I've had mixed results lately with converting my photos to JPG (be it for print or web output), and this one finally put me over the top. When rendered in Lightroom or Photoshop I really enjoyed this picture; loved the different hues in the various buildings and was happy with the range of levels across the image. I uploaded the image to my server, and opened up Firefox to make sure it had loaded correctly. The image I saw there was dark and murky. Much moodier than the shot I intended to put up. So I reopened the jpg in Photoshop and compared the two side-by-side (on the same monitor), and sure enough, the image in Firefox is much darker and doesn't look to contain the same range overall.

Next I pulled up the site in Safari: ahh! That was the image I was intending! Or much closer to it at least. So, does anyone have thoughts on why Firefox does such a lousy job of rendering JPGs?

This shot is a couple months old, but it shows my boy in pretty much his happiest state: cold, and playing the snow. Happy Birthday buddy.

Hopefully I will be able to get a few photos up from my recent travels. Unfortunately I've had to disable comments because of the spam that's been posted there, but I'm always happy to get emails! Thanks for the patience and coming back to check out the site.

- Jim

Oliver, enjoying a walk in the woods this morning. And wondering what's taking me so long...

The view from our hotel balcony in Rio. Not too shabby...

A small cask of Cachaca from the Magnifica distillery we visited in Brazil. Good stuff!

A different take on a shot I posted a few months back. I always loved the framing of this particular shot, but never got around to posting it until just now. Hope you enjoy it.

Much of my year in photography was spent putting together the content for a book on Our Lady of the Angels Chapel outside of Baltimore, Maryland. The first printing of the book arrives today, and we should have it available on my Jim Stratton Photography website shortly.

This particular photo was one of my favorites of the set, in large part because in getting it I was able to look upon this beautiful church and the city of Baltimore from a very unique perspective, one that very few ever see. This photo was taken from the rooftop of a nursing home residence on a hot and humid day in late June, and in a way I feel that it sums up my year here in Baltimore.

Hope you've had a successful and fulfilling 2008, and have a wonderful New Year!

- Jim

After posing nicely for a while, the kid in her always comes out eventually...

One month later, here is the first of the photos from the honeymoon. All things considered, this cruise down the coast of St. Lucia wasn't a bad way to spend a birthday either!

Finally have some new content to post, so please keep an eye on the site in the coming weeks!

Hope everyone had a wonderful and safe new year!

I was cataloging some of my older pictures and came across this one. Can't believe this is a year old! He looks very much the same these days, I'll have some new shots of him up shortly.

Obviously the other priorities in life have been taking precedence over posting for a few months now. I'm hoping I can manage to find a bit of a balance and get some new stuff up over the coming weeks.

Turns out the hotel didn't have an ice bucket for our room. We made do. :)

Some of you got a sneak peak of this shot yesterday morning as I posted the wrong image up. Well, here it is for real this time!

It took far too long to get this image up on the site, but at long last here it is. And for those still wondering: she did say yes :)

An older one lost in the shuffle...

I interupted a quality nap to get this shot. My boot made an excellent "pillow" for the pup, but truth be told, he was face down in this boot just a few minutes before. Mans best friend: very definitely. Man's best judge of aroma's? Well, not so much.

For those who haven't seen it in the news recently, New Horizons makes its closest approach to Jupiter today. Check it out today and over the coming weeks at the New Horizons Official Site.

And then I'm gonna EAT YA!

Using my longest zoom and a teleconverter I still had to crop this quite a bit. Should've asked Santa for a 600mm lens for Christmas... Hope everyone had a good holiday and Happy New Year!

My nephew Benjamin, getting a little home-field advantage during the egg hunt at his second birthday party last month. And p.s., answer truthfully on this one, how many of you have the song stuck in your head now? I do. And p.p.s., is it the original Beatles version, or is it the Joe Cocker version?

For those wondering how the pup is doing, he's quite well :) Rambunctious, to say the least, but quite happy :)

Sometimes a bad shot works out ok. This one was a massive overexposure, but I liked the hand-drawn quality it ended up with. Couldn't have made this shot if I had tried, but sometimes the mistakes end up ok.

I haven't done many shoots with toddlers and infants, but so far every time I seem to get a "meltdown" shot. I'm starting to think it's not a coincidence...

Oliver, getting ready to eat my camera.

In case you're all wondering how Ollie's doing this afternoon :)

I actually had to get him to look up from attempting to eat the bottles of beer to get this shot. What a good boy!

Chillin out back at the neighborhood happy hour Friday night. Gotta hand it to him, he's good about not eating the camera even though I'm constantly sticking it in front of his face. Fingers and toes though? Well, those are expendible.

One of Oliver's favorite toys, and one of his favorite poses. There's no doubt about it, he's a goofball.

Seriously, the dude's got a thick noggin.

Sorry for the delay in posting new images of Oliver, as it turns out having a pup takes a lot of work!! So to make up for it we'll do two today and two more tomorrow...

Yes, I'm gonna be that guy that posts a million shots of his dog. But seriously, if your pup climbed into the fridge to cool off his belly every time you opened the door, wouldn't you post a shot of him?

