the Monorail in Epcot | Featured Image of the Week


the Monorail photographed in an empty Epcot

the Monorail in Epcot

– For this week’s featured image of the week I want to revisit an older shot of mine that’s still one of my favorites from my many visits to Walt Disney World Resort. I call this shot the Monorail in Epcot and it has a lot of elements in it including the famous Disney World Monorail and the Epcot icon, Spaceship Earth. But the thing that makes it special is the fact that I was able to capture the shot with absolutely nobody in the final shot from a place that would normally be impossible to get a shot like this. In this article I’ll talk about how I was able to get the shot, the settings I used and even share a shot of what it normally looks like when you take a picture from this exact same place.

You can see a larger version of this image on 500px here

Continue reading

Vietnam Veterans Memorial | Featured Image of the Week


Vietnam Veterans Memorial  |  Featured Image of the Week

Vietnam Veterans Memorial  |  Featured Image of the Week

Click here to see a larger version of this image on 500px

Recently I watched the brilliant 10 part documentary about Vietnam by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick and, like every documentary I watch from them, I had a completely different feeling about a memorial I’ve been visiting for almost a decade. The documentary was difficult at times but it was definitely worth the effort. I’ll truly never look at the marble wall of names the same way again.

While the war in Vietnam is certainly a questionable time for our country there’s no denying the power of the memorial to the veterans of the war. Seeing all those names puts a real human cost to war and it makes visiting this special place on the National Mall is a requirement when traveling to Washington, DC. In this Featured Image of the Week article I’ll share a few more images and some tips and tricks I use when I photograph the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

Continue reading

Family Portrait Shoot | Featured Image of the Week


a Family Portrait Shoot

Family Portrait Shoot

– For this weeks Featured Image of the Week I wanted to share a shot from a recent Family Portrait Shoot with Sam, John and baby Syd. The core of my business photography is corporate and product photography and my personal photography passions are travel, landscape and wildlife so this might seem out of place. But like all photographers there’s more that we do that isn’t always shared. In my case I shoot plenty of portraits, headshots and sometimes even weddings. I rarely share those images because my company branding requires me to stick to my core products – but today I’m going to go ahead and talk a bit about shooting family portraits on location.

Continue reading

the London Eye in Motion | Featured Image of the Week


the London Eye in Motion

the London Eye in Motion

– for this week’s Featured Image of the week I want to combine two of my favorite things, travel photography and long exposure photography, and talk about the delicate balance between getting a shot and enjoying a vacation. The image is of the beautiful London Eye and, as much as I love the shot, it does demonstrate why it’s so hard to capture every shot you might dream up when you go on a trip.

Continue reading

Flaska Reclinata | Featured Image of the Week


the Flaska Reclinata at Disney’s Animal Kingdom

the Flaska Reclinata at Disney's Animal Kingdom

– Disney World’s newest land, Pandora – the World of Avatar, was a long time in the making but being able to see it within days of the official public opening proved that Disney Imagineers don’t take a back seat to anybody in the theme park business. I was lucky to be there during it’s opening week and while I had my doubts about an Avatar land belonging in Animal Kingdom, seeing it changed my mind. What I quickly realized was this place could only exist in Disney’s Animal Kingdom. For this week’s featured image I want to talk about a shot I took of one of the first things you see when you enter the land, the Flaska Reclinata.

Continue reading

the Tree of Life | Featured Image of the Week


Animal Kingdom’s Tree of Life in HDR

The Tree of Life

– After my appearance on the Resort Loop podcast I listened to the show and one thing I said really stood out to me. Bob Coller Asked me how many pictures I take on a typical Disney World visit and I answered by saying: “Between 3,000 and 4,000 pictures“. Even though I know how I arrived at those numbers I realized I must have sounded crazy to anyone listening to the show. Since I have both photographers and non-photographers who follow me on this blog I thought today’s Featured Image of the Week would be a good chance to explain how and why I take as many vacation/travel pictures. This HDR image of the Tree of Life (at Disney’s Animal Kingdom) is a great way to explain what happens to some of the many pictures I take whenever I’m traveling.

Continue reading

Disney World Fireworks | Featured Image of the Week


Disney World Fireworks

Disney World fireworks

– Recently I was a guest on the Resort Loop podcast where we talked about photography in Disney Parks. Of course, any time the subjects of Disney and photography are brought up it never takes long until someone asks about photographing fireworks. On the podcast I talked about my personal tricks to getting fireworks shots inside Disney Parks, but an audio podcast doesn’t always tell the entire story (especially when the topic is so visual, like photography).

For this week’s Featured Image of the week I wanted to share a picture and some behind the scenes information about how I like to capture great Disney World fireworks shots.

Continue reading

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


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.

Continue reading

Westminster Abbey | Featured Image of the Week


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.

Continue reading