Spinach & Tomato

Fun shoot with Trevor yesterday for his business, Bella Monica Flat Bread Co.

couple days off

No phones, no computers, no chores... I took a few days off and did some riding in Virginia. A great time resting my brain and abusing my body.


Carter and I rode the entire New River Trail up and back for 114 miles in one day. I was beat. We also road some singletrack in the Galax area and finished up with some trails in Danville. Back to the beat now! If you're waiting on photos I'm hammering them out now.

Hunter of the Shadows is rising... Brandon portrait session

Portrait session in downtown Raleigh with Brandon and a couple of his friends. A fun shoot for a good guy on a project that I'm really stoked about. This is the first part of a three part shoot that will produce a custom portrait session via DVD slideshow. It's going to rock.



Mike and Emma joined in for a couple.

nuclear cycles

One from the archives...

A couple pieces (or pizzas) that I've been working on lately.

Bella Monica

If you want some good food, head on over to Edwards Mill Road and try out Bella Monica. They have some killer flatbread and Trevor makes a mean espresso.



More to come from this shoot...

Johnette & Brooks at the Wagner House

Adam and I shot a fairly big wedding at the Wagner House. Johnette & Brooks had a fun, traditional wedding that went flawlessly. I say that because on my way to the house the weather alert came on for severe thunderstorms. But the storms cleared in time and the weather was actually quite nice.



The bridal party was great and we got to play around a bit.




He's mine!


Mother and daughter.

Great wedding and fun people there too. You know who you are!

Garlic, Mushrooms and herb concept photos for Trevor

These are concept photos for some packaging work. Specifically, they are for Trevor. Just a quick set up to capture the colors and look we previously discussed.

.38's Smith & Wesson/Iver Johnson

My Dad used to be an auxiliary police officer in Amesbury, MA in the 1950's. I never really talked to him that much about it. He was a part-time officer and worked a lot of Saturday nights and helped direct traffic outside the schools. Knowing my Dad, David TerHorst, he must have had a good time and I bet people waved to him often.

I was recently given his two revolvers from that time frame and I'm glad they are still in the family today. I took them both to Hill's Sporting Goods in Raleigh and had the old-timers give them the once over. Neither of them are original.

The Iver Johnson shoots a .38 S&W cartridge and is double action only with no exposed hammer. I wonder if this was his back-up piece? The .38 S&W is a very old cartridge and pre-dates the .38 Special which in turn pre-dates the .357 Magnum (all in the same family of shells). The guys at Hill's stated it must have been re blued sometime as the reason for the two-tone look. It's a neat little gun and I hope to find some cartridges for it and fire it. It was made in Fitchburg, MA probably in the twenties. They also made bicycles.

The other revolver is a Smith & Wesson .38 S&W that was re bored to .38 Special at some point. It looks like the revolver that Barney Fife used on the Andy Griffith show. It's in solid condition with a tough gun-metal finish on it. It seems real solid. U.S. Property GHD is stamped on the top and an inventory number on the bottom.

I wonder if it was a government surplus weapon and he bought it used for his police duties? The old man at Hill's said it was probably made in the twenties sometime. Who knows what service this gun saw? A couple weeks ago, I took it out on a bike ride and found a secluded spot way back in the woods. I put about 30 rounds through it. It was surprisingly accurate and felt well-balanced. The trigger, in single action mode, is very, very nice. It felt really good to be firing the old service revolver and reminded me of my Dad and what he once was a long time ago.

My daughter will be passing these down to her kids one day...

Lightroom 2.0 Beta first look

Warning: I'm a huge Adobe Lightroom Fan ever since 1.1 was launched and I have fully switched my workflow to this great product. I downloaded their 2.0 beta two days ago and spent a couple hours playing with it. It's a very nice upgrade and the additional tools are very, very nice.


Some local adjustments using 2.0 beta including the localized dodge, burn, clarity and exposure tools. This is an awesome step forward and I see it changing my post process significantly.

Straight out of the camera and probably not a fair comparison. I should post one up using the current LR version.

The tools and changes in 2.0 are significant enough that I feel I need to spend several hours learning and reading up on them. I won't be processing any client photos with the beta but rest assured some family snaps will get the treatment.

George Main has a great article on the new dodge and burn tools in the beta. Lightroom 2 Beta - Dodge and Burn for RAW image files.

Carrot-Pineapple Muffin

A couple takes from my ongoing local project with a bakery in Apex.

Stick a fork in it, it's done.


And boy did it taste yummy. The cream cheese frosting... forget about it.

The images were taken with a combination of window light and two strobes. The window was camera left and rear. I supplemented the window with an additional strobe/soft umbrella. The other strobe was behind the camera to the left and bouncing off the white ceiling to bring the exposure up. Match all that lighting up to a 105 VR macro lens and cook it up in Adobe Lightroom.

BTW, Adobe just launched public beta test of Adobe Lightroom 2.0. I have it installed and played with it. I'm very excited! The masking feature will put it over the top. The best review I've read so far is here.

Stock Photography, Hunh? Microstock? not for me

Last fall, a new stock photography agency launched called Photoshelter Collection. I've been a member of Photoshelter Personal Archive for a couple years and use it to store some of my better photos off-site on their servers so when they launched the stock collection I was excited. They are quickly becoming a player in the stock photography market especially since the well documented demise of Getty Images. When the Photoshelter Collection was launched, I decided it was as good a time as any to enter the stock photography market. Their pricing seemed fair, sitting between the $1 microstock sites and the huge giants of Getty and Corbis with full premium fees. FYI on microstock: they sell images for $1-5 and the photographer gets 20% where Photoshelter and others are in the $50-250 range. I understand the draw from a buyers point of view. One dollar for a well crafted image is a steal. What I don't get is why a photographer is willing to sell an image for one dollar? Even if you sell it ten times you don't cover expenses for anything. I'm sorry, I have thousands invested in camera/computer gear as well as time in the creation of pro-level images. I could never stomach the idea of selling them for one dollar and making .20 cents each. Good luck to you if you sell via microstock. I personally think you are ruining things for lots of photographers and the market.

PhotoShelter: Fresh Stock Photos Served Dailly

I have close to 80 images listed with Photoshelter Collection now. The process of having your images judged is quite intriguing and I have yet to fully figure out their editing style and needs. I have not made a single sale in the six months I've been with them but I plan to stick with them for the foreseeable future. This is fairly typical in the stock photography business and I've been told I need an image collection in the thousands to start seeing some regular receipts. Let's compare this post again in six months to see if I make a sale or two.

I'm using stock photography as a filler in between commercial assignments and weddings and look for it as a longer term investment. It's very relaxing to conceptualize and image and try to create it. Keep an eye out for Photoshelter images in any publications or websites you read. Hopefully one day the image will have been purchased from me.