blue_plants, originally uploaded by Dizzle @ 2*3 Photos.

Another captured image while waiting for the fashion show to start last Friday.

I can’t be sure if it was the colors or the texture that pulled me in. I think it was the textures. The pebble covered wall with the lights somehow reminded me of marbles. With the odd stick plant out front it just made me want to reach out and touch it. But I didn’t.

Texture can make an ordinary photo into something extraordinary. This particular image, without the texture would just be a really colorful image, but the texture gives it life and dimension.

Look for different textures and how they can work for you to change an ordinary photo into something spectacular.

Japanese Candle Shelf, originally uploaded by Dizzle @ 2*3 Photos.

During a break from shooting a fashion show I wandered around Wish Nightclub and came across a wall of shelves with a few random candles in them. For some reason this stood out to me

I shot a fashion show on Friday. It was inside of a nightclub. I was really tired and wanted to be sleep so to keep myself awake while waiting for the show to start I started wandering around the club, checking out all the nooks and crannies.

I came upon this wall of shelves that had a few candles placed inside. From where I was standing I could only see this one lone candle even though there were probably about 10 candles through out the shelf.

I immediately perked up and knew what I had to do. I think the image turned out well, low light, slower shutter, hand held.

Bridge, originally uploaded by bourgeoisbee.

Since my laptop died a horrible death on Monday and I was forced to reformat I have been thinking about the work flow I use for editing when I am out and about.

I try to NOT edit images on my laptop, reserving that solely for the desktop, but when I travel I need to be able to easily edit any images I take during the trips.

Lightroom is a great tool, but it’s a pretty “heavy” tool. I am trying to keep the laptop in a basic form with only the must have/needed tools installed.

Well last week during my Photoshop class we were introduced to Adobe Bridge and Camera RAW. I started calling the combo Lightroom Lite.

For the most part Bridge and RAW do what Lightroom does, they just happen to be included with Photoshop. So if you have PS CS2, 3 or 4 installed you have these tools already to go.

Camera RAW allows you to do the same adjustments of the things you can in Lightroom and even allows you to run Photoshop actions on your files without opening Photoshop.

Bridge does one thing that Lightroom doesn’t that I feel in love with…it helps you manage your complete workflow/file system with the click of a button.

You can take a set of RAW images and have Bridge save them out to your file system as a RAW, PSD and JPG with one click of a button.

May seem simple, but it helped me immediately establish a new filing system for my images that is super easy to follow when I am on the road.

Bridge will let you name the folders you save to, so I can have a folder for each days images with folders for the RAW, PSD and JPG files inside automatically.

For now I am going to stick with this combo on my laptop and leave Lightroom for my desktop duty. It should make copying the files over to Lightroom when I get back home from trips a snap.

Pomegranate in Glass, originally uploaded by Dizzle @ 2*3 Photos.

I was eating a Pomegranate the other day while drinking some 7-Up. I pondered how I could make this task less sticky on my hands…outcome is Pomegranate seeds in glass of 7-Up.

Strobist info: Human light stand holding Maglight camera left, diffused through not so translucent shopping bag.

I have been trying to work on doing more “practice” with lighting. Actually I have been working on doing more “practice” period. Meaning my inspiration to get out and shot is gone. So I am trying to find some interesting things to try to at least keep me shooting and playing between the paid stuff.

strobist-6063-Edit, originally uploaded by Mel Haynes, Jr.

Once again I spent an evening hanging out with the local Strobist group shooting in a giant warehouse in the freezing cold. Having been an ambient light photographer since I started this digital thing, playing with lights and strobes is really new to me and really opening up so many different facets of photography for me it’s incredible.

This photo, taken by photographer Mel Haynes Jr, of model Nashon JaVon is just one of the many amazing images from the night.

Mel started out this set-up by lighting the pole and worked from there. It was crazy and amazing to watch as he painted a frame for Nashon to stand in.

If you are like me and not a big fan of lights it may be time to seek out your local Strobist group and see what it is all about.

I now have wireless triggers and receivers, a couple of flashes and light stands and umbrellas on order. I am embracing the way of the Strobist!

Transcend 133x 8GB CF記憶卡, originally uploaded by tern.

Hmmm….so recently I decided to take the plunge and move up to a 8GB CF card for my 40D. I have started shooting in RAW+JPG and those files take up some serious space.

I was hesitant because 8GB of images is a lot to lose if a card goes south. But all the cool kids are doing and Dizzle works hard to remain a cool kid (at least to my kids anyway).

I started looking around and reading some threads on different photo forums…I found a ton of folks touting the greatness of the Transcend brand cards. OK, add it to the list.

Well I then found a online shop that sells the Transcend cards for $22.25 with free shipping…kind of hard to pass that up. And I have all these online folks who say the card is great and they swear by it and blah, blah, blah.

So 3 days pass and there in my mailbox is my card…WOOHOO!