The puppy has officially arrived :)

Kylie and Phil, of Kung Fu Fighting fame.

Everyone has a limit...

A bit of playing around after taking some shots of Kylie and her brother Phil.

A light moment in a shoot I did a few days ago :)

Two today...

Good luck at the new job Kat!

I got the green light today to post some of the photos I've been taking over the last few weeks. Things will be a bit heavily slanted toward wedding photography in the next few posts, but I hope you enjoy the images.

Another of the shots from Rockburn.

Sorry to those who've been waiting patiently for an update. I actually have been shooting some, but as it is assistant work to someone else, I'm not yet sure whether it's ok to post that work. In the meantime, I finally found a chance to get out and photograph some for myself. It's been a long time since I've just gone out to shoot, and it's been even longer since I've had a useful polarizer to take with me. Now I know how much I missed that thing :)

So here's the introduction to my next series of photos. These were all taken in Rockburn Branch Park, a nice little park down the street from me here in Maryland. In fact, all of these shots are taken from spots along my regular running route, and I was scoping them Tuesday night on my run. I was kicking myself as I ran that night, thinking that the weather and lighting wouldn't be good enough to shoot until after the weekend. Luckily Mother Nature handed us a gorgeous day today, and I manged to get out and take a few. Hope you enjoy them!

Next on the docket: I'll attempt to determine why GoDaddy doesn't support the EXIF functions in php. I'm sure I can talk them into fully supporting my site, don't you agree?

If you haven't already had a chance to, please check out the article I wrote for the May issue of Photoblogs Magazine.

This shot came out slightly different than I had pictured it in my head. First, I had expected that this would look best in black and white, likely with a blue filter to emphasize the texture of my hands and the grain, but when I viewed it on my screen I found that I liked the warmth of the skin tones and the grain. Second - and this is the big one for me - I had wanted this to have the feeling of offering up the grain, like a gift. Think of the Allstate hands... I couldn't quite get the feeling I was looking for while I was shooting, and it wasn't until after looking at the shots on my computer that I figured it out: my thumbs are spread wide, rather than tucked in to my hands. Think how much warmer and more welcoming this would be with the thumbs tucked in. Amazing what the little details can do...

Sorry for the long week of no posts, it's been a busy few days! Khoi (INFRANGIBLE) defended his MFA thesis on Friday, so I headed up to Ithaca to see his exhibit and join in on the post-exhibit festivities. Congrats again Khoi, it was a great show!

Another of the shots from the shoot with Gary. This one was fun, because we got to be serenaded by great music while I was shooting.

This is my 400th post to StrattonBrewing, so with it I'm also unveiling the new site design. Hope you enjoy it!

- Jim

Sap buckets collecting the good stuff that will ultimately become Pure Vermont Maple Syrup. Mmm...maple syrup...

Sorry for the long hiatus, it's been a busy couple weeks. I've been shooting (you'll see some of that soon), and I've been polishing up the new site (you'll see that soon too). So here's a little something goofy from this weekend to get things rolling again.

On a technical note, for those who care, I had some serious noise issues with the shots up in Vermont this weekend. I'm fairly sure that I have sufficient literature in my possesion to figure it out, but I haven't delved into it yet to check. Short version: I accidentally left the "Long Exposure Noise Reduction" on for the last two shoots (note to self: add that to the list of things to check before and after every shoot). It doesn't seem to have been an issue for the studio session, but these outdoor shots (diffuse, cloudy light; mildly but not horrendously underexposed) have some serious noise even in the midtones. I need to run some test shots and do a bit of research, but if you have any thoughts let me know.

I would love to go back to this spot and spend some time at this spot with a medium or large format camera. I love this scene, but I was only able to grab it with my digital as we sped by on a train. The lighting in the foreground was terrible, although I really like the softly lit background. Ahh well, next time around.

Hitting the archives to mix things up a bit. I have a few more shots from the shoot with Gary, but I'll wait a few days before they reappear.

Today is the 2nd anniversary of my first post on StrattonBrewing. This site, the photography that goes into it, and the interaction with all of you has all meant an amazing amount to me over these past two years. You've all helped me find my creativity again, and for that I thank you!

- Jim

A shot of Gary and his violin, as he was getting it ready to play on the steps of the Baltimore Museum of Art.

I'll have a few more shots of Gary to post this week, but somehow this one just seemed most appropriate to post first. So here, sporting this winter's latest photo fashions: introducing J Crew Gary Lin.

Gary came down on Saturday to have me shoot his violin and I also used the chance to grab a few portraits of Gary and Katie. This is the choice shot from the weekend, although I will be posting a few more over the course of the week. The shoot was fun, definitely entertaining trucking props and gear all over town to shoot some location portraits. And as always when Gary is in town, the afterparty was a rockin success :-)

Introducing, officially this time, the lovely and talented Ms. Kylie Eden.

