Solar Eclipse…sort’a!

 

Who cares if we couldn’t see the solar eclipse from Peoria Illinois today, the experience was ridiculously awesome even without it! I’ll try and explain.

As usual with such natural events that are known to happen, I find a bunch of people crowded in obvious areas for all can see the wonders of mother nature. Well, I saw them there which means I was there myself. But oddly enough, at one of the highest points of Peoria, there wasn’t any photographers or anyone for that matter where I was. Weird. There were up a hill and around the corner, but I suppose they wanted to stay out of the weather.

I parked where everyone else had and walked back several hundred yards, out the the middle of an open bridge. By open I mean it doesn’t have a top overhead. Only a mid-height rail on the sides. I was early to this events happening, wondering I would get to see anything at all since it was terribly cloudy.

So, I’m standing on one side of the bridge facing the sun, waiting for it the breech into the small open area between the tops of the trees and the bottom of the clouds lingering close above them. The wind was so strong it felt like it was going to throw me off the bridge Ok ok, yeah yeah. I’m a tiny guy and it doesn’t take much…BUT JUST AS SCARY!! So SHHOOOSH! xD

I turned around while waiting and saw a massive amount of black clouds hovering over. It started to rain, but not too much that I felt I needed to leave. See, I brought my umbrella(-ella-ella-EHY!) and after I saw the storm realized what a dope I am for standing on top the highest bridge with a metal umbrella and an even larger metal tripod!

Since I had time, I walked back to the car and go rid of my umbrella (-ella-ella–ok!) and grabbed another battery since the only one I had on me (in my camera) was dying. (Rule #18: Camera batteries die usually at really bad times!)

I got back to the bridge and HOLY#$%^&* LOOK AT THAT RAINBOW!

I could see both ends of it and from where I was standing, but my 17mm (26′ish with my 1.6x crop factor) could contain the greatness of this thing!

Over the half hour I was there I saw rain, daytime, night time, a huge storm, felt rain and wind, calmness, fury, blues, oranges, reds, yellows, insane sky gradations, and a couple of nice people on the walk back to the car. Good to meet you few, amazing was it not?!

Drywall

Last week when traveling I came across a factory that had a rock quarry across the street. What caught my eye was the sky walk that went over a two lane highway which looked like it fed rocks from the quarry overhead to the factory across the street. COOL! I followed the sky walk and saw that it was a LaFarge plant. For those who may not know, LaFarge is one of the bigger companies that makes drywall.

Integrated into the plant were railroad tracks for moving product. Pictured above is one of the trains and the skywalk going over the road. It looks tiny far back in the image, but it was rather large standing looking up at it. Looking into the rock quarry the big trucks appears like tiny Tonka trucks buzzing around. Mde me giggle actually. :) Here is a pano of the quarry…click on it to see a larger version.

 

I haven’t got to processing anything else from shooting there. These were my favorite.Thank you for checking out my blog and website if you came from there. If not, go check it out at www.joshuaberardi.com ..it beats Facebook bordem! xD

@The Patio Theater

I had an excellent opportunity to shoot inside The Patio Theater in Chicago a few weeks back. It’s an old theater that has been restored in the past year and now is open for business again! You can check it out here: http://patiotheater.net/ They play things from the original Jurassic Park to the new Wrath of the Titans.

The architecture was intricate and original. We shot there for a couple of hours, but that definitely wasn’t enough time to cover all of things we wanted to do! Here is a shot not published anywhere but here. I have one other posted on my Facebook fan page. Go Like that if you are the Facebook type!

Tax Season!

It’s that time of the year where tax money is being spent like crazy! I have yet to indulge, but have planned how to take over the world with my return. Ok, maybe not your world, but my own! Really I’m just upgrading my gear. I use really old photography gear. I mean, you know that old photography lens or filter or thing-that-you-will-never-use but won’t-ever-get-rid-of? Yeah?! Well, that’s my entire studio. xD

Valentine’s Day is coming up!

I figure I would stick to a pink theme for a post or two this February! I love taking pictures, but I love post production even more. I have so much fun with post-creative work. I have fun lighting and shooting as well, but after I get the image I need I’m even more excited to get it into post and play like a little kid with a new laser gun! Yes, laser gun, because they are so totally cool!!

I find that I spend most of my post-work time working with color and toning. I retouch and fix anything I may have missed in the shot rather quickly, then the creative process takes over and I get sucked in. I absolutely love toning images. I enjoy it because the toning of an image is what gives it a ‘feel.’ I can change almost everything about an image and the feeling of the image isn’t far from what it was out of the camera, but once toning comes into play a whole new sensation happens.

Winter Halo

No, not the video game. But, an actual winter halo! I was out feeding the dogs and looked up and saw this…amazing! I shot it 4 times to get it viewable in camera.

30/sec

f/4.5

17mm

ISO 200

I’m sure there are ways to make the image ‘better,’ but it was about capturing a memory for me and not so much something to achieve top notch quality. If you have tips and tricks on this sort of photography, comment and share!

Soccer Style!

It’s that time of the year when seniors are going to the local photographers and capturing how nerdy they don’t know they are yet. I look back at my senior pics and think “wow, really josh?”  Nice hair…dork! ahhh ANYWAY.

In that mode of thinking is how I approached shooting my nephew, Alec, for his senior pictures. He plays several sports, but soccer seems to stand out more than the others. I thought instantly about some of those Nike ad’s. You know, with the strong back lighting and hard HDR-like effect? We went with that look.

The setup was two strobe lights, the sun, and a meter in-hand. Here is a behind-the-scenes shot of what you would have seen if standing there with us. (click to enlarge)

 

I was impressed by his ease in-front of the camera and his willingness to work with me on getting shots that showed attitude and were edgy.  Some ideas were planned, like the first shot above. Others was Alec just being totally freaking AWESOME! Like, this 2nd image below:

 

Thank you Alec for being an awesome subject to shoot! You rock!!!