January 14, 2010 by jfennellphoto
Back in September the ASP World Tour made their annual stop in Southern California for the Hurley Pro, with the only stop of the WCT on the mainland of North America.
This surf contest features the best of the best as far as competitive surfers are concerned (it’s also called the “Dream Tour”). They travel all over the world to compete at some of the best surf spots on the planet. The contest in Southern California takes place at Lower Trestles just south of San Clemente.
Here are some photos from the contest:
Dane Reynolds air time
Dane Reynolds finished in 2nd place at the 2009 Hurley Pro.
Dane Reynolds getting mobbed by the Groms for autographs
Kelly Slater busting an air
9 time World Champion, Defending World Champion and Defending Hurley Pro Champion Kelly Slater finished in 3rd place.
Kelly Slater paparazzi shot
Rob Machado doing his thing
Rob Machado who is not on tour anymore entered through a sponsor wildcard exemption (he’s sponsored by Hurley) and had a respectable 9th place finish.
Adriano de Souza fins free
Brazilian Adriano de Souza finished in 5th place.
Dane Reynolds post heat portrait
Mick Fanning sliding the tail around
Mick Fanning was the winner of the 2009 Hurley Pro and went on a tear for the rest of the year eventually winning the World Title.
Technical info (if you care):
Lens used was a 500mm f4.0, I changed ISO between 200-400, aperature f5.0, shutter speed varied between 1/2500 – 1/5000 for the action shots
Posted in Photography | Tagged adriano de souza, asp, dane reynolds, hurley pro, kelly slater, mick fanning, ocean, Photography, photogrpaher, photos, rob machado, surf, surfer, surfing, trestles, waves, wct | Leave a Comment »
December 28, 2009 by jfennellphoto
Here are a few photographs that I took on my recent trip to Costa Rica. These are a follow up to the previous post of the surf photos that were posted a few days ago. We were in the area of Santa Teresa on the Nicoya Peninsula.
This is one of the craziest spiders I've ever seen.
When I first saw this spider I had to do a double take. I couldn’t believe at first that it was in fact a spider. After closer examination, 8 legs, web etc I concluded it to be a spider. On a plant full of flowers these spiders were spinning webs all over this plant (more of a bush) because there were all kinds of butterflies feeding on the flowers. So these spiders would weave their tangle of webs and wait for an unsuspecting butterfly. Some butterflies instead of finding lunch became lunch.
Howler Monkey
This picture of the Howler Monkey was taken right from where we were staying. We stayed at this great little resort called
Gumbo Limbo, set right in the jungle on the side of a small mountain overlooking the ocean. You can check the surf right from the pool. One evening a pack of about 12 Howler Monkeys came out of the jungle and made their way across the property over the period of an hour eating their fill along the way.
 Lady Bug on giant leaf |
|
This was a very large lady bug, it’s hard to tell from this image because the leaf is about the size of your torso. On this particular shot I was trying to make use of negative space. I made a number of macro close up shots of the lady bug but I really liked this shot because the use of negative space. Plus it’s a little different from shots you normally see (I’m all about unique perspectives). |
Turquoise Bug
This guy was really cool. I’ve never seen an insect like this. It was so colorful. Macro photography with critters is fun especially when you get to photograph species you’ve never seen in person.
Lizard
This photograph of a lizard was taken on a 5 hr hike through the rain forest. The lizard was sunning itself on a fallen tree right next to the trail. There was a guy that was stroking its back when I strolled up and the lizard was not the least bit bothered by some white guy with dreads pretending to be the lizard whisperer.
Posted in Photography | Tagged close up, costa rica, howler, insect, lady bug, lizard, macro, monkey, nature, nicoya peninsula, Photography, rain forest, santa teresa, spider | Leave a Comment »
December 22, 2009 by jfennellphoto
On a recent surf trip to Costa Rica I managed to balance shooting and surfing. The waves were pretty good the whole time. Head high to over head mostly. Nothing too big but really fun.
Here are a few surf and wave shots from the trip.
