Rainy Night at Old Town in Kissimmee, Florida

When the weather gives you lemons, make lemonade.

To see more of my automotive images that I like to call, "Auto Art", click here.

Kissimmee Air Museum

See more images from the Kissimmee Air Museum here.

Vegas 2017

Vegas is crazy!

NYC 2016

Seeing New York City for the first time in August was amazing. See more images that I captured there by clicking HERE.

Betty Who at Tool Dealer Expo 2016

Betty Who was the entertainment at my company's expo finale. She brought a lot of energy and seemed to love performing. You can view a few more frames from my shoot here.

Stuhrling Original Eagle 457 Mechanical

The Stuhrling Original Eagle 457, Ref: 457.335551 mechanical wind pilot watch. The movement is a Stuhrling ST-99011 which features a 36 hour power reserve.

Viera Wetlands, Central Florida part 2

Captured this lurking alligator while shooting with my Dad at Viera Wetlands in central Florida. I was using a Canon DSLR with a Canon 100-400mm usually racked out at 400.

Viera Wetlands, Central Florida part 1

Captured this Great Blue Heron while shooting with my Dad at Viera Wetlands in central Florida. I was using a Canon DSLR with a Canon 100-400mm usually racked out at 400.

Christmas 2015

First live tree my wife and I have had together in our 7 years of marriage.

Buick Beauty

I went to Old Town in Kissimmee, Florida for a few hours on Saturday night to photograph some of the Saturday Night Cruise. This is one of the few images I came away with.

Hood ornaments like this always catch my eye and usually make for a great photograph. Once I saw it, I then looked for a nice background to place behind it, which is when I decided to shoot the side that had this blue Pontiac in the background.

Bulova 96c35 "The Honeymooner"

"The Honeymooner"

When I got married on December 28th, 2008, I purchased this Bulova 96c35 on my Honeymoon in Clearwater/Tampa, Florida. One of the first nicer watches I purchased up to that point.

This one is a quartz movement that features a retrograde day of the week. The date of the month and 24 hour clock are presented on subdials.

I later had the caseback engraved with "Chad & Sandy 12.28.08"

It's a piece that I rarely wear because it's a bit small for my curent tastes (38mm) and it's a quartz movement. I really only want to collect mechanicals going forward, but, this piece will always be in my collection and hold a special place in my heart.

Stuhrling Original Manchester Ozzie

My Stuhrling Original, Manchester Ozzie. Mechanical automatic movement with day/date complications.

It took two different kinds of Skittles to match the colors on the dial; regular and wild berry.

Citizen Eco Drive Calibre 3100 Big Date

My Citizen Eco Drive Calibre 3100. 

Eco Drives have solar powered quartz movements. This particular model features a perpetual, big date calendar that never needs reset.

The case diameter is only 42mm, which is on the smaller side these days for a guy. So, this hasn't gotten much wrist time on me lately, but, it's still a great piece to have in my collection.

Sottomarino Pilotare Automatic Pilot's Watch

My Sottomarino Pilotare pilot's watch that I've had for a few years now. 46mm case with mechanical automatic movement.

Scott Kelby's Worldwide Photo Walk 2015

On Saturday, I participated in Scott Kelby's 8th annual "Worldwide Photo Walk". The walk in my area was held at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom.

I invited one of my friends from my church, Omar Vasquez, who is a photographer as well, to join me. We both used Canon's 50mm 1.8 lens, the "Nifty Fifty", and really put it through it's paces all day long.

Above is one of my favorite images that I captured. Omar had suggested that we go into this candy shop to see what images might present themselves. I'm sure glad we did. I love saturated colors and patterns.

You can view my entire gallery of images from that day by clicking this link to my Flickr gallery.

Color, Texture, Light; It’s All in the Details

One of the things I love about smartphones and Instagram, is the ability to create and share spontaneously. Because of my current schedule, I don’t always get the time to go out and shoot with my DSLR, but I always have my iPhone with me. I find that even when I do have my DSLR along, I still shoot a few things with my phone. Certain subjects or compositions just make more sense for the Instagram realm. Sometimes, I’ll shoot the same thing with both my phone and DSLR. If you look at my Flickr and Instagram feed, you’ll see evidence of that.

One of the ways I keep the two separate visually, is any time I post something on social media that was shot with my phone, I keep the framing square. If it was shot with a “regular camera”, the final cropping will usually still be within a rectangular frame. That’s just my personal guidelines of how I try to categorize my art. Although, I believe the chasm between those two mediums of technology is getting smaller and smaller every year.

