I was going through some old hard drives, archiving files for my kids so they would have copies should anything ever happen to me or the data. I ran across tons of files for shoots and stuff I had forgotten about. It is a bit crazy how much I have shot in the past 8 years or so and I thought I’d share some of the more interesting images in the next month or so.

Back in 2001, Seattle was still the protest capital of the Northwest. I forget what this one was about, something to do with Somali illegals being detained for too long. Not sure why I Sepia toned them, but maybe I was thinking it set a dark mood.

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2008 has been an interesting year for our country and every facet of our economy and this year was the most memorable in all the years I can remember. But instead of pointing out all the negative news and future prognostications, I thought it would be great to do a year in review of a few images. A few of these images, normally would not see the light of day, but I thought readers would enjoy seeing them. On a technical note, these were created to be web ready through Photoshop at 60% quality, to allow for faster downloads.

Some of the photography highlights for me, were shooting in Mexico with the beautiful models from Guadalajara and being chosen as a winner in the travel category for PDN (Photo District News) Magazine.  I also had another image placed on a magazine cover, D’Antro Magazine.

I don’t make many new years resolutions, but this year I have a business idea that has been brewing in my head for quite awhile, this year my goal is to bring it to market, providing the numbers make sense in a down economy. As usual I will be shooting lots of models and am available for travel worldwide.

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The Beautiful Jessica of Seattle

Drummer Legends Alan White of Yes and Mike DeRosier of Heart

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My wife and I have been snowed in for 7 days in the Seattle area. We live on a large hill that is a sheet of ice, so we have relied on walking to the stores, as we are unable to drive. This gives me time to edit photos and play with Photoshop. I just found this great link for snowflake brushes for Photoshop.

Setup your Corporation for free

Just passing this link on from Intuit’s, MyCorporation.com. If you ever wanted to start your Photography company, here is a great way to save money on forming that LLC to limit your liability.

I ran across Stephen Eastwoods website today as I was looking for some ideas on cross processing images. If you are on Model Mayhem much, you’ll know Stephen is an active contributor in the forums.

Cross processing  is the procedure of deliberately processing photographic film in a chemical solution intended for a different type of film. The effect was discovered independently by many different photographers often by mistake in the days of C-22 and E-4. Used often on Lomo images, it is also a way to create images that look faded, like an old color photo taken in the sixties. Below are 4 examples of cross processing, using the predefined curves files Stephen has created. His Photoshop action and curves files are great ways to create some variations of your photos. I can’t wait to try his Nikon D300 Interpolation action, allowing me to create wall size images without loss of detail.

The files are easy to use. Load an image in photoshop, choose Image>Adjustments>Curves and then hit the load button. Choose the file you want to use and the image will be changed. Of course, you should play with the settings for your own creation.

Original Photo of Empire State Building in New York

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So it’s the holidays, you’re at work, the boss is gone for the rest of the year and your only friend seems to be the Internet. The projects will have to wait until next year, because you just discovered Photofunia.com. This is one of the best sites I have come across in quite awhile, seriously. It is nothing more than a boost to that big ego of yours, when you see your photo on billboards, Vogue magazine and hotties dreaming of you.

The idea behind the site is to take an image of yourself and the website will insert it into all type of photos. Here are just a few examples, using a photo taken of me in Mexico after a full day of shooting.

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Back in 2002 I took a two week trip through Thailand and Cambodia as a tourist.  I learned of a culture I had only read about and envisioned in my mind, when I first heard the Rush song, “Passage to Bangkok”

This is a reprint of an article I wrote for Pilot Guides.com , with larger full size images. I have since learned the tribe is the Akha Tribe and not Hmong as originally noted in the article.

A Day in the Land of Smiles

Driving through the lush green hills of Northern Thailand, Tony the guide and interpreter, would help with pronunciation of various Thai words and teach counting to help pass the time. One can get “Wat’d out” as there are so many Wats to see, so a change of pace would be nice. There are emerald green mountains with rice paddies sprinkled throughout. Each paddy usually has a thatched hut, for shelter from the blazing heat. The paddies are flooded with about 18″ of water and usually separated in four to six distinct parcels about an acre each. The roads are shared with motorcycles, carts, bicycles, cars, everything. It seemed like chaos at first, but is now more of an orderly chaos in my mind. We would drive from one change of scenery to the next. Each corner would bring the beauty of a mountain, jungle, rice paddy or a cow on the side of the road, grazing. On the highway, it is not uncommon to see a farmer, herding his cows in the median as cars drive by at 60-70mph. The cows are usually tethered, however.

I always had a romantic view of what it would be like to go to Thailand and the hill tribes seemed to be the ultimate in this regard. I guess in some ways I had this feeling that the 20th century had not arrived to these far off reaches of society. But with a paved road that goes right up to the village, I found this was not to be. Right before the entrance to the village a rice paddy to the right had some wicked clouds that would soon dump rain on the area and then disappear 15 minutes later.

When we first arrived, we were greeted by a swarming of children. As we got out of the van, the echo of “Ten Baht” could be heard everywhere. They immediately ask for money just for you having the privilege of being in their village. Tony had to do a bit of crowd control. The chatter of “Ten Baht” and “You buy” envelopes your senses and it is extremely frustrating as the romantic ideal of being in a hill tribe village, fades. I really was ready to leave after about ten minutes of the high pitched, pitch for money. Some of the children were selling bracelets made of seeds and/or yarn, which I gladly paid 5 or 10 Baht for. Just to help, without throwing money at the children…. continued at break

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