The Photography Is Alive

LunarEclipse2008
Originally uploaded by AnoopShah

Here's a picture of the February 20th 2008 Lunar Eclipse. The moon is in totality at this point and the red glow is from the light from the sun diffused and bounced off of the Earth's atmosphere. I was originally hoping to get a nice series of images to show the transition but unfortunately I had equipment problems with my tripod's head. The cold weather and the Bogen 3265 pistol grip head didn't work so well with the weight of the 5D plus the 300mm f/4L. This image came as I jury rigged the head with some duct tape. Duct tape fixes everything.

I'm really proud of this because a lot of research was done to get this shot the way I wanted it. Sites like MrEclipse and NASA's website on eclipses helped plan this shot.

The Rebirth Of The 'anoopshah | photography' Blog

So there it went, my 30th birthday. I never really like "celebrating" my birthday however I'm a big fan of other people celebrating and if my birthday is an excuse to party well than who am I to stop a party. And amazingly I had a great birthday this year. Year three-zero has started off well.

It's still been a while since doing any major photography work. I still have to go through all the pictures I took in Italy and India last year. I did get to do a family portrait late last year that got me real excited. The images came out real well and I'll share them soon. - But I've said that before...

I got some great birthday gifts. From work I scored a Bogen light stand. It's an older model that the facilities manager found in a storage closet. It was plenty dusty but a good wipe down cleaned it right up. Our resident media guy and in house photographer said he had no use for it so I snagged it right up. That was the beginning of my Strobist kit. Next my sister-in-law bought me a Vivitar 285HV off of eBay for me. With the light stand, the new (old) flash a flash bracket and an umbrella I have a start to a good little portable lighting kit. Hopefully I'll get to use this new equipment soon.

The Death Of The 'anoopshah | photography' Blog

It amazes me how little time I have. Well let me rephrase that. It amazes me how little lack of structure I have for my time. I have structure on Mondays through Fridays from 9 to 5 but than after that there isn't much. Unfortunately the 9 to 5 doesn't allow me to do much in the way of photography work.

I wish I could be more involved in my photography work but lately it's been a back burnered thought. A lot of good things have put it there, like buying a house. With that comes a lot of work. Work beyond the 9 to 5. Work till the wee hours of the morning. But as it comes together it has been worth it. Then there were the trips - a trip to Italy for our one year anniversary. So much fun and you can read about it at our Family Blog. Than there was the trip to India for my mom and her pratistha. Both trips had a lot of pictures taken but with little time since to do anything with them.

Then there was the ScarletNation work. I've been bit pretty hard by the Sports Photographer bug. I've been taking my medication here at SportsShooter.com. This is the work I wish I could be doing full time but alas that would seriously undermine the mortgage payment situation.

And with all this work it's been hard to do any sort of personal photography work save for the random photos of stuff to sell on Ebay. To fill the void I have found some great reading in the blogosphere. One such blog is the Strobist site. If you're anything serious about making light work for your photos than this is the site to start at. I've been learning a lot from this site and hope to put the techniques learned to good use soon.

But until I get some time - that all too rare commodity - this blog is dead.