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Club Chaos Eye Candy: Rockaway Beach, Queens County, New York

I'm hanging out with Emelia reading books, lurking on Kim and Vicki's blogs when this wild wind starts blowing the framed photographs out of Emmy's living room windows. We start grabbing picture frames to lay them flat then suddenly realize the balcony chairs might take flight because a huge storm is brewing and garbage cans are rolling in the streets.

While on the balcony bringing in the furniture and cleaning up we see a rainbow forming. Emmy gets her camera to take a shot of it and I grab my Nikon and run out of her condo to start jogging through the streets because I know rainbows don't last long... This one lingered for approximately 42 minutes.

Turns out to be a double rainbow taking shape going for miles inland and across the ocean. I stop jogging and start running my butt off snapping as many shots as I can while making a bee line for the ocean.

While I'm getting drenched snapping 134 photographs and several video clips my gal pal Emmy is opting for a break in the weather so she can use her car to eventually catch up with me (LOL). Emmy doesn't jog like I do. We're talking about that... She might... maybe... She likes bikes. :-)

She knows where to meet me on the boardwalk because the wee people have three favorite spots. By the time Emmy arrives I'm at the edge of the shore having a field day spinning 360 degrees tracking storm clouds, planes and rainbows while in awe of a fabulous setting sun.

Double rainbows are rare... I'm glad I caught this so my kids could see it. See that Life Guard chair? It's one of my fave locations to settle in the sand and write while having a beach play-date with my kids. It's one of our outside offices (LOL).

I usually meet my gal pals on the boardwalk here. Em and I started doing our photo-thing together pretty quick since there were less than ten people out at the beach for miles and I was the only person dressed in black scrubs making it easy for her to track me down (LOL). Chicka took pictures of me working and insisted I post one on my blog since pictures of me taking pictures are kinda rare:

Being facetious I would post two of the back of my head (LOL). Her Facebook page is locked down so being a friend of a friend (through me) wont get you guys a peak at anything else (not sorry - LOL). Besides, we all know I'm a tease so unless you're new to my blog you already know I hardly post pictures of myself (silly grin). I'm usually behind the camera shooting everything and everyone else. Em is one of the few people who gets to routinely stalk me with her camera and we usually have mad-snarky-girlie-banter fun shooting each other while talking smack and capturing scenes.

There's a reason why she's one of my fave photographers: Emelia will travel anywhere and stay on a shoot well after sundown... Even in the rain with winds gusting out of control and planes flying low overhead...

At some point it stopped raining. We decided since we were already wet that we wanted to see the moon come up because the sunset was beautiful and we were betting the moon rising through those racing clouds would be a beautiful sight to see, even if difficult to capture with the wind whipping us and the clouds about.

We discovered as the wind increased it was getting a wee bit tricky to take pictures because we couldn't hold still even braced against inanimate objects. I'm 145 pounds and I was getting shoved around like a kite (silly grin). We switched to video and had a blast until the bugs started attacking the lights from our cameras LED screens the darker it got (which was an itchy Twilight Zone moment - LOL). I have to edit it into something useful tomorrow after our session at the gym. I have a guest blog to finish so I need to collect some more work-out stills (oh joy!) while trying not to kill off any more gray matter or accidentally popping something useful out of whack (LOL).

P.S. Emmy hosts some of the best creative pajama parties and I love working at her condo. She makes writing a lot of fun and is a marvelous cook (so yeah, waiting for the moon to rise was worth it). ;-)

Felix Lipov, Susana Isakharova and Tamara Isakharov at the Ward Nasse Gallery, NY

Club Chaos Eye Candy: The Photography of Felix Lipov

For those of you new to my blog my hubby is Jewish and is perfectly happy with me being in love with Christ Jesus. I have always wanted to visit Israel and am fortunate to have friends like these who occasionally do go over there and capture some of the most visually stunning images I have ever seen.

It is my pleasure to introduce you to the Photography of Felix Lipov. Not only is he talented in the visual arts, he is also intellectually drop dead gorgeous, just like Sana and Tamara.

Did I mention I habitually surround myself with people who are smarter than I am? I do you know. That's how I continue to grow and do lots of interesting things that helps make blogging fun. Nothing beats having a network of talented friends to share your life with. ;-)

Felix is part of the film project and will also be doing some work for the Ambassadors of Chaos record label. Stay tuned for more tid bits on our upcoming projects... I don't want to blow it all at once - you know how much I like to tease you(LOL).  

Oh come on... you know you want to click that link... Go visit Felix and check out his photography. You wont be disappointed. ;-)

uberMental Tip Of The Day: How To Play With Lights During Your Night Photography (Part 2)

Steps one, two and three are over here. Before we move on to step four I want to share my "Fuse" photograph from my recent night run to help explain how not to take a blurry photograph at night. The detour is necessary  since a couple of people expressed they had problems keeping their pictures clear of unwanted lighting effects and blurry focus. :-)

I want you to close your eyes and concentrate on your heartbeat and breathing. Your pulse and breath make your body move. As long as you are alive there will be some part of you moving. The trick is to sync your camera with your heartbeat and breath as if it is a part of you. Pushing the button is like pulling a trigger. When you take the shot, do so on a slow breath out and hold it, waiting to breath in after you hear the aperture of your lens click close. Your shot completes at the closing of the lens, not the pushing of the button (LOL).

If you relax and focus you will take a clear shot because your photography technique will improve by practicing a moment of stillness. Remind yourself that photographers tend to call their shots a "still." Time is standing still when you create your photographs. You should practice being still to take them as well... It also works for taking shots on the run and on a drive by if you get really good at timing your click and pause moments. A steady hand takes practice so go practice and remember to have fun with it.

Time for step four... I am going to open a few photographs, including the one I deliberately made blurry, so I could have a strange, cool lighting effect with a couple of interesting textures and contracts. I am going to combine them into a brand new imgage and do a bit of digital pixel painting to make a new graphic for my next post. If you downloaded the Photoshop trial like I suggested on my previous post, opening a picture file may resemble something like this:

I want you yo select four or five pictures and arrange them in layers. This is the part of the show where you can read your HELP FILES if you have never done this before. I can also provide screen shots if you can't figure out how to do it. I just don't want fifty photographs on one post. We may have to revert to filming this live (LOL). This is why you need to come to RainCamp. You'll learn stuff like this there. :-)

If you click on your layers it has a slide bar that lets you define how translucent they are. "Blending Option" is your help file category.

You can bleed and blend them into each other for some fun effects. Check this out:

Think of it as fusing photographs into a new illustration. Seriously... You too can be a graphic designer if you take the time to read your help files. It is as simple as that. Go try it. You may like it. Will have a new tip for you tomorrow. It's time to take the kids to school (LOL). :-)

Step One: Take a traditional night shot and pay very close attention to the timing of your digital camera's aperture click of the shutter.

Step Two: Just before the shutter clicks shut, make a tiny serpentine movement with your camera to squiggle the lights.

Step Three: Repeat steps one and two until you get something interesting that you like. Discard the rest and post those puppys on your blog. Shall show you how you can blend it in with other images this afternoon using Photoshop. Yes. You now have homework (LOL). Don't own Photoshop? Go to the Adobe.com website and download a free 30 day trial so you can play with me.

Class is in session. :-)

01/06/2010 Update: Step Four.