I would like to thank all of the people from the 2011 Global Focus Photography Competition for the award of 1st place for my submission.  It is always a great thrill to have an image recognized, and it is an honor to have taken first place in this competition.  This year there were many other great images submitted to the competition which makes this award that much more meaningful. Some background on this image: This image was shot on the eve of a first DOCTRID conference in Dublin Ireland in October of 2010.  I was actually there to film aRead more

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Honorable Mention: Accordion Recently I discovered that I have received an honorable mention in the 2010 MSU Global Focus Photography Contest this year.  It is a thrill to have any of my images recognized, and I’d like to thank all the people involved for giving one of my images the nod of honorable mention.  I would also like to thank all the people that voted for the People’s Choice winner which was taken by Leigh Wolf This image was taken in Tours France in July of 2010.  I traveled to Tours France with Bran and Leigh this summer as we went throughRead more

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Today started off like so many Friday’s before, then en route to my office I was irritated to find myself being diverted off my normal drive only to discover a student house engulfed in flames.  I was able to grab my camera and and grab a few shots.  No one was reported injured in the fire, all people (plus pets) were accounted for.  I arrived on the scene about 9:20am or so, just after the fire trucks had arrived, it did not take long, maybe an hour or so before there was only a smoldering frame left of the house.Read more

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The elusive thalarctos maritimus has finally been captured on camera, well ok, its not all that elusive and well, its not even alive. This image is that of the great thalarctos maritimus otherwise known as a polar bear.  This massive polar bear is located in the lobby of the Natural Resources Building on the campus of Michigan State University.  This bear was shot in 1957 at Point Borrow Alaska and donated to the University by Mt. Koepplinger of Oak Park Michigan. The image above is a composite of two separate images.  Both images were shot at night in the lobbyRead more

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Looking to continue the MSU Landmark project, I ran out and grabbed a quick HDR of the MSU Library.  Oh the hours spent inside this building…if only I could have them back.  (just kidding…it was well worth it).  Anyway the weather was great, and it was calm enough (not too many students on campus yet) for me to get a lot of shots without having people walk through my scene.  Here is the final rendered image (click for larger view). Okay, I must admit that taking images like this gets me all geeked up.  I start looking at other scenesRead more

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Is there a better MSU spartan icon better than Sparty himself?  I think not.  So here is the next installment of the Spartan Landmark series.  This is a shot of the newly placed Sparty.  The original Sparty statue is now inside the new football stadium, protected from the weather.  The original Spartan was created in 1945 by Leonard D. Jungwirth and measures 10 feet six inches in height weighing in at 3 tons making it one of the worlds largest free standing ceramic statues. Picture Specifications: Camera: Nikon D300 Lens: 18-135mm @ 40mm ISO: 200 Aperture: f8 Shutter: 1/125

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OBJECTIVE: Shoot MSU’s Beaumont Tower as a vertical panorama. RESULT: This is what I came up with. I was waiting for the weather to cooperate with me all evening, and just as I was about to give up on the possibility of shooting this location, the sun peaked out behind some clouds just as it was about 15 degrees above the horizon. So I raced to the spot, set up the tripod and stared firing away. This image is a vertical panorama so it consists of 4 shots, layered vertically from the ground up. To ensure the exposure was meteredRead more