Friday night we attended and photographed the Make A Wish auction at the Marriott in South Portland.  Make A Wish is an incredible organization, and if you don’t know them, please take 3 minutes to visit their website to learn a little bit more.  That will tell you about the mission, the kids, and some of the wishes granted here in Maine.  But it won’t tell you anything about the dedication and hard work of the people who put this event on, nor about the awesome generosity of the attendees of the auction, as well as the donors of the auctioned items. We were amazed.

At most charity auctions, people might bid on tickets to a sporting event.  At Make A Wish, that event was the Patriots-Colts game, in Indy, with roundtrip airfare for 4, and rooms at the Marriott in Indianapolis!  Everything about the event was over the top, starting with the magnificent rooms and catering of the Marriott (which pulled out all the stops - from sushi to lobster ravioli)!

Thank you Make A Wish for letting us be involved.  And to everyone who won the bids for our items, we’re hoping you’ll get thos scheduled before the snow flies.

Here are a few of my favorites - there is a slideshow and a gallery on the site.  Click here if you’re interested.  Thanks for looking.

We’re just hitting the busy part of the high school senior season, and I was asked recently if I could show some of my favorite posters.  These aren’t just large images - they’re often many images combined into a single photo, to show movement, story, hobbies, etc. better than a single image could.  So here are a few of my favorites…

You can get more info about our senior experience on our website.  Thanks for looking.

This is a family session we did last week on the coast.  Okay, a little late on the blogging, but we’ve been really busy since the 4th.  Look for a lot of catching up in the next week or so.

So this is the Weeks family from Brunswick, who tempted me with the idea of a family session on their new boat, but then yanked the boat out of the photoshoot at the last minute.  So this is a special appeal to our blog readers - I need a family shoot on a boat.  It doesn’t have to be a ridiculous yacht, or even a powerboat - sailing would be awesome.  And don’t get me wrong - I don’t want to be on the boat.  I want to be on the dock, or an island, or even another boat, while you and your family come sailing by.  Maybe flying a spinaker, I don’t know.  Definitely looking nautical, navy and white would be great.  If you’ve got the boat, the family, and are willing to find the clothing, (and no one in your family has three heads), the photo session is on me.  Tell your friends down at the marina.

Enough about me and how I was cheated out of the picture I really wanted - these pictures on the rocks are awesome. 

Learn more about us on our website - www.focusphotography.info.  Thanks for looking.  Will

Happy 4th of July!

Independence day has always been one of my favorite holidays - Thanksgiving, New Year’s, Cinqo de Mayo, the 4th of July, and maybe Christmas, not in any particular order.  The other 4 are all about the food to me, but the 4th is all about fireworks, crowds, and summer.  There should be more summer holidays. 

Here’s the secret to really powerful fireworks images - long shutter exposures.  Set your camera on manual, and stop down your aperture.  Make sure you’re camera is on a tripod - you won’t be able to do this hand held.  I like 1s/f11, depending on the night, with a film speed of no more than 400. Fireworks are burning super brightly, and you want to capture some of their great colors, and a lot of their motion.  That’s why you want an aperture of f8-f22.  The exposure time is more subjective.  Since you’re not trying to get a good exposure of the sky, or anything else around you, don’t bother metering.  Just leave the shutter open long enough to catch some of the motion that an exploding firework makes, without catching so much that it blurs. But I can never predict how long that will be, so here’s my fireworks trick.  I set the camera for a 15 second exposure, but cover the lens (with a hat or a paper plate) just until I see the rocket going up.  Then I uncover the lens, let the colors streak out, and place the plate or hat over the lens again.  That way I don’t have to worry about exactly when the fireworks go off.  I’ll add more later….

Okay, a rainy night, tough on fireworks all around. Truthfully, we didn’t go down to the Eastern Prom because we thought they would be washed out, but I hear they still went off without a hitch.  Send me a link to your own images if you got anything good.  I’m posting a panorama of the Eastern Promenade with fireworks from last year instead. 

I’m sorry I wussed out this year, as I always love Portland’s fireworks display.  I guess there’s always next year….