enjoy,

In Rememberence

Good evening,

Well it's Sunday night and well I haven't blogged in a while but the motivation struck me when I saw a post from Meg over on Zack Arias's blog.

I tend to keep up on his posts and well it seems as though he is enduring some tough times and well I can relate.

Today is my first day off in 5 nights and well I must say this has been hands down the toughest time of my life.

Unfortunately, on December 30th my Grandmother
Maria Munoz Cartagena passed away and for the last few days I have been up night and day unable to get time off from work and well the holidays I missed those this year.

Nonetheless, I have endured and weathered the storm but I will never forget the tears that have been shed for a wonderful mother of 10. Yeah that's right 10 babies.

I was able to experience one of the most touching experiences on Monday when I was next to all of my aunts and uncles watching my grandma take her last breath of air, it was to say the least heartfelt.

I will say to you Zack stay strong and this to shall pass. Keep the faith my friend.

Please check out my Photography documentation of my experience at Remembering Maria.
Enjoy,

Ho HO Time...

Happy holidays....
Well Santa came early and guess what he brought!!!!! no not a lump of coal that's for my stocking.
It was my wonderful wife, she got me a new 5D Mark II (Canon silly) for Christmas.
I must say that it was like pulling teeth without anything for pain.
My wife was great, she said here and handed me a credit card and said "body only" Gee bummer lol.
So off I go, not too excited because everywhere you look they say "now in stock" until you start to process your order and then they say "shipping soon" what the hecky. So, finally I found the right place who said they have it and now shipping for real hahahahahah yeah right. To make a long story short yes I did get a great price and yes I got screwed royally, but it will only hurt for a little while right,right???
This will be a good Chritmas. Pleasure and pain.
Enjoy,

Time Flies

Hola,

Well, much like some of our fellow photographer's lately, I have also been traveling and well, I wasn't going to brag too much but I could not help but share a couple of my images from my very busy last couple of weeks.
Let me just take a second here to say how amazing my trip to Puerto Rico was, I had a blast doing little to nothing well except for exploring and capturing lots of life long memories.
I went to the El Morro again, how can you not and toured the island with an amazing dear friend I can now say, thank you Ernest for taking us to wonderful spots that most tourist never get to see.





As I said time flies, so once I got home I was off to a photoshoot and again, I had an amazing time.









Let's not forget my photoshop training coming up. I am very excited but I must say, with over 3,000 images to edit I will have lots of late nights.
With that said,
Enjoy,

Nikon Huh

Ok it's true I just borrowed this content from another blogger.
I am sure he would not mind, but then again who cares.... My point here is that there are 24, that's right 24 fixes to Nikon's new camera.

My question is was it really worth it???

Does Nikon really fear that they had to get crap material on the market before the competition that bad....

Guess so.

Enjoy

…and a couple of bug fixes, too! Here’s a list (from Nikon’s support site) of what’s included in this free downloadable update, which was released on Friday:

