Lost My way home..

Unbelievable how time flys by. So many things have happened in the past year. I will have to really think about posting as much as I can or...maybe just picking up from now and move forward. I still have been writing for a local Biker magazine, doing some photography, active with my reserves, and the shooting program with the FAPE. But what has really been taking up time [and money] has been trying to stay healthy. The motorcycle crash I was involved in one year ago is continuing to take its toll on me. I have had several procedures to try to stop the pain in my shoulder and arm with little results. Meanwhile, the scumbag that hit me and left me in the street, I'm sure, enjoyed his/her Thanksgiving dinner. But then again, on a good day I still ride my HD through the rolling hills of Hernando and Citrus counties just north of Tampa. I promise I will be back soon. b-safe.

BELLA'S POKER RUN

Ok, by now, those of you that actually know me, knows that when I'm not posting something at least every week or so, then I'm really busy. Well that was the case these past couple of months. Myself and a group of people got very involved with the plight of an infant girl named Bella. Bella's grand parents are police officers in Tampa. Little Bella has Acute Mylengenous Leukemia and this is the type that normally attacks adults. Bella'a Mom had to quit work to care for her and her Dad works extra, but they were beginning to sink and were on the verge of losing their home. Preparations were being made to move in with their parents. So, Robert, a lieutenant at Tampa police, and bunch of rough & tough cops got together to put on the Bella Poker Run. If you didn't know, a motorcycle poker run is where you gather at a starting point and register by buying a poker hand. You get a one card draw there and it's marked on a card sheet. You take your card sheet and ride to the next location for your next draw, and so forth. Best 3 hands wins some money. We began working on this project about 2 or so months ago. Laying out the route, which was a 100 mile drive through some great rolling back road hills. One stop was a little "mom & pop" store call Boyette's Grove. When you went inside it was a big gift shop, art museum, ice cream parlor, sandwich shop and art gallery. If you purchased the $4 ticket, you then could go through the dinosaur and aquarium exhibits and the Zoo! A very interesting place!

Then we starting gathering up door prizes, raffle prizes and silent auction items. We even had a raffle going on for the past several months for a small 380 pistol. But it was for law enforcement officers only. Then it was meetings about every couple of weeks making sure we had everything ready. For several nights before the big day, I stayed up very late printing auction bid sheets and signs.

The big day arrived [Nov 8th. The day after Bella's 1st birthday] and we met up at Rapscallion's Restaurant on US 41 in a town called Land O' Lakes, FL. It looked like party going on in the parking lot. We had Cancer Survivor groups, we had T-Shirt sales, there were 50/50 tickets being sold and then the big part...over 200 bikers showing up to register. Lot's of individuals and individual groups. Then there were clubs like the Nam Vets and the Blue Knights. But best of all, our star of the show, Bella, made an appearance. Because of chemo treatments and a low immune system, she couldn't be allowed in closed area's with lots of people around her. Even outside, we were careful not to get to close. In the picture above, Bella is being held by her Grandpa, Brian for a photo op. When the bikes were given a blessing, they began to filter out and Bella was there to wave them on.

It was time to wrap it up at registration and I moved over to my next area of responsibility and that was the last stop. It was at a Beef O'Brady's in Wesley Chapel. Along with some of the volunteers, which included police explorers, we set up 10x10 tents, roped off parking lots and set up the silent auction and door prize tables. A specific area was set up for the "bank" with our cashier and an armed officer. The bikes began rolling in and were met with music from our DJ Scott and the operation was underway!!! People were having a great time, eating wings, fellowshiping, listening to the music, looking at the gift items and the vendors. The last bikes rolled in around 4 pm. and after we passed out the door prizes, the raffle started with emcee's Gary & Mike W. At 5 pm. I shut down the silent auction and our poor cashier began counting the cash!

As it stands...and some donations are still trickling in, we raise $15k for little Bella. If you would like to make a donation, contact me and I will send you the address of the children's cancer center that is clearing checks and/or can handle credit cards.

I got home late that night and took a hot shower and crawled into bed. Now I get to attempt to clean my computer den up from the debris of paper from letters, and forms and contacts...not to mention my SUV that was loaded down with stuff and still is! But ya know? It was worth it. The last report they got on Bella's treatments was that her blood count is looking pretty good. Let's hope that it's a trend for her.

