After our stay in Barcelona we headed to Israel. While there, I made it a point to shoot with the local flavor in mind.

What do I mean by that? In the past, my travel photography has focused on buildings and natural features often at the expense of including local life in my photographs. I usually accomplished this by framing photographs so that not a single person was in them, sometimes waiting and waiting until everyone kindly stepped out of my photo. The results tended to fall into the postcard category: pretty but lifeless.

This time, along with the buildings and natural features, I intentionally sought to include local folk in my photos. Here are a few of my favorites.

Business at a local candy shop…

Jewish boys and their men during bar mitzvahs and prayers at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem…

Women at a school, and bathing in a Tel Aviv beach…

Men gathering by the Dome of the Rock, and a solitary woman walking by it…

A couple of months ago, I was comisioned to take this photo portraying hands belonging to the ladies of the family.

I accomplished the shot fairly simply, standing next to one of the subjects, aiming the camera straight down onto a dark cloth draped coffee table, and bouncing the flash off the ceiling.

As a follow-up, I was asked to take a more traditional group portrait, and for this I brought out my lighting kit, now including a 60″ umbrella softbox powered with 3 Nikon speedlights, placed at camera left and about 45 degrees to my subjects; a 43″ reflected umbrella at slight camera right for fill; and a reflector to the right of the subjects for additional fill.

I hoped all the equipment setup wouldn’t distract me from accomplishing at least one good shot, and I’m still evaluating whether I succeeded. I guess I’ll let the ladies decide which they prefer, or whether we need to try again.

Today I will share some photos I took New Year’s eve afternoon at the Rose Bowl in the hours leading up to the “judging” for the Tournament of Roses. It’s always great to admire the detail in the flowers and the grandeur of the floats, and my 24-120 f4 lens once again did admirably.

For the fourth image, I had to overcome the terrific dynamic range of a bright sun as back light to the float with a 5 frame HDR. As much as I like to play with perspectives, form and HDR to bring out these grander images, I am finding people far more fascinating to photograph.

Just when the sunlight was fading and I was getting ready to put my lens cap on, I stumbled upon this composite image.

Happy New Year!!!

If you’ve been following this blog for the past couple of weeks, you may have noticed a barrage of posts about the 24-120 f4. Most of them have shown family photos, but as I reported previously, this lens also does quite well for event photography under tough lighting conditions. During this Christmas season, this lens has helped me capture…

Choirs singing…

Orchestras and ensembles playing…

Quartets harmonizing…

And rock bands worshiping.

As you can see from some of my latest posts, I’ve been focusing my attention more and more on portraiture. Capturing people in motion, however, is another facet of photography I really enjoy. I particularly marvel at the beauty of form and movement one can capture with runners. This past weekend I had a chance to put my Nikon D300′s AF and FPS (yes, in 12-bit RAW mode) through the paces. AF-C was virtually flawless, and catching runners in the moment with a well-timed burst was a delight. Here are 3 from the Sacramento (aka, California) Marathon.

After taking a second look at these, two struck me as candidates for some black and white processing. I like the results, because the focus more narrowly falls on the runners, and distractions in the blurred background more or less diminish to a more acceptable level.

Though eye contact often makes it in a portrait, I find sometimes a more candid approach feels much more natural. The following sample is a favorite of mine.

This shot is an example of slightly off focus point selection. The nearest eye is not in focus while the far eye is. In this case, because of the more informal pose, focus point selection, even at this fairly large (f/2.5) aperture does not seem as critical when weighed against the other things this image has going for it. It is the introspective mood that wins out here.

As I thought of this, I wondered whether I could enhance this through a monochromatic treatment. Fearing a straight black and white conversion might suffer from a lack of warmth, I opted for an IR conversion with Sepia toning. The result adds a dreamy feel to the introspective mood I noticed in the original and focuses attention more narrowly on the subject’s form and features.

For me this is an example of why one shouldn’t stop at a decent or even excellent exposure, but should always look for ways to complete one’s vision through post processing.