1. The Highlights playback option has been moved from Display Mode > Basic photo info > Highlights in tthe playback menu to Display mode > Detailed photo info > Highlights.
2. The size and color of “Demo” displayed in the monitor with playback when No memory card? in the Custom Settings has been set to Enable Release have been modified.
3. The range of settings available for ISO sensitivity settings > ISO sensitivity auto control > Minimum shutter speed in the shooting menu has been increased from 1/250 - 1s to 1/4000 - 1s.
4. When shooting in hand-held live view mode and the frame is magnified prior to autofocusing, operation has been modified so that display returns to the magnified display rather then the full frame display.
5. Images captured with Rotate tall, in the playback menu, set to On, are not automatically rotated for display immediately after capture (image review).
6. A Copyright information has been added to the setup menu. When Copyright information is enabled, the copyright symbol ( © ) is shown on the LCD display, Shooting info menu.
7. Recent settings can now be displayed in the place of My Menu.
8. Custom Setting e3 Flash cntrl for built in flash ( e3 Optional flash when an optional Speedlight is mounted on the camera) can now be added to My Menu using the Add items > Custom setting menu > Bracketing/ flash.
9. The degree of the High ISO NR setting can now be confirmed in the shooting info display while the High ISO NR setting item, in the shooting menu, is being applied.
10. Ankara, Riyadh, Kuwait, and Manama have been added to the Time zone options for the World time item in the setup menu.
11. When a GPS device is used and no heading information is available, –.–° is now displayed for the Position / Heading option in the GPS item in the setup menu.
12. When shooting in live view mode using Camera Control Pro 2 (ver. 2.2.0 or later) with a PC-E lens, the aperture setting can now be adjusted from the computer.
13. Focus acquisition performance in dynamic-area AF mode has been improved.
14. Focus acquisition performance with contrast-detect AF has been improved.
15. Auto white balance performance has been improved.
16. The fourth digit in seconds display for GPS latitude and longitude information is now rounded off rather than omitted.
17. The current MB-D10 battery type setting can now be confirmed in the shooting menu display when R6/AA- size batteries are used with the Multi-Power Battery pack MB-D10.
18. An issue that caused an increase in noise when shooting in [M] exposure mode at a shutter speed setting of bulb with the shutter held open for less than 8 seconds and Long exp. NR enabled has been resolved.
19. An issue that prevented shutter release at the specified shutter speed when no operations were performed for 30 seconds in mirror up mode has been resolved.
20. An issue that caused abnormal image display when Image review was set to On and the playback zoom in button was pressed immediately after shooting at the following settings has been resolved.
21. Image quality: NEF (RAW) + JPEG
22. NEF (RAW) recording: Lossless compressed or Compressed
23. Image size: S or M
24. When the Speedlight SB-800 was mounted on the camera with flash mode set to distance-priority manual (GN) mode, and the camera recovered from standby mode triggered by the auto meter off function, the distance information in the SB-800 changed. This issue has been resolved.

Bald Eagle

Canon
70-200mm lens
180mm f/3.5 1/250


Recently, I had an urge to revisit some previous wonderful experiences that I encountered many years ago.

On a trip to Alaska back in the late 90's I had encountered one of the most breath taking experiences of my life.

From all of the beautiful green trees and landscapes to pure white snow covered peeks and valleys, there was something I was totally amazed by, it was a bald eagle soaring in the wild, now I know typically you would hope to see this while in that region, but until you are right there just taking in the wonderful natural surroundings and then it happens, this feeling is amazing and for me it only got better once I knew what to look for and where.

There was whale watching and moose running free but nothing compares to seeing this enormous bird soaring in the wild. The bright white head and enormous wingspan it is truly amazing.

So, needles to say I have snapshots but do you remember the days before digital???
Yeah that's right there was this little thing called film... You know those rolls of negatives that you may have lost or never took in to have printed on 4x6 paper! Do you know what I'm talking about.

Recently I took a trip to a zoo and I was able to have a little photo shoot with several of the animals, but my favorite were the snaps I got of the birds and monkeys, mostly because of the glass(Lens) I was using.

I had to shoot through plexiglass and net mesh in order to expose these wonderful creatures.
I had a lot of fun.

Well I hope you enjoy my Eagle and please click on Absolute Elegance Viewing in order to see or purchase some of my finest work.

Enjoy,

Carl Zeiss SLR Lenses for Canon

Hallelujah,



It's coming to town.... Recently announced are two new Canon mount lenses.

BUT,
These new lenses are the NEW ZE Carl Zeiss SLR lenses for Canon. So this for me is Absolutely awesome, because Carl Zeiss if you have never heard of was the leader in optics for years if not still.

Carl Zeiss glass is used for cameras, microscopes, binoculars and almost anything for magnification.

Unfortunately, not many know or maybe you do know and don't care about the magnitutde of how awesome this is.
Sorry, but do you know how long I have been waiting for this.

On the flip side who knows how well the engineering of the actual housing will be. I am sure awesome if Canon is picking it up.
Compare the Canon and the Zeiss here.

For specifics on the new 50 and 85 MM follow this link to check it out. This is going to be an expensive Holliday season for me.

By the way, ummmm Nikon??????

Enjoy,

Excuse me!!!!

What's wrong with this picture????



This Canon 10-22 Lens on my Canon 40D is so wide we picked up traffic. literally. I think this bee thought he was on a windshield. Nonetheless, lots of fun...

Enjoy,