In addition, I worked up this photo for the October edition of GOFAR magazine. You can see the mag online now at http://www.gofarmag.com/ I wanted something to go with the Halloween theme. I got a friend of mine that owns A Team Cycles to bring out his tricked out HD. It's really sweet, with lots of black. Even the engine has been powder-coated black. So where else better to shoot it? In the cemetery of course. The good/bad part was that we had a misty rain. Good that it added to the shot...bad, I don't like my equipment getting wet! I photo shopped the moon and darken the background. What you might not be able to see is, in the background over the seat area, there is a face. {enter maniacal laugh here}

The only thing is the Boss/editor decided that he didn't want to have the "Happy Halloween" on the cover. WHAT? They're made up of little skeletons!!! LOL Oh well...he's the boss!

Hope all is well with you and if you ride...ride safe. cya

World Photo Walk Day

As a member of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals, I was able to take part in a really cool event on Saturday, August 23rd. It was called "World Photo Walk" and was organized by Scott Kelby. The main purpose was simply a social event for photographers to get together and share their trade, along with walking around a designated area to shoot some artsy images. This was happening all over the world and the images will be able to be viewed on FLICKR. I was fortunate enough to actually get into two of the walks. One in Hyde Park in Tampa and the other in downtown Clearwater. It was cool to be able to smooze with a couple of the big names in the photoshop industry. My walk leaders where Matt Kloskowki and R.C. Concepcion. We even had a cameo appearance by Scott Kelby. Now if your not a photographer or a photoshop user, those names mean nothing to you. If you are, you know that these guys are some of the most talented people you ever could meet in this field, so obviously it was a real treat for us "underlings" to get to chat & shoot with them. It was a lot of fun...no one had attitudes...no one flaunted equipment...as a matter of fact, we would help each other out, like when I held a flash for a few shots for another photographer. So...We would spread out and look for interesting things to shoot like this purple door. I was walking through an alley and spotted this door. I got some closer shots of just the purple door, but I kind of liked what was going on in this shot. The other colors, the sign of the Luxury Apts, and the alley. As I moved up toward the purple door, other opportunities opened up. Red brick walls...cafe tables...reflections in abandoned buildings windows. I hooked back up with some of the group and lead them to the purple door. Some took the same shots that I had, but then there were some variations of the same shot. That's a cool thing, because it opens your mind up to doing things in different ways.

Although we did have to dodge a few rain showers, it didn't really hold us back. I was able to walk the old district of downtown to get the images that caught my eye in the the old abandoned buildings and then move to the waterfront. While looking for something interesting, I came along this big white heron. So I switched from artsy to wildlife images. Using the Canon 70-200 I was able to get close enough to get a pretty nice shot. I was please with the sharpness of the image. Enlarged, you can see great detail in the feathers and a nice sharp eye. I attended a photo show a few weeks ago and there were several wildlife shots. One of them won an award. One thing I noticed was the great sharpness of the image and I think that's what swayed the judges as well.

We did the Photo Walk for 2 hours and then we all met back together and stopped in at an authentic Italian Pizza place, Cafe Milano Pizzaria. The pizza was really good and the trick to that was a good old fashioned brick oven. I lived in Italy as a kid and we only ate wood fired oven pizza. We all sat around and talked about our shots and other shop-talk. Just down the street, we had discovered another little find early in the walk. It was a coffee shop and after checking it out we decided to stop back in after diner for some coffee.

This is a nice find in downtown Clearwater. Located at 34 N. Fort Harrison Ave, Pangea Cafe' is a nice place. Open until midnight and at times they have entertainment, it's a great little coffee shop. We hit it off right away with a lovely girl named Gab. She actually came out on the side walk earlier and invited us in to check the place out, so when we came back, she and the rest of the staff took good care of us.

So, that was the first World Photo Walk and I hope not the last. Hats off the Scott and all of the people that acted as leaders of the Photo Walks all over the world. I can't wait to see the images that are going to pour in.

Until next time... cya!

The Light Show

I have always wanted to capture some great lightning photos and this evening I got a chance. A heavy storm was moving toward the Tampa area. I have been studying weather patterns that involve lightning. I have several weather radars and lighting detector programs on my computer. Lightning is nothing to take lightly. It is dangerous and you can be seriously injured or killed by even an indirect strike. The Tampa Bay area is the lightning strike capitol of North America, so one of the things I do is finding a relatively safe place to shoot from. In these images, I shot from an 8 story parking garage, using the covered 7th floor. Even so, I was prepared to bug-out if the storm got to close. After all, I was still somewhat in the open and standing next to a heavy duty metal tri-pod. I was pretty pleased with the results, but would have liked to have been closer to the downtown area so I could fill the frame with the shot.

