I didn’t have a introvalmeter at the time and my laptop battery had already died so I had to manually press the shutter every thirty seconds. Consequently, I accidentally moved the camera halfway though the shoot and had to do some realigning in post. Also if you look closely you can see some gaps in the star trails caused by me not pressing the shutter in time so i ended up with a semi dotted look… I ended up buying a introvalmeter online as soon as the power went back on again.

Another interesting fact is this picture was taken during the California/Arizona black out that lasted about a day. I saw a good opportunity with all of the light pollution gone for once and in a last minute decision setup in front of my house and guessed where the north star was to get this shot. The bright light trail that goes across the screen horizontally was a plane that went though my shot about halfway though. And the red color wash on the bottom left of the photo was from my neighbor who turned on his car in the driveway to charge his cellphone.

*Also to the two men who paid for my dinner at IHOP last night, Thank You! I don’t know if you’ll see this, but I really appreciate it, and it was a big blessing to me!

God Bless,

Michael

EOS 7D : 16-35mm @ : 16mm : 30 sec : ISO 800 :  f/8  : Manuel : No Flash : x38 Shots

For a update, probably the biggest thing that has happened to me recently is my obsession with videography and my schizophrenic obsession of gear! but to put it short, I’ve done a couple of photo shoots, a couple of video projects, started to make time lapse videos, and further my collection of photo and video gear.

In the mean time here’s another picture of me….

EOS 7D : 50mm 1.4 : 50mm : 1/120 sec : ISO 2000 :  f/2.8  : Manuel : No Flash

Taken during a bbq for the musicans and tech team of Eternal. Dana is the daughter of my good friends Dayan and Febe.

I took this a while back when I first got my 7D. It was one of my first attempts at long exposure photography. My goal was really just to capture the light trails that the cars head and tail light would create. I set my exposure to 1 minute and set my camera on my tripod. I got the effect I wanted. I’m going to try it again one day and play around with the settings more.

I try to keep an eye out for things out of the ordinary when taking my little photography walks. This particular day was no exception.

While just about to turn around back to my car I decided to go a little further and into a more secluded part of the local nature. What I discovered was this swing. I’ve found homemade swings hung from tree’s before but this one was different. Not only was it rather far from everything else it was situated in a way that was kinda creepy. It hung motionless and crooked with a frayed knot in one of the ropes as if it was cut then tied together. The swing sat low enough for a small child almost too low(I picture a creepy doll on it…). The swing was also surrounded by a small line of tree’s and bushes.  The tree’s where high and close enough to each other to cover most of the sun light with only small shafts of light though the leaves. It was, well creepy… I decided to try to capture the swing but also convey the creepy effect it had on me.

I was actually on a assignment to take pictures of some bees when I spotted this lady bug. I almost passed it but just barely saw its bright red back. I only had my 18-55mm and my 50mm prime. I wanted to really blow out the background to emphasize how small the lady bug was and to I decided to use my 50 at f1.4. You can really see how shallow the depth of field is with the branch the lady bug is resting on.

This picture was featured in my photography book entitled “The Flowers and The Bees + One Ladybug”

Linda is the daughter of one of my good friends Jose Luis. She is so cute and often to curious. This particular day we were at a local park for a barbecue and she started to investigate and play with my tripod I had setup next to me. I couldn’t resist to take a picture of her. I caught her just before she was about to smile and her eye’s are so big the you can see a reflection in them.

I also took this picture of her that shows the tripod around her.

This picture was taken at a Denny’s late at night (quite literally I think it was around 1am) while we were having a tech meeting.

Julio Pineda is one of my best friends and also the creator of Reflexzion. As a fun side note, Julio was the one to buy me my first camera (the one I’m taking his picture with) and jump start my photography career. I later traded it for a 7D and the camera is not with another one of my best friends. Julio still hasn’t forgiven me!…