It's Saturday so how about an animal photo? This is not the most awe inspiring shot I have ever taken but I love how it shows the striping on the zebra so well. I really need to plan some more trips to some zoos soon and stock up on some more shots because I love photographing animals. What's kinda crazy to me is that the stripes go all the way down to the hooves of the zebra, don't know why but that seems weirdly awesome. Enjoy and have a great weekend!

Daily photo(s) time! Today you get hockey! I had a TON of fun doing this and the fact that the images didn't come out terrible makes me happier that I did it. It is a completely different type of photography and very challenging. You almost have to know what's going to happen before it does to capture the good stuff. Would love to do another game wide open without the glass and with a fast camera but this was awesome for a first go. I have a boat load more, somewhere in the midst of 250 shots going up in a gallery on the site as we speak so if you are interested check them out. Cheers!

We are back in Rome today. Not to look at hugely historic things or show you the majesty of their huge cathedrals, but to simply show you a little shopping district in downtown Rome. Sometimes my goal is to simply capture the atmosphere of an area and try and give you a sense of what it would be like to walk down the street and see what I see. Shopping is a huge thing in Rome and some of the fanciest cloths and such you can imagine are just a few steps away. I also liked how the pharmacy + sign just happened to line up above that guys head. Cheers!

We venture back into the wilds of Kauai today with a shot of the same river that gave us the horseshoe river style photo and the two falls that make up Hoopi falls. This is further up towards the beginning of the hike and I loved how the trees and brush around me kind of gives you the framed in feeling as you are looking down the river. The jungles of the island of Kauai are amazingly beautiful and this is the part that is easy to find. I can't wait to get moved and explore the amazing stuff that is not so easily found. Enjoy!

So today I am relaxing in my office when a little storm cropped up and dropped some rain and was suddenly gone. I thought to myself, "Lets go see if I can macro something with water on it!" So I did. The flower itself kind of looks like it is dieing but the fly showing up and hanging out was a complete surprise but an awesome fun one. For my first non Nikon lens this Sigma macro has really impressed me. I can't wait to see what I can do when I really start learning the advanced stuff on how to shoot macro. Until then enjoy the shot and let me know if you are liking the macro work.

Today is Memorial Day, a day to give thanks to the men and women of our armed forces who protect not only our country but the well being of many others as well. I have a vast amount of family history with the military and a great many friends who have served and even a friend who made the ultimate sacrifice. To all of them I humbly say, thank you. As far as today's daily photo goes if you have been following along for a long time, this should look familiar. This is actually a re-edit of an image I shot last year and published. It looks so different and what I think is so much better that I am publishing it again and revisiting a lot of my older shots and making them better. This was taken at a park in Memphis, TN that sits right on the Mississippi river and the lighting was just perfect as I set this shot up. Long rant today with the shot but the day called for it. Enjoy and let me know what you think of the new and improved shot!

So before going to Venice my aunt Linda tells me to make sure I check out St. Marks square at night. My wife was under the weather and unfortunately didn't get to experience this awesome atmosphere. It is an awesome mixture of sounds of classical music being played live, laughter of people and little trinkets making noises that the local peddlers are trying to get you to buy. The square is full of people and when the music is playing the open square becomes an outside dance floor for couples to enjoy. I ran a long exposure to help get rid of some of the people in the photo so you could enjoy the lights and beautiful stone work, but in the foreground on the left side of the image is a lovely young couple dancing and laughing with out a care in the world. Venice is a magical place!

For our soon to end Saturday traditional animal I am giving you a gorgeous lioness. I love when animals look right at me when I am taking a shot. Makes it seem much more personal and interesting. I also love getting shots at zoos where you can't necessarily tell they are in an enclosure. I have lots of great shots of animals that are ruined due to fencing or netting or something. I hope you enjoy this beautiful creature and we will return to Venice tomorrow.

Going back into the stock piles again today to change it up and I bring you a shot I didn't originally edit from my fall series I did in Michigan. The reason I didn't use it before is because I couldn't figure out how I wanted to present the lighting in the photo and HDR, which is my usual medium for editing just didn't look great. I finally decided to simply process it as non HDR and did a small crop and I think it came out pretty nice. I love how around me is really dark due to the thick trees casting hard shadows on the path right in front of me, but it brightens up as the canopy thins out as you go down the path. That was a pretty cool park, got lots of great stuff from there. Enjoy!

