The holidays are just around the corner, and the first deal of the season is here with a special holiday portrait package from Matthew Botos Photography!

You’ll get unique, personalized photos delivered in plenty of time to send prints and greeting cards to family and friends.

Click here to view additional samples.

Your package includes all of the following:

• 1-hour session in the comfort and convenience of your own home
• Digital post-processing and editing
• Online proofs in a private, password-protected gallery
• 1 8×10 print
• 2 5×7 prints
• 1 high-resolution digital file for your holiday greeting card
• Free shipping

Normally a $200 value, this special holiday package is only $150 when you book your session with a deposit by November 30th!

Book online today or call 484-744-4989 anytime to schedule your session.

After last year, I knew the Mid-Atlantic Super Series at Bear Creek Mountain Resort wasn’t to be missed: lots of people come out for the final race on a tough course, and the resort serves up hot BBQ and cold beer on the deck afterward!

Like any photo shoot, it started well before the race, reviewing last year’s event and thinking of new ideas for this year. As always, Tom Burrows created an excellent course map, which helped in choosing a variety of locations that were still hikable with camera gear. Then there were the signs: one to let people know where I am on the course so no one crashes when flashes start popping off in the woods, and a banner advertising the website for photo sales. Being there early allowed me to place it in a highly-visible central location:

My first shooting position was at the start, where riders were warming up in the mud left by several days of rain:

Bear Creek has also invested heavily in new facilities, including a hotel, spa, and conference center, so to worked those into some shots:

The starts go in waves, so after shooting a few from the ground, I climbed to the second story deck to shoot this wider scene that really places the race:

A longer lens isolates the riders below idle snow-blowers:

While the riders made the long climb around the top of the ski slopes, I headed into the woods to my next position. Along the way, I got to talking to the mother of one of the junior racers, who joined me to find a good spot to watch along the course. In between chatting, I took a few portraits for her:

At the bridge, I setup a single flash on a stand off to the side, and moved further upstream to get riders crossing the bridge:

If you click through the photos, you’ll notice some slower shutter speeds here than usual for sports. With a small, fast 1/1000 sec flash pulse to freeze the action, I can use the 1/60 shutter to bring in some more ambient light without raising the ISO and noise.

The majority of the day, I shot with a new and relatively inexpensive lens, the Tamron AF 17-50mm F/2.8. It’s fairly sharp wide open, and events like these are accessible enough to be shot with short glass.

I also tried some more creative shots, twisting the camera during a longer exposure for this effect as inspired by David Hobby and Joe McNally’s “Faces in the Forest” in The Hot Shoe Diaries: Big Light from Small Flashes:

Though very hit-or-miss, it adds a very different effect when it works; here’s another one with a zoom (tele to wide, starting the zoom before hitting the shutter for a smooth effect):

The bulk of each race comes through in a staggered wave; when it tapers off is a good time to change locations. Along the way, I’ll shoot on-camera flash which generally isn’t as interesting, but beats missing images and potential sales:

Scouting a few technical sections led me to a narrow section of roots downhill through the trees. The slope provides good high and low angles, while the narrow, technical trail means riders will likely slow down a bit. Here I went with a two-light setup: a mid-height key light on the right firing up to get under helmets and visors, and a high backlight on the left to provide some edge. Here it’s gelled blue:

And a more natural CTO orange:

As you can see, I did pick up my longer lens to do some close-ups, though these were much tougher to capture at speed - you’re always better off taking it a bit wide and cropping to make sure you get the action.

In this wide shot, you can also see two small trees making a narrow opening that became the crux of this section:

After a series of wipe-outs and near-misses in this spot, I moved my lights back to capture a bit of the action, which didn’t take long:

The flash won’t keep up with the camera’s 6 frames per second, but I probably could’ve jammed on the shutter and gotten a few frames of a sequence. Sometimes, though, all I had time for was a single frame, because they were crashing and sliding right towards me:

Which brings up another consideration in picking where you stand: making sure you’ve got a clear path of escape, and gear & health insurance in case you’re not fast enough!

By this point, it was well past lunch and while snacks & water tided me over, the flow of racers was tapering off and the BBQ was calling to me:

Refueled with a pulled pork sandwich and a lager (Yuengling, of course), I found a suitable position (sprawled on my stomach) for the kids race:

And since you always need more literal and figurative cow bell, here’s some wide-open bokeh:

Getting back on my feet provided some elevated isolation against the slight slope:

From an overcast morning, it had become a beautiful warm, sunny afternoon, helped out by a little polarizing filter:

The podium awards started with the kids and one of my favorite shots of the day, imperfect focus and all:

The standard head-on podium shots got a little stale, so I switched to this angle:

There was also some good stuff at the prize table, as this happy winner demonstrates:

Here’s my gear at the end of the day:

This is a Burton Zoom 28L Backpack, which has a camera compartment on the opposite side with the 70-200 F4 and second flash. Light stands go in the avalanche probe pockets on the sides; accessories, snacks, and water fill the rest. The rolled up sign is my banner; the other sign I bungee to a tree up the trail from my shooting position.