Sorry that it's taken so long to get these shots posted, but here, by popular demand, are the much-touted shots of Kylie and Rob. I will have some better shots of both Kylie and Rob to put up in the near future, I promise. But these were the culmination of a fun evening, and, well, we were all obviously laughing our asses off at this point in the evening. Definitely some fun, if not entirely technically "good" portrait work :)

Going back through the Alaska photos to find some of the shots that I passed by the first time through. There are actually quite a few that I like, so I should be putting up a few over the course of the next couple weeks. And I promise inappropriate pictures of Kylie and Rob are coming soon.

We had some friends over for a very tasty dinner and some equally tasty wine. I warned everyone beforehand that I was planning to ply them with alcohol to get them to pose for me. Well, mission accomplished! I don't recall what particular song Katie was singing here, but I do recall that we were all laughing fairly hard at this point. It only went downhill from here. More photographic evidence to follow shortly :-)

This shot definitely isn't perfect, and in fact it's nowhere near as good as it was in my mind. But, well, I still like it... This is another shot from the day of rollout (when the launch vehicle rolled to the pad, the morning before our first launch attempt). I could use some fill on the face of Mike Gast (the Lockheed Martin VP pointing at the rocket), and I would definitely prefer to have been in a spot where his pointing hand wasn't lost in the background of the catenary tower, but what can you do but live and learn? So hear it is, hope you enjoy it.

Played around with light painting for the first time. Think this is something I'm definitely going to enjoy.

In other news, the New Horizons launch window officially closes this afternoon. I could still be down there trying to launch that thing... Glad it's on its way!!

And, finally, Happy Valentine's Day :)

One last one from the lighting tests I was doing last week.

This was actually just a test shot to get the focus (which was definitely tough to get right when it was just me), but I actually like the simplicity of it.

I need to get better looking models.

Playing around with some set lighting. Think this is gonna take a while to get good at ;)

One last shot of Jupiter overhead of New Horizons sitting on the pad. For those of you who are interested, you can track the progress of the spacecraft as it heads out of the solar system here. Like I said, this will be the last of these posts, it's time to move on and start working with some new images and projects.

This is the same shot I posted earlier, this time including the exposure for the spotlights as well.

New Horizons sits on the pad, with Jupiter overhead, awaiting the opening of its launch window.

I'll have some more of the rocket (and of Jupiter) up shortly, but they're not quite ready yet, and I'm too tired tonight to do any meaningful work. So here's a similar shot (albeit of a different tank) to the shot I put up two nights ago. Hope you enjoy it!

This was another shot from the night before the initial launch attempt. This was the end of the beam of light from one of the spotlights illuminating the rocket, falling on the wires that hold up the catenary system that protects the rocket and spacecraft from lighting strikes.. These lights really were amazing both for their intensity and for their concentration. The sky immediately adjacent to a given beam was almost totally free of light "pollution", which ultimately is what allowed me to catch the shots of jupiter overhead. More of those to follow...

Bob can have his water towers, I'll take my Liquid Oxygen tanks :-)

This is the first of several shots that I'll post that were taken the morning of our initial launch attempt (last Tuesday morning). The 'star' at the top is Jupiter, which the spacecraft will be flying by in just over a year.

Today feels like a good day to launch.

We definitely would not have made it here without Dr. Alan Stern, the Principle Investigator for the New Horizons mission. The whole team has done an absolutely amazing job to the rocket, 3rd Stage and Observatory to the pad on launch day, but Alan moved mountains for us along the way. Cheers Alan, and bon voyage New Horizons!!

Got an amazing opportunity to go out to the pad and take some photos today right after the rocket rolled out to the pad. The sun is shining, the winds are low, and Pluto awaits!

A very cute and very lively pup I met this weekend :) For those keeping score, we just cleared two major hurdles here, and we are pressing on to launch on the 17th!

Well I hope everyone had a good holiday break, I certainly did! Happy New Year to everyone, and welcome back! I will try to get a few posts in this week, but it's going to be a crazy week as we're now at L-9 days. Keep your fingers crossed!

Digging back through my vault now, looking for images that I've overlooked that are worth putting up. This one jumped out at me right away, I think ultimately it may become one of my favorites from my trip to the Olympic Peninsula last summer. It's funny how taking a step back from some of your shots (e.g. by taking a year to get around to processing some of them) can help you look at shots more objectively.

Enough philosophy on this one. I do have to say, thanks to everyone that's still checking the site semi-regularly. It's been a slow few months, but I knew it would be with getting the spacecraft ready to launch. Only a few weeks away now, and I will be back posting regularly soon, so please stay tuned. Thanks for coming along for the ride!

- Jim

New Horizons yesterday morning, just before starting encapsulation into the launch vehicle fairing.

Helloooo Zeeba neighba...

One of the shots from a family portrait shoot I did a few weeks ago.

I don't care what you say, my nephew is the cutest kid on the planet.

All right, I lied in yesterday's comments. No shot of the gator down the road from the heron I posted yesterday. Instead you're stuck with a goofy picture of my goofy nephew, sportin his Thanksgiving Day outfit.

