Infrared Filter

The infrared filter blocks visible light from reaching the sensor in your camera. What? Yes, your read it right. This filter blocks all visible light. It allows Infrared light to pass through instead of visible light. This allows you to take photographs that you can’t see with your naked eye. Speaking of naked, it will NOT allow you to take photos through clothing. In the film days, infrared photos were taken with film designed to capture infrared light. Today’s digital cameras can record this non-visible infrared light. There are two techniques employed to take infrared photos with your digital camera. You can convert your digital camera into an Infrared only camera or use an infrared filter. Companies such as Life Pixel will convert your camera. The least expensive method to get into Infrared photography is the filter. The following images were taken using a filter. Shooting with infrared light which is not visible opens a whole new avenue into photography. If you would like more information on this subject send me an email on comment on my blog.
	This image is an example of what your camera will capture with an infrared filter. You will need to use a tripod because the exposure can take several seconds. This image took 5 seconds.
The red cast image was converted to a B&W image with Photoshop. Infrared images make great black and whites because of darker skies Foliage turns white and looks like snow. In this image the grass and trees were really green.
	Another aspect of Infrared you can create false colors in the image with photoshop.
You may ask yourself why do this. The reason is simple, because we can and it is cool, far out and really heavy dude. Some photographers call it “Going to the Darkside.”

Haze, Skylight, Ultraviolet Filters

Polarizing Filters

	Polarizing filters are used to eliminate or reduce distracting reflections.
In example one, a polarizing filter was used to eliminate the reflection in the glass display. You can see the reflection in the image on the left side because the polarizing filter was not used. On the right hand side the filter was used.  You can really see a difference between the two sides. If you look closely you can see my reflection just above her left shoulder.	Example 1: The image on the left was not taken with the polarizer filter and the image on the right was taken with a polarizer filter.

The polarizer filter can turn your skies a deep blue, reduce reflections in a glass display, or reduce reflection on water.Example 2: The image on the right was taken with a polarizing filter. Compared to the image on the left with no filter you can see that the sky has a darker blue color. If you look at the roof next to the red arrow you can see a richer green color compared to the left side. A polarizing filter can help capture richer and deeper colors.

Fort Worth Camera Club Field Trip

This slide show contains images from the Club’s trip to Breckenridge, TX. We had some great Bar-B-Que in Breckenridge.

A Walk in the Stock Yards.

I photographed the Coffmans in the Fort Worth Stock Yards. It is my desire as your photographer to help you feel a ease and have fun. Also, I want to you have photographs that you can enjoy for a lifetime. Check out this slide show of there event.

As a part of my service purchased photos are touched up.

Happy 2010 New Year

I want to thank everyone for your business and support during 2009.

Thank You.

It is my hope that each and everyone of you will have a great year.

In 2009, I started a Photography Newsletter. Your feedback has been very encouraging.

If you want great up-to-date tips that will improve your photos, then you need to sign-up for this newsletter.
Why wait? Sign-up now or sign your friends up. It’s free.

New Born Promotion for January *

At Albertson’s the butcher announced that you could buy a roast and get a second one free. If you didn’t need two roasts they would cut the one in half and you could get the 2nd half for free.

With that thought in mind, I would like to make you an offer or someone that you know.

My New Born Collection is listed below. It sells for $550.

You can purchase one New Born Collection and I will double the products listed or you can purchase the collection for $275. You make the choice. Make it fast because this offer is only valid in January 2010.

If you don’t have a new born let someone that knows about this offer.

Call Now for an appointment (817) 905-9241

New Born Collection (0 – 6 weeks) **

• 16 – wallet-sized images. (All 16 images must be the same image.)
• 4 – Five by Seven Gift Portraits
• 2 – Eight by Ten Gift Portraits
• 1 – Digital Image sized for the web. (Not suitable for enlargements.)
• 1 – Five by Seven Soft Covered Portrait book. This book consists of 10 pages. You can include photos that you may have taken.
• 24 – Custom press printed birth announcement Cards

* If you live in Alaska or somewhere else that is a long way from Fort Worth, Texas, I will charge extra for lodging and travel costs.
** If your baby is under 6 months, this offer applies to you too.

Cowboy Game

The experience impacted all your senses from the moment you were there.

Hearing : Everything was loud and fast paced.
Sight: there was no dead spots. Everything was moving and in color.
Tastes and Smell: Food was great tasting and smelling.
Touch: High fives all around with every score.

Going to a Cowboy will get your engine running.

