Welcome back students!

This is kind of bittersweet for me. I'm embarking on my last semester at Tri. I will miss you guys at school, but my priorities lay elsewhere. For those of you that don't know, my daughter was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes 6 weeks ago. Yes, I need to continue to take care of my daughter, and my family. But I also need to refocus on my own passion, my own craft. We teachers at Tri only have 6 weeks off from school per year, and I just didn't ever have enough time to do anything photographically for myself. So I will also be shooting a lot more.

With that said, we kicked off our first shooting class with a bang. 60 plus students, all shooting a good friend, fellow student, and Faded & Blurred member, Tammy.

The LA County Fair

Took the family to the LA County Fair this past weekend. We hadn't gone the last 2 years, and since we've been gone, they added quite a few new exhibits, and expanded the rides sections. The dinosaur exhibit is awesome!

The kids had a blast! Here are some of the images from our day at the fair. And yes, we won a fish...



All images shot with the Canon 5D MK II and the Canon 24-105 f/4L

Flowers with the 100-400?

20100912-IMG_9448
Originally uploaded by fwisneski

Yes, this image was shot with my new current infatuation, the Canon 100-400 4.5-5.6L. no, not a macro lens, but a big effen zoom lens. This lens still amazes me, and it has a surprisingly close focusing distance of 6 feet. For a reference point, the 70-200 f2.8L is 4 ft.

Taken in the hot house at the Arboretum.

Luminous

Luminous
Originally uploaded by fwisneski

Been searching for a light at the end of this tunnel affectionately called August. Could this be it?

Shot with my iPhone, and as always with my iPhone shots, only processed with tools available on the iPhone. In this case, the "Paris" setting in Best Camera

Photography themes

Do you ever notice themes, or common threads, or particular objects, running through your work? You know, like when your looking at a body of your work, and there are some similar shots/styles/things that keep popping up? I have several that tend to run through mine.

I think a lot of you know full well my fascination with power poles. But a new theme that I just recently picked up on is silhouettes. This is a fairly recent thing for me, but I think I really like what I am seeing start to develop



So what themes run through your work?

The Faded & Blurred Venice Walk

On 8/21/10, we had our 1 year anniversary photo walk in Venice for Faded & Blurred. It was a beautiful day, but as always, it was tough to get to Venice through all the LA traffic. Our focus for this walk was through the canals, and then to finish off by the pier for sunset.

As usual, everyone headed off on their own to go explore. I have been in a really wierd space lately, due to the amazing amount of changes going on in my life, and all though I wanted to be there, just couldn't seem to concentrate enough to focus on photography. I felt scattered most of the day, and just never got into a groove. It happens. I did get my sunset shots though, as I was waiting at the pier, and had found my shot just prior to the sun going down. All I had to do then was sit. And wait. Be still. And that was very neccessary for me.



If you are going to be in town Labor Day weekend, a few of us will be heading to the Planes of Fame museum on Saturday, 9/4. We will be meeting for breakfast at Flo's, and then off to the museum by 10. They will have a flight demo of the YAK-3 at noon that should be awesome to shoot. Let me know below if you have any interest. Admission is normally $11, but if we can round up 20 people, they will let us in for only $8.

Canon 100-400 f/4-5.6L IS

For those of you following along, you know I traded my Canon 24-70 f/2.8L for the Canon 100-400 f/4-5.6L IS. Best. Deal. Ever.
To say I love this lens doesn't do it justice. I'm completely infatuated. It is probably the sharpest lens I have ever used. I didn't think I'd like the push-pull type zoom, but they got it right. And with push-pull, it's fast to go from 100mm to 400mm. No reason to miss a shot. Here is just a small sample of shots I've taken recently with this lens, most all of them taken with the old Canon 5D.



Is it a beast? No more so then my other favorite lens, the Canon 70-200 f/2.8L IS (I still use version 1)

In fact, I like this lens so much, I'm considering selling my old 5D and the 70-300 f4-5.6 IS to get a Canon 7D...

The most memorable vacation ever

This vacation has been an emotional roller coaster for me. That's about all I can say about it for now. I'll let the images speak for themselves...