Halloween and Thanksgiving have past but I am going to start the first post of my blog with an image of a pumpkin. Why? There is a lot of me in that pumpkin. Well, I mean, not literally. As you can tell by the title of my blog, I am a photographer (that or this was the only name that wasn't taken on Google Blogger). And as I am pretty sure you can tell by its layout, I am also a Strobist. If you don't know what that is, congratulations on coming out of the coma, now go to www.strobist.com. Once there read everything until you’re up to speed, and then come back--take your time...The long and short of it is that I'm a visual person and in 1995 I got a job on a magazine that required me to take pictures. I tinkered with photography before that, but the job gave me a reason to shoot, and a reason to get better at it. I liked the photography part of the job so much, I left the rest if the magazine business behind and have become a full-time photographer. And, after finding Strobist, I have pretty much given up all my other hobbies to focus on photography. That may not sound like much, but I had a lot of hobbies. On top of photography, I was (and still somewhat am) into old school BMX bikes, old school skateboards, vintage VWs, 80s minitrucks, hot rods, dirt bikes, quads and custom car audio--to name a few. At one point I had like seven vehicles, a dirt bike, street bike and two quads. All that stuff made it too hard to focus on any one thing--so it all went away.
Now my focus is on all aspects of photography, specifically lighting and Photoshop. This pretty much leads me back to the pumpkin. I shot that just before we carved it up on Halloween. Lighting a shiny dome isn't as easy as it looks. And finding a perfect pumpkin to photograph isn't either. I started with a decent shot and a reasonably intact pumpkin. Thanks to a few off-camera flashes and some work on Photoshop, I have created the perfect pumpkin. And this is just a big vegetable--imaging how excited I get when I shoot something interesting!
If you want to purchase my images you can do so at one of two places. Although it is very controversial, I post on iStock. It works for me and I will be doing posts on the microstock company in the future. I also post on PhotoShelter. I really enjoy shooting stock and although I would like to do it exclusively, I am available for assignments as well. You can check out my Web-site at www.mortonphotographic.com, and my Flickr page at http://www.flickr.com/photos/mortonphotographic/
My blog will be about all kinds of things related to my photography. As part of what I learned on Strobist, I want to give back. I feel this is a good place to start. I will show off my latest images, show how I did them, and share my DIY lighting equipment. Beyond that, who knows!
Until the next post... No smashing pumpkins!
