I continue to be amazed at what I can do with the camera I carry in my pocket, the iPhone 4s!  After shooting both of these, I used the Snapseed app for postprocessing.

I took this in Harford, CT during an early morning preflight before a flight to San Juan, PR. I used the drama filter to add a funky almost HDR-like effect.

From the elevated train at the Miami Airport, I shot this 737 as it was pushed back from the gate.  I used Snapseed’s “Tilt & Shift” filter to make the subject appear miniature!

One of the benefits of my part time job, Air Force Reserve KC-135 Instructor Pilot, is the opportunity to shoot some interesting pictures and go places that are not normally easily accessible.  In this case, the Thunderbirds were on their way home from an airshow in Tennessee to Nevada.  As a tanker, we were able to give them the necessary fuel in flight allowing them important training and a much quicker trip home.  I was excited to be able to shoot them from this unique vantage point.

I am a small business with a shoestring marketing budget.  If I can generate free advertising, I’m all for that.  Google is one of the best forms of free advertising I can think of other than word of mouth.  Getting my customers’ reviews is very important to me since I think it can only help to improve my website’s Google performance.  If you’ve done business with me in some way, please leave your feedback!  Thanks a lot!

Here’s how to leave me feedback with Google Places:

1. Go to google.com/places
2. Click on “Start Rating Now with Hotpot”
3. Enter a name to use that will be attributed to your ratings.  It can be your first name, a friend’s horse’s name or anything else as far as I can tell.
4. Search for “RocketHorse Photography Spokane”
5. Click on the link “RocketHorse Photography” and a new window will open.
6. Look for “Been Here?” and click “Rate and Review” to leave feedback.
7. THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

As the owner of several horses, to include the Kentucky Mountain Horses below, I take as many pictures of them as a proud father would of his children.  In fact it was soon after the birth of one of my horses that led me to purchase a digital SLR several years ago.  Here, we have Huckleberry, who is looking into a beautiful, yet icy cold, sunset on our farm south of Spokane.  I took this picture around new years – I can’t know what he was thinking – more than likely it was about his dinner – but in this image I tried to capture the hope of a new year.

Huckleberry’s best friend, Rock Steady who is several years his senior, has won many awards for his breed when he lived back in Kentucky.  We can see here how thick his winter coat is.

Unrelated to my two horses above, are my two friends below, Bambi, the miniature horse, and Snowbear, a great Pyrenees.  I asked them to give me their best National Geographic pose, and this is what they came up with:

Colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel are known as “complimentary colors.” These pairings can make striking photographs.  Standing outside the State Theater in Mainz, Germany, I shot this image where we can see the blues in the twilight sky and the pale sandstone oranges of the theater create a cool pairing of complementary colors.  The blue – orange pair is rather common at sunset, and I have lots of examples to follow.

For some reason, vanishing points stand out to me and say “Take my picture!”  When I see them, whether they be a set of lights or a long corridor, I often feel inspired to pull out my camera.  Here is an example of a vanishing point in the Frankfurt train station.  The lines of the train, platform, overhead lighting, and roof structure all appear to point toward a common spot in the scene.  As a reminder, a vanishing point is a point in a photograph to which parallel lines not parallel to the image sensor appear to converge.  In this scene, it seemed appropriate that a journey beginning or ending in a train station should lead to a vanishing point.

Here is a view looking up from the top third of the Ulm Muenster which is the world’s tallest cathedral at roughly 550′ in height.  I shot this looking up where the walls taper in toward a point at the top of the steeple.  The lines in this image tend to converge toward the top of the photo making it look like a nearly infinite climb to the top.  This is not a true vanishing point as the definition of a vanishing point is a point in a perspective drawing to which parallel lines not parallel to the image plane appear to converge.  These lines aren’t actually parallel and they do converge.  If these lines were parallel, the image would appear roughly same, but the height would have to be much higher to get the same vanishing point effect.

This railroad bridge struck me as being very symmetric.  Waiting for a train to pass and allowing it to blur across the image added a visual element that contributed to this symmetry.  The subjects here are the bridge and the symmetry – this is why the train is blurred – so that it doesn’t distract from the subjects.  I like h0w the warm glow of the trains interior contrasts with the dusk outside.  After completing this, I wondered how the scene would change in the daytime.

In the full daylight, one of the big differences is that we can see the ribbon of color that is the train blurring past.  The graffiti on the column below the bridge is more noticeable.  The colors are different.  But the subjects remain the same.

There are many rules in photography, and many rules within every category of photography.  In the sport of horse jumping, the standard shot is made by shooting at a 30-45 degree angle from front of the jump as in the above image. This makes a fine shot and souvenir for the rider.  The official show photographer makes this shot and then offers it for sale to the rider.  However, I find that some of my most interesting work comes from breaking the so-called rules.

Here above we have the opposite of the standard jumping photograph.  This image was taken close to the action with a wide angle lens.  I exposed for the horse and rider who were in the shade causing the background to be completely washed out.  Photographing a subject like this with a wide angle lens up close causes distortion that is normally undesirable, but in this case, adds to the impact and feel of the energy.

Another example of the same tactic as described above – get in close and wide.  In this image, the viewer really can feel the energy cascading past.

Normally in equine photography, we follow the “rules” and use a longer lens to capture the proper proportions of the horse so as not to distort.  My intent in the above two images, was to convey a sense of drama and dynamic energy that I could not otherwise pull off while obeying “the rules.”

Amongst other things, I like to identify visual contrasts.  These can be occur in so many different ways – one of which is contrast in time – old vs new.  I felt that black and white was a good way to express this scene:  there was not much color, but in addition to thematic contrast, the contrast in intensity was strong and so were the lines.