Who is Xander?

I know it has been sometime since I have written on my blog, so I am going to make up for that with “cute” photos of Xander. Who is Xander? What are his goals, his dreams, his aspirations? What motivates him? Is it the milk bone that he gets when he sits? Why does it seem that cheddar cheese is like crack to him? Is that the power of cheese? We may never know, but I would like to think that these photos will help us take a closer look at the life of this, forever pup. Along with the photos, I will throw out some tips on how to get nice photos of your pets.

Tip # 8

It is important that you put your pet in its natural environment. Dogs are outside creatures. So taking a photo of your dog with “Lost” playing in the background on the family TV is not going to bring out the best from your pet. Taking your fish out of the aquarium won't help either.

Tip # 23

Sometimes a good action shot can really make your dog shine. Here I tied a piece of cheese to Xander’s tail and let him loose in the dog park. The tip is to carry some cheese with you at all time. Dogs love cheese.

Tip # 14

Getting down at the dog’s eye level can make a huge difference. Sometimes its good to get down on your hands and knees and pretend to be a dog. But don't pee on your neighbors bushes. Apparently you can get fined for doing that. But I think looking at the next photo, you will understand what I am talking about.

Tip #Q

Sometimes it is good to just take a step back.

Well folks, I think thats enough of Xander. Soon, he will be getting more pupularity then me. Get it? Many was that a cheesy joke. I will fix that with my last photo.

Chicks dig dogs with life vests.

Paranormal State: Behind the Scenes Collection

I have been posting a few of my photos that I took behind the scenes, during filming, on our message boards, but I decided I would put all of them together on my blog for all you folks to enjoy.

This post will be constantly updated till we run out of episodes. Enjoy. I am constantly playing around with photoshop regarding the borders, signatures and text. Sorry for the changes. It might get really crazy as we progress further on.

Night Photography Part 1

I would like you all to join me on a little journey of night photography. I only know what I have gathered from my experience, but I feel like there is more I am missing. Throughout my photographic adventures with my, Canon Powershot SD200, Canon Digital Rebel, and, newest of the three, Canon Powershot SD800 IS, I have gathered some pretty cool night shots.

The following photos were taken with my first camera, Canon SD200.
This was my first night photograph.



Taken on the roof of my car when I went out driving in the night.




And sometimes my night photographs....



would take my for one strange ride.



Another one of my firsts. Taken when I lived in Erie, PA.



People.




All those were a combination of luck and learning.

Now I would like to master using my Rebel for night photography. I think this weeks lesson will be all about the flash.

Sorry that this wasn't that funny. Read this joke I found as token of compensation:

"Invited to Dinner"

A girl asks her boyfriend, to come over Friday night and have dinner with her parents. Since this is such a big event, the girl announced to her boyfriend that after dinner, she would like to go out and make love for the first time. Well, the boy is ecstatic, but he has never had sex before, so he takes a trip to the pharmacist to get some condoms. The pharmacist helps the boy for about an hour. He tells the boy everything there is to know about condoms and sex. At the counter, the pharmacist asks the boy how many condoms he'd like to buy: a 3-pack, 10-pack, or a family pack. "I'm really going to give it to this girl," the boy tells the pharmacist. "I intend to go for hours and hours." The pharmacist, with a laugh, suggests the family pack, saying the boy will be rather busy, it being his first time and all.

That night, the boy shows up at the girls parents house and meet his girlfriend at the door. "Oh I'm so excited for you to meet my parents, come on in!" The boy goes inside and is taken to the dinner table where the girl's parents are seated. The boy quickly offers to say grace and bows his head. A minute passes, and the boy is still deep in prayer with his head down. 10 minutes passes and still no movement from the boy. Finally, after 20 minutes with his head down, the girlfriend finally leans over and whispers to the boyfriend, "I had no idea you were this religious. " The boy turns, and whispers back, "I had no idea your father was a pharmacist!!"

A movie made for me...

So over the weekend, I was browsing the internet and I came across a trailer for a new movie that is due out this Spring: Shutter. Further research led me to discover that this movie was adopted from the 2004 Thai version. I included both versions for you all. This newer remake, still follows the premise that a young couple begin to mysteriously start seeing shadows in their photos.

( Thai 2004 Version)

(US 2008 Version)

The good: Photography and Paranormal. Finally a movie that is made for me. AND!!! its one day after my birthday. Is this a sign? I don't know? It comes out March 21st, 2008. I will still be accepting presents at that time.

The bad: I am not in the movie with a Canon camera.

