The morning of the big eclipse I was at Nickerson and shot some skimmers and terns...   There was a shipping container on the beach, I assume it is used for storing Life Guard and beach maintenance supplies, but IDK... The paintings on it were pretty cool, I had to shoot them. -Jon ..read more

I'm getting ready to shoot the fireworks tonight, and shared this image from 2013: For some tips and inspiration check out Angela's site and video: http://www.abpan.com/tag/fireworks ..read more

Some Black-Crowned Night Herons at the US National Zoo ..read more

A week ago I went to see the Kusama exhibit in Washington D.C. at the Hirshhorn Gallery. I was lucky to have a friend gift me an un-timed ticket and I went on the second to last day.  I got in very shortly after they opened and the lines were still short inside. One one the things that caught my eyes was this painting, which was displayed along with the Mirrors exhibit.  I tried something different and went for the slow shutter speed and lens zooming during the exposure.  Of a huge number of tries, a handful came out ok and I liked this one in particular. The original paint ..read more

Some of my favorite recent landscape photos are shot in Lido along the first jetty. My "trick" is to either go bare foot and stand in some water, and use the wet sand and receeding waves to create my mirror for a reflection.  Or I run in and out of the remains of the waves while wearing shoes and wimping out on getting wet. Here are a couple fairly recent photos (all HDRs from 3 images).    And here's a long exposure that looks relatively normal, but it is in fact a night shot done under a nearly full moon.  The recent rain helped. -Jon ..read more

I grew up in New York, and I like to visit often.  This year I went in February and shot a lot of sunrise and sunset images at the beach. This is an HDR from 3 source images shot with D4 and 14-24mm f/2.8, on 1 of my 2 new and favorite tripods (Really Right Stuff - extra tall 4 section series 2 and 3).  I'm probably going to get a 3rd one that's a series 4 XL 4 section.  After years of skimping on tripod and spending on lenses and bodies I've taken the plunge. Last year right before going to Florida I got a 1000$ Gitzo and it broke on my second day shooting there when it was ..read more

I use the AF-finetune to calibrate my lenses and cameras.  Usually this works out pretty well.  Calibration will set the camera to not front-focus or back-focus, the focus will land where you want it - on the spot where focus was attained. What I have found almost all the time when shooting birds in flight is that focus is harder.  Sure, nothing news worthy there. But what is most frustrating is when a bird is flying at the camera focus is rarely on the eye.  And it is because the eye is rarely in the center of the frame where the selected focus point is most likely to ..read more

VA Osprey taking a fish for a ride.  It was soon to be a meal ..read more

Seeing dozens of American Robins working in the grass and hunting for worms is a welcome sign of spring. This weekend I was out on the dreary overcast day (Sunday) and found some robins.  This was taken by sitting in the grass next to a garbage can to help "blend in" a little, and hand held (probably braced against the can).  The birds were a little weary of me, but I waited long enough and the few turned in to a dozen where I was sitting and I managed a handful of images. The Osprey are back mostly. Next I'd like to see some Black-Crowned Night Herons ..read more

When I was a kid, I used to like to draw.  I would draw cars, trees, boats, whatever. Fast forward and now I like to take photos.  A ton of photos.  I usually take more than 100,000 photos a year.  A typical day could be 500-2000 images depending on how many places and cool things and action I encounter. A month or so ago I bought a couple of sketch books and some pencils, erasers, etc. Thursday I sat down with a pad and pencil and stared at it for a while.  Then I drew a box with a vertical line through it.  And I scratched my head so to speak...  What is ..read more