I am going to post some other shots from the trip that are not surf related shortly.
Perfect A-Frame Wave
Launch Time
Backside Snap
Fun Right
Posted in Photography | Tagged costa rica, photographer, Photography, santa teresa, surf, surfer, surfing, waves | Leave a Comment »
October 4, 2009 by jfennellphoto
This is one of the coolest spiders I’ve seen in a long time. He was hanging out on a Plumeria flower in a friends backyard and I just so happened to have my camera (and some macro equipment) with me. This is a great example of not needing to have expensive macro equipment with you to obtain a quality macro photograph.
This was shot with a Nikon 6T close up attachment lens (like a filter) on the end of a 70-300mm zoom lens. I also used off camera flash attached to a TTL cord for a little fill light. Mostly due to the fact that it was late in the day, actually almost dark.
Macro Spider on Plumeria
Posted in 1 | Tagged close up, flower, macro, micro, plumeria, spider | 2 Comments »
September 30, 2009 by jfennellphoto
A couple of months ago I photographed the Red Bull Air Races that were in San Diego. It’s a great location because it’s right on the waterfront along downtown San Diego, accessible from the Gaslamp District. You can also view the races from Coronado (which is where I shot from). Coronado is a great place to shoot in the afternoon because the sun is behind you and can provide good lighting on the planes in the race. The high rise buildings in the background can also make for interesting images. Unfortunately on the this particular day the light was not cooperating the way I would have liked it to. It became really overcast and made for flat unflattering light. Here are a couple of the ones that turned out ok (the previous year was much better with blue skies and interesting clouds).
Red Bull Air Races San Diego
This particular shot I was using a slower shutter speed and panning with the plane to create a little motion on the pylons (shutter was 1/250 sec)
Red Bull Air Races San Diego
The background on this photo is the Marriott Hotel & Marina Downtown San Diego. If you look closely on the edge of where the glass bends you can see people standing on their balconies.
Red Bull Air Races San Diego
On this image I really wanted to show the speed of the planes so I prefocused on the pylons and cranked my shutter speed down to 1/250 sec and waited for the plane to cross through. This took a few attempts to achieve due to the fact that these planes are traveling at over 200 mph.
Red Bull Air Races San Diego
Using the total opposite technique as the image above I boosted my shutter speed up to 1/1250 sec in order to freeze the plane in motion and preserve detail.
I’ve been traveling and shooting a lot so I will be posting more frequently… Stay tuned…
Posted in Photography | Tagged air races, airplane, airplanes, coronado, downtown, gaslamp, plane, planes, red bull, san diego, waterfront | Leave a Comment »
May 22, 2009 by jfennellphoto
The following are some macro shots I was playing around with. I was shooting and exploring trying to get some different lighting perspectives going with regards to macro photography. Most images were shot using an off camera flash attached with a ttl cord to add some unique lighting. I used that in conjunction with the location of the sun to try and get some fun and different lighting angles.
This particular flower I had the flash positioned all the way over on the far left and low to add some depth and shadows to really define the petals.
I like the converging lines on this one with the purple buds and the purple flowers in the background. Converging lines sometimes goes against the rules but let’s be honest it’s fun to break the rules. The late setting sun was falling nicely on the background. I used some off camera fill flash from the upper left to give the foreground buds some POP.
Most of the time fill flash is used to illuminate what is in front of the lens. On this particular day I was looking for different ideas and lighting that was not your standard “Macro”. With this thought process in mind I placed the flash on the ground behind and aiming up at this flower, which gave is some nice backlight and really made the cob webs stand out.
The low setting sun was almost directly behind this patch. Which really allowed the spiky/fuzzy (whatever they’re called) elements on the stems to stand out. Now in this situation using no flash would have resulted in a dark colorless shadows of the stems and flowers. With the ability to use flash as fill light it allowed the colors on the stems and flowers to really stand out as well as using the backlight to create the texture.
