Published

I had some of my paintball game photographs published in Paintball Sports Magazine. Follow the link below to the online version of the magazine:

http://viewer.zmags.com/showmag.php?mid=wwqwgf&preview=1&_x=1#/page0/

Looking at it for the first time last night it appears I have about 15 pictures in the issue, including a good size one on pages 3 and 4. There is a lot in the story about the SPPL on pages 24 through 32. About three quarters of all those pictures are mine.

There are also some "snapshots" on page 56 & 57 of which three are mine.

Video Game Shots

I have been meaning to get some small shots up of the Greg Hastings video game player profiles up on this blog so everyone can see what I have been talking about the past few months.

Below are the four shots required for each player. A mug shot with their name and team so the programmers know who is in the picture, then a serious look, half smile and then a full smile.

I shot the players using to Photoflex small softboxes positioned on each side of the player. As we did not know the availability of electricity at each of the fields we opted to use the Nikon CLS (Creative Lighting System) with my Nikon D300 as the master then 2 SB800 within the softboxes. This worked really well for us as we were not reliant on the field owners.

Some people would come in and take snap shots of their players as I was shooting. The point and shoot flashes would throw of the system (they would not fire).

SPPL Finals

I got back late Monday night from the SPPL Finals held at Low Country Paintball in Georgia. The weather could of been better and given the thick canopy of the trees the lighting was dark on the fields. The Greg Hastings video game player profile shoot has finally wrapped up. I managed to get about 100 players at this event. I will get some samples up in a later post.

This player slipped into the bunker when I was not looking and began to fire my direction. I remained belly down for about three minutes until he moved on. Being hit is pretty common and hurts more than when playing as the hits are normally unexpected.

Normally the players are in some sort of camo outfit, but this player went with some color. The pink paint is made for the SPPL, but the paintball itself is pretty cool with its custom cover.

There are not a lot of girls that play. I would say about one per two teams (ten to fifteen players to a team, ten allowed on the field at one time). They do seem to get their picture taken more often then the boys.

Weekend Sports

I shot my sons' soccer and baseball games the past two weekends. We haven't had any of the games overlap, so four games each Saturday. Needless to say my time to shoot has been thin on Saturdays.

I am getting ready to go the SPPL finals over Columbus Day weekend. In an upcoming post I will show a few samples of the player profile I am doing for the Greg Hastings video game and will go through the set-up I use.

Antelope Island

We took a day trip to Antelope Island (the largest of the ten islands) in the Great Salt Lake. We broke down and bought an annual pass to the state parks since we seem to always be paying each excursion we take. We really saw antelope, allbeit they were a little far away:

We also saw some humming birds by the farm house:

And the highlight is the buffalo (American Bison):

I have been playing around with the Picture Controls in the D300 and took this set at VIVID +3 then boosted the colors in Photoshop some more.
We went during the middle of the day and the weather was wonderful; however, I really would like to go back in the morning or night for better light for the farm house items and landscape shots. Who knows, maybe some antelope and bufflo as well.

Redesigned Website

I have been redesigning my website to simplify and add a little color. Please take a look and let me know what you think. How is the layout? Is everything working?