An obliging heron just a hundred yards or so from where I'm working in Florida. Coming up tomorrow: the 'gator that was just another 20 yards down the road :-)

Funny when a 199 look like a really lousy score.

Took the camera out to practice a little bit with some night shots. As Bob points out, it's almost a full moon. I'm planning to get out and take some shots this month...

Here it is. This is what I've been working on for the last four years. This spacecraft will be the first to fly by Pluto, last unexplored planet in our. L-2 months and counting...

Khoi was right, Matt definitely had bitter beer face on that last one. Jay's headed that way here...

I promise, the actual bowling as opposed to drinking pictures are on their way.

Khoi and Kerrie, while bowling and beveraging in Ithaca this weekend.

I haven't been using my speedlight much over the last 6 months or so, and it really shows. I was playing with it some this weekend, and I had a terrible time getting the exposure right, and I ended up with a lot of noise in a number of shots, including this one. What it comes down to is that I've never really learned to use it properly. Time to fix that problem. Does anyone have good recommendations on books on artificial lighting techniques, or can you recommend a good class in the great Baltimore/DC (or Orlando, in the next couple months) area?

Happy Halloween everyone!

I could've used a view camera for this shot, as I wasn't quite able to take all the distortion out of using a relatively wide angle lens on this shot. But still, I'm happy with the result of this one.

Not sure why, maybe it was the long tough day at work, but I just felt like putting together a self-portrait tonight with strong directional lighting. All I had was a floor lamp and camera raw, so I hope this looks ok on decent monitors. I'll check it out on the mac this weekend and see how I did. Yes, this is meant to be a bit over the top. Almost to the weekend...

Got a new pair of sandals too ;)

Wilma has blown through, leaving things relatively unscathed here in Cocoa Beach. A few signs blown apart, a couple trees down, some minor local flooding, but that's about it. It was definitely entertaining though :) From what we can gather (without being allowed back on base until tomorrow morning) the spacecraft is doing just fine.

Tomorrow it's back to work. Oh yeah, and check out the alternate B&W version. Personally I like it better, mostly because I'm just a bigger fan of B&W in general, but the rust is really what this shot is all about, so I decided to leave it in color.

I took these shots earlier this afternoon, only an hour or two before we started feeling the first real effects of Hurricane Wilma. It was actually a pretty nice day, albeit a bit muggy, definitely the calm before the storm. Now we're under a tornado warning, and everyone's hunkering down for the effects of the storm. Looks like it will be hitting us early tomorrow morning, although it looks like it will be just barely a hurricane by the time it gets here to the east coast of Florida. I'll try to get pictures where I can, but not until after the rains and winds have passed ;)

Well, the time has finally come for me to get back to shooting and posting regularly. For the short term I'm back to the old days of working off of my laptop, so the shots for the next week may well be off in color, brightness, contrast, sharpness, pretty much everything :) So please forgive me those for a bit.

I'll be shipping my Mac down here next weekend, so I should be back in business after that. In the meantime, well, I just couldn't wait to start shooting and posting again. For those examining the EXIF I'm sure you'll understand why.

Another of the restored photos, this one is Alan with his son.

For those keeping score at home, we are now at L-3 months. Keep an eye out at the program website for more details.

The second in the restoration project, this is Katie's dad and her uncle.

There are two main reasons why I haven't been able to post any new shots lately. The first is that I'm hardly ever home, and I don't have the software or the desire to put together new posts on my work laptop anymore. The second is that when I have been home I've been working on a project for Katie's family.

This is Katie's uncle Alan, who served and died as a Marine pilot in Vietnam. Katie's brother Ben had a stack of old photos of Alan and their dad, so I offered to scan them in and clean them up. It was my first undertaking of restoring old photos, and I'm not sure I quite realized how much work goes into restoring a scratched and stained old photo.

So I haven't had much chance to work on my own photos for a few weeks, but I'm hoping that seeing some restored photos of their uncle and their dad will make it worthwhile. I will post several of the shots over the next few days, you can find the original scan in the Alternate Image. Hope you enjoy them!

Still haven't gotten to the point that I can really see focus in the viewfinder. Think I need a bigger viewfinder. This one isn't exactly focused the way I would like, the eye drifts a bit. Practice practice practice.

Sorry to everyone for the long delay times in uploading these days. Unfortunately I think it's a sign of things to come. I'll be heading down to Florida more or less full time until January in about a week, so my posting will be a bit sporadic until then. I will be working on my site while I'm down there, but I can't do much in the way of image editing without my mac, so it is likely to be a slow fall in terms of posts. For those who haven't found it yet, I do have an RSS feed that will keep track of my new posts. Please check it out if you haven't yet.

So, back to business. This is my (stinkin cute) nephew Benjamin. He was quite the hit on the cruise, charming the ship from bow to stern. He was a particular favorite of the wait staff, and presented many a photo opportunity as he nursed himself to sleep on a dinner roll every evening. I have about 15 shots of him in this sequence, and in almost all of them he is smiling away or at the very least making some sort of goofy face at me. But, of course, this one is my favorite :)

Another shot over Stanley Park as we departed Vancouver for Alaska.