Today we venture inside of the Colosseum in Rome. To put it bluntly, this place is chaos. When you visit you wait in line for a considerable amount of time to get in and once you do it is shoulder to shoulder getting around. Can you blame them though? This place is amazing. This is one of the "tourist" style shots that due to not having free reign to photograph from wherever I want I had to shoot with what was available. Still the beauty of this amazing structure is unimaginable. This was one of those place I wanted to see before I died and it was so very worth the trip. Enjoy and go see it yourself, it is way more impressive in person!

I present to you the J.J. Abrams cactus! Ok not really but I thought it was clever. I have been going back through the stocks piles to try and change things up from our rotation we have had going on and I really liked the halo harsh light of the sun with the slightly washed out mountain behind it. Deserts are difficult places to photograph but can be just as beautiful as the deepest woods. Oh and the J.J. reference for those who didn't pick it up is due to the lens flares from the sun.

Why don't we visit a place I plan to spend a lot of my down time at after I move here. This is at Poipu Beach on the southern shore of Kauai. This is one of the most popular beaches for people to come swim at. It is kind of like two beaches in one and there is a cool little beach peninsula that you can set up in between them. Sometimes the sea turtles will crawl up on the beach to work on their tans and I just happened to get to see one this day. They are much larger then you would think. Must respect the wildlife though so no pictures of me riding him around like an awesome fantasy movie hehe. Enjoy the shot!

Here my friends is a shot of the Grande Canal in Venice. This is the largest and highest traveled canal in the city. All the goods that are delivered to business and most of the water taxis run along this waterway. As you can see this was taken in the evening and this crossing is actually the Rialto Bridge that I am shooting from. The bridge is also extremely popular so setting up a tripod and taking this photo was quite the challenge. I did however have a nice Japanese man trying to take a photo right next to me who looked at mine and said  he liked it, so I got one fan of it so far! What do you think? Good shot?

Today I give you one of my favorite shots I took while on my recent trips. This is the ramp that leads down out of the Vatican museum after you are done touring it. Spiraling shapes make for some of the best and easiest photographing you can get. The way the ramp was lit made for a great contrast and a great example of dark to light tonality in a black and white image. I really love the depth and real feeling of looking down at something. I hope you enjoy the shot as much as I do. Remember to comment and share and go to the website and share from there and remember to tag the page for your entries in the contest!

Enjoying this random tradition as of late with doing an animal photo on Saturdays. Today you get my favorite animal of all time. The cheetah! The combination of amazing things a cheetah can do is awesome. The mixture of power, speed and extreme cuteness makes for an unrivaled animal. I so look forward tot he day that I can go and see them in the wild and see them really stretch their legs and to get to photograph them in their natural environment. Until then, enjoy the zoo shots!

So to take a walk on the slightly weird side today I thought I would show you a shot of me messing with my new macro lens. I love how the details of the little muscles and everything in the eye came out. I am learning that really good macro photography is a very tough thing to do. Focusing and light just become a whole new mess of problems, but it is rewarding when you get something cool. Thanks to my wife for letting me screw around with lightning to get this to come out.

Today we venture back to Savannah, GA and the beautiful Forsyth Park. In the middle of this city oasis is a gorgeous huge fountain that people tend to congregate around. I am yet to see some of the bigger city parks in this nation but Forsyth was quite awesome. Hope you like the shot, I was a fan of the cast shadows with the sun setting behind me.

It is cold, rainy and overall not pretty out today. So I thought we could venture to the beautiful place I will be living in just a few months Kauai. When I took this shot I was really trying to show how lush and contrasting the forest was. I love how the sun is so strong where it gets through and creates these heavy highlights while the canopy shadows the ground giving a nice darkness to the shot. I can't wait to spend a lot of time hiking the island and really discovering all of its hidden treasures. Enjoy!

I give you the Trevi Fountain. This is one of Romes most iconic land marks and also one of the hardest to get a good clean shot of. The fountain is actually tucked away in this almost back alley type area and is always packed with a million people. Even at 1 a.m. when I shot this I was shoulder to shoulder with people there. Setting up a tripod was not an easy task. I do however love how the shot came out and it is truly an amazing thing to see. I was however out of change at the time so I didn't make a wish. Enjoy, comment and share as you please.

