Chicago Trip

Benee, Bobby, me and Don at the Navy pier in Chicago. Below are some pictures of us around town. We'll post more soon. We're having a blast in the Windy City!

Bobby waving in front of the bean. Do you see his reflection? Can you find Don in the bean? (Hint - he has on a white shirt, tan shorts and is holding his camera.)



The bean at Millennium Park.



Yummy...famous Chicago-dogs, with chili and cheese. (Hey - we're on vacation!)


Wendy being a pirate.


Benee's turn at playing pirate.

Chicago Trip

The four of us at Bobby's birthday dinner. Yummy - steak!


Bobby got a new "grill" for his birthday. Don't he look niiiice?!


Me and Benee kicking off the weekend at the Navy Pier.


The four of us on our Segways.

My Sweetie driving our boat

This is a practice shot from today. Just a little trial and error.

Happy 4th of July. We are back home after spending the weekend on the Intercoastal. Just some relaxing time with friends and family.

Marcy came out to visit and we spent some time walking around the Rice Quarters property and watching Benee's dogs play in the mud.

We celebrated Grace's Birthday while we were all together.


Based on the phone call we got the next day, the boots were one of her favorite gifts.

Saw this guy while cleaning around the pool.

Palmetto Region's 40th Anniversary

Saturday night the local PCA celebrated their 40th Anniversary with a Dinner on the USS Yorktown. Dinner was served in the hangerbays with a beautiful view of the sunset.

I was trying to come up with different ideas for photos of things I had around the house and here is what I got. The top picture is all my Navy uniform items. The second picture is my Dad's Naval Officer Sword.

We pulled a tree that was slowly dying from a planting bed in our front yard . We replaced it with a Crape Myrtle.

Second go around playing with water!

I saw other people taking some real interesting pictures of water drops, so I thought I would give it a try. These are two pictures from my first attempts. The hardest part was setting up something that would give me drops of water in to my dish. Then it was just a matter of taking a lot of pictures to get the timing correct.

Don practicing casting our shrimp net.

Day Three of the Photo Workshop

Today we were in Navy housing at the old Navy shipyard. The House is the old Admirals' house before the base closed. The models were from the Charleston Ballet. I was able to work at a couple of different setups.

Day two of the workshop

We started out with a short lecture and shoot at the Old Charlestowne Landing. I had all of fifteen minutes to shoot and ended up with this shot.

Most of the day we spent inside the studio. It was more of a lecture / demonstration by Joe. He showed us how he flows from using a single umbrella to more elaborate setups. All of his setups used small hotshoe flashes rather than big studio flashes. But if you notice the umbrella has three of the new Nikon Flashes at $500 each.

Day one of the Joe McNally Workshop

I started a Photography workshop today taught by Joe McNally. We started at the Old Charleston Jail.
Joe showed us what he typically brings to shoots. In just one of his bags he had twelve small flashes with extra batteries, cables, and chargers. Then again he travels with the Nikon Rep for the Northeast (his wife) not a bad deal.
We were separated into small groups and I was with two full time professionals. It rapidly became apparent how much I need to learn. While the class is oriented towards using a flash, my better shots were without one.


I had taken forty shots of the model below trying to get a good shot and I wasn't pleased with any of them. Joe walked in and within three tries he helped me get the shot below. This is more of what I was expecting to get out of the workshop.

Benee invited me out today to the Isle of Palms Anniversary party. It was held at the Marina with food, games, and live music.

The party had a little bit of a Pirate theme.