Katie's Coffee House, Great Falls, Virginia

I flew into Washington DC to visit my family in Virginia for the Christmas weekend. I really enjoyed seeing everyone and it was nice to have a change of surroundings. On Christmas eve my brother-in-law took me for a ride in his GTR and we drove to Katie's Coffee House where a lot of local car enthusiasts come to hang out.

The coffee was awesome and the early morning weather was a nice relief from the blistering cold of Colorado as of late. I got to see a lot of amazing cars I'd never seen before in person, especially so close; it was great.

Later on the way back home my brother-in-law pulled the car over and to my surprise had me get in the driver's seat. I was nervous to drive such an expensive car but the opportunity was too great. The Nissan GTR is a dream car, it's everything that one would want from a sports car and excites you like you're a kid again. The drive was unlike anything I've driven before, everything was so refined and precise; it truly is a remarkable machine.

Photo Session with Anna

Yesterday I had a shoot with Anna using my new 135mm. We'd originally planned this shoot a week ago but due to weather issues it was postponed, but I'm glad because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to use this great lens. We were able to get some awesome lighting before the sun went down providing a nice golden glow. I have to commend Anna for putting up with the cold, she was very patient and had a great attitude which made the shoot all the better.

You can see more from our shoot by clicking here.

The Right Tool for the Job

There are a lot of people under the impression that in order to take compelling photos you have to have the most expensive gear, I can attest that this is not always true. Having a dslr is great because of the lens options, larger sensor, and manual controls; but aren't necessary all the time because depending on the lighting, the subject, and your required final resolution, you can capture roughly the same image with a point and shoot as you would with a professional dslr.

The photo here I think is a great example of this which was taken with my old Fujifilm J10 on a site visit for work. I think that if I were to have used my dslr the photo would have been very similar. Granted I did do some post work on the photo but I would have done that with the dslr file as well.

Being that I was there for work having the big dslr wouldn't have been very practical. I dropped my J10 on the concrete during this visit and I've gotten mud on it at other sites, not things I'd like to do with my expensive dslr so the J10 was the better camera to have. Sometimes there are sacrifices you have to make for what's practical, but as long as you know how to use what you have you can still capture photos you'll enjoy.