Chris Crumley Blog

It's nice to look back into 2009 and smile at some of the more tender moments. And, nice to look forward to sweet times coming in 2010. I guess it goes without saying; focus on the positive.

It may be fitting to end the Blog Year with this image taken last month on the east side of Cozumel, Mexico not far from Coconuts and the highest point on the island. I happened upon 132 turtle hatchlings scurrying from their sandy upper beach birthplace to the water and the start of a new life.

If you've never seen anything like this, resolve to start looking now. It's very special.

Happy New Year.

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The mid-November nor'easter that came on the heels of tropical storm Ida pushed water levels higher than hurricane Isabel in September 2003 and did significant damage to the pool. Renovation is in progress and is expected to be complete in January if the weather cooperates.

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I'm continuing to work on getting a good motion blur underwater. This frame is subdued ambient light only.

I'm still hobbled by Canon's refusal to allow rear shutter curtain sync on at least four generations of digital Pro bodies for any strobes but their own Speedlights. That excludes studio strobes the world over.... and, of course, underwater strobes.

The idea is to have a very light kiss of strobe light, maybe on the face, at the end of the blur (2nd curtain time), not at the beginning (first curtain time).

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The studio needs some help; we can hardly walk around in here. This week for sure.

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Another view of the rear of one of the Sunsations buildings in Virginia Beach. You have to admit, it's a riot of yellow colors.

Sunsations also has an interesting business model with stores seemingly in every other block of the resort area selling inexpensive t-shirts and lots of other tourist trinkets. Added to the mix are more stores with different names selling other price tiers of merchandise to tourists (Tommy Bahamas for one) and another large store catering to the young surfer/skateboard crowd. Some of the stores are right next door to each other.

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I like colors and designs like this as much as I like the softer lines and color of people. This is the back of one of the Sunsations stores in Virginia Beach, VA. Pacific Avenue in the resort area at 4PM yesterday after a late lunch.

Might also have been a little left brain/right brain in-fighting. I can't help it; I am what I am.

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Sometimes when photographers are looking through history files, they come across an image they like now, perhaps better than during the initial edit. This is one of those.

I was helping a friend prepare for a shoot and offered to show her a child's mermaid costume. This image of a young British girl was shot last summer and it made a good sample of an inexpensive, but workable costume.

The model is one of those outgoing fearless happy young kids in water. But, you could tell that, right?

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I know there are lots of people out there who are "full up" with work. We get bogged down with bids, invoices and lots of "stuff."

But, then, a few moments surface where you can do anything you want. Here's where I went with those moments yesterday.

I took a full color image of Erica and subdued the color pallette, then copied and pasted a photo I'd done of a glass pane sprayed with shellac and scuffed and scratched. The scratch and scuff addition went on its own layer at 30-40% opacity. I also made a layer mask, filled it with black and erased the black where I wanted the scratch and scuff to show through.

It's like magic!

I wonder if I can do it again tomorrow or Wednesday.

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