One of the great things about watching and photographing mountain biking is seeing the range of facial expressions, and knowing the ones I make while riding must be equally rich. And with that, my final image:

View all the Bear Creek photos

I’ve been to talking batteries with fellow photographer Denis between shots at On the Rocks and Strobist Valley Forge meetup, and one thing we noticed was that my Energizer AA NiMh batteries seemed to wear out faster than any others. Armed with a fancy new La Crosse Technology BC-700 Alpha Power Battery Charger, I dug in to find some high-tech and low-tech answers.

This charger has a test feature, which fully charges, discharges, and recharges a battery to determine it’s true capacity. Here’s how my batteries compared to their rated capacities, all in mAh:

• Energizer 1800: 2 @ 1730, 2 @ 1530
• Energizer 2500: 2 @ 2270
• Duracell 2650: 1 @ 2520, 1 @ 2410
• Rayovac 1800:2 @ 1475

The high-tech answer is that my batteries have lost capacity over time, some as much as 17%! The low-tech answer is that some of my Energizers were mixed: I had low-capacity, beat down cells mixed with higher-capacity, fresher cells. It pays to read the labels and keep them organized! My other low-tech issue was using a charger that didn’t give a definitive done indicator, likely leaving me with partially-charged batteries.

The other hot topic in batteries is currently self-discharge rate: how fast a battery drains just sitting in your bag. This would require more rigorous testing than I’m up for; from online discussions, Sanyo Eneloop seems to be the favorite.

If you’re not familiar with track cycling, it’s a fast-paced race with riders on sleek bikes that have one gear, no brakes, and no freewheel: you stop by slowing down gradually - or crashing. There are team relay events and longer races where some laps count for team points and others have cash prizes announced mid-race.

The velodrome is only about an hour from Plymouth Meeting, so our small group was there with plenty of time to grab some food and beer while watching the warm ups. The Breakaway Cafe had a surprisingly wide and inexpensive selection, including turkey and black bean burgers! As the race got under way, I did my best to recall some techniques from pro sports photographer Mark Rebilas, whose blog I’m going to shamelessly imitate here. I started high in the stands:

Shooting down onto the track provided some nice, clean backgrounds:

The setting sun also lit up some clouds on the far side of the track:

Then the clouds turned ugly and it started to pour:

Being at the top of the grandstands, I was fortunate to be able to duck into an empty end of the pressbox and shoot some scenes of the deluge and evacuation:

When the rain cleared, the staff and competitors quickly went to work drying the track:

They also used a car to speed the drying, which looked a little comical on the small, banked track:

As Joe and Ben demonstrate here, the spectators took it all in stride:

The action resumed with the kids’ race:

Just as the regular race program was about to resume, the weather teased us with a few more drops of rain before stopping for the night. On with the race!

One of the great things about small venues like this is great access; you could shoot from the grandstands on both sides, all around the outside wall, and even from the infield! Here’s the view from in the infield bridge down the final straightaway to the finish line:

Since the stadium lights are all on the outside, shooting from inside the track meant stronger back lighting. With the shadows and a slower shutter speed I got some interesting effects:

Zooming with a slow shutter was much more hit and miss, since I was also panning, but I did get one to work out:

The races kept up a fast and furious pace, so there was no shortage of opportunities:

One of the neat moments was the handoff between teammates, who would grab hands to slingshot each other ahead:

After a while, the riders took notice of the photographers camped out in the turns:

Without a longer lens, I didn’t get many head-on shots, though the back-focusing made this one stand out:

The other real challenge here was shooting at night and getting a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the action. Instead of throwing on a flash with limited telephoto range, I uses noisier 1600 ISO to get 1/500 on the 70-200 F4 and 17-85 F4-4.6. The nifty 50 once again showed why primes are so great; at F2.8 and beyond it had a much easier time at ISO 800. Sometimes, though, the stadium lighting hit the riders just right:

Overall, it was a eventful evening between the rain and the fast-paced racing. As a sport, there’s certainly a lot to keep up with. As a photo subject, it’s a real challenge to be fast enough on the shutter to catch the riders and to use light, position, and timing to capture great shots. It’s an inexpensive and exciting night out, though, so definitely check out a race if you’re a cycling fan!

See more photos from the Velodrome

If you enjoyed this new style of post, please let me know in the comments!

Here’s 3 things I’d like to see fixed with our health care system:

1. Make costs transparent. People can’t be wise consumers when the true costs of care and insurance are hidden by employers, insurers, and doctors. Require employers to disclose the total cost of premiums and those under COBRA. Require insurers to issue statements showing the “retail” and negotiated fees, what they paid, and what the customer paid.
2. Create a broad marketplace for portable policies. It makes no sense to tie health care to jobs in an increasingly mobile workforce. Allow people to take any policy with them, or to buy one in a nationwide marketplace without state boundaries. This will create a truly competitive capitalist market and allow insurers to spread their risk across a larger pool.
3. Level the tax playing field. Health care is a critical and rapidly growing expense for all Americans; make all health care spending tax-free. Premiums, copays, drugs, employer plans, individual plans, and plans for the self-employed: all tax-deductible. No thresholds, no limits, no use-it-or-lose it gambling on Flexible Spending Accounts.

