Another 2012 Solar Eclipse photo from Las Vegas

After going through more of my pictures, I found a better picture of the solar eclipse.

In this one, you can see it a bit more clear and right before it set behind my neighbors roof.
This was taken with my Canon 7D, 300mm @ F45 1/8000 ISO 100

Solar Eclipse 2012 from Vegas

Here is my attempt at taking pictures of the solar eclipse from my backyard

Great tips from FontanaKnowledge's video on How to shoot an annular eclipse
Thanks a bunch!

Creating Illusion

I wanted to post the photos I turned in for my Commercial/Illustration class at CSN.  The assignment was to turn in 6 photos of our theme of choice in one week.  I chose glamour portraits and decided to use my daughter, Raven, as my model.

I didn't have a make-up, hair or fashion design artist on hand, so I had to work with what I have at home.  I originally wanted to do six different outfits, but found that just one outfit takes what I would call "half a day" to create and shoot.  So I went with three different changes and submitted two of each.

 I was very pleased with the outcome.  My goal was to take someone that was not a professional model and produce different characters.  She did very well.

Midnight In The Park

This morning I had an assignment due for Commercial class called product on location.  I missed last weeks class so I had no clue what the assignment requirements were.  Me being the procrastinator, waited until the very last day to get a hold of the instructor and find out what I needed to do.

The assignment was to photograph a product in a suitable environment like alcohol at a bar, or furniture in a home.  I not only waited til the last day to shoot this, I spent all day thinking of what I would shoot.  I came up with a bunch of ideas and went for something that I could do later in the evening and also somewhere close to my house.

Sometime around midnight, the husband and I packed up all the gear and headed for Aliante Nature Discovery Park.  My thought process was that my product would go well with a fancy lit waterfall behind it...of course I didn't think about the possibility that they actually turn the waterfall and lights off in the late evenings.  So, I went with my product and scouted around the park for a decent shot.

I chose to shoot a bottle of wine that Michael (the husband) bought for me.  I was thinking a waterfall is romantic, but since that was out of the picture, literally, I figured that night lights would make a good backdrop also.  I set up my tripod and took some shots to figure out my shutter speed so I could drag the shutter, then set up the bottle of wine and my flash and cracked my whip on my photo boy to hold up the reflector.

There are some crazy ducks in this pond

I'm pretty happy with the outcome.  I don't prefer doing food photography, but I love night photography.  It's like an adventure.

My Dark Focus Cloth

Well after a week of having a really bad cold, I'm finally feeling better and am ready to go out and take some photos with the large format camera.  But, before I do that I decided to sew up my focus cloth.  We were told to find some dark fabrics or a black jacket or something to use for a cover when focusing our cameras.  I've been slacking, because I actually ordered this super fancy cloth from Etsy a while ago.  I've just been putting it off, so today, I have it all put together.

It came out extra creepy, just like I like it.  I played around with stitches and found one that looks like vampire fangs...gothic!

Lets see if we can get our photos taken today so I can go develop them later.

My Editorial Assignment

I figured I would post a couple pictures from my editorial assignment for my commercial class.  We were to submit an image that told a story.  My good friend Char came to me and asked if I could take some Valentine's Day pictures for our mutual friend Josephine.  She wanted a picture of her dressed as the Lady of Justice.

We went out onto the Jean Dry Lake Bed to take these photos and I think they turned out fabulous.  Josephine is a beautiful model and the day was perfect..not too hot, not too cold.  There was a breeze which was perfect for the flow of her costume and her hair.

The picture I submitted for my assignment

My favorite

Trying different things

School has been busier then ever.  I'm being pretty good about keeping up with assignments and doing them in advanced.  This week is even more important since I will be taking a trip to LA this weekend for the Musink Tattoo Convention and Music Festival.

While in LA, the garment district will be awesome for background fabrics.  I went to WPPI (Wedding and Portrait Photographer) convention last week and there were many booths that were lumped together with backdrops hanging and bundled and folded.  It reminded me of a swap meet.  It also reminded me that I can go to LA and probably get some pretty amazing fabrics to make backgrounds and not ridiculously priced either.

Hopefully, with the change of scenery, I can get some pretty good photo taking this weekend.  Here's a couple of my assignments turned in last week.  This one is my architectural assignment in 4x5 large format class.

This place...I don't even want to talk about it right now.  All I have to say is it's my second home and that's not a good thing!

This next picture is from a cookbook assignment for Commercial Photography class.  I've come to realize that I haven't really tried taking photos of food and I probably should take the Food Photography class because it is much more complicated then it seems

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My Busy Life

It's been a very busy, fast paced couple of weeks.  Assignments are rolling in one after the other and it's not just photo assignments either.  The cost of this semester is also rolling in all at once.  I just picked up a Manfrotto tripod yesterday to support the monster large format camera I have to lug around...not to mention I really needed it for my almost as heavy DSLR.  Fortunately, I should be able to claim them on taxes this year for school purposes!

I did a very fun photoshoot the other day, details I can't really mention or talk about since it is a Valentine's Day gift.  This week I'm shooting an editorial portrait for commercial class and a 3+ story building for an architectural assignment.  Fun!  I can't wait to try out the film processing.

Back in high school, I took photography classes and there was no digital back then.  Hanging out in a darkroom and loading reels of film was exciting back then.  Unfortunately, we won't be doing those things in large format class.  We are going to be doing some sort of developing of film, but I'm not sure what it involves yet.  I find out on Monday or Tuesday.

Here's a couple of the group shots I took for an assignment a couple weeks ago.  I submitted the first one, but I think I should have submitted the second one.

The second one reminds me of a band picture.  I'll call them the Georgia Carpet Company Band.

..and it begins!

The 2012 spring semester has officially started at CSN on Monday.  Normally, the first week of classes are pretty slow.  Apparently, not this semester.

I took Commercial Illustration with Randy Becker on Mondays and Wednesdays.  On the very first day, we get our first assignment, which is a group photo.  Luckily, my friend Ryan is in town for a flooring convention called Surfaces.  That's right!  The exciting world of carpet, tile, wood, stone and everything you can think of that would possibly go with it.  Ryan's company comes up from Georgia every January for this event.  Perfect for my assignment.

I went down to Mandalay Bay Hotel yesterday to meet up with Ryan and his business partners.  Since my computer is out of commission, which is a whole different story, I will be going down to the print lab at school to process, print and mount tomorrow.  Photos to be posted in a later blog.

As for my second photography class, I took Intro to Large Format Photography, also with Randy Becker and Charles Lohman on Tuesdays.  We get to borrow a lovely and large ToyoView 45CX view camera for the semester.  It definitely gives me the motivation to buy a new tripod as my tiny cheap old one is falling apart and can't really hold the weight of my Canon either.

I'm excited for this semester, it looks challenging and fun.  Even my IT classes aren't too bad.  I'm also taking Database and Web Database.  I won't get into that or this blog will be a giant wall of text.