First off, these apples are simply Amazing! Check Out Auntie M’s Gourmet Apples on Facebook and the direct link is below. She will ship these apples to your doorstep and they are all custom ordered, made, and you can pick your colors and packaging options. These are great for wedding favors, showers, parties, a gift…whatever your heart desires! Here are just some of the flavors she offers, but can make anything you can imagine, someone just wanted some with bacon, YUM!

Auntie M’s Gourmet Apples Facebook Page Link:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Auntie-Ms-Gourmet-Apples/273318969355962

Product photography is very important to showcase whatever it is you are selling. Sometimes you are even the product, for example if you are a real estate agent. I have seen too many websites and facebook pages with obvious non-professional images, and it does not help your product or you. Everybody that has a Facebook and/or Website should hire a professional photographer to shoot your products and/or you. They should be overall very consistent, with no bells or whistles in my opinion. Your product should stand alone with no cheesy blanket backdrop or flowers ordaining your products. Don’t skimp here, this is essentially your storefront, you want your product to look it’s best from the beginning of marketing even social marketing to get interest, and for professionalism. Some photographers may even be willing to do some bartering with whatever your product is, it doesn’t hurt to ask. Have your business be taken seriously by hiring a professional, it is worth every penny!

I had so much fun shooting for fun the other night with a few other local photographers. There is a local photographers board that is very active and the photographers get together often to do fun shoots with each other and but their heads together, it is a really cool group. When I saw a “Fire Painting” night I thought that was really interesting. Come to find out they needed a location and my backyard was perfect. You need a wide open space to pull this off. I had no idea what we were doing but once I saw some of the results I was really excited, as I have not shot for fun in almost a decade!

What you are seeing here is Steel Wool (fine) stuffed in a whisk and tied to a cord. There is a person in all of these photos swinging the cord and the results are the steel wool breaks apart and a lot of sparks fly. Some of the pics she had one cord that she was spinning and for a few of them she was spinning 2 cords. I shot with my Canon 5D Mark II and a 14mm wide angle “fish eye” lens. With long exposures of 10-30 seconds you get really cool images. There was a little trial and error getting the right exposures down, the correct white balance, low ISO, and the fire painter took a few tries to get it down. The steel wool did not last as long as we had hoped in some cases only 10-20 seconds. Even though this was a first attempt I love the results. We will be doing this again and begin to perfect it and come up with new ideas and different locations. You notice you can see the person in some of the images and this was done using an off camera flash to illuminate her face while spinning the cord in a perfect circle.

I thought it would be fun to share what is in my Photography Bag. A lot of people ask me what I shoot with and what lenses I prefer, so here you go. This is my travel Lowepro backpack, I strictly use this on plane flights as I can never separate from my camera equipment and this backpack fits in the overhead compartments.Getting ready to fly and shoot 2 weddings and 12 photo shoots in 5 days, which has become a usual occurrence for me. So here is how I pack my bag to travel. I will be writing a follow up blog soon on how to travel with your equipment and keep your images safe! Since I have become more of a destination photographer, I have shot in different countries and regularly shoot out of state. Traveling with your equipment and already shot images can be very tricky and you need to be prepared for the worst case scenarios! While shooting I like to use my Kelley Moore bag if I have an assistant, and I prefer my Thinktank which is handy for all my lenses when I shoot alone and have no assistant.

What I shoot With:

Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 5D‘s as Backup
Zoom Lens 70-200 2.8 ~ Most Preferred 
Zoom Lens 70-200 4.0 ~Backup, Used for Travel
Overall Lens 24-105 4.0 ~Larger Group Shots
Macro 100 mm 2.8 ~For rings and close ups
Wide Angle 14mm Fisheye ~Room and Venue shots
2- 580EX II Flashes
Gary Fong Whales Tale~ Have shot with it for years and cant shoot without it.

Not Pictured: Canon 50mm, Think Tank easy shoot waist bag, Kelly Moore Bag, Over 100GB of Chip Space, plenty of camera batteries and chargers

The City of Brea in Orange County, California; has a city policy for over the last decade that any new development must have a sculpture or piece of artwork. The city boasts nearly 150 amazing sculptures and works of art from all different artists. It adds character to this amazing “small town” feeling bustling city. I LOVE BREA and lived there for over a decade. I shot almost 100 of these unique sculptures and documented their location for the city of Brea and loved shooting objects for one of the first times. It was a great project and I am excited that the Orange County Register has featured my work. Check out the link below to see the amazing sculptures, and the ones I shot are credited. Thank you to Trinitee and the city of Brea for your write up and featuring me on the City Website and in the Newspaper.