Image this...I was approximately 6 or 7 miles from this shot. Awesome power isn't it?

I got several multi-shaft strikes like this one below. The shading around the bolt is heavy rain.

This one is a favorite of mine. It has that science fiction look to me.

For you photo buffs, I used my Canon 30d with my Canon 70-200 IS F2.8 lens on manual focus set on infinity. A few of the shots were with a Tamron 28-75, f2.8. I had the camera on a heavy Gitzo tri-pod. Camera motion is critical when dragging the shutter, that is, shooting at very low shutter speeds. In this case, I set my speed on bulb and controlled the time with a Canon electronic shutter release. I would shoot about a 5 second exposure and when I caught a bolt, I would release the shutter release. If you don't, the bolt is going to act like a flash and over expose the image. My ISO was set at 320 and the f-stop for most of the shots were at 5.6 or 11. I got about 10 "keepers" out of about 100 takes. You just have to be patient! Hope you enjoyed them! C-ya!!

Colorado Trip

I just got home from a trip to Ft. Collins, Colorado. I was there with the Explorers for the National Competition. We were able to get some sightseeing in between competition events. This was my first rip to Colorado and it wasn't a disappointment! Of course the camera was with me and I banged off about 750 shots. Some were to capture the history of the Explorer events, some were tourist shots and then a few more were a little artsy, like this one of the fence. You see these all over the place. This one happen to be in one of the many National Parks.

Another shot I liked was this old oak tree that was dying. The neat part was that it had grown right up next to a huge rock formation. I decided to make this one into a Black & White shot. I'm thinking of matting it in a white matte and black frame for my wall.

As we were heading up into the Rocky Mountains, I spotted this Fly Fisherman in the river. Luckily there was a place to pull over a get a few shots. He paid us no never mind and just kept fishing. This was when I was wishing I had a tripod. I managed to prop my camera on a guard rail and I fired off a couple of images were I slowed down the shutter speed to about a 10th of a second. This makes for a nice effect with moving water. It gives the water a silky look. I was happy with the image I got and so we moved on higher and higher. Every few minutes we would notice the thermometer dropping a degree from the 95 reading we started out with. As we got to the 2 miles above sea level mark, we came upon some traffic congestion, which is not real good on a 2 lane mountain road! The uproar? A big area of snow with a small herd of Elk walking around. They didn't seem to mind us, and just walked around grazing and eating snow...a way they get water. I have some other images that the Elk's head filled the entire frame. Although they came pretty close to us, it is against federal law to try to touch them in the National Park. However, I found out that there are actual Elk Farms that raise Elk like cattle. As a matter of fact, when we came down from the mountains, we stopped for some dinner in a local eatery and I had an "Elk Burger"! Pretty good too...very lean. Anyway, as we continued to drive we kept seeing left over snow banks and it was now fluctuating from 55 to 47 degrees. Some of the guys decided that wanted to have a snowball fight and we let them have at it. It was funny to see a couple of them who have never seen snow, come beat feeting it out of the snow bank saying, "I can't feel my fingers!"

We were hoping to spot some of the Big Horn Sheep that live in the area, but a guide told us that at this time of the year, most of the herds are in the higher elevation where there are no roads. We did spot a couple of Deer. They would be standing right on the side of the road. One was only 10 feet from one of our vehicles, looking right into the passenger window. The only other wild life we got close to were some Chipmunks. So after the trip into the gift shop at the peak of one of the summits, we drove on and stopped for a photo-op, at the marker for the "Continental Divide". Then we turned around and headed back the way we came. We didn't get back to Ft. Collins until almost midnight and I was tired and ready for bed.

The next day was the awards presentation. We were there with our defending champion in the 9mm pistol competition. Unfortunately, he did not repeat this time. Ryan did however, win first place for 9mm Rapid Fire. That is, 5 shots in 10 seconds (done twice) at 25 yards into a bulls eye target. He also took 1st in the Nation for .177 cal Air Pistol. Another one of our team, Johnny, took 2nd place in 9mm Rapid Fire and yet another, Chris, was inducted in the National Top 20 shooters. So not a bad showing. In some of my next posts, I will highlight a few more images.

