2015 Bic Calendar

Last year, I was contacted by the Bic Company about one of my photos.  They wanted to include it in a 2015 calendar they were creating for retail sales.  We worked out an arrangement including a requirement that they mail me one copy.  Well, it finally showed up in June 2015. 

The photo they selected is one of my older photos (and least favorite).  Regardless, I am proud to have my work displayed in the same calendar as Trey Radcliff.  Trey is an HDR master photographer.  I think the last time I looked, he has over 20 million subscribers to his website and even more social media followers.  Anyway, it made me feel good.

To purchase or view a better quality version of the Bridge picture, click the photo above.

Penn Brewery

A few weeks ago when Brad and I photographed the Heinz Lofts, we went across the street to take a look at Penn Brewery.  As you can see, I captured a photo I liked.  The Penn Brewery, also known as the Pennsylvania Brewing Company, is a brewery and restaurant in the Troy Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh.  Tom Pastorius started the brewery in 1986.  This was the site of the former Eberhardt and Ober Brewery, which was founded in 1848.  

To purchase a print or view the entire gallery, click the photo above.

10 Saints Beer

Tonight I have something different for you.  When we were in Barbados, we found this fairly new beer that is made on the island.  It was first brewed in 2009 by 10 Saints Brewery Company.  The beer is unique because it is aged for 90 days in Mount Gay ‘Special Reserve’ Rum casks.  By the way, Mount Gay Rum is made in Barbados as well.  This gave the beer a very smooth taste and made it our beer of choice all week.  It is named 10 Saints because of the 10 Parishes (like counties in the United States) in Barbados are named after saints.   

Anyway, I did an impromptu product photo shoot towards the end of the week.  I cleared an area of the beach near our hotel, with the ocean and sailboats in the background.  I took two bottles and let them sweat a little in the Caribbean sun.  Then I laid on my stomach to get the camera as low as possible for this shot.   And I attempted to bounce the sunlight back at the bottles.  

If you’re interested in more information about 10 Saints beer, click HERE.

I have a special note below today’s photo….don’t forget to scroll down to see it.

To purchase a print or view the entire gallery, click the photo above.

NEWS:

Recently I was contacted by a research doctor at the University of Pittsburgh about using one of my photos for an upcoming conference.  We negotiated a little and came to an agreement.  So now my photo of PNC Park is being used for the annual Pheno 2015 conference poster.  The conference gathers international physicists working on the phenomenology of elementary particles, cosmology, and astrophysics.  Don’t ask me what any of that means…..  The cool thing about this is the poster will be mailed and electronically sent to potential attendees around the world.  You can see the poster below.  

Vintage Bank Vault

On Thursday this week, Dave Truxell and I were given the opportunity to photograph the inside of a vacant bank.  In downtown Washington PA, there is a tall building (probably 15 stories tall….I didn’t count or look) called the Washington Trust Building.  The Washington Trust Company built it over 100 years ago and the bank occupied the main floor.  The bank (Washington Trust Company) went out of business long ago and numerous other banks have operated in this space over the years. 

Currently, a bank is operating in the front portion of the space, but the back portion has been vacant for years.  As you can imagine the entire space is build with marble, large columns, tall ceilings, etc…like you’d expect for a grand building constructed back at that time in our history.   The original Washington Trust Company bank vault is still sitting there, just waiting for me to come along a take this photo. 

The vault door is 21 inches thick and weighs 36 tons.  It has a cool glass cover on the inside of the door allowing you to see all the gears and mechanical parts.  The door is at least 8 feet tall, if not more.  I can’t even imagine how they installed this vault back when we didn’t have forklifts, etc….  The inside of the vault is approximately 12 feet by 40 feet filled with brass safe deposit boxes of numerous sizes. 

Photo Technique:

I captured this with a 5 exposure auto-bracketed in Aperture mode set at f11.  Merged the images in Photomatix Pro to create the HDR image and completed some minor edits in Photoshop CS6.

To purchase a print, please click the picture above.