Tag!!! I'm It!

Well I guess I deserve it, since I haven't had much of an opportunity to update my blog recently, but Armin tagged my blog and so I am forced by the Creed of the Blog to comply. Anyway the way this works is:

1) You tag someone by commenting that they have been tagged on their blog

2) You must post 5 songs you are embarrassed to admit you love

3) You must tag 7 other blogs (which will be a stretch for me as I read like 5 blogs...one of which is Armin's, one of which is Erin's who has already been tagged and Strobist...and David wouldn't even notice that he'd been tagged and is in Dubai right now anyway)

So here it goes...some of these will date me a little...so those of you who don't know my age will probably be able to guess after this post...

1) A recent favorite, only technically a song as it was created as a gag for the TV show "How I Met Your Mother", but wonderful nevertheless. It's "Let's Go to the Mall" by Robin Sparkles...

2) By far one of the most addictive songs and to this day use this song when I feel like blasting all 1500+ watts out of my subwoofers in my car..."Ninja Rap" by Vanilla Ice as seen in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 - Secret of the Ooze, and YES I know all the lyrics, but NO I will not be pulling an Armin on this one!

3) A rather strange song for me to enjoy, as I had never even heard of the performer until way past the prime of his career..."It's not Unusual" by Tom Jones

4) Apache by the Sugarhill Gang takes the number 4 spot...amazing song...play it and no matter what mood you're in you will start to dance around and do the cowboy dance move (I played it at work realllllyyyy loud as a joke once, no one could resist- kinda like Dave Chappelle's experiment on getting white people to dance when they hear an electric guitar)

5) The Final Countdown by Europe...this song, while amazingly awesome by itself, is made even more inspirational if you have seen a few episodes of Arrested Development...yet I would be embarrased to no end to play this in public.

So who am I tagging?

Ian Cozens at thekarmapolicearecoming.blogspot.com

Matt Schrader at sillyman.org

Peter Bang at Peterbang.blogspot.com

If I can think of anyone else...I'll add them to the list...maybe I should start reading some more blogs?

edit: Since sillyman.org has multiple authors (and technically I'm one of those too, although I've only made one post there) I'm tagging Matt Maddox and Patrick "Matt" Schrader as well!

A Sea of Blueshirts

So a few weeks ago I was at the Gaylord Waterfront Hotel near DC for a event for my company, and WOW! I'd never even heard of this place before but it was huge! There were about three-four companies having events simultaneously and still had plenty of room left over. Imagine 700-800 employees in blue shirts and kahkis, with room for at least 200 more to sit down with only 75% of the room having tables and chairs!!! The meeting was our annual territory Tech/Leadership Tour where they talk about all the new exciting technologies rolling out this year and announce big changes in the way the business operates or markets itself. It was pretty informative and I always have a blast hanging out with people that have similar interests...a room full of hundreds of electronic gizmo junkies is definitely my kinda place! This all happened a few weeks ago, but I hadn't got a chance yet to even download my photos, let alone post some up on my blog. I've been running DSLR trainings it seems like everyday since up until this past week, and next week I've got another training I'm running, then there will be a little break for Noah...he needs one. Some of these photos are from the Tech tour, the rest are from some of the trainings I was running.

HUGE Auditorium

The gate can see you!

This was the CHECK-IN COUNTER!!! It was bigger than some hotels I've stayed at!

You know a place is crazy nice when they have digital maps that update what conference is in what room and when every hour!

George and his reflector...sorry George, couldn't resist!

The view from the dock outside

Yes it's true...I'm well versed in the Sony's too...

Joey was confused for a while...

Brittany and Aki from Tysons playing around with a 40D

Cesar being a wise guy covering up the flash on the Oly E-510

I had a blast being out of the store for a week and a half doing nothing but talking about DSLR's and other technologies... I wish I could do that all the time...oh wait I do!

P.S. Sorry to everyone for taking so long to update this page. I will try to find time over the next few weeks to keep it interesting...

noahhayes.net

Well it's not a fullblown website with pricing and everything, but it sure is a step in the right direction. Don't have any idea what I'm talking about? I'm talking about NoahHayes.net which is a portfolio site for me and a way for me to sell images to my clients and anyone who wants a print of one of my images. You can actually click on ANY of the images and order anything from wallet sized prints to full 20X30" metallic prints with fine grained walnut frames! You can even order photos imprinted on T-Shirts and coffee cups! This just launched today and I'm very excited. My plans are to have a full blown website by mid-June which will be found by going through noahhayesphotography.com or noahhayesphoto.com!!!

