The Norwegian Pearl in Juneau Alaska - Four Glacier Adventure by Helicopter

It started out like a skit from Abbott and Costello. "Do you know where we are at?" "Yes, Juneau." "Well if I knew where we were I wouldn't be asking. What port is the Norwegian Pearl docked in?" "Juneau." "I don't give a darn!" Acting silly on vacation is what we do best.

Photos from WERA Motorcycle Road Racing at Summit Point

Motorcycles took to the track once again at Summit Point Motorsports Park in Summit Point, WV for the Pirelli/WERA Sportsman Series. BG Customs Photography was on hand all day Saturday to photograph riders on the Summit Point Circuit as they battled the 2 mile road course.

Frederick, MD – 5th Annual Worldwide Photo Walk

How do you get to know area photographers? One great way is to attend a photo walk. One of the largest is Scott Kelby’s Worldwide Photo Walk. Now in its 5th year, this walk was held in more than 1300 cities worldwide this year. Peg and I decided to try the one in Frederick, Maryland. We had a fabulous time with the walk that our leader, P. Thomas Lambert organized. We met several interesting people and shared a couple hours taking photos with them. Afterwards, we all gathered at the Green Turtle Sports Bar for a sort of post shoot scavenger hunt. Peg and I won a screen protector and a beer! Truly a great day. Thanks Paul!

We have a few more photos from the walk over on our photo site.  http://photos.bgcustoms.com

FIAT FreakOut – FIAT 500 Panorama Photos

What do you do when a bunch of FIAT 500, 500C, and Abarth drivers get together. You take their picture of course! At the end of the car show at the 2012 FIAT FreakOut (FFO), hosted by FIAT Lancia Unlimited (FLU), all the new FIAT drivers gathered for these special shots. Head over to our photo site (photo.bgcustoms.biz) to download the full resolution version of the photos.

Photo Op: Kentucky Capitol Building Overlook

A short drive from I-64 East exit 53B (Frankfort) is a great spot to take a photo of the Kentucky Capitol Building. Take US 127 North and then make a right turn onto Louisville Road. The overlook will be on your right.

The Vintage Aircraft of WWII Weekend

The Mid-Atlantic Air Museum in Reading, PA draws many vintage warbirds during its WWII Weekend 3-day event.

The fighters put on the best show. There were a handful of North American P-51 Mustangs flying in formation and making demonstration runs on all three days. A Curtiss-Wright P-40 Warhawk joined in for the Pacific Battle.

Some of the most colorful aircraft are the trainers. These brightly hued flyers were a delight to photograph. It’s essential that you learn how to pan when taking photographs of propeller aircraft. Most of the flying shots you see here were taken at a shutter speed of 1/200 or less in order to blur the propellers and give a sense of motion.

A few transport aircraft made passes including “Tinker Belle” and “Yankee Doodle Dandy”

Still not impressed? How about vintage WWII bombers?! There were B-25 Mitchells, a B-17G Flying Fortress, and the only remaining flying B-29 Superfortress “Fifi” flying around the field. There is nothing like standing in the prop wash of one of these beasts when it fires up. And yes, you could have flown on them as well.

Smaller bombers were also circling the airfield. There was a Dauntless, Avenger, Helldiver, and even a replica Japanese Aichi Val.

It is amazing that these warbirds still fly. Being able to get close to these aircraft and watch (and hear) them in action is definitely worth the price of admission.

Many more photos from the WWII Weekend can be found on our photo site – photos.bgcustoms.biz

Photoshop World 2012 is History

After years of saying I was going to make it to Photoshop World I finally did. I had no excuses left since this year’s east coast Photoshop World was held close to home in Washington, DC. What a blast it was! Photoshop is a combination of learning, entertainment, and flat out partying. Peg joined me for dancing at the After Hours Party, held at Ibiza, and also for all the fun at Midnight Madness. During Midnight Madness, she won the grand prize from SmugMug for being able to roll an Oreo cookie from her forehead into her mouth without using her hands! The prize was one year of SmugMug Pro hosting and a custom site. What great timing since our photo site (photos.bgcustoms.biz) is up for renewal in April. Don’t ever miss Midnight Madness if you can help it.

Being an election year in DC, the NAPP folks decided to theme everything as an election debate. Probably not one of their better ideas. The first part of the opening ceremony kind of tanked before Adobe took over. NAPP did however draw in record crowds for an east coast event so maybe they will be back. The Expo could have been a little larger. Even so, there were a number of photo companies offering decent discounts. I was happy with my deals I received from Midwest Photo Exchange. Wescott had a neat setup once again. They brought in models into their booth and allowed everyone to photograph them using their Wescott lights. The majority of the instructors were good to great with my favorites being Calvin Hollywood and Joe McNally.

I returned tired but smiling. The event was as much inspirational as it was educational. I have plenty of things I want to try in the future because of this convention. It was well worth every penny spent. If you have ever thought about attending you really should go.

I need to make it to Photoshop World in Vegas one of these years.

Photographing Spring Flowers at Brookside Gardens

The unusually warm weather has flowers popping out all over the place early this year. A nice Saturday compelled us to go to one of the Washington DC areas best places to photograph flowers, Brookside Gardens. This little park is located at 1800 Glenallan Avenue in Wheaton, MD and has a variety of flowers and events throughout the year.

As the early morning fog burned off, we strolled around the 50-acres of gardens. The Tea House, at the Gude Garden, always makes for a good photographing opportunity.

The daffodils were just starting to fade and only a few early tulips had popped through the ground. The Trial Garden contains over 10,000 spring flowering bulbs of various colors and sizes. This makes it hard not to be able to capture at least a few good photographs.

The gardens have a large collection of hellebores, a shade loving flower, scattered about. This is about the only flower that grows in the wooded area around our garage so we wrote a few names down to do some shopping later. I have always been drawn to texture so the interesting bark on trees, in my opinion, makes for a great photo. But if you prefer, there are plenty of flowering trees and turtles to click away at in the gardens as well.