What can I say...as a photographer and a paranormal investigator I am definitely gonna go watch this movie. When I go watch movies I like to put myself into it so much that after its over, I feel like I can do what the character did. You know in the Matrix when they teach Neo how to fight and stuff...kinda like that. After watching Die Hard when I was in jr high school, I was just hoping that the school gets attacked by German terrorists so that I could save the day. Or after leaving a good ninja movie I was ready to walk through some dark allies, hoping some mugger would try something. I would so be ready to...push my friends toward him and run.

But going back to this movie, like I was saying, this fits my character perfectly. I am honestly surprised that I wasn't asked to be in this one. Oh well, maybe the sequel, when it gets released straight to DVD. I guess what White Noise did for EVPs, this movie will do for spirit photography....oh man I hope this movie won't blow.

Stick around, I am hope to keep a close eye on this movie and I also hope to unveil some info on all sorts of paranormal photography. But first I need to find the right signature for my photos and this blog needs a new name.

Behind the Scenes: The Piano

Here is a Special Behind the Scenes from the recent episode of Paranormal State.




Coming up this week: 1) I need to choose a signature for my photographs 2) My parents light heartedly (annoyed me till I said yes) suggested (forced) that I change my "The Struggling Photographer" title. There is a blog about that coming up. 3) Review if the trailer for Shutter 4)Being cool 5) Wait should I change number 4 to number 1? 6)Oh great I just wasted a number 7) You know what, just keep coming back...does that sound too desperate? Maybe you shouldn't come back? Lets take things slow is all I am saying.

In the Beginning...

So I was going through my photograph archive and I stumbled upon some of the photos I took with my first digital camera. I kinda feel like I took the photos for a reason, so I ran them through some post-processing and decided to share them with you. I will put up more slide shows as this blog continues to grow. And just as the blog continues to grow, so will I. Hope you guys enjoy it.

I apologize if the slideshow goes by too fast. I am working on a better way to display my photos. But, one step at time, right?

Review from Reviews: Canon PowerShot SD950 IS

So its kinda hard to write reviews on products I don't have. There is no sense for it: touching, seeing, hearing, smelling, and/or tasting? Thats why this will be a review from the reviews I find online. I guess you can call it an average of all the reviews. You can call it average, if you're a math nerd. Which I sorta am. My day job is a mixture of a financial adviser, accountant, and bookkeeper. I know ladies, it IS a very attractive combination.

But anyway lets get the real nitty gritty of this blog. I am gonna get three different sources for photography related objects and give you guys the low down of...what...I read. Look I know it doesn't sound exciting or journalistic, but I will try to entertain you guys. While you read this blog, I will be juggling.

So I am a huge fan of the Canon products. The three digital cameras that have entered my life, have all been Canons. So for this edition of Review from Reviews, I will ...review..., THE Canon PowerShot SD950 IS! Rules of the game are simple: I go to the best search engine in town, Google (sorry, cheap attempt for getting sponsored by Google) and type in, "Canon PowerShot SD950 IS review." The first three results is what I used.

The review from CNET was pretty good. Editor rating was 7.8/10 and average user rating was 7.3/10. Hmmm standard...boring. Bear with me. We have to get through stuff before things really get spiced up. The next link was to, DP Review, which turned out to be a press release. I guess that doesn't qualify as a review, but it proved to be important. And the final reviewer was, Imaging Resource.

One of the biggest complaints from the CNET site was of the cameras "sluggish" performance. On average it took 2 seconds for the camera to take a shot after the first one was taken. This might be a little too long when you are trying to get a good photo with that hot chick that everyone is after. You can tell she is getting bored and frankly doesn't seem to be impressed with your camera...stupid whor....I'm sorry for that. Back to the review: when I checked out the press release from DP Review, there was no mention on what the shooting speed was. Which makes you think...are they not reporting these numbers because they are ashamed of them? No, of course not...actually compared to a lot of the other cameras out there, the speed was pretty damn good. So don't let that stop you from buying the camera.

I think the real big thing about this camera is that it shoots at 12.1 megapixals. If you are gonna shoot at full resolution, prepare to get a huge memory card and watch the space on your hard drive to fill up. The Canon Powershot ELPH cameras are great for beginners. I started out with an ELPH myself. It was an ELPH that caused me to fall in love with photographer.

There is not complete control option, but you can at least set the shutter speed up to 15 seconds. This is kinda cool, if you get into night photography and painting with light photography. (Keep watching, I am gonna write some articles about those topics.) And speaking of low light photography, one of the better features is the cameras 3200 ISO setting. Combine this with the Image Stabilization and you got yourself a nice little camera for this low light situations, where the flash cannot be used.

I will leave it at that...if you have used this camera before...tell us what you think in the comments.