Ron Shoots

Seriously, “Scenic” is the name of the town! Just outside the Badlands National Park. Usually I’m looking for the “Kodak Moment” signs (should be Lexar compact flash moment now…), or the brown National Park camera signs, or, if I’m lucky… tripod holes left by other shooters (just kidding!). This time, the town was named Scenic. How could I go wrong?

Traveling this summer- here’s the Google map locating Scenic, South Dakota.

By the way, this is just a snapshot. I didn’t pursure model or property releases. Sometimes just a fun snapshot keeps the fun in photography, or serves as a visual “note” for a future production.

This time, literally “on the road” as in laying down on the road. Sometimes you gotta get low to get the shot. I do spend an inordinate amount of time laying on the ground.

(photo by Alex Chapple, age 13)

We’re traveling through the Southwest enroute to a shoot next week in North Dakota. Even though I’ve been on some of these roads a few times before, I enjoy looking for new perspectives. Everytime, the weather is different, or there’s an angle that’s new.

And this trip is a little different- usually I’m alone- this time my son Alex (age 13) is with me. As you might remember in a previous post, my kids are always the ones finding the new ways of looking at things!

I’m in Chicago for a 2 days. A helicopter pilot/friend on the East Coast was in the area filming a sporting event so the helicopter was already here. We shot last night and then again this morning to capture both sunset and sunrise. (By the way, the sun comes up early in Chicago in the summer- like 5:24am today!) We met at the airfield in the dark and were in the air headed towards the city at 140 mph by 5am. We lucked into just enough cloud cover for a nice sunrise and a narrow band of blue sky before the clouds overtook the entire horizon. Weather is just one of those factors where you never know! A few clouds always helps make a better sunrise or sunset.

The sunset shot above was taken with the Hasselblad H3D-39 and 35mm lens. Shutter speed was only about a 30th of a second, however with the gyro-stabilizer (KS-6 from Kenyon Labs), the camera can be hand-held at much lower shutter speeds.

Trying to find my way in the darkness of a hotel room, I grab my camera bag and quietly close the door behind me. Sunrise is only a few moments away and I’m trying to get down to the harbor as quickly as I can for a few early morning shots of the Sydney skyline. This was the scenario last month.

(Alex, my 13 year old son, finding better angles in Sydney than me!)

For many photographers, vacation is a major shooting opportunity, and even for a full-time shooter, there’s rarely moments that a camera is not far away. The art is in balancing vacation time, family time and making a few stock photos along the way.

Tips for balancing a successful holiday and a stock shoot.

Here’s a few practical suggestions that might help. Of course, we’re all at different stations in life. Some of us may have 2 teenagers (mine are 13 and 15), and others no children at all, but there should be a hint or two in here for anyone… [read more]

Happy 4th of July! These fireworks were shot last month on the beach in Surfer’s Paradise just south of Brisbane, Australia. There was a 3 day weekend and they were celebrating with fireworks shows. Oh yeah, and an ABBA tribute band… uughh.

Shooting fireworks is relatively simple. Definitely use a tripod and look at the LCD images until you get the right exposure. The EXIF data on the images showed a 3 second exposure at f/14 with an ISO200 setting. I would pop the shutter as soon as I heard or saw the rocket take off.

As my readers may know, I spend a ton of time on the road. Sometimes I’m shooting landscapes, sometimes just getting to the next location… or in the best of both worlds, doing both! The wandering is fun, almost sinful, to not have a specific schedule. On one recent trip, I made 2 rules: a) no freeways, and b) if the compass had a W in the heading (like SW, NW or simply W), I was going in the right direction!

As a business person, I balance the wanderlust with image goals. For example, I make myself create 50 images a day when I’m traveling. And this may seem crazy, but I rarely listen to music when I’m driving… [read more]