First off, I apologize for my lapse in blogging. The last month for me has been crazy! Between traveling for potato meetings, finishing up a website (lancochurchsoftball.com) for a PCS client and everything else life had in store, I was pretty busy. I thought I would share some pictures from some time I spent with my daughter on the swing set the other day!

When I returned home last week from some business down south I was told that there were a couple of my pictures in Fig magazine. In my ignorance, I said, “What is Fig magazine?”. Fig is a local Lancaster publication that supports and represents the events and industry of downtown Lancaster.

“Fig celebrates the understated elegance of history, the finest sense of style and the appreciation of art, culture and craft that weave themselves into the City of Lancaster.” – figlancaster.com

The photos came from a job I did for Lancaster County Christian School. The ad can be found on page 50 in the spring edition of Fig. To learn more about Fig visit http://www.figlancaster.com

As many of you know, I work in the chip industry. Today is National Potato Chip Day! So go out and support your local chip company and buy a couple bags of potato chips! Potato Chips are a great all natural snack that is a good source of potassium!

Last week I was in SC for some chip business meetings, and my hotel room looked over the ocean. For Christmas this past year, my wife bought me Scott Kelby’s Digital Photography books and I’ve had a great time reading those. He has a few chapters in there talking about landscape photography. He’s given me some inspiration to improve on my landscape work. What do you think?

I set my alarm for 6AM and grabbed my gear. I didn’t have my entire camera bag with me, actually I didn’t have hardly anything. My gear consisted of my D300, 17-55mm f/2.8, my Manfrotto tripod head, and my Super Clamp. I didn’t have room in my suitcase for my tripod legs, so that’s why I brough my Super Clamp. I should have taken a picture of my setup with my phone, but I’ll try to explain it a little. Scott is always talking about how you want to change the angle to not look like a everyday point and shoot. So I set off for the beach to get down low and create a cool shot. Before reaching the beach I grabbed a beach chair to take a long (I needed a tripod). Here I go camera over my shoulder, with a super clamp attached and a beach chair in hand across the stretch of sand towards the ocean. As the sun begins to rise I quickly realize this is not going to work well. The buildling light revealed a strip of clouds right on the horizon. So I abandoned the beach and went back to my room. When I returned to my room (on the top floor of the hotel), I was greeted with exactly what I was looking for. I love how the image below has dimension and perspective.

The first day I was in SC was rainy and cloudy all day long. I had woken up early to catch the sunrise, and saw a stormy morning. So I decided to create an HDR image of the courtyard and ocean view from my hotel room.

I spent the evening celebrating with my wife and two kids. My wife made an amazing meal. First I must say, I’m a meat and potatoes guy, but there is one other food I really enjoy, and that’s a good caesar salad. To make a good caesar salad you need a great crouton and thinly shaved parmesan cheese. Jackie last night made home made Italian herb, heart shaped croutons to top our caesar salad with shaved parmesan. We finished the meal off with an apple tart from my wife’s favorite website (Pioneer Woman).