Featured Image of the Week | 11/23/2016


Eiffel Tower and the Siene River at Night

It’s been a while since I’ve added a new post here on my blog and that makes me a little sad. But the good news is I’ve kept super busy and there’s a whole lot of images and stories I can be share here and on my social media websites. The by far the coolest experience for me was spending a little over a week in London, Paris and Disneyland Paris. What an amazing adventure! With so little time available I had to dig deep into my bag of “travel photography tricks”.

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Monuments of Gettysburg


Recently I made a trip to Gettysburg, PA where the famous Civil War Battlefield celebrated the 150th anniversary of the battle that became the turning point in the war. Everywhere I looked I saw incredible Monuments to the brave men who fought here. It’s an amazing place (especially if you’re an American history buff like I am).

On July 1-3, I toured the battlefield and participated in every ranger program I could. After the programs concluded I spent a considerable amount of time walking the battlefields and photographing the many monuments and memorials. In this blog post I’ll share a bunch of the pictures from my battlefield visit (and in future posts I’ll go into more detail about my three day experience).

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Rolling Thunder 2013


This year, on Memorial Day weekend, I traveled into Washington, DC to witness Rolling Thunder 2013. No words or pictures can begin to show how incredible it was. I’m a big supporter of veterans and I’m fortunate to know so many men and women who are serving or have served in my nations military. The 2013 Rolling Thunder was the 26th running of the event and if you talk with any of the veterans they’ll be quick to tell you: “This is a demonstration, NOT a parade.”

Each year hundreds of thousands of veterans and their motorcycles travel to Washington, DC to participate in this Memorial Day tradition. For this blog post I’ll be sharing my Rolling Thunder story along with some images I captured at this years event (and a few facts I learned along the way).

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The Maker’s Mark Distillery Tour


Recently I took the Maker’s Mark Distillery Tour in Loretto, Kentucky and for this blog entry I’ll share some of my pictures along with a few things I learned on my visit. It all started with a long drive… As in ten hours of long drive. I began in northern Virginia and I drove through West Virginia with a final destination of Bardstown, Kentucky.

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Three days in Kentucky


Last week I got to spend three days in Kentucky. It’s been a long time since I’ve visited the state and I have to say that I really enjoyed myself. My primary objective was to take the Makers Mark Distillery tour where I’d be picking up my special ambassadors bottles of bourbon. I spent most of a day at the distillery and it was absolutely incredible!

If you want to see the entire story about my Maker’s Mark Tour be sure to click here.

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Photography From a Moving Car


Some of my favorite shots over the years have involved movement. I started shooting movement when I worked at Ford Design and I continue to explore new ways to capture a feeling of movement in a still image.

On my last trip into the Shenandoah Mountains to photograph the fall colors I decided to capture some shots of the colored leaves from my car (while driving 30 mph on Skyline Drive). For this blog entry I’ll share some of my current techniques to capture these kinds of shots in camera.

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My Trip to Antietam


Recently I took a trip to see the Battlefield Park at Antietam, MD.

I love visiting historic sites and I’ve been trying hard to see as many Civil War Battlefields as I can because so many of the battlefields are marking the 150th anniversary of major battles. In July of last year I attended the Sesquicentennial Event at Manassas National Battlefield Park and I had an incredible time talking with dignitaries, re-enactors and historians. I can’t wait to go to another 150th event.

My trip to Antietam wasn’t on a historically significant date but the experience was still pretty awesome. The Battles at Antietam became Americas bloodiest single day with 22,720 casualties (dead, wounded or missing/captured).

This blog entry will have some of the pictures I took on my visit and I’ll share a few interesting things I learned about Antietam.

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Late Night in the Mountains


After two early mornings and one late night shooting the stars in the Shenandoah Mountains I’ve captured some shots that are among my favorites. My longest shutter speed exceeded 20 minutes of exposure time (the above shot is just over 18 minutes) and the best images were captured after 1:30am on a Sunday night. This kind of shooting requires serious camera technique since I’m sharing the shots pretty much out-of-camera (meaning they’re not getting much attention in Photoshop).

The Sunday night I ventured into the Shenandoah Mountains was the third trip I took and I was there only to shoot the stars. I wasn’t worried about the sun coming up before I was done and I wanted to see if any differences existed between shooting in the the early morning (starting at 4:30am) and shooting in the late night (starting at about 10:30pm). It turns out there are huge differences between the two times and those differences will be the subject of the blog entry. Along the way I’ll also talk a bit about the settings I used to get my favorite star trail shot to date.

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My Morning in the Mountains


There are some things I love to photograph. But because I can get pretty busy my work it sometimes keeps me from going out to photograph the things I love to shoot. For example, I love shooting long exposure shots late at night and early in the morning. I also love to shoot sunrises and sunsets, especially in really cool scenic locations. I’m a pretty lucky person because where I live in Northern Virginia offers me some incredible opportunities to see and photograph everything from the capital city to some incredible National Parks.

After long months of working exclusively on client projects I found myself caught up and I had a little time for myself. I thought very seriously about taking a break from my camera and laptop computer. And then I remembered something my friend, Gene, recently told me. He said that I needed to start getting away from all of the flash shots and spending so much time in Photoshop. He said that I needed to go out with a camera and get back to basics. In other words, get back to what brought me into the world of photography in the first place.

This blog entry will talk about how I took Gene’s advice and I did something I haven’t done in a very long time.

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