I did very little reprocessing on this shot. The sunset on this particular evening of the cruise was an amazing array of pastels.

A shot of the bridge at Stanley Park in Vancouver as we were heading out to Alaska.

Sorry for the long hiatus in posting new images to the site here. Work has been a bit overwhelming these last couple weeks, and I needed a bit of a breather. The next few months will have more weeks of the same, but please bear with me, I'll only disappear for short bits at a time. I have some changes in work for the site this fall, and hopefully I'll be getting a bit more focused in my photography after this year wraps up.

Only a few days left in the auction for Katrina Relief, if you're interested in bidding on the print please do so soon!

The last remnants of some glacial calving at Hubbard Glacier. We saw some much more impressive calving while we were there, but I wasn't able to capture it with the lens. It's pretty well imprinted on my memory though :)

The conditions were a bit entertaining on the canoe ride to the glacier :)

Our view from inside the kayak at Glacier Point (this is the kayak we took up to the Davidson Glacier), as we're heading away from the glacier.

Finally the long weekend is here, and some good weather has come along with it, at least here in Maryland. I've got the windows opened up on both ends of the house and a nice cool breeze blowing through. Now we're talkin...

On a technical note, yes, this shot has some pretty hefty (I might venture to call it "harsh") contrast, even on a mac. This is also on Fuji Velvia, which I've noticed has pretty high contrast. I'll have to do some experimentation with it to see if it's that way across the board, or if it was just the lighting conditions for this shot. Any words of wisdom from the film-shooting peanut gallery?

Sorry for the delay in posting, I just got back from another trip and I've been a bit swamped. Hope everyone gets to take the weekend off and enjoy a bit of relaxed time!

Fireweed growing at Glacier Point.

The B&W conversion of Hubbard Glacier, Approach.

Another of the Fuji Velvia shots from the Hasselblad, this one on the approach to Hubbard Glacier. I'm also posting the B&W conversion of this shot, because I frankly like it better, but Pete talked me into posting the color version as well.

One of my first color shots from the Hasselblad. I now see why everyone likes Fuji Provia so much...

Bro and Sis-in-law Strattonbrewing kayaking the Tatoosh Islands outside of Ketchikan.

A special thanks to all the new folks contributing comments to the site, your fresh thoughts are very much appreciated :)

A shot from our approach (via canoe) to the Davidson Glacier.

The Serenade of the Seas, our lovely ride on our journey through Alaska.

A shot of the kayak we paddled around the Tatoosh Islands. Gorgeous trip, and definite inspiration for a longer paddle in Alaska!

Off to Denver this week. To photograph or not to photograph, that is the question...

As it turns out, 200mm (300mm equivalent) is not long enough for wildlife photography. Ahh well, live, learn, and buy more equipment next time. I'm looking at you Mr. 2x Teleconverter...

So, we had an excellent whale watching excursion, as you may have guessed from the shot. We had a momma whale and her calf (this one is momma) playing and breaching pretty frequently, and we also had a couple other humpbacks that came through the area and did a fair amount of playing as well. Oh yeah, and harbor seals, you'll see those guys shortly.

And one last note, I believe I've fixed the bug in my site that kept it from remembering your contact info when you left comments. So don't be shy, give it one more try, and I guarantee that it definitely might remember your info this time ;)

A mirror image shot from our train trip up the White Pass headed toward the Yukon. Beautiful scenery and a fun and historic train ride to boot.

A detail shot of the Davidson Glacier mentioned in yesterday's post. The deep blue color of the glaciers was something I wasn't quite expecting. It was absolutely amazing.

Aaand... Happy Birthday Mom!

Sorry for the late post this morning, my router got fried at home, so I'm having to swipe access where I can for the time being.

This was a shot of our guide at Glacier Point. These guys have pretty much the coolest job in the world. They live most days of the summer at Glacier Point, an undeveloped stretch of wooded coastline on the Lynn Fiord with some really amazing views (I'll show you the view from the beach before too long), and a couple times each day they hike back through the woods and take groups of tourists on a short motorized canoe ride up to the face (well, relatively close to the face) of the Davidson glacier. And they get paid for it.

Seriously though, these guys were great. One of the most amazing things about Alaska is that you can see large-scale forming of the earth and mountains right before your eyes. Our guides on this trip (and really throughout the week) were excellent at mixing in glaciology and botany with the jaw-dropping sites of the land.

So here's a tip of the cap to the folks at Glacier Point. Back to the scenery tomorrow.

Made it back safe and sound from the Alaska trip. All I can say is: "WOW." The trip was unbelievable. Alaska was unbelievable. We were definitely spoiled by the weather, we had sunny skies and warm weather the whole week, so I think we got a bit of a biased view of Alaska in the summertime, but it did give us a chance to view the scenery in all its glory, and like I said: WOW.

So, thank you all for being patient and sticking around to see some new photos. So, without any further ado, here is the first from Alaska. Credit for this one goes out to Katie for picking out the nice view with the reflections shown in the still water in the foreground.

