Happy Halloween!

I wanted to share some images I shot recently in the spirit of Halloween. First, are a few from a Halloween party I attended in Toledo, Ohio in memory of my uncle, Paul Angelo LoGiudice, who was famous for his Halloween parties. Second, are images of a spider that decided to make its home on a plant on my back porch. And just a warning, if spiders creep you out, these images might as well.

Portrait Test

The past month or so I have been making the transition from a staff photographer to a freelance and studio photographer in Louisiana. I have recently bought several new pieces of equipment, including a California Sunbounce reflector for portraits. I had the chance to use the reflector in some images I shot of my sister, brother and of a friend and I have to say I was very impressed with the light I got from the reflector alone and when used with some of my lights. Here are some of my favorite portraits from those shoots.

Lightning

Lately I have been a bit of an insomniac, not being able to fall asleep till at least 1am or so. With that said, around 1am Saturday morning I was working on my computer and chatting with a friend when I heard a lot of thunder outside. I looked out the window and the lightning was just beautiful. So, I quickly got my camera and headed out the door to find a nice place to shoot some lightning photos. I set up on a rural road where I had a good view of the horizon and set up my camera as a remote so I could fire the camera while I safely watched the light show from inside my car. Below are a few of my favorite images.

State Track & Field

I was in Omaha on Friday and Saturday to shoot the high school state track and field championships. Most of my focus was on kids from school within the paper's coverage but in between events and while waiting on events like pole vault, I took photos of athletes regardless of school. With that said, below are some of my favorite images from the track meet, many of which didn't run in the paper.

Graduations

I have been back at work for a few weeks now after being out of work for about two months due to surgery. Now that I am back shooting assignments, I wanted to share some photos from the past two days. It is graduation time again so below are some of my favorite photos from two different graduations I covered.

A Good Day

A lot has happened in the past few weeks from a visit to the Emergency Room in Grand Island, Nebraska the night of the Super Bowl thinking I had an appendicitis, to flying down south to meet with doctors and prepare to have surgery in order to remove a large tumor. Needless to say, any vacation plans I had previously were thrown out the window. So, between the doctors appointments, I was able to find a day to go see the winterguard I use to instruct perform at a competition in Louisiana. I did help design some of their show so I was also curious to hear the judges feedback, but mostly I just wanted to see the girls perform. I was afraid if I didn't get the chance to see them before my surgery I wouldn't be able to see them perform the show at all this season. So, Saturday I went to see the Dutchtown High School winterguard peform their show "Celtic Warrior" at the Denham Springs competition. It was a great day and they had a great show, placing third out of thirteen guards in their class. So, congrats ladies and I know you will have an amazing season! Below are a few photos I snapped during warmups.

First Snow

I have been in Grand Island, Neb. for over 5 months now and having lived most of my life in the South, I have been eagerly awaiting the first snowfall. Well, while the east coast and much of the midwest was getting more snow than they could handle in December, central Nebraska hadn't seen much of any kind of snowfall. So, there was no white Christmas in Grand Island this year. But on the last day of December, we finally got the snow I was waiting for. Here are a few snow features I shot for the paper.