March 17th, 2008 by James
Sarah and I got to visit the Whooping Cranes at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge - something we have wanted to do our entire lives. Just about the best way to see the cranes is aboard a shallow draft birdwatching boat called the Skimmer - operated by Rockport Birding and Kayak Adventures. The boat makes a three hour circuit through part of the refuge and has a viewing platform on the roof for photographers and birdwatchers. On the day we visited the weather was against us - with thick fog limiting visibility to about 200 yards for most of the trip, however we still had a great trip. We did see 8 or 10 individual whooping cranes, which was awesome - watching them picking fiddler crabs left right and center to eat. Other cool stuff: an osprey with a huge mullet, nesting great blue herons, various merganser ducks, buffle head ducks, and lots of different shore birds.
For those interested, there are now 266 whooping cranes in the Canada-to-Aransas flocks, up from about 100 in the 70’s. The cranes come to Texas in the winter to eat blue crabs and breed - and they can bee seen through about April 1 most years.
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March 4th, 2008 by James
Sarah and I went down to the bird sanctuaries at High Island last weekend. The roseate spoonbills and great white egrets are building their nests and starting to mate. Some of the GWE’s were sitting on eggs already.
Sarah took this photo of 3 roseate spoonbills using my camera and lens.
Posted in Gallery, Reefpix | No Comments »
January 9th, 2008 by James
This little fella was outside my front door when I returned from a run this evening. He/she was kind enough to let me pass by and get my camera for a few snaps before it flew off.
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September 6th, 2007 by James
Sarah and I recently completed the photography for the book Fantastic Water Workouts by Human Kinetics Publishing. The shoot took four Sunday’s to complete, working in the large pool at the Memorial Hermann Wellness Center here in Houston. It was an interesting and difficult assignment. I was lucky to receive lots of advice from photographers in the Houston Underwater Photo Society, and the Texas Photo Forum regarding the set-up. In the end, I opted to use all submersible flashes because I could not 100% eliminate the risks of using studio strobes. This was my first time using an umbrella light modifier underwater and it worked quite well. Here’s a sample to give you an idea of the type of photos we made:
Posted in Gallery, Reefpix | No Comments »
August 19th, 2007 by James
Sarah and I have posted our photos from Dance Houston 2007 at the Wortham Center August 10th & 11th.
Click here to order prints from our Online Gallery
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May 17th, 2007 by James
Due to hard work and perseverance by my good friend Nico my blog and gallery has been moved from its old home (failing hardware) to a new space. Thanks again Nico! Along w/ the move, there are new versions of everything. I’ve been out of town so haven’t gotten a chance to update my theme or link in older photos, but hang around as it will get there. In the meantime, check out the upgrade to Gallery 2 - just click on the photo below!
Cheers
James
Posted in Dives, Gallery, General, Reefpix | No Comments »
September 18th, 2006 by James
Two weeks ago, I led a digital underwater photography workshop to the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary for the Houston Underwater Photo Society. The trip was a “weekender” leaving Friday eve. and returning Sunday evening, our club had ten spots on the boat. Sarah came along and lent a hand, and she also made some great photos using a rental Canon 5D camera and housing from Reef Photo and Video.
We had overcast skies and rain for most of the weekend, making wideangle photography challenging. However, I persevered (:-) (how corny) and used a 15mm fisheye lens to get close and capture as much blue as I could. The wonderful ISO400 performance of the 5D also came in handy. Sarah used the 17-40mm zoom. For macro, we used 50mm and 150mm lenses.
Here are a few of my favorite shots from the trip. Click a photo to go to the gallery:
Unfortunately, we missed the last dive of the trip because one of the passengers from out of state wasn’t feeling well. It was a shame, because the conditions at Stetson Bank were incredible, with 70+ viz, nice blue water, and very little current. It also didn’t hurt that we saw a manta and a sandbar shark on our last dive there (macro lens attached of course).
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July 18th, 2006 by James
That’s a few bats!!!
I went down to the bat colony at Waugh and Allen Parkway tonight for the first time and it was an amazing experience. I’m told that this is the second biggest urban bat colony in TX and I’d believe it. Tonight, the bats started flying about 8:15 and were really going by 8:30. I can’t even begin to estimate how many bats live there but it’s probably in the thousands.
Click on a photo to see the larger images. These were not the easiest photos to take as I had to risk getting shat upon, and I had to manually focus the camera about where I expected the bats to be. At least I had the right equipment. I took these with a 70-300 lens w/ image stabilization at 1/200th. Thanks to my friend Patricia for telling me about the colony, and the best time to see them.
[update] I’ve recently learned that flash photography can disorient bats and cause them to crash into objects or people. At least that’s what I’ve heard - my flash thankfully did not have this effect - this is one reason that bat photography has been banned at the Congress Street bridge in Austin
Posted in Gallery, General | 4 Comments »
November 22nd, 2005 by James
It’s taken me a long time, but I finally went back and processed my photos from the United States Air Force Museum in Dayton Ohio. Dayton is the home town of the Wright Brothers, and now Wright Patterson AFB - where the museum is located. This was my third visit, and I got to go with my Dad, who was visiting for the wedding. My dad’s largely responsible for my love of aircraft since he took me to the most excellent airshows at NAS Mirramar in San Diego when I was a kid.
Here are some photos from the main hangars at the museum. I don’t have any photos from the Experimental and Presidential hangar, which houses such aircraft as the XB-70, almost all of the first supersonic “X” aircraft, and Air Force One’s from as far back as President Truman’s time in office. Hopefully I can get some photos next-time.
See the full gallery here: AF Museum Photos - 7-2005
All of these photos were taken using my 1DmkII and Sigma 12-24mm lens. These shots are all hand-held. This camera is an amazing machine - letting me capture photos like these inside a fully-enclosed hangar with only a few hanging HID lights. It just blows me away sometimes.
Cheers
James
Posted in Gallery, General, Travel | No Comments »
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