Web Design, the meantime, etc

I've been busy working at my internship and spending very little time updating this blog. I remember leaving 'RobertsonExposure' open-ended on purpose, leaving room for the content to evolve a little and still make sense. Get ready for RobertsonExposure web development ... the three of you can feel free to unsubscribe at any time.

I'm still shooting wedding photography when people ask me to, but my primary focus has been web development. I've been helping friends get together basic websites by using a lot of the background I received from my classes at Foothill College in Javascript and PHP.

A few screenshots and links if you're interested:

Introducing: www.tomliuphoto.com

My photographer friend Tom Liu and I put together this site featuring his work. I really enjoy his eye and I encourage you to check out these galleries.

Next, my good friend from Chapman University, Luke Rutherford, has recently launched a new company, Trestle Street Partners. I can't explain what they do because I know nothing about commercial real estate, but check out the site for more info if you own commercial real estate in Orange County: www.trestlesp.com


I have an internship at Micello Inc., a company that makes interactive indoor maps for use on the internet and mobile devices. Take a look at what we're up to here: www.micello.com

Here is a screen shot of a new developer tool I made for them:


It allows people using the Micello API to conveniently get information about map entities, and see examples of how to find map information via javascript. Indoor navigation requires indoor maps, think about it. Micello.

Ok, now wedding photo update:

Shiela & Neil - 10/22/2011

This is the little sister of one of my oldest friends. This wedding was a blast. I'm reading a Steinbeck book right now so it was fun to get to drive around the various parts of Watsonville.

 

And finally, a picture of me eating it on water skis. Sometimes my friends do take really good pictures of me.

Corinna in SnapMatter Magazine

Some of my shots of Corinna made their way into Vol. 4 of SnapMatter magazine.  If you've never heard of the magazine, neither have I.  I'm not wild about the way they cropped my shot and filled the extra space with a banner, but I guess it's cool to be published.

It's a compliment to be featured next to some of the other photographers in this edition, so if you're interested check it out here:

http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/263061
Click the big picture and you'll see what I mean.

I would hate to let this moment pass without recognizing it:  Not being paid to be published in this unknown magazine might be the closest I'll ever get to accomplishing my dream of shooting for Sports Illustrated. At least I realize it.

Gordon Prill composites

The end-product of my work for Gordon Prill.

Tomatoes & Basil

August garden update

While other things may be more important... here is the August garden update.

Heirloom Tomatoes

Small ( Grape or Cherry? ) tomatoes

Anaheim Peppers

Other Tomatoes

A Tokyo cherry blossom bonsai, 1 1/2 months old.

Finally, my only sunflower. It's about 7 ft tall and just starting to bloom. This was the only of 12 seeds to sprout.

* To be clear - all the vegetables are my mom's work!

Sonoma Springs & Lagunitas Brewing Co's

I took a little trip up to Petaluma on Saturday to visit two great breweries.

First we stopped by Sonoma Springs Brewing Co. and sampled the four beers they were pouring. Almost all of us had a Groupon in hand for a growler full of beer, so we left with several gallons of great beer.

This was the 'Dark IPA'

This is really the whole place. It's a small setup.

I have no pictures of Lagunitas, but I promise that it was worth visiting. To me it's the closest thing to Stone Brewery that exists in Northern California. ( Except even more family & dog friendly. )

Tomato Update

I'm really trying to post more often, but until that actually happens...

I had two shoots on May 9th over in Santa Cruz and they were both productive. My first shoot was around 11am and I wanted to quickly show two of my favorite solutions to midday light.

Setup #1: Photographed under this bridge:

When you shoot under a bridge or any large object that casts a shadow it gets your subject out of the sun and removes the problem of overexposed highlights. The key light comes from the brightness of everything outside of the shade.

If you can manage to find a somewhat dark/shady background you can avoid having an overexposed background.

One thing to watch out for is too much key light coming up from the ground, so a bounce board can be used for negative fill ( flagging light reflecting up from the ground ).

If there isn't enough key light the photographer can step into the sun and use a bounce board to reflect sunlight. I've also used a boardwalk or pier in the past with this same basic setup.

#2 Direct Sunlight - see image right
Face your model away from the sun to keep highlights off their face. Fill with a bounce board and keep yourself in the shade at the same time :)
This is clearly not an ideal setup, but my point here is that it can be done. Some models can handle almost enough bounce-fill without squinting that the backgrounds aren't too overexposed. A little photoshop makes up for the rest and I like the look of the result. I like people looking bright and flush with color.

Daylight is free and I'm not afraid of a few highlights.

Second shoot was nearby with more great scenery. Tall grass is my favorite. I certainly risked being bitten by ticks and getting poison oak all over my feet ( that pair of Rainbows is now retired ), but the weather was great and it was worth it.

Finally, I shot a wedding this past Sunday the 12th for my friends John and Kerry.

The Crystal Springs Golf Course turned out to be a great venue with this incredible vista for the ceremony.

I'll find some more favorites soon but for now that's all. There's nothing like nice weather.

Only two things that money cant buy
That's true love and home grown tomatoes

Laura & Eric

Fairfield, Ca. Beautiful.

Agfa Shur Shot B2

I'm having a lot of trouble coming up with any information on this specific model. Most of the similar ones I see online have a different face plate and film advance knob. Apparently these were made starting as early as 1932. Though I somehow doubt it's that old, it is probably still the oldest camera I've got.

1972 Ricoh 500 G

My 'newest' camera. Picked up this little guy at International Camera Technicians in Mountain View. I've wanted a 35mm that I can run with for a long time.

retouching

Sherra, Santa Cruz, Tsunami Warning

I drove to Santa Cruz despite the treat of tsunami to do this shoot with Sherra. This is the first retouched image.

Update?

I still take pictures. Some of these are new and some are random.

First, a picture of my eyeball by my friend Tom Liu:Next, a picture of my girlfriend's dog getting a bath because he rolled in his own crap. I apparently thought this was funny enough to photograph.


This shot is from back in 2008 when I lived in eastern San Diego. We'd had a mouse sneak into our apartment from behind the stove and the cats were naturally fascinated. The only trouble was that it was extremely hot and they couldn't stay alert enough to maintain their watch on the kitchen. This was Cleo's compromise:


I mean, that is an awesome cat. Speaking of awesome, next is this barefoot guy riding a pink vespa. I ran through traffic to get this picture and I'm not sure I'll ever understand it. Another moment spontaneously worth photographing.

Finally, a headshot I did for my friend Kris:

Family Photos

Some photographs of my great grandfather and his crew in Benton City, Washington. I don't have exact dates, but I'm pretty sure this was the early 1920's.
A more serious photograph of the group:

Corinna, Santa Cruz

I played around a lot with overexposure on this shoot. We started at 10am and it was already pretty bright so I just decided to blow the backgrounds out get exposure on the subject.