So until next time....c-ya!

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!

Just thought I would drop in to post a Happy Fourth to everyone. I hope in this day and age that we have our eyes wide open and remember that this day marks the most important day in our lives. Without this single day, We the people, may not have become Americans. We would not enjoy a vast and beautiful country that we can freely travel at any time we choose. We can post our blogs and write our papers in a manner that so many others all over the world can not. So Happy Birthday America!

I spent the day doing two of my favorite things...riding the motorcycle and taking photographs. I rode up to a community north of Tampa called Zephyrhills. It's the place that Zephyrhills Bottled Water comes from. I went there because some friends told me about a new Bar-B-Que place there on US 301. US 301 is a virtual ant trail for bikers. So I stopped in and tried them out. They have only been open for 3 days. I think before I hit them with the Mikey Review, I will let them get up and running a little more. Right now I don't think I would give them more than a "2-wheels" score. Then it was back to Tampa and load up the truck with camera gear so when it got dark, I would be set up for the big fireworks display in the Channelside District of downtown Tampa. I had a little problem with finding a good vantage point. I wanted to shoot from the Port of Tampa, just a little to the left and behind the main body of fireworks. I got down there a couple hours early, however, the new Homeland Security Laws will not let you take photos in the port area. I really wanted to get more of the downtown skyline in the shot. So, I scouted out a new spot that I will keep under my hat for now. It worked out pretty well and let me get a little elevated allowing me to get a different view than the thousands of people that packed into downtown. If you look closely, look from the left of the image and just above the main cluster, there is a burst that looks like a red daisy. It was incredible...I have never seen that type before. I really needed this photo shoot. I don't have any fireworks images in my stock and I have had several calls for them in photo layouts I have done. So now, I have a pretty good start with some nice images. There is a little trick(s) to shooting fireworks. If you really want some good stuff, you have got to have a tri-pod. Next is a cable release or remote trigger. Then some basic knowledge of photography in order to set your camera up for fireworks. I used my Canon 30d with a Tamron 28-85 zoom lens. It's a 2.8 lens, but that really doesn't matter when taking long exposures. I set the camera on manual, including the focus. I set my aperture to 5.6. The shutter speed was set to bulb so I could control the shutter with the remote trigger, usually 1-2 second exposures. Oh yeah, and I shot at an ISO of 125. Easy, right? Until next time...... cya!

A Bit of Cool Things!

I mentioned in my last blog entry about Washington DC. Well, I was going through some of the images I shot and a couple stood out. The first one is of a New York State Trooper and his K9 partner. The trooper was in Washington for the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial to pay respect for a close friend and fellow trooper who was killed in the line of duty. As an old K9 officer myself, the German Shepard caught my eye right away, and coupled with the troopers standing tall awaiting their fellow officers name to be called out, I snapped this shot.

As darkness fell on the Police Memorial, thousands upon thousands of police officers stood around the wall of thousands more officers whose names are engraved in stone. The throng surrounding those seated in folding chairs in front of the stage known to us are as "The Survivors". These were the families...wives, husbands, mothers & Fathers, children of the officers slain in the line of duty in 2007. I pondered in my mind the two other times I attended the Memorial, and thought to myself, it's getting bigger. More men & women called to service of protecting our communities are giving the ultimate sacrifice. As the night fell, a thin blue laser beam went from the stage into the night representing the "Thin Blue Line". Everyone was issued a candle and as the first candle was lit, each person turned and lit the candle of the person next to them. We are all fellow brothers and sisters under the badge. As I walked through the shoulder to shoulder crowd, I saw this young boy. His Father is a Nevada State Trooper and he and his entire family made the trip to the Memorial for the first time. The innocence in this little boy's eyes somehow gave me a feeling of hope. Maybe he will be the one that stops the violence in the night. It brought to mind this quote... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf" -George Orwell, 1903-1950

On another note: I did a photo session today for the local bike magazine I work with called Go For A Ride, (GoFAR). It will be next month's cover and is of a remarkable teenager and his little brother. They not only work at their Dad's motorcycle salvage yard, they build bikes. Joey's latest creation...a bike frame constructed of chain link! The welded chain completely replaces the tube style frame. Joey scoffs at people that don't think the chain-frame can hold up. In fact he has been riding this one for some time. He may be one of those big shot chopper builders with his own TV show before to long. I'll write more about him soon. Until next time....be safe and......cya!