Turn your sound up. Get a hot dog. Find something to hit and play the slide show.

Enjoy the game.

Finding a Winner

by Steve Bomar

I discovered the sunken Gulf Clipper in Corpus Christi. The Gulf Clipper has been a main stay of tourism in Corpus for years. But alas it was overcome by a recent hurricane. The Clipper found its current resting place in a marina behind a prominent condo near downtown Corpus. I was compelled to photograph this piece of history. (Figure 1.)

It is best to select a subject that means something to you. Your images will convey your connection to the subject and impact the viewer. Start by shooting from a broad journalistic perspective and then shoot the details. Shoot a lot of photos of your subject as you work your way into the details. This process of shooting will help improve your eye for great photos.

Figure 1: The Gulf Clipper resting in Corpus Christi.

After picking a subject, the next step is picking the right light and weather conditions. Photograph your subject under different lighting and weather conditions. I chose to photograph this subject at sunrise. At sunrise, the light strikes the port side of the Clipper. Also, the morning light brightens up the reflection in the water.

If you want to capture a winning image, make sure your final photo creates a sense of depth and shape. This can be accomplished by using curved diagonal lines as shown in Figure 2. You should take several images of your subject from different angles.

Your background is key for any photo to be a winner. You will want to eliminate distracting background elements. In Figure 2, you can’t tell that the Clipper is anchored and sunken in port with a condo in the background.

Figure 2: The Gulf Clipper in the morning light.

Create great photos with fun colors that jump off the wall and demand your viewer’s attention.

At every opportunity, make sure you have fun and learn something about equipment and photography every time you shoot.

Photo Tips For Christmas

by Steve Bomar

	Will your photos look like this again this year, a little out of focus, blurry and really yellow? If you bought that new camera for Christmas probably not. In program mode the new cameras perform pretty well. If the light gets low, make sure you use your pop-up flash. If you want to soften that pop-up flash-look, you can tape a piece of tiolet paper on the top of the flash and let it hang over the front. Some of your family and freinds may laugh but it will soften that flash-look.
Watch out for distracting objects. The flash can cause distracting reflections. Don’t get too close to your subject because the flash can overpower your subject and you will get washed out photos.
	You can crop out distracting objects with your editing software. Some of the processing centers such as Sam’s Club, Cosco, Walmart or Wolf Camera allow you to crop your images. Fort Worth Camara has the best photo submission system that I have have seen. It is easy to use and it has a large image previewer. Somebody feed this baby something besides a book.
Make sure you get down to your subject’s level. Don’t shoot from six feet up when you subject is a foot tall. Get down on your belly and have some fun.
	Make sure that the relatives that are trying to get the baby to smile, get right down there with you. If you don’t, your baby won’t be looking at the camera. The baby will be looking at the crazy dancing relative. So everybody, on your full bellies for the Christmas photos.

Protect Your Image Files

by Steve Bomar

In days gone by, negatives and slides where our only back-up for our photos. But now we have choices and options that can confuse the best of us. In this article, you will find a basic plan on saving your most precious processions, your photos.

When you take a photo with a digital camera the image is first saved on your memory card in your camera. Compact flash and Scan Disk cards are very stable and can survive the washer and dryer. Just ask my friend whose idenity will remain known only to me. However, until you back up that image you are at risk of losing your images.

CD and DVD disks are a great way to back-up your images. When you first get back to your computer, back-up your image to a CD or DVD disk. The difference between a CD and a DVD is size. You can store a lot more on a DVD. A CD can store 700 megabytes of data while a DVD can store up to 4.7 gigabytes. That means that a DVD can store 6.88 times as much data as a CD. One thing that you have to remember if you want to back-up to a DVD disk, your computer must have a DVD drive that can write to a DVD.

These disks have a life span of about 100 years. However, marking on disks with pins such as a sharpie can reduce the lifetime of the disks. Even so, we may be at a greater risk at the loss of the technology to read the disks before the disks go bad. How many of you still have floppy drives?

In addition to CD or DVD disks you can back-up your image to a hard drive. I use two external hard drives. One of the drives is my working drive. All of my editing is performed on my working drive. The second drive is used as my back-up for quick recovery of my images. There are several good driver manufacturers that are carried by retail stores. I own Maxtor drives which have been purchased by Seagate.

My process is simple. I import the images from my camera directly on to my working and backup external hardrives and then I create a CD/DVD backup of the images. If you make two CD/DVD backups you can store one off-site. My advice is to protect your images.