Calling All Seniors!

Graduating from High School is one of the most important moments in a young adult’s life. The transition from child-hood to adult-hood is defined when a student walks across the stage to accept their diploma. If you are an upcoming senior, your year as an upperclassman is about to begin, and you will be the one that the new freshman look up to, rely on, and aspire to become. This is your year; the year in which you discover who you are and which path you will take in life.

Though the summer is in full swing, now is the time to begin the traditions that come with being a High School senior. One of those traditions includes Senior Pictures. Most senior portraits are boring, monotonous, and just one of those things you have to do. Ditch the portrait studio and book with us! Whether we shoot your session at a trashed barn on your property, the Fort Worth Stock Yards, the streets of Dallas, the train yards in Grapevine, or anywhere else you can think of; rest assured that we will have a great time!

For more information or to book your session, visit our  contact page or call us at 817-366-0491 today!

I need your help! I made this image at a recent wedding in Cancun for Lauren and Daniel and I made sure to get the boat in the background because I like it at the time. Well now I can’t decide if I like it or not! Does it complete the image or distract from it? I need your help! So, A or B? And I would appreciate a reason behind the choice instead of just saying A or B. Fire away!

A

B

If you have a computer, love the travel and HDR images on this blog, and have $10, then you’re in luck my friends! Now available for download is a group of 10 of my most popular travel images for your desktop, laptop, iPad, iPhone, or anything else electronic you can find. These images are 2500×1600, large enough for a 30 inch monitor. When chosen as a background, they should re-size to fit yours.

Here’s a screenshot to show what images come in this package

And here is a shot of how good they look on a 15 inch Macbook Pro

Folks, these images will make your computer absolutely gorgeous. It’s a great way to spice up your computer and a great way to support your local artists! $10 is cheap, I want everyone to be able to get these!

Why not just copy my work from the website and use them as your background? One: Because they aren’t full resolution! The images in this download are tack sharp and the images on the blog aren’t big enough for a full screen. They are slightly grainy. And two: Because downloading them doesn’t support me! The more people buy, the more I can go out and create new images. These trips and my gear aren’t free you know . So add the backgrounds to your cart, and tell your friends. Thanks so much guys, and enjoy!

Click below to add the package to your shopping cart. You will be redirected to checkout through paypal. If you don’t have a paypal account, there is an option on the left side to proceed anyways. If you have any questions, email me at james (at) jamesbrandon.cc. Cheers!

DAILY IMAGE – KATRINA’S AFTERMATH ALONG THE MISSISSIPPI

The images below were taken a years back at the beginning of a 5 day cruise to Mexico. We embarked from the mouth of the Mississippi in New Orleans. I believe this was about a year after Hurricane Katrina hit the region. New Orleans was already back to life (if you want to call it that) but the surrounding areas were still in shambles. Both images were taken from the side of our cruise ship as we were leaving port. Both banks of the river looked like ghost towns the whole way down to the gulf. Katrina was the costliest, and one of the deadliest hurricanes in history. Over 1800 people lost their lives to Katrina. New Orleans was a very interesting town. It really seemed to me like a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah. We walked through the French Quarter the night before we left and decided against our better judgment to go down Bourbon Street(I might as well post that image too). The streets were lined with homeless people, drunks, fortune tellers, people who give you the stink eye for no apparent reason, prostitutes, live sex shows, porn adds all over the walls of the stores, bars, etc. It seems Katrina didn’t hold them back from their way of life at all. Now, there are parts of the French Quarter that were beautiful, but Bourbon Street was not a place I would like to visit unless I had to. Here are some images from that night…

First United Methodist Church Fort Worth

Yesterday was a wonderful day. It’s always a wonderful day when I get new camera gear! I drove over to Fort Worth Camera because I needed some a new tripod and head for my developing addiction to HDR photography. So my wife and I headed up to the store with my camera to try out all the different options. I ended up getting a Bogen/Manfrotto 055XPROB tripod legs and a Manfrotto 322RC2 tripod head. This combination is great for HDR, portraits, weddings, low light conditions, and travel. The legs are light and the grip handle head makes it a breeze switching from landscape to portrait, as well as any adjustments you need to make for a level shot. No nobs to tighten or loosen, just squeeze the handle and do what the shot calls for. I took my Canon 5d Mark II along with my Canon 24-70 2.8L to try this combo out because this is close to the maximum amount of weight I will put on the tripod head. I couldn’t be happier with the way it handled that much weight!

So we were driving home and we spotting this amazing gothic stlye church, the First United Methodist Church of Fort Worth. The church was founded in 1874 but this building wasn’t built until 1930. We walked in, got permission to take some pictures and here are the shots I got.

Upstairs above the balcony

The pulpit

The lobby

THE INCOMING TIDE AT CAMBRIA

This place was amazing! We stopped here by accident while looking for the elephant seals which happened to be in San Simeon. The tide pools at Cambria were teaming with life. There were crabs, sea urchins, snails, star fish and all kinds of things I can’t spell or pronounce. About 15 minutes before I took this shot there was no water around these rocks, we were able to walk around freely. And in hindsight (which is always 20/20 for me) I probably ventured out way too far from the shore. The tides started coming in quickly and before running back to the shore I set up as low as I could get to take this picture. The image is a single image HDR from a RAW file. I set my focus to infinity, ISO at 400 and my aperture to f/11. I then dialed my shutter speed until 1/400 of a second showed the correct exposure. Finally, I ran an HDR Post Processing treatment to get this image.