We were in Taiwan for a week and visited several locations around Taipei. This shot of Vincent and Donna on the sidewalk happened by chance, we had just been shooed away from a nice college campus where they do not allow professional photography on school days. Wedding photos are very popular in Taiwan and it is not uncommon to see couples and photographers in and around any photogenic local in Taipei.

I was also practicing with my new Canon Speedlight 580ex II with my DIY Ikea “Garry Fong lightsphere”. I was very happy with the results and plan to use it for the wedding. Most of my work is done in available light without use of electronic flash but I am happy to use it in some situations, for fill in dark areas and,especially indoors with multiple types of artificial lighting which can throw off the colors.

Shot with a Cannon 5D mkII Digital Camera using the Canon 50mm 1.4 lens @ 1.4. Additionally I used a silver reflector held by an assistant and very subtle flash from a camera mounted 580ex with above mentioned DIY diffuser…

A trip to the local park is always a great time for kids, especially with lots of friends along!

The Park is always a good location to photograph children. It is easy to keep them in a cheerful mood and really brings out some superb expressions.

Of course it can be tough for the photographer  to keep up! I find a good assistant and a fast autofocus lens make a big difference!

A flash for gentle fill light, also comes in handy if you wind up in a dark or shady area of the park, or you need to eliminate the harsh shadows present during the mid-day sun.

-Christopher

The rest of the pictures from this photo shoot can be viewed on the Christopher Cox Photography Gallery: http://chriscox.zenfolio.com/

My subject for this image is my Canon 7 a 35mm LTM Rangefinder. The Lens is the infamous 0.95 Dream Lens, fastest lens ever mass produced!

Although it has a reputation, especially within Leica circles, of working as well as shooting through the bottom of a Coke bottle, it really is a pretty good lens.

It is however a difficult lens to use.

Physically at 72mm it blocks part of the viewfinder and nearly half of the square that lets in light to illuminate the rangefinder patch! You could wait for brighter conditions but then isn’t dimly lit what 0.95 is really about? If you shoot in daylight 0.95 is nearly impossible even with 2000 shutterspeed, better get a 72mm ND filter.

With only inches of sharp DOF when used wide open at distances under 20ft some (or lots of) out of focus shots are par for the course. Imagine shooting candids of someone 10ft away at 0.95, if your subject or even you move just 2 inches the focus will be off!

So yeah it is a difficult lens to master and really requires a lot of vigilance to get consistently good results.

Since I was walking around on a bright overcast day I decided to take photos in a series of 3 images to increase the dynamic range and get the details in both the highlights and shadow areas. The 5D’s rapid shooting capability allowed me to do this without a tripod, something I could have never accomplished with my previous Canon digital camera.

After merging the 3 exposures together in Photoshop I decided to give them some rather vibrant treatments to bring out the colors and textures. The results were pretty stunning, expressing well my emotions as I wandered around this great city, and creating some great moods! I am happy to be able to share them with you on my new photography blog. I took so many great shots in New York, these are just a beginning. They take quite a bit of time to get just right in Photoshop, so as I get some more free time I will be posting more…

Here are 2 twin apartment towers along the East River, taken from my room at the Beekman hotel

Looking up 54th Street

How about getting your wedding photos done in Grand Central Station in the heart of New York City…

No problem!

Not only do couples use the bustling transit hub for wedding photos but some couples have had impromptu marriage ceremonies on these very steps as well!

It really does makes sense, after all Grand Central Station lives up to its name – the worlds largest train station – its 48 acres of space is cavernous and usually filled with bustling crowds- and the main hall has 120 foot tall cathedral ceilings with a painting of the medieval zodiac!

Crowds can form quickly though and the photographer and the bridal couple need to be both quick and flexable, moving nimbly through the stations numerous photogenic locations.

The key is to keep it fun and to try to work with the ever present crowds of commuters and tourists, on average 500,000 a day!

NYC has so many beautiful public photogenic venues it really is a bonanza for photographers!  It is hard not to create amazing and beautiful images bound to WOW and please…

-Christopher

This was my first year entering my work at the Alameda Fair and it was a great experience. Not only was I thrilled to get the silver prize but I also learned lots about preparing my work for display and a little about competitive judging.

The 2009 Pirate Festival in Vallejo Ca

A gathering of Pirates, Buccaneers, Wenches, and all manner of outrageously Costumed Characters!

What a great time we had exploring the 2009 pirate festival! I even managed a few pictures.

Looking an awful lot like Cap’ Jack Sparrow straight out of Pirates of the Caribbean, was the comic styles of Cap’ Jack Spareribs !!!  He was great, comedian, ventriloquist, magician, the hit of the day for us!

Thank you Jack!

I look forward to attending in 2010

A real treat for a aviation buff like myself.

One of the highlights of the museum is the collection of wright brothers aircraft. Dayton was home to the Wrights and was where they truly developed the airplane in the years following their first flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

The collection in Dayton is impressive and most of the aircraft are inside windowless hangars. The lack of strong lighting was a bit challenging but a good test of my new Canon 5D MkII camera. I was fairly impressed how well the camera handled the conditions and how nice even the high iso images turned out.

Another highlight of the USAF Museum is the X-plane hangar located on the Wright Patterson Air Force Base. A short bus ride from the Museum it houses some of the rarest and most impressive experimental  planes in the world, like the X-15, XB-70, and the YF-23…

The results were fantastic…

Fun in the sun was had by all!

Annie and I took our children Sabrina and Tristan as well as my father David. Everyone had so much fun, big thanks to Jennie Viniskey and all the moms who worked so hard on this event.

Annie joined the Mothers Club after Tristan was born and it is such a fun and active group. There is always a big event coming up and weekly and monthly outings as well!

It was a great opportunity to play with my fathers new camera a Canon 40D. After getting so many great shots of the kids and parents having a blast I knew I needed a new camera myself. I went out and ordered one straight away.

Many more of the “Spring Fling” photos are on my gallery website chriscox.zenfolio.com

-Christopher