Vegas Baby!

Just got back from Vegas! Took some time out and snapped a few images around town and the new Hawiian Tropic Restaurant! SEE THEM AT MY NEW SITE!

Click here to go over to the NEW BLOG SITE as I am shutting this one down and favor of more custom features. TIPS, TRICKS, Reviews and other good stuff... Bookmark me at DONZSHOTS.com

Cool and Gritty

I recently run across an interesting article from Scott Kelby on creating a cool gritty look. Scott puts out some great stuff on Lightroom and since I have just begun getting into using Lightroom more and more I thought I would give it a try on one of my BikeWeek Photos. Fairly easy to do if you have the right shot for it and can be easily tweaked to give it your own style. Here is my version but be sure to stop by his site and check out the article.

Bike Week

Found myself bored on a Saturday and realized it was Bike week in Daytona Beach. So I jumped in the car and ran up to Daytona for the afternoon shooting some bikes on the Main Street there. This was my first attempt at shooting bikes. I am pleased how they came out and want to give it another try in the future.
You can see the entire set at my site http://donzshots.com/wordpress/2009/02/hello-world/

SuperBowl PARTY!!

Here is an idea at your next party since the playoffs are over. Last year we had a Super bowl party at our house and as the guests came I had them pause for a moment in front of a solid backdrop (white sheet will work but I found a table cloth that was yellow) I hung up in the garage. I took a quick snapshot of them and dropped it into a simple frame I made from stuff I found around the net on the super bowl.

Using photoshop I used the quick select tool and masked out the yellow backdrop. (Free trial version at Adobe.com will work in a pinch if you don't have it.) Then, I found an interesting picture of a field and used it for the background. My wife has one of those Kodak small 4x6 printers so I just used that to print it real quick and gave everyone a little keepsake from our party.

Day at the Park - Universal Park that is...

Took some time last weekend and went to universal themepark with the kids. Got to know my two nephews who were a bit timid at first but came around.

Contest Shots for the Contest

The beginning of this year has been a stressful one. Just before Christmas we laid our oldest son to rest. Nothing in the world seems important anymore. All the logic and understanding will not stop the pain and emptiness one feels. I guess it never goes away but you learn to deal with it one day at a time.

After dwelling about the house for several weeks I needed to get out. For distraction I went shooting at a large surf contest here in Sebastian Florida. It was nice to take my youngest son out and let him run at the beach and just relax and clear my mind. Got some decent shots even though I dodged rain the entire day.

Turns out our local paper was having a contest for best shot of the surf contest. Out of over 600 entries they posted the 20 best for voting by readers. I submitted 6 to them. I ended up having 4 of the 20 they put up. If you would like to vote go to FloridaToday.com

Here are some of the images I took during the contest.

For the rest of the shots you can see them here on my site.

BONUS! Logan kept begging me to shoot with my camera instead of his point and shoot so I said what the heck... it is only a camera and if this is something we can bond with it would mean more than the value of that thing! So I dropped down the monopod to his size and shooting away he did. Logan and I went back the next night and looked and sure a lot were off center, focus issues but there was one that stuck out from a series he did... HE NAILED IT! Focus good... composition on... I brought it in photoshop and gave it some color correction and thought... what chip off the ol' block! So he has told me I must post his debut photograph...