Well I go out to shoot my sons football game. Now the 40D is capable of 6FPS, the buffer can hold something like 24 RAW images so I am good to go right? WRONG!

While the camera can do all that and I can hold the shutter down and just let the buffer fill, something was wrong. I was getting horrible pausing in my spray and pray football fun. At first I thought my batteries were low, but I had just charged both of them (I use the grip so I have two batteries at all times).

I continued on and kept experiencing this weird issue. I had not encountered this before and I have used the continuos shooting mode on the camera many times over.

About halftime I decided to change my CF card and went back to my SanDisk Extreme III 4GB card. Odd, second half I did not have any issues with the buffer or pausing.

Yep, that oh so great high speed Transcend card is not so high speed after all. I wasn’t even on high speed mode, just the basic continuos shooting mode.

So while the card did not fail in the sense of me losing photos, it did fail for me in the sense that I missed some shots because of the time it took to write to the card. GRRRR!

I will keep the Transcend card for portraits and what not, the speed should not be an issue there, but I will definitely make note to NOT use it for any type of sports shooting every again.

I will be spending the extra cash to pick up a proven SanDisk card in the next week or so.

Turtle, originally uploaded by Dizzle @ 2*3 Photos.

My little cousin Turtle mesmerized by the television

I have picked today, October 1, 2008, as the day to start my own personal Photo A Day project. I have to force myself to get out and shoot these days with the new job taking up much of my time and leaving me mentally tired each night when I get home. After attending the strobist workshop last week I found myself wanting to get out and shoot and just play and experiment.

I think a POD project is just what I need to force myself to shoot. And my goal is to not take a crappy shot just to take a shot on that day I am tired, but to force myself to find something worthy of shooting each day to help grow and improve. Through this process I am hoping that with each photo I find something to improve on and can then go out the next day and do just that. Fine tuning so to speak. As soon as my flash triggers arrive I will definitely be playing with those for some days shots.

I plan on setting up a separate photo blog for this project to keep it clean.

Funny thing, the photo posted today is not one I shot today, just simply one I shot at some point over the summer.

Wish me luck! And if you are doing your own POD project, let me know so I can check it out.

Model Jenn from the Colorado Strobist beginners workshop held at the North Denver Photographers Studio

jenn-9-web, originally uploaded by Dizzle @ 2*3 Photos.

I attended my first gathering with the Colorado Strobist group from Flickr. It was a beginners workshop put on by Curtis Bullock at the North Denver Photographers studio. I had a blast!

While I have been playing with flash photography for the club stuff I have been doing I haven’t really done much more than slap a flash on top my Canon 40D and go off to shooting.

Curtis showed me, in about 15 minutes an amazing world I have been missing and one that I plan to fully embrace. We played with wireless triggers, shoot-through umbrellas and soft boxes. Playing with how things as simple as changing your shooting angle can change the effects of the light.

The model for the night, Jennifer, was amazing and really fun to work with. This was also my first time shooting in studio with a Model Mayhem model and I have to say it was a great experience. I do hope to be able to work with more models like Jennifer.

As I say all the time, I am always learning and growing as a photographer and I think this 3-hour workshop has gone a long ways toward enhancing my work.

Lea on bike, originally uploaded by Dizzle @ 2*3 Photos.

Lea posing on “Kokane” after her runway show at The Purple Martini August 30, 2008.

It’s funny how things work out sometimes. I organized and shot a charity fashion show a couple of weeks ago and learned quite a bit.

Like if you are the organizer you should not think that you will be focused enough to be the photographer as well. I at least thought that one out ahead of the show and had two other photogs come out to help me out.

As I figured, my attention was spread so thin among different things my images of the actual show came out horrible. Well, more not to MY liking…

But through out the night I took several candid shots of folks in and outside the club and this one of one of the models posing on a bike has become one of the favorites of the evening.

Pay attention to what you are doing and know when it’s time to delegate to others to get the job done correctly.

Both Erik and Sheba’s images of the show came out great…which is really what matters in the end.

New Monitor, originally uploaded by Ankou.

I picked up a new monitor for the command center recently, a 22″ Widescreen LCD to go along with my 19″ standard LCD. A whole lot of real estate that, will more than likely become dual 22″ widescreens in the next month or so.

But for the time being I need to get these things calibrated to each other…cause out the box boy oh boy are they a world apart!!

I have lost count the number of times I have suggested to folks that they think about calibrating their monitors, especially when running a dual monitor setup. When you start complaining about color issues in your photos, or other folks start commenting about color issues…it is an easy first place to check.

Since I am in the process of upgrading a lot of my computer equipment I plan on testing out a few calibration systems and doing some reviews of them to help folks find something that will work for this task and not break the bank (hopefully).

But for the time being, most monitors come with some sort of built-in calibration program that you can use to at least get you going. Give it a try, sometimes you can be shocked with how far “off” colors can be.