Digging into the archives a bit. This one is from Zurich last fall. This will be the last post until the first from Alaska, likely late on Monday or early on Tuesday.

Aaaaand we're off! Heading to Alaska today. I have about 100 lbs of photo gear and about 10 lbs of clothes. Think that's about the right ratio. I have several posts spread out through the week that will keep things rolling here, albeit it at a slower pace. For those keeping score on RSS, well, pace yourselves. Everyone have a great week!

I know I've been neglecting things a bit here lately. Some of it's intentional, some of it' a busy schedule. My motivation has been waning a bit lately, mostly because of a lack of free time and things being too crazy at work. I'm heading off to Alaska for vacation next week, and I know that I will be jumping right back into it with both feet then, so I would rather wait to get some good material to show you than just post up filler that I'm not really satisfied with. So, thanks for the patience with me while things are a bit slow over the next week and a half. It's time to recharge the batteries a bit.

Now, some notes on this shot. This is from the Hassie, and was taken on Ilford Delta 100 Pro. I actually thought I was developing a different roll of film, so I was a bit surprised by the results. It was also a different type of film than I thought I was developing. Note to self: don't put Delta 100 Pro in an Pan F+ box... So, I didn't develop it properly, and it does show a bit in the negative. The values are ok, but it's pretty flat. I think I will try more aggitation next time I use the Delta 100 and see how it works out. The more I shoot with other films, the more I think I lucked out when I developed that first roll of Pan F+...

Yet another flower shot fairly accurately describes my creativity currently. I'm in a bit of a slump, duue entirely to too much other stuff going on. I did just develop a roll tonight (not the roll I intended, but at least it has some postable stuff on it), so that should be heading up tomorrowish. 6 more days to Alaska. That should spark my photographic fire.

Last of the disc golf shots, for this round anyway. Not exactly framed perfectly, but I still like this shot nonetheless.

Haven't had much chance to shoot lately, so things have been a bit slow here on StrattonBrewing. So I'll post two today to kick things off again. Pete and I headed over to a nearby disc golf course and started my first foray into sports photography. Gotta say, I love this 70-200mm lens.

Went to the Tom Petty concert tonight. Tom Petty with The Black Crowes opening. Yeah. That was good stuff. Thanks Kat ;)

I promise, last fish picture for a while ;)

Another from the fishing trip. I have a couple more of these to post, and then it will be on to some new stuff. I'm planning to head up to the Philly Area Photobloggers get together next weekend, so hopefully I'll find some good stuff there to shoot. It'll be interesting to actually meet some of the folks that I chat with and whose sites I visit.

I should've composed this one a bit better, the slightly offbalance feel bothers me a bit, but I just loved that cloud formation and the rope coiled on the deck.

Update: Sorry to folks who had trouble accessing the site earlier, more ftp issues...

Mike works for NASA. Mike buys rockets. Mike gets annoyed when I take 30 straight pictures of him.

Back to Florida today, although I'm not bringing my camera with me today. This weekend flew by too fast, and the weather didn't cooperate at all, so it was a lousy weekend for pictures. Hopefully next weekend will be a bit more cooperative.

Baracuda was about all that was biting down there. Too bad they aren't much good for eating. Doesn't he look friendly though?

Sorry for the delays in getting new posts up. I had thought I was putting up new posts, but it turns out I was updating an old version of my database. Weird, this internet thing.

Got to spend some time out on the ocean during this trip down to Florida. I haven't ever seen the open ocean this calm and flat, it was amazing. And the blue of the water was unbelievable! I'll have some more shots that show the color of the water in the upcoming days, but for this one I went with essentially a red filter BW effect to highlight the clouds against the sky.

This is a detail of a handle on the dresser in my old room in my parent's house. It was taken in very low light and the DOF and focus isn't quite as sharp as I would like, but I still like the patterns of the handle and the wood grain.

A shot taken last fall in nearby Potapsco State Park.

A last shot of the Lillies in front of my house. I 'found' another great church to photograph this weekend. I think I'm going to like this one even more than the one I've been posting. I'll be down in Florida this week, but hopefully next week I can get out and get some shots of it.

Another shot of the beach fence, originally posted here, this one taken with the Hasselblad. Once again I inadvertently flipped the slide in the scanner, and I like the result better here than the original. I'm thinking that it's because our brains (here in the west anyway) are used to reading from right too left, so this shot - drawing your eye from right to left - is more pleasing. I've said it before, I'm sure I'll say it again: weird how the mind works sometimes.

I really mangled this roll getting it into the real, and it looks like it didn't develop totally evenly in the middle and on the edges, but I have to say I LOVE the Hasselblad and Ilford Pan F+. This is the shot as-scanned, with no adjustments made in Photoshop. So far I've had really good contrast and sharpness results with the Pan F+, and really mediocre results with the HP5+. We'll see how the next couple rolls come out, but at this point I'm leaning toward sticking with the Pan F whenever the lighting allows it.

Two tonight. As promised, some driveway fireworks shots from last night.

