Author Archives: Monico

About Monico

I am a photographer located in Northern Virginia but my clients are across the USA. I specialize in on-location photography and utilize Adobe Photoshop to fully realize my artistic vision and the vision of my clients.

Floating Mountain of Pandora at Night | Featured Image of the Week

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The Floating Mountain of Pandora at Night

Floating Mountains of Pandora at Night

– For this weeks Featured Image of the Week I wanted to share a shot from my most recent visit to Disney World. Disney’s newest land, Pandora – the Land of Avatar, was officially opened to the public and I made my first visit almost immediately. I was blown away with the new land in the daytime – but at night the Floating Mountain looked absolutely incredible. Unfortunately, getting photos anywhere in Pandora at night is tricky but after a little trail and error I was able to find a combination that would give me a good starting point to work from. The rest was taken care of in Lightroom and Photoshop. In this article I’ll share what made night time photography in Pandora so tricky – and my solutions.

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I’m a Guest on the Resort Loop Podcast!

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Resort Loop Podcast Episode 470  |  “Perfect Pictures”

Me on the Resort Loop Podcast

– Earlier this week my good friends Tim & Bob of the Resort Loop Podcast called me up and we recorded a show all about taking pictures in Disney Theme Parks. I’ve been writing for their website for some time now, but this was my very first appearance on the podcast. After contributing numerous comments and photos to their Facebook group I even earned the coveted title: “Super Looper”.

The Resort Loop Podcast Episode 470

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Fujifilm X-E3 is Announced

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The Fujifilm X-E3 is Officially Announced

the Fujifilm X-E3

– This morning I awoke to some exciting news from Fujifilm. They officially announced the upcoming Fujifilm X-E3,  a significant update to their popular X-E2s (along with some new lenses and some substantial firmware updates). I’m a huge fan of Fuji cameras, especially their awesome X-Trans sensors, even though I don’t own one of their cameras. With every new announcement I ask myself: “Is this the camera that will finally get you to buy into the Fuji system?”

Today’s X-E3 announcement has me substantially closer to making a move to Fuji cameras and in today’s article I’ll share the featured specifications Fujifilm announced and some of my thoughts about the Fuji X camera system.

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Westminster Abbey | Featured Image of the Week

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Westminster Abbey Photographed at Night

Westminster Abbey photographed at night

– For this weeks Featured Image of the week I went back to my visit to the amazing city of London to find this shot of Westminster Abbey. Tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of the funeral service for Diana, Princess of Wales. After watching a great documentary (on Netflix) about the national crisis that occurred after her 1997 death in Paris this felt like a good image to feature this week.

London was my first European capital city and I instantly feel in love with the amazing architecture, delicious food and the sense of history that seemed to be everywhere I looked. I loved seeing the capital of England in the daytime, but at night it was especially beautiful.

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Introducing the New Sony RX0

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Sony Introduces a New Kind of Camera

Yesterday, at IFA 2017, Sony announced some new “innovations” (their word) and while most really didn’t mean much to me, there were a few items that caught my eye. The first was their new projector announcements (I have a pretty extensive background in video projection so I still follow that industry very closely). The second was the announcement of a new camera, the Sony RX0.

At a glance it looks like a new “action cam” – but a quick look at the specifications tells me it’s anything but a new entry to an existing digital imaging market. It’s something all together different from anything I’ve seen. For this article I’ll share some of the technical specifications and some thoughts about this camera and who it’s most likely aimed at.

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Canon EOS M100 Mirrorless Camera Announced

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New Mirrorless Camera Coming from Canon

Yesterday Canon announced some new gear including some cool new lenses, a new flash and an all new mirrorless camera. Regular readers of this blog know I’m a huge fan of mirrorless camera systems (especially for travel and vacation photography) so today I’m going to share some of my thoughts about the all new Canon EOS M100.

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Featured Image of the Week | 8/29/2017

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For this week’s Featured Image of the Week I went back to Paris and found a long exposure shot that I really liked (and I haven’t shared this image anywhere online yet). I loved the composition of the shot – but I did have a big problem that needed to be solved. To find out more about this shot (and how to create images like this for yourself) be sure to read the entire article.

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Nikon D850 DSLR (Coming Soon)

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Long time readers of my blog know that I’m pretty exclusively a Sony shooter (and Minolta before that) so an article about an upcoming Nikon camera may seem out of place. But I have so many close friends and colleagues that are shooting Nikon gear that I can’t help but have respect for the Nikon system. With the introduction of the new Nikon D850 it seemed like a great time to step outside of my normal system and share some thoughts about this brand new camera.

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Featured Image of the Week | 8/22/2017

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For this weeks Featured Image of the week I’m sharing a picture of the 2017 total Solar Eclipse (as seen from Charleston, SC). Getting the shot was a combination of having the right gear, being in the right place and a whole lot of luck. If seeing how I got the shot (including the equipment and settings I used) is something you’re interested in then be sure to read the entire article.

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Gear Tips #3 | Table Top Tripods

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For this week’s Gear Tips I want to talk about an accessory that goes everywhere my camera goes, my table top tripod. There are a bunch of small tripods on the market, but with a number of accessories a basic table top tripod can do some really incredible things. In this article I’ll share a quick review of my personal table top tripod and the accessories I’ve used over the years to get some of my favorite shots. Continue reading →