As far as what I use to edit my iPhoneography, I use Google’s Snapseed app a lot. I usually bring the image in there first, then I may put a few final touches on it once in Instagram. Both apps have their strong points and do certain things better than the other or just offer something the other doesn’t have.

The things I like to shoot for Instagram are very similar to what I like to shoot with a DSLR; bright colors, patterns and interesting textures. If you enjoy my work and are on Instagram, give me a follow!

“Color, texture, light; it’s all in the details.”

Mama & Mickey

My wife's grandmother, "Mama" and one of her two cat's, "Mickey".

I've been building a selection of images to use in a calendar of her cats to give to her for Christmas this year... at her request. Monday we stopped in for a few minutes when I grabbed this image.

Mickey is around nine months old, believe it or not. Of course, he's a big male cat and Mama is a small woman. He is almost the size of my three year old cat, Mackenzie, though.

Me talking about cats on here. Hey, I love animals.

Curiosity

In light of the recent landing on the "Red Planet" by NASA's Mars rover "Curiosity", I took time to ponder space exploration. It truly is amazing that we actually have a man-made machine roaming around another planet at this moment. Really think about that. It should blow your mind. Considering that man just learned how to fly machines with wings a little over 100 years ago and then figured out how to get into outer space barely 50 years after that.

To look up at the night sky and gaze at the Moon; how could you ever even dream that man could someday travel to it? But, we as a human race, did just that. It's hard to imagine how awesome that must have been to walk on the surface of something that was always impossibly out of reach throughout history. It truly was, "One small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind." The last 100 years have been a giant leap. We went from horse and buggies to iPads, people!

So just think, we have a machine exploring Mars right now. How amazing is that?

Speaking of the Moon, my Dad captured a great image of it earlier this year. Click here to check it out. Be sure to click on the image to view it larger to see some great detail that you normally can't with the naked eye.



The image above looks kind of intergalactic, doesn't it? Any idea what it is? Go to the comments section of this post to find out.

What's Most Important

Right now, I'm in the midst of one of the busiest times in my life. I don't get much time to shoot, so sometimes, it's difficult to come up with a new blog post each week. But, over a year ago, I made a commitment to myself to post an image here once a week. So far, I've done just that ever since. It helps keep the photography part of my life alive.

This week, I didn't really have an image to share. So, as I scavenged through the folders on my laptop to find something to keep my posting streak alive, I saw this self portrait of my wife and I.

Truth is, of all the subjects I usually post here: cars, animals, things; this is the most important. My wife Sandy gives me such unconditional, genuine love. She's the best thing in my life. No matter what else I become or achieve, she'll be by my side. Through each season, each storm, each time we're basking in the sun of life, we'll be sharing it. That's all I ever really wanted and God gave her to me.

2012 Tool Dealer Expo

The Fuller Hot Rods Rodan CB 836 motorcycle sits on a stage awaiting it's new owner to be drawn from a container of prize tickets.


This past weekend, I photographed the 2012 Tool Dealer Expo for the company I work for. You can view my image gallery by clicking: here.

The Abstract One

I took this long exposure (6.8 seconds) in my Mustang six years ago. The reason I've kept this image is that I always saw a numeral one when I looked at it. Just thought it was kinda cool.

The Alpha and the Omega

An image that I made six years ago in my apartment. I found this clock in a home interior store at the mall one day on my lunch break. It's generic brand name of "alpha - omega" is what got me to purchase it. One of those serendipitous finds.


Revelation 22:13
"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End."

Just Chill

If my cat had her own book, this is what the cover would probably look like. She enjoys her life.

Another image taken with a Nikon D80 with the 50mm lens. While I was reading one day in the sitting room, Mackenzie was chillin' on the floor. I had the camera ready just in case she did something cute. I wasn't disappointed.

Window Gazing

Mackenzie gazing out the back door window on a stormy, Memorial Day Monday afternoon.

This particular image was taken with a Nikon D80 with a 50mm fixed lens attached.

My favorite cat of all time just celebrated her 3rd birthday yesterday. She has it good.

D Street

The other week, my wife and I celebrated her birthday by watching "The Hunger Games" at Downtown Disney. After the movie we strolled around to some of the shops and found one called, "D Street" which featured this chandelier of upside down Mickey's. I had to capture an image of it. While there, I bought a cool, retro looking t-shirt with Donald Duck on it with the phrase, "The original 'Angry Bird'".