I finally went back to "the church", which I originally shot back in April (posted here). Ever since making that first trip I've been dying to go back, and kicking myself every time I missed a good opportunity to go. I still haven't managed to get out of bed early enough to shoot it in the morning, which is when it really should be shot. Well, I'd better do it soon. There was a "Public Notice" sign up on the front lawn that I only noticed while driving away. I'm pretty sure I know what that means, and I'm pretty sure that I'd better get out there soon, or I'll be taking shots of a pile of rubble and the bulldozers putting in the next Maryland development.

For those interested in the processing details, I shot this with with my new zoom telephoto. I put a slight curves adjustment on it to give some more contrast to the church, and then converted it to B&W with a channel selector, heavy on the blue channel as it contained some nice shadow detail. There was very little sky detail (the sun was almost directly behind the church) and it was all contained in the red channel. It wasn't enough to be of interest in the shot, so the red channel got the boot.

I did get some shots of the driveway fireworks display tonight, but it's just too late to go through them and process anything. Hope everyone had a good weekend!

The lillies in my front yard were kind enough to bloom for me and stay alive long enough for me to photograph them. Happy 4th of July!

Two posts tonight. This one is my second landscape shot take with the Hasselblad.

My first landscape taken with the Hasselblad.

A rework of a shot I posted just over a year ago.

There were some really amazing clouds for most of the day yesterday as small little storms flitted in and out of the area. I've been wanting to go photograph the tall grass in the field down the street (the same from Winter Grass shot this winter) for some time. The combination of those two was enough to get me to hustle home after work yesterday and rush out to the fielld to try to grab some shots. I really needed a slightly wider angle lens to get this shot properly. I was looking to get a real sweeping sense of the field, like it's running right under the lens (it was, I have the grass seeds in my bag to prove it) and also get the big dramatic clouds looming overhead. So I have a handful of shots that give a real sweeping sense of the field running under me, and a handful of shots that show the big dramatic clouds looming overhead. Ahh well, good thing that field is right down the street :)

Note: This post is pretty "big and bold" on a Mac, so if you're viewing it on a PC (crud, my latest stats show that 71.7% of you are...) it might be a bit excessive. I promise(ish) I'll be back to my mundane low-contrast images shortly :)

Another of the shots of Molly taken down in the Outer Banks. I was working on the rest of these this weekend to get them ready to be printed. They're ultimately heading out to her man in Iraq. Good luck out there Jimmy, enjoy the pictures, and stay safe!

For those wondering the processing details, this was converted with a monochrome Channel Mixer layer, at 50/50 green and blue. The red channel was pretty soft and light in this direct-sun portrait, but the green and blue channels had some really rich detail in the hat, hair and face. Yep, I know it's a bit dark on the face, but ultimately I actually liked the effect offset against the brightness of the hat and decided to leave it as-is.

I would be happier with this shot if I didn't think of cell phone ads every time I see it. Sorry for the large image size today today, this shot is really made for me by the details in the grains of sand - particularly tucked in next to the largest stake - and the detail just wasn't coming through in smaller images. So, here goes! Hope you enjoy it.

Something on the lighter side for this Thursday.

Had a great weekend with my brother, his wife and Young Benjamin. In case I hadn't mentioned it, my nephew is a cutie :) We hit the zoo today, turns out the zoo has a nice array of flowers to photograph too!

Some of you (ok, maybe two of you) may recall a similar shot that I posted while in Paris. Well here, at long last, is one of the shots taken with the Rolleicord from that same spot. Personally I think the lens on the D70 offers a more dramatic perspective on this, but I did promise to put up a shot from the Rollei for comparison. Let me know what you think.

Some straight-up cloud porn for Houser.

Note to self: when taking portraits, don't make subjects stare directly into the sun.

Sorry for the late post, apparently I needed some sleep :)

So, I think the time has come to rework some of my previous images that could've stood a bit better processing (or a lot better processing in some cases). Not sure how I'll handle posting them, maybe on a separate page, but I think it's worth revisiting a few. More soon...

The hammock at the house we stayed at this weekend. Mmm...hammock...

One of the relatively few artistic shots I took in the Outer Banks this weekend.

Sorry to those who've been having trouble with the RSS feed or other parts of the site. I have a couple bugs in the software that I'm going to try to work out this week. We'll see how it goes ;)

Sorry for the very long delay in posts, but I had a really great time relaxing and unwinding in the Outer Banks. I don't think I'm thoroughly unwound, but it was a good start. Thanks for all the comments on the film shots! I took a couple more rolls down in NC, we'll see if any of those shots turn out ;) Hope everyone had a good weekend, and welcome back to StrattonBrewing!

This may come out a bit harsh on a pc, but it's got a nice strong contrast on the mac.

Off to the Outer Banks for a few days. I may not get a chance to post again until after I get back. Hope everyone has a good weekend.

I promise, only one more of the carriage house. But here it is, in all it's glory. Might be more glorified if I had ket the camera back straight, but hey, what can you do? I may rework this to remove the convergence of the verticals, but that'll be a project for another day.

A detail of the carriage house door.

