Shooting Stock. (or how I spent the Labor Day Holiday Weekend. Aug. 31 - Sept. 1, 2008.)

It was a good weekend to totally relax, get away & be away. Even though I stayed relatively close to home. Concentrated on making personal images starting out on Sunday, and into Monday along the Hudson River. I wanted to of course make something fresh for my stock photography agency, THE IMAGE WORKS. Made it a point to dust off my two older Nikon D-1X bodies & put them through working conditions, particularly shooting files on RAW. Even brought out the ancient Nikkor 300mm f/2.8 manual focus and tele-extender. Boy what a piece of glass. Remember making portfolio images with that lens back in the day on film cameras, but wouldn't think of ever using a MF (manual focus) lens nowadays. Hey, wait a minute on that one... One of the bodies was severely drenched in a downpour back in early August when I used it as a remote body on the infield of the Meadowlands Track for the low angle finish line view of DEWEYCHATUMNHOWE winning the $1.5 million Hambletonian. Never got to make that image anyway, as I pulled the camera from the field & stored it in an electrical storage locker at track side off the winner's circle before the big race.
First stop on Sunday was back to West Point for the memorial service honoring some of the remaining "Buffalo Soldiers" and greet retired Army Sgt. Sanders Matthews again. It's honestly a thrill as a former Marine to have a few minutes' personal time with an Army veteran who served in a mounted, all-Black regiment during WWII. Then spent a few hours down on the river just watching the sailboats, jet-skiers, kayakers and managed to grab what I thought was a pretty cool image of a CSX Railroad freight train barreling down toward me. Again all made with the old Nikon body and long manual focus long glass. Here's a slideshow (below) of more of my fav images from the weekend. - cg.



*(Use the arrows at the bottom of the player or click the image to scroll forward through the slideshow. Enable full screen viewing by clicking the 4-way arrow icon above the credits button at lower right of the player. )