Another macro shot today because I am learning and enjoying my new lens. This was a flower that my sister got from someone for the passing of her father and I thought it was a good chance to try to get to shoot with the lens in a controlled environment. It is crazy shooting at such small aperture. I hope you enjoy the shot and enjoy the macro work, I have more coming!

It has been a few days since you have had a shot of Venice so I figured I would give you one of my favorites. The first morning we wandered over towards St. Marks Square we just happened to come through this little entrance area to the square that is off to the side and I just loved the tiling and the way the light came into the room. There is beauty around every corner in a place like Venice. The cool looking ceiling and the chandelier really just top this one off. I love this shot, hope you do too. Share, comment and let me know!

How about we lighten things up a bit today, but keep with our current Saturday tradition of animal photos. (I am running out though, going to need to restock). This guy at the Memphis Zoo apparently got his hands on a sheet and was having some great fun. He was rolling around and running about with it. Was quite amusing to see. Enjoy the shot and happy Saturday!

So a couple nights ago I went out and took the new macro lens to try and shoot some stuff almost completely unsuccessfully. Real macro photography is actually really hard to do. The biggest problem being light and movement. This however is a tunnel style spider web that I got and though it had a cool sense of movement and depth to it. I really enjoy shooting macro so hope you are ready to see more!

How about something a little crazy today? Some days when I go out and shoot, not everything lines up perfect. This day it was kind of cloudy and dingy and just not overly exciting all together. These are the shots I tend to get a little creative with in Photoshop. Again, everything you see was there. I don't add things, but it is just brought out using different Photoshop techniques. Let me know what you think of the crazy edit, and always enjoy the sharing so keep that up!

Today I give you a little bit of a skyline of Rome. It isn't like other skylines in that there isn't large amounts of huge buildings piercing the clouds. It is mostly churches, as you can tell. You could almost make a game out of how many church steeples are sticking up. It was a beautiful place and I hope you enjoy seeing it how I did. Cheers.

Well it isn't perfect and hopefully I am out doing a better job now, but this is my first shot with my new Sigma Macro lens. If you know me, you know I only shoot with Nikkor glass but this Sigma came very highly recommended so I decided to give it a shot. Not to mention Nikon's closest competitor was made in 1993 and you can't barely find them for sale. I hope you enjoy the results, more to come. I have no clue what type of flower it is! Cheers.

Today I give you the first of the two waterfalls that are on the hike to get to Hoopii falls. Although much easier to get to, it isn't exactly an easy destination to find. Especially when hauling camera gear. The fact that I didn't have my filters with me due to using a rented camera I got lucky in the fact that this was pretty well shaded and allowed me to draw out my shutter a little and make the water look nice. Let me know what you guys think, enjoy!

Your shot today may confuse you just a little at first but what this is is a shot of the island of San Giorgi Maggiore or more specifically the Church of San Giorgi Maggiore that makes up one of the islands of Venice. What you see in the foreground is actually a bunch of gondolas that were moving around while I was taking a long exposure due to it being dark and the bay area was heavy with traffic and lots of little waves were coming in and making them bob about. You also see a light trail or two from passing boats. I love how the shot has kind of a sense of still and solid in the church but movement with the water and the gondolas. Hope you enjoy the shot as much as I do. Don't forgot to share and leave me some feedback!

Being Saturday I figured I would bring you another animal photo. This is a zebra from the Memphis Zoo who was kind enough to stand still long enough for me to snap a couple shots of it. I just love the patterns their stripes make. Enjoy your Saturday and the zebra!

How about a shot of a street in downtown Rome today. I loved this old road and the way the bricks added so much texture to the scene. I also liked the building in the middle and the way it just came to a point. They are very big on utilizing space and fitting as much as they can in the city. What do you think, cool?

So when I travel to different locations to shoot I always try to just wander off with no destination really in mind and sometimes you trip over some kind of cool stuff. No this isn't the most amazing thing I have ever seen but I really liked how the manicured hedges lined this little brick path that was kind of tucked away as you walked down one of the side roads in downtown Savannah. The little blossoming flowers are kind of a cool addition too. Enjoy!