One of the first shots from my Hasselblad, from my second roll processed here at home. Needless to say, I'm hooked :)

This shot is from last weekend, at my parent's place in New Hampshire. Unfortunately this may be the last time I get to shoot the carriage house, as my family is going to be moving out of the house shortly. Also unfortunate for you is that you will therefore be inundated with shots of the carriage house over the next week. The funny thing about this shot is that I only just noticed that it is reversed. The sliding carriage door is actually to the left of the main door and window, I guess I have the slide in upside-down in the scanner. So I just went to correct this mistake, and found that the image holds together much better like this. Mirroring it someohow throws it out of balance. Strange how fickle and fragile perception can be.

Another shot of Emily from last weekend.

I am firmly of the belief that my nephew actually is the cutest kid on the planet. I hear that's a common belief among uncles, but I've got pictures to back me up.

The first daughter for my friends Jeff and Sheila. The cute baby boom continues :)

I tried some slightly non-standard processing (for me) on this one, but really this is along the lines of what I had in mind when I was first photographing her. I will post some more shots of her over the next few days so that you can see her in her full-color glory.

Chives growing at my parent's home in New Hampshire.

Happy Memorial Day everyone!

Heading up to New England for the weekend, hope everyone has a good one.

Still haven't had a chance to process film yet, so I'm going through some not-too-old shots that I had intended to process but hand't gotten up yet. The last of the shots from the Cherry Blossom Festival (and the resulting tour around DC) will likely close out the week. Wish me luck on having some film shots to post next week...

Another shot from Chatfield State Park in Colorado. There were some really interesting trees - both alive and dead - in the park. This one is kind of dizzying for me with the seemingly-rotating depth of field, but it's an interesting effect, for me anyway.

I took some shots of this same tree with the Hasselblad this week, so hopefully I can compare the two post development. We'll see how it goes ;)

My shiny "new" toy, sunning itself in Colorado. I took a couple rolls with the Hasselblad this same morning, and I hope to process those this weekend. Good or bad, I'll have some results to post as soon as they're done :) Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Katie and me (I'm the guy in the yellow shirt, see if you can pick me out) at Wine in the Woods last weekend.

Kelli thinks she's not photogenic.

Haven't posted a cheesy sunset picture in a while, and well, hey, the sunset was beautiful this evening...

Another shot from Roland Park a couple weekends ago. I will have some more interesting things to post tomorrow, and then it's off to Denver again. I'm determined to get out and take some new stuff while I'm there. Hope everyone has a good weekend.

I know, it's crooked. This shot definitely isn't perfect, but I still like it for some reason.

Update: I'll answer the "how'd you do that?" question here in case any others are interested. There wasn't anything particularly fancy about the processing of this shot, but I'll try to be fairly complete. I shoot in RAW, so I brought the file into Photoshop using the PS Raw converter, making some adjustments to exposure, brightness and contrast as I usually do. I had blown the highlights in the sky trying to keep detail in the much darker area of the path and the flowers, and the effect was obvious in the converted image. So I started by making a graded selection (using the gradient tool) of the top of the image, and then using a curves layer I essentially reduced the brightness of the sky portion of the image. Next I made selection of the flower and petal portions of the image using the magic wand, tweaking the tolerance setting as I added selections to make sure I got only the colored areas I wanted. I saved that selection, and then inverted it to select all the areas I wanted to convert to B&W, and using a new Channel Mixer layer (with the Monochrome option selected) on this selection I used the sliders to convert the rest of the image to B&W. After that the only adjustment I made was adding some sharpness to the final image.

Probably WAY more detail than you were looking for, but I figured it was best to be complete :)

We spotted these while taking a stroll around the neighborhood Saturday evening. I've never seen anything like this growing from a pine tree before, but I guess I've never looked that closely before either. I returned Sunday morning to take some shots, but shooting in 20 mph winds created some challenges of its own :)

Back to Florida this week. Hope everyone has a good one.

Another shot from Roland Park last weekend.

I stumbled across a new technique (for me at least) in processing this one. I had thought about doing selective color for this shot to highlight the lone tulip against the background, but I never even made it that far. When processing the shot in Camera Raw, I accidentally bumped the Shadow slider up to about 50. For those who aren't familiar with what I'm talking about, the "Shadow" setting sets the balck point of your image, so everything below that is black. The default set point is 5, so 50 is pretty high. Since the flower itself was mostly midtones and highlights, the background was largely dropped to black (or at least to very dark tones), and the tulip jumped out of the shot. So I went back, did some fine-tuning, and here's the final shot.

The Ruggieros taking a family stroll last weekend.

I'm really happy with how this one turned out, and I have to give a BIG thanks to Kathleen over at Durham Township for this one. She had a post here that had two shots with a absolutely AMAZING senses of light to them. She was also kind enough to show how she processed the shots to really bring out that sense of light. For some reason that post really clicked with me, and I found that looking through the shots I took this weekend I was able to focus on the light and how it falls on the different portions of the image. As a result, I ended up honing in on this shot, which I might've otherwised passed over. So, Kathleen, thank you very much for the much-needed lesson!