I wanted to use noahhayes.com as my main site, but apparently some bizzare company bought noahhayes.com for a male pattern baldness medication site. The truly bizzare thing? The guy who owns the site is named Rob or Larry or something like that...and his last name isn't Hayes. His registration of that site though expires in July and I have placed a preorder on the domain as soon as it frees up.

Goin' Bonkers for Bonzai

I was hanging out with two fellow photogs (Armin Defiesta and Peter Bang) the other day down in DC at the National Arboretum, and although it was a drizzly, overcast day, we still all had quite a bit of fun. After taking some shots out in the weather near the columns, we headed on into the Bonsai exhibit, which had some truly remarkable pieces of this amazing art form.

I noticed some flowers growing along the base of some of the columns. Those out of focus dark spots are Peter and Armin. This shot also goes to show why sometimes LiveView on a DSLR is a nice thing to have.

I have no idea what it says, but it sure looked important

The Bonsai lineup along one side of the building

Most of the flowers have yet to bloom, April showers bring May flowers!

I told you it was wet!

This little rock had all kinds of miniature buildings and boats all around it.

This was a VERY small house right under those grass like leaves near the bottom of the rock pictured above.

Peter and Armin rocking out with the 24-70 f/2.8L, Peter is also rocking a Boda lens bag!!!

Some cherry blossoms...so difficult to figure out what you want to get out of a picture like this...literally thousands of subject to chose from!

This was the only dead, or at least leafless Bonsai that I saw. It was right there when you walk in, kinda caught me by surprise.

Outside there were quite a few little fountains, this was a shot of water shooting out at 1/8000 of a second! What's crazy about that is that I still see motion blur!

This was the last Bonsai I saw of the day, I thought it was cool how it looked like a whole forest in a clay pot. All the other bonsai looked just like one mini-tree.

This was my favorite picture of the day for some reason, maybe its the stone cutout in the background..I don't know, I just love it.

Hope you enjoyed the photos. I look forward to spring, when all those flowers bloom!

Bowling is NOT my best sport...

So my friend Noman talked me into going bowling with him the other day and we invited a couple other people from work. (He also accidentally invited someone who used to work with us when he meant to call someone else... the person who showed up thought he was invited by someone else...huge case of mistaken identity)

Noman was the culprit

James and John (the other John, LOL) were the masters of the lanes, but it was John truly wiped the floor with us. Noman kept getting gutter balls until he found a technique that suited him well (pictured below)

James knocking 'em down

John had the spin move down, that ball was sliding all over the place!

Noman's "Grandma" strategy

Strategy pays off!!!

Your's truly actually managed to get a spare and then two strikes in a row! (That was the first time in my life I've bowled past a 110 score! I got a 124!

Stylish 'huh?

On a slighty different subject, it seems golf season is starting back up. I had to walk my sister's boyfriend's dog (long story) and saw this bright neon yellow golf ball some 4.5 feet from a support beam for our deck. (The golf course is 50 feet from my backyard)

You know you're a camera nerd when... (part one of many more to come)

...you spend hours (literally) taking long exposures in a friends backyard painting images in the air with you iPhones.

I was hanging out with my friend Matt at his place taking some pictures of his fish and took a picture of him sitting in virtually no light in his living room (the lights were off as he was watching a movie when I got there) and he was like "$@#$@ where's all that light coming from it looks like day!?!?" So after doing a photo op for him and his various fish we stepped outside into his backyard where the closest light was a 60W tungsten bulb from inside his kitchen about 30 feet away and took some long exposures.

Matt smiling at his fish through the glass

To get good focus I asked him to hold his phone near his face to get more light so I (the camera could focus just fine, but I am used to not trusting focus in lowlight so I needed to check) could even see what I was focusing on, and I took a test shot at about 1/2 a second. From this test image we got the idea to start drawing stuff in the air with our phones on long timed exposures and illuminate our faces in various parts of the image. (Matt is DEFINATELY better at this than I am)

Show me that logo!

As you can see...Matt is quite the sailor (he pulled this off himself in 30")

This shot (yes, a remake of Harry Potter) was the result of a slow evolution of "fighting light phones" images...

In our version the kid with the glasses (me) loses...