What a momentous day! I was blessed to be present at the dedication of The George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum.  Surrounded by friends and great Americans, and of course, all five living US Presidents.  It’s a day that I’ll always remember.  Enjoy some of the behind-the-scenes shots I took of the big event.

Had a lot of fun shooting senior portraits of my cousin, Charles Oakes.  Charles is a great young man with a bright future ahead of him.  He’s a tremendous musician and even does some modeling for Hollister.  So it was natural that he’d want to knock out some fun music-themed shots.  Lots of different lighting configurations and looks. Charles really wanted to achieve a blend of Elvis Presley and David Beckham portraits and I think we got pretty close.

This has been a great month so far for the National Breast Cancer Foundation (of which I’m the C.O.O). As you probably know, October is breast cancer awareness month.  The NASCAR community has been very supportive of our cause this October.  I’m going to post a batch of photos from Talladega Super Speedway this week.  They painted their logo on their infield and included us in their all their festivities.  This set of images is from the festivities at Charlotte Motor Speedway this past weekend.  There were three teams that raced in support of NBCF.  Danica Patrick and the Go Daddy team fielded a pink car as did Reynolds Wrap and our good friends at Randy Hill Racing.  Here are some of my photos from the day of hanging out in the garages, pits, and everywhere in between.  A big thanks to everyone who supported NBCF this weekend!

This year our foundation, the National Breast Cancer Foundation (NBCF), partnered with a great organization called Convoy of Hope to travel to several cities and bring hope to these communities by serving them with free food, clothes, medical services, shoes, etc.  NBCF is providing breast health education and services for women and families at these events. I took a few photos of some of the folks at the recent Dallas event.

From a recent trip to Claude Monet’s garden in Giverny, France.

I just recently had the great fortune of visiting Claude Monet’s very famous home and garden in Giverny, France. Considered the father of impressionistic painting, Monet actually retired in this estate and started a school for younger artists eager to learn from the master.  Several of Monet’s greatest pieces were his attempt to capture the beauty of these grounds.

So when we went to Giverny (by a short train ride from Paris), I had a very simple goal of capturing at least one image that I could then treat in Photoshop to appear as a painting that Monet would have painted. And, I was determined to have a piece that could be printed on canvas and hung up in our new office expansion.   I’ve used a great app before called Snap Art that converts photos to “paintings” of various types.  It’s easy to dial in brush sizes, canvas types, etc. to acquire the style of “painting” you’d like.  I thought I’d show you the steps I took to complete the piece.

I took several images around the grounds, but I settled on this image of his Japanese foot bridge and water lily pond.  There are many famous paintings of this little scene. Here’s the original image I selected:

As you can see there are quite a few problems. Namely, the gawking tourists weren’t originally present in Monet’s garden. I can’t imagine Claude would have been copacetic with that.  Also, the overall picture is washed out and pretty bland. So, I started out by taking it into Photoshop and removing the unwanted guests.  This was where the bulk of my time went.  Mostly, I used the clone stamp tool and sampled the vegetation around the guest to fill in what was presumably behind them.  I knew that I didn’t have to be perfect with it, because the final product would be an impressionist painting and that would cover some of the smaller detail shortcuts I was planning to take.  When you’re using the clone stamp, the biggest issue you have is repetitive patterns.  it’s important to keep re-sampling areas and to be very erratic about it.  Nature is erratic and doesn’t use a clone stamp.

When I rid myself of the tourists, then it was time to do some image enhancement.  I added some contrast, and vibrancy (in Lightroom) and worked with the highlights and shadows to get them into a good, balanced image. When I finished with that, I looked back and realized that the photo needed just a tiny hint of color on the water lilies so I cloned one of the colorful water lilies and placed it on several different lily pads.  I knew that the broad brush strokes would just barely pick up the color when it was converted so I didn’t have to get it perfect, but close.  Here’s what the completed photo looked like, ready for the painting conversion….

Then it was time to take it to Snap Art.  I selected a default called Impasto – Abstract Impressionist.  At that point, it was just a matter of playing with the brush details and color till I dialed in something that was close to what he would have painted, but with my own style.  Here’s the final image, ready to be framed and hung on the wall.  Thank you, Mr. Monet, for the indelible mark you left on the world.

I had the pleasure of photographing a very special young lady last weekend named Alex Baker.  Remember that name, ’cause she’s going to be famous one day. Alex is an aspiring actress and and a talented singer and musician.  Here’s a sampler from her senior portrait session.

My brother in law has been in China for a few months.  His girlfriend Samantha encouraged him to let his beard go buck wild while there, so it has blossomed into this glorious nest of manliness.  I took Caleb out into the front yard and shot a quick portrait.  One assistant is holding a white diffuser behind his head and the sun is directly behind him shining through.  Then I have one 580exII high and right to sweep light down across his face, and finally there’s a reflector low and left to kick some sunlight and flash back onto the beard.  Then I put in some contrast, sharpening, and color treatment in Photoshop.

Behold “Big Red”, as the Chinese called him.

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from my recent trip to Paris, Switzerland and Italy.

Please enjoy this video I shot on my recent trip to Europe.  It’s a combination of several train rides around the Interlaken, Wengen, Lauterbrunnen area of Switzerland.  I was speechless (and still am) at what I saw there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXAoTk9nXAA