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After a couple of years on Squarespace, I’ve moved this blog to Hugo hosted on GitHub Pages. Faster, cheaper (free), and I own the content in plain Markdown files rather than locked inside someone else’s platform. The migration took an afternoon. Everything that was on the Squarespace blog is being moved over gradually. A few things coming soon: Notes from recent shoots Behind-the-scenes from client sessions The Dark Sky Guide — a comprehensive astrophotography location guide for the USA I’ve been building Stay tuned. ...

Had a recent shoot for a 50th Birthday event. Every shoot I learn something, there is always a takeaway - like a retrospective! The following were the two that stood out - All party venues don’t have enough AC outlets.. better carry Extension chords Murphy’s law is irritatingly consistent! I was carrying two cameras for this shoot on a double camera strap. My D810 with a wide angle Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 with the Nikon SB-900 speedlight, and my Mirrorless Nikon Z7 Rii with my lovely 70-200mm f/2.8. Now for cake cutting, I was planning on using the wide angle. The cake cutting begins and D810 with the wide angle lens, shows “Card error”.. Removing the card, the battery, putting it back does not work. The camera is stuck. Just a few minutes back I had removed a full card when the camera was On.. This probably caused the error? Who knows.. ...

Date: Apr 8, 2024 * Start Time: 1:55pm * Totality: @3:15pm for 3 mins 45 sec * Place: Radisson Hotel, Akron, Ohio After carefully considering different places for shooting the eclipse, I chose Akron near Cleveland, OH which was in the band of totality. And after experimenting with various options, I settled on the following gear as the most workable solution - Nikon Z7 Rii Mirrorless Camera Sigma 150-600mm with a 2x Teleconverter (effective focal length 1100mm) Orion 5.25" ID Safety Film Solar Filter K&F Concept 3-Way Geared Tripod Head Induro Carbon Fiber Tripod All packed in the trunk of our car, my friend and I drove to Akron, OH.. a 7hr drive. The day of the Eclipse arrived - Breakfast, followed by a quick lunch as we started seeing 1pm on the clock. An open space, just outside the hotel and very few people gathered there to see the Eclipse, I think it was perfect. But, the weather predictions were not good.. It-was-cloudy! ...

White Sands in New Mexico is world’s largest - 275 sq miles of rare Gypsum sand dunefield. During the day, there is a lot of play with light-n-shadow, contours, lines, .. It’s all about discovering these artforms in this vast area nature created over the last 10,000+ years. It is humanly impossible to reach/capture all of them, but here is a glimpse of a few. Once you enter the dunes, it is easy to get ‘greedy’, or get lost - both in space and time.. so make sure to pay attention, keep a GPS device with you, and most importantly Water! ...