For the second year in a row Jon (a fellow volunteer photographer) and I photographed the DC chapter's annual Cheetah Foundation fundraising event. Part of the fund raising efforts is to give people the chance to have their picture taken with a live Cheetah. The Columbus Zoo in partnership with Jack Hanna brings these animal ambassadors to various events to give people a chance to see them up close and interact with them.



Laurie Marker, who founded the Cheetah Foundation, was present for the photographs and also gave a talk about the importance of supporting the foundation to help preserve the species. The cheetah's name is Moya and is only a year old and will grow a little bigger. During the entire photoshoot he was relaxed and very curious. While taping down the table cloth, he had to investigate and smell the tape. After he was done checking out the tape he decided to lick my arm. Then entire time he was purring so I wasn't nervous. 




Moya was loving the attention and was purring during most of the photoshoot. One of the nice benefits of photographing events like this is we also get a chance to be in the photographs.

As a volunteer photographer for the National Zoo, I was recently asked to photograph a book signing by Mo Willems at the Zoo. The last book signing I photographed was for Jeff Corwin, which is a name I recognized. I have never heard of Mo Willems, but when I arrived at the zoo the auditorium was standing room only. He is kind of a big deal child book author. I had parents come up to me and tell me how much their children loved his books. It seemed like every kid in the audience had a stack of books for him to sign.




Mo entered the stage and the kids went wild. He was a very animated presenter and read several of his books before the signing. After hearing several of his books I can understand why he is so popular.


After the book reading Mo stayed and signed everyone's book. The kids loved him.

For the forth year I joined the world wide photowalk group in DC. This year we went to the National Mall on a cold, wet, and grey day. As I mentioned in my previous post, I wanted to try shooting cinemagraphs for this event, so all of my photos were shot with the 16x9 crop mind set. Here are some of my favorite still photos from the afternoon.

I participated in the 4th Annual World Wide photowalk in DC on Saturday. I decided to think in a 16x9 movie mind set for this walk. So I composed all my shots in that crop format and I also shot video to try my hand at creating some cinemagraphs (moving still images.) I got my inspiration via the From Me to You website and also the photos located at My Cinemagraph. I also love the If We Don't Remember site where someone has taken scenes from classic movies and created cinemagraphs.

Here are a few that I created on Saturday.

Earlier this week the National Zoo held a concert with the B-52's. The zoo is trying something new this year with the Rock N' Roar event. The director of the Friends of the National Zoo (FONZ) announced before the start of the concert that they hope this will be the first of many future concert events. I helped photograph one of the VIP receptions while the zoo staff photographer concentrated on photographing the band and another reception. 





In concert photography there is a standard rule that you can only photograph the band for the first three songs. The B-52's also requested that any photos that the zoo publishes should include all of the members of the band rather than individual member images. Some big name acts have more restrictions on photography.

Since Mehgan (the zoo staff photographer) was taking care of the band photos for the zoo, I was officially off the clock when the concert started. I still photographed the band for my own use and submitted a couple of group shots to the Zoo incase they needed them.



The band looked and sounded good. I wish I can look this good when I'm in my 60's.









I primarily stuck with the first three song rule for my photographs. For the first three songs I was using my 70-200 f2.8 zoom lens which just screams professional camera. I then switched to my 85mm 1.8 for the rest of the concert. I also had my 7D which can shoot video.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. When I moved to the east coast I quickly discovered an interest in the Civil War and its battlefields. Over the years I have been researching and studying the subject. I'm also currently working on a book project to photograph the local battlefields using my infrared converted camera.

On July 21st in 1861 the first battle of Manassas / Bull Run was fought in Manassas Virginia. This past weekend a series of events were held in the town of Manassas to commemorate this historic event. So with a couple of cameras in hand I went to photograph the reenactment of the first major land battle of the Civil War.

I have many photos that I like and I'm currently still sorting through them all.



I'm tentatively calling the one above "Paying the Butchers Bill."



The temperatures for most of the day were in the high 90's and some people said over 100 and some points. I was very impressed with the reenactors as they kept in character and full dress through out the day.


It was a great day and I'm looking forward to the next events on the Civil War Sesquicentennial calendar.



I have been reviewing my photos from the weekend and right now the following photo is my favorite from the trip.

For my birthday this year I decided to make a quick overnight trip to Shenandoah National park for a photo trip. The first two weeks in June are the prime time for deer fawns. During these two weeks the deer from the area seem to congregate in the Big Meadow area to birth their fawns. Photographers converge at this time to walk the fields in search of day old fawns hiding in the grasses.

When I arrived on Friday night, I saw many doe's in the area looking like they were ready to drop fawns in the next couple of hours. The next morning I met up with some fellow Zoo photographers and we walked the fields in search of fawns. We quickly discovered all the day old fawns that were born sometime in the middle of the night. It feels like an Easter egg hunt searching for the fawns in the grass.



We saw the fawn above walking around with his mother. It then dropped to the ground about 100 yards away. We then spent about 15 minutes looking for him. They do a great job of hiding. He was finally found when someone almost stepped on him. It was a very productive trip and I had a great time photographing the deer.



There is also other wildlife to photograph at the Big Meadow. We saw this skunk early in the morning walking in the tall grasses.



Shenandoah is very close and it makes for an easy overnight camping trip. My plans are to return in the Fall for rut season.

The family made a quick trip to the National Zoo yesterday morning before the forecasted rain showers. I decided to bring my Infrared converted camera rather than all my typical zoo photo equipment. I primarily use my infrared camera for landscapes and my Civil War project. I haven't thought to try my infrared camera at the zoo, so I thought it would be a good test.


I took far too many photos of the lion cubs, but they didn't work well in Infrared. When I got home and processed the images, I found the ones that worked best were individual portraits.



I think on my next trip to the zoo I will try this experiment again and will be able to focus more on what I liked best from this initial test trip.

My daughter is learning how to do composites in Photoshop for her digital art class. She wanted me to photograph some small objects for her project.



The first items I photographed were several small buttons she is going to use for a walking path in her picture. We found all of the buttons we had in the sewing box and I proceeded to photograph them. At first I was shooting with my 105mm macro and an off camera flash. After some trial and error I ended up bringing out the big guns. I attached my 180mm macro lens, a 25mm extension tube, my macro twin lights, and placed the items on a light table to give me a bright white background with a minimum of shadows.  Here is a shot of my setup



With this setup I was able to fill the frame with some of these buttons which are about the size of a quarter.





After I ran out of buttons I started looking for other items in the house to photograph. Here are a couple of more that I thought were interesting.







Anyone want to guess what this last item is?

The temperatures over the weekend were inching up into the 50's and it looks like the Winter weather is quickly coming to an end. So on Sunday afternoon I decided to grab my camera and go to my local hiking spot at Rachel Carson Conservation Park for my first hike of the year.



I ended up bringing my infrared camera with the plan of shooting black and white photos. The one aspect I like about shooting black and white infrared is that you get a deep dark color for the sky.


I recently set my cameras to shoot in black in white so I can train my eye and mind to think in the black and white visual space. I'm still shooting in RAW so all of my images are still taken in full color, but the preview image on my LCD is displayed as black and white. This technique forces me to look for contrasts and textures as I'm shooting. The visual feedback on the back of my LCD quickly gives me the ability to see if I'm interpreting the scene correctly with my eye as I compose my images.



I'm looking forward to another Spring and many more hikes in the future. Time will tell if I will still be in a black and white mood.