Which Picture should WIN?

• A- Fairlite Bisaro
• B-Berlin Gonzalez
• C-Taylor Harris
• D-Berlin Gonzalez

Acepolls

More polls: over 60 dating Hotel Gran Canaria punk dating site

Here they are….the entries for the Annual Amateur Photo Contest. You be the judge! Vote for your favorite image by leaving a comment using the image letter. Only 1 vote per day. No names are on this so that your absolute favorite is voted for. The top images will make it to the poll voting finals. You have one week to vote, share on your facebook and get votes! The first and second place winners get a Giant Wall portrait! Good Luck!

VOTES PLEASE ON THIS BLOG ONLY under the pics in the comment section, Facebook votes DO NOT count! Please only vote for one image per comment!

Another great party with Heidi and Frank at Bowlmor in Tustin, last Thursday night! Heidi, Frank, and Erik put on a bowling show for us, then they picked names and formed their own bowling teams. They really know how to throw a party and how to make their fans feel part of the HF family. If you have no idea who Heidi and Frank are, you have to check them out on their website at www.heidiandfrank.com. Heidi and Frank are radio personalities in LA and now they do a daily podcast from 10-12pm on the internet. Their show is hilarious…..but if you are easily offended it may not be the show for you. Everyday is a party on the Heidi and Frank show, it is radio worth watching! I have been listening for over a decade, and listen daily as I edit my pictures all week at my computer. They keep me company while I am working and updated on the news while they talk to listeners and reveal most everything about their own lives, along with Erik (Shmeez) they keep me laughing. VIP for life!!! Check them out!

Here it is…..the 2nd Annual Amateur Photo Contest by Capturing Moments!!! You are the contestants and the judges! Last year this turned out to be so popular with over 130 images entered, they were narrowed down to a top 30, then a top 10, and the the winner and runner up which are below. I have had so many people over the years talk to me about an amazing image they have captured. I can see the excitement on their faces and they want to share what they have produced, but where? Once people see my camera, I get question after question about my equipment, images they want to show me , what and how I shoot, how to use their camera, etc. I am amazed at the interest in photography, and since the digital age has taken over, more and more people are interested in owning a great camera, learning how to really use it, and then actually shooting images that are exciting. Amateurs can now afford great user friendly cameras that produce decent images, sometimes amateurs even capture an amazing image that looks like a PRO shot. So here is your chance! If you have an image that you have shot and love then submit it!

This Photo contest is free! All you have to do is make sure you are a blog follower of mine to keep up with the contest updates, and send your image or images to capturingmoments@hotmail.com by Saturday, November 26th. The top images will then be blogged about and voted on by blog readers. There are no categories, just awesome images of whatever. So go shoot!

The rules are you cannot be making consistent money from a photography business or have an active website which promotes your business. If you have made money here or there that is okay, but if you have a legitimate photography business that makes you money even part time then you are not a candidate. Anyone else can enter, even if you know me, the readers pick the winner, so I am out of it! Maybe you caught a really funny moment that you could never capture again, the perfect rainbow on a vacation, or an artsy image that you are proud of. Any picture that you have taken that you HAD to show off or that really brought a smile to your face. The winning image will be posted on a blog for acknowledgment as well as runner-ups, the photo contests results in thousands of hits and viewers. The first and Second place winner this year get a 16×20 wall portrait of their choice. (A piece of my artwork or their own image)  All photographs will not be blogged, and the most interesting or impressive will make it to the votes. Don’t hesitate, go and find your image or images and submit them now, what do you have to loose? Attach images in an email and send to: capturingmoments@hotmail.com – (please no images via facebook) and don’t forget to join my blog on the right hand side of my blog page on my website!
capturingmoments@hotmail.com – Email Link for Outlook users!

Thank you all so much for participating in my Yosemite Wall Portrait/blog contest. I just put all the names of all the entries in a bowl and had my hubby pull a name. And the winner was Katherine Ellis! Yay Katherine! Just pick your favorite Yosemite image and I will drop ship your 16×20 in the mail to you this week! Thanks for playing and for your support everyone, it really means a lot to me. I will hold more contests in the future so watch for them.