Natural Vs. Artificial: New Jersey Landscape Photography

I have long been interested/obsessed with lightning. As a kid, I used to love going out to the front stoop to watch storms. Living in a neighborhood with lots of trees didn’t exactly afford the best view of lightning or the sky – so the second I could drive, I began logging hours by the shore. At first, it was the bay beach a couple of miles away from my house. After a while, I began to feel comfortable creeping over to the Ocean Gate boardwalk.


I wasn’t doing photography seriously then, but I loved to take my first 35mm film camera with me to take the same 5 photos over and over again on different days. I never even attempted to get a photo of lightning, knowing that the combination of me being a seriously unlucky individual and also a rather cautious one created a cocktail that kept me from the experience. Once I got into photography seriously, I began to love long exposures, fireworks, and essentially any ‘light painting’ photo I could get.


I had not attempted getting shots of lightning until the other night. Having just finished shooting an event, on the way home, I noticed that there was some serious storm going on. It wasn’t raining, the clouds seemed to be in the right position to be able to photograph, and all the impossible variables seemed to fall into place. I set up by Island Heights, and began a relatively frustrating hour checking exposures, getting my timing down, and trying to remember to continuously press the shutter (next on my purchase list: remote shutter). I managed to get several bolts, though the one I’m going to share was the night’s best. It was totally exciting each time I knew I ‘got one’ in my shot, and I am now waiting patiently for the next storm.


Just so you can compare, I’m going to show you nature’s fireworks vs. the ones that we shoot off on the Fourth of July. I tried a little something different with this year’s fireworks and pushed my ISO way higher than I typically do, so I could include some foreground. When I finally got to look at the frames, I was really happy at the sense of ‘awe’ that including the people watching the show included.





www.deepsixphotography.com

Beautiful Things: New Jersey Landscape Photography

I feel like it’s always a catch-up with this blog! We have done so many great family shoots and weddings recently, that it will take a bit to get all that goodness up. For now, enjoy this sampling from last night in Ocean Gate, NJ. The iconic (to locals) boardwalk and pavilion made it through Sandy – so it’s nice to see one local landmark completely untouched. Yes – these are HDR photos!





If you’re digging all this, make sure to check out our Facebook page where there is plenty more goodness from the Summer 2013 Landscape Collection (as well as much more!).

We also have a site with plenty to see!
www.deepsixphotography.com

New Year, New Start: New Jersey Portrait Photographer

A few months back we ran a contest of sorts called ‘New Year, New Start’ – the idea was: if you’d been affected by hurricane Sandy – give us your name! We did a random drawing, and the lucky winner received a photo session for free. Being that it was random, we weren’t sure who we were going to pick (obviously). There were many deserving families, and we truly wished that we could give free photos to everyone (if we could, we would!). We lucked out when we picked these guys – they were so sweet, their little one was so adorable, and they were so wonderful to work with.




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Long Exposure HDR

 

Every now and then I get on a jag with long exposure shooting. I don’t always find the technique applicable (I’m sure that I would use it a whole lot more if we had some waterfalls or the like around) but when I use it, I’m typically not disappointed. The last long exposure HDR shot I did was at the lighthouse, and became Deepsix Photography’s top-selling photo. I’m not sure that this most recent endeavor will climb the charts quite like that one did – but I do really like it:

 

 

 

Just for comparison – here is a similar shot (zoomed in quite a bit) that is not HDR, just long exposure. If you look at the above shot, you can see the moon just beginning to descend from the clouds. Below, you can see much more of it.

 

 

And there you have it – one shot, two similar ways. Which do you prefer?

 

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This is How We Roll

I am sorry for the lack of posts! Lots has been going on with our business (check out the site if you haven’t already, www.deepsixphotography.com – and ‘Like’ us on Facebook!!).

Here is a behind the scenes look at what was going on when I got some shots the other night!

The main goal of the evening was me wanting to catch a cow-nosed ray. I suspected it would be easy to do this, since they are visible in the waves from shore right now (you can see them kind of surfing the break). I pretty much figured the second that I tossed my bait into the water, I would have one on the line. I wanted to be the girl fighting the huge fish on the beach while all the bennies watched.

Unfortunately, the rays weren’t picking up what I was putting down, and I instead decided to venture off and get some photos.

It was great, and I was getting some nice shots.

Here’s what our set-up looked like. Ray was staying pretty still, so I figured I’d try to sneak some HDR in and do something a little different.

That is pretty much our set-up. Camera bag, orange bucket, and two poles. It was such a gorgeous night, and the colors of the sky were so beautiful.

As I was photographing, I kept looking at my pole. There was nothing doing.