Posted in Photography | Tagged backlight, backlit, fill, flash, flower, flowers, images, macro, micro, photographs, Photography, photos | 8 Comments »
March 26, 2009 by jfennellphoto
| The Ordover Gallery in the San Diego Natural History Museum in Balboa Park is having a is an International Photography Competition “The Best of Nature Photography Show”. |
| They received more than 2,300 images of which 72 have been accepted to be hung in the museum.
I received word that one of my images will be one of the 72 hanging in the museum.
It was one of the Red Tailed Hawk pictures I posted on March 7th, 2009. |
| The images will be hung in the gallery available for viewing beginning Saturday June 27, 2009 at 11am. At which time there will be a party for all museum entrants. The show will be up until September 13th, 2009. |
Photograph that will be displayed at the Ordover Gallery. |
Posted in Photography | Tagged hawk, ordover gallery, photo contest, photography competition, red tailed, san diego natural history museum | Leave a Comment »
March 7, 2009 by jfennellphoto
I had the pleasure of photographing some beautiful raptors at an event called Hawk Watch. This is an event the Wildlife Research Institute puts on during a couple months of the year. It is located in the grasslands of Ramona California. They have everything from Golden Eagles, to Wintering Ferruginous Hawks, Red-Tailed Hawks, Prairie Falcons and Red-Shouldered Hawks. We even saw two juvenile Bald Eagles.
The idea behind this event that the Wildlife Research Institute puts on is to educate the public on the importance of the Ramona Grassland ecosystem to these raptors. They capture a few hawks in the morning so that they can band them (which for conservation efforts they do on a regular basis) after which they are released. The difference is they show the attendees the process of banding these birds and allow people to get an up close and personal look at these magnificent birds of prey.
These are some of the images I captured during this event
This is one of the beautiful Red Tailed Hawks that was banded and released. I like the way his slightly out of focus wing creates a backdrop for his face and body.
This Red Tailed Hawk was spreading its wings after being let out of its holding area before being tagged and released.
I love this portrait of this Red Tailed Hawk. It’s very rare you can get so up close and personal with these birds.
We traveled to the location where the Red-Shouldered Hawk was to be released. Approaching the hawk’s home with the biologist, the anticipation and excitement grew. I knew the release of this bird was going to happen fast and I needed to have all of my senses and tracking skills sharp. I would only have one shot to capture this beautiful raptor in flight. A little bit of skill and a little bit of luck resulted in the capture of the image above. Shortly after this photo was taken the bird returned to it’s mate.
Posted in Photography | Tagged bird, birds, birds of prey, eagle, hawk, photographs, Photography, photos, raptor, raptors, red, red tailed, shoulder, shouldered, tail, tailed | 2 Comments »
February 27, 2009 by jfennellphoto
After a docent lead tour of the new exhibits in the Museum of Photographic Arts ( MOPA ), it was dark and I thought it would be a good time to play around with a few evening/night shots in and around Balboa Park in San Diego. While photographing in the park I though it would be fun to play around with some different off camera lighting.
Below are a couple of results from my experimentation.
This is a fig tree hidden in the back of the park. It was extremely dark back there thus resulting in quite a long exposure. I was able to illuminate the tree from different areas popping the flash as I walked around.
This particular shot had some illumination on the right hand side from a street lamp. The other side of the fountain however was falling in very dark shadows. I used off camera lighting on the left side setting the flash 20 feet back as to not give it too much light. Just enough so you could see some detail. Whether or not you think this is art I think it’s kind of funny how the “Museum of Art” sign is in the background. I made sure I used an aperture so that you could still read the sign.
Posted in Photography | Tagged balboa park, night photography, off camera flash, Photography, remote lighting, san diego | Leave a Comment »
February 27, 2009 by jfennellphoto
These are some recent photos taken along the San Diego River near Sea World.
Snowy Egret
Great Blue Heron
Osprey collecting sticks for his nest building
Posted in Photography | Tagged birds, great blue heron, osprey, Photography, san diego river, snowy egret | Leave a Comment »
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