Sincerely,

The Under-Insured American Tax Payer

Slowly it dawns on you that it’s not just the camera or the lens or the light, but the soul of a photo that you’re chasing. If you’re social you grab every breathing acquaintance to pose for you, if you’re an introvert you grab your coat every time there’s a chance of a good sunset. The cornucopia of photography books, blogs, and Flickr groups are now your constant buffet.

You hit an odd middle ground: people admire your work and you can see how far you’ve come, yet you still yearn to sit at the big table with the amateur gods of Flickr and the pros who casually blog about lighting cover-worthy shots with one hand while teaching a workshop with the other.

Along the way, amidst a stack of receipts, you decide this could be a business and at least partially pay for itself. Anecdotal evidence abounds, but the reality is that you have to devote time to the comparatively dull business of understanding, pricing, and marketing yourself in the photo biz. Microstock millionaires rack up sales while you decipher the intricacies of image quality standards and successful keywording; assignments are few and far between.

The lull is not unwelcome, though, as new ideas come your way and your own evolution makes even last month’s photos seem unsophisticated in comparison. The photographer’s journey is never-ending, and that’s one of the things you love about it.

I’ve been to Hawaii (and the Big Island) before, so I had some idea of what was there and how to shoot it better than last time. For both new ideas and general preparation, browsing through Flickr was great, and got me thinking about going to the summit of Mauna Kea. To get a bearing on tropical sunsets, The Photographer’s Ephemeris was useful since the sunset often doesn’t set due west.

My biggest observation about shooting in Hawaii was the lenses I used with my Canon EOS 50D. The Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 Image Stabilized USM stayed on my camera the majority of the time, with relatively few uses for the Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L USM Telephoto Zoom (a few birds and tight landscapes). The 17-85 is a really good walk-around lens given its range, weight, and size. I’ve been considering selling it for a Tamron AF 17-50mm F/2.8 Lens to get better quality and bokeh, which I may still do, but that extra 35mm on the long end handled about a fifth of my shots from this trip.

This was my second time attempting underwater photos with a point and shoot, and I felt like they improved a lot since Belize. Balanced light disappears quickly as you descend, so snorkeling actually yielded better photos than diving. Getting closer with the the flash helped, though these still required a good bit of color correction in Aperture and LAB color boost in GIMP. I also really started to notice the slowness of the focusing and low power of the flash compared to a DSLR. I’ve seen other divers using the Canon G10 with some success, though an external flash is probably where the smart money is.

Processing the photos was an ongoing effort; I downloaded and did some quick edits each night, and occasionally on dull or dark car rides. (When that 7-hour battery in the new MacBook Pro would be really nice!) For me, seeing the good pictures pop up on the big screen is one of the thrilling moments of photography, so I was happy to spend part of my vacation doing it. Knowing what I had was also useful for being able to do reshoots instead of chasing duplicates.

I’ll close with backups; travel photos are tough to repeat, especially when they include your unique travel memories, so some paranoia is good here. Cards were offloaded nightly into Aperture, which was then shut down to ensure Time Machine copied all of them onto a USB hard drive. When the laptop was locked in the room, the drive was with me and vice versa - why not have an “off-site” backup on the road?

All that brought back about 300 final photos, 30 of which I’m now adding to my stock portfolio on Alamy.

View the Hawaii photos

Asia is a land of beauty and contrasts; ancient temples stand side by side with modern skyscrapers while motorbikes zip past bicyclists wearing conical straw hats. Join me at Earth Mart on August 7 for a look at southeast Asia through stunning images from Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam!

Earth Mart features environmentally-friendly, energy-saving, recycled, sustainable, and fair trade products. Earth Mart is located in historic Phoenixville, Pennsylvania at 235 Bridge Street.

The show will open August 7 at 7pm and be on display through September 3, with a variety of framed and matted prints available for purchase. Hope to see you there!

Update: For a copy of all the photos featured in the show plus extended selections from the trip, you can purchase this 8.5 x 11″ full-color, hardcover photo book for just $49.99 (USD)!

The images in the video are all from my trip from Pennsylvania to Virginia to visit my brother, by way of Shenandoah National Park. With this in-car camera rig, I used a radio remote to trigger the shutter when there was an interesting scene. Post-production was done in Aperture, Quicktime, and iMovie HD.

I arrived in the park later than planned, which left me just enough time to make camp before driving to the trail head. Dinner was in the car - a turkey sandwich from the camp store. With the light waning, I double-timed it up the trail to the summit of Stony Man, and was rewarded with a great view, beautiful colors, and a nice collection of rocks and small pools in the foreground. After a few hours of shooting the changing scene, I donned a headlight and hiked back down in the dark, relieved that the glowing eyes in the forest were just deer and rabbits, not bears!