All of the sudden, I heard the tell-tale squeal of Ray’s drag, and it was fish on. I actually took a video of him reeling it in. It is not the best quality video (and I apologize for strange camera angles) – but you’ll get the idea. I’m going to try to embed it here:

Long story short – when he was done, he pulled in this cute little bugger:

Yes, they have stingers. I was a little nervous this thing would pull a Steve Irwin and stab Ray through the heart, but luckily nobody was injured, and this ray swims free.

Here’s just one more quickie. I made Ray cooperate for this:

Epic Engagement

The other week, we had the pleasure of shooting an engagement session with Kristin and Matt. Unfortunately, try as we might – the weather was really not cooperating, but we toughed it out through really unseasonable June temperatures and some howling south wind for some absolutely gorgeous shots:

 

 

And then.. to cap an awesome evening – they were open to letting me do some HDR stuff – which I love to do. So basically, they bravely took engagement photos to a whole new level:

 

Awesome.

Stormy Monday

Yesterday, the sky was doing some crazy stuff. I love multi-layered cloud cover, and there were many fantastic examples putting on quite a show. Additionally, the sky behind the heavy cloud cover was a supremely dazzling blue. I’m not sure if it’s a coincidence that these storms seem to roll through on Mondays, but this is the second instance where I’ve found that the weather was rather miserable, unseasonably cold, and generally yucky on the most hated day of the week. Lucky for me, this lends itself to some unique and wonderful sky photography.

This shot illustrates that dazzling blue that I was talking about hiding behind the clouds.

And here are the clouds covering up the dazzle on the opposite side of the island. I love all the layers and textures!

– www.deepsixphotography.com

Before We Were Famous

So I was exaggerating. We are not famous now. However, if you are looking at comparative fame from 4 years ago, we are doing awesome.

I’ve noticed lately, that my computer has been insanely bogged down. My CS5 is running at a really glacial pace, which is slowing down photo editing something awful. I’ve been working on a nice watermark to slap all over our photos, but I was barely able to create a text box in under 3 minutes. I realized that the sheer mass of photographic excellence on this computer’s hard drive might be the culprit. There are easily close to 10,000 photos on my desktop, if not more than that. While I do love each and every one, it was time to do some deleting.

Here are some photos from before we really started doing photography seriously, and some from the very beginning.

I used this shot in our promos up until very recently. It is stupidly simple, but I’ve always loved it. It was taken early in our game, but it still makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

One of my all-time favorite shots. Ray and I went crabbing and caught 1 crab. We had him in the bucket for a bit with a cutting board and knife. When I went to check on him, the crab had picked up the knife and was waving it around. Really. Just goes to show you: New Jersey crabs are badass and carry knives.

I rarely go see sunrise. I typically run in the mornings, so I wake up for work at around 5:30. The last thing I want to do on the weekend is drag myself to the beach before sunrise – that’s Ray’s thing. Luckily, the couple of times I’ve done it – I have been richly rewarded. This sunrise was simple – but my timing could not have been better with that bird.

Each year I obsess over what I term ‘the running of the duckings’ which is when the ever-present Canadian geese have their babies. I consistently go on the hunt to obtain photos of the cute little balls of fluff.

There are many more favorite old shots – but these were the ones I stumbled upon early. Hope you enjoyed!

Perspective

Every once in a while I end up having a really epic sunset session, where it feels like everywhere I look there is an awesome photo opportunity. I especially like it when each opportunity presents a totally different photo experience – almost to the point where you might think that each of the photos was taken on a different day.

So basically I’m going to present to you a sunset that was lookin’ good from the front, the side, and even the back.

Front. Lovin’ it. And it wasn’t all for show.

Side. Look at that form! What beautiful cloud shape. I also love when the sky reflects off the water and kinda makes it glow. It’s totally happening here, and I’m digging it.

From the back. You can see Ray taking some pictures inside the gazebo. I really didn’t think this would turn out. I love how crystal clear the bay looks. Drink it in now, because in two months the bennys will have yucked it all up. I just love the glow the sun was shining on the wood of the gazebo, and the nice orange-y blue-y tones.

So yeah. Lookin’ good Lavallette. Lookin’ good.

Visit our site for more about DSP. We’re now booking spring shoots – so if you need photos drop us a line!

Somethin’ Special

I made a modest attempt at using my new portrait lens for some scenic HDR photography. I didn’t really expect much out of the results, because it’s really not the right lens for the job – but I got a photo that I really do adore. It has a strong color cast and is obviously rather surreal, but I do like what happened. I suppose it’s good to experiment every now and again.

That’s lovely, right? Well. I happen to think it is.