It’s at Mountain Pride Park. The course is laid out brilliantly and I know the residents of the Inland Empire will be happy to finally have something local. Thank you Murrieta!

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I’ll be reviewing thier whole lineup, but in order to keep things tidy, this will be a short introduction and a look at their putter.

(Click “Read more” for the rest)

A brief backstory: For those of you who haven’t put 2 and 2 together, it was the name of the Swan that sparked my interest. I needed a new putter and I always like to explore more unique options. So I started searching various sites to see what was out there. Sure enough I find a disc with my nickname on it and I just had to get it. Then I had to ask, “Who are these Westside guys?”

Turns out they’re located in Finland and they’re extremely cool. I contacted them to see if I could do anything to help spread the word here Stateside, and I got a response… from the company president! They wanted pictures of players playing out here and I so happen to take pictures and long story short, we hit it off.

Needless to say, if I didn’t like and didn’t actually throw the discs made by Westside, I wouldn’t be talking about them. I have no paticular brand loyalty and my bag has an assortment of DGA, Westside, Innova, and Discraft discs.

The wares of those other companies are well known, but I wanted to shed some light on this up and coming company that continues to produce high quality discs.

As of today, June 8th 2011, Westside’s lineup consists of 5 discs. They have obviously started with what they know will be the highest sellers in order to create some buzz and generate profit. Therefore the breakdown goes like this. 4 Drivers and 1 putter. (Let’s be honest, you never buy a midrange until you’re good enough to realize how important they are.)

I’ll go in order of release and tell you my own results with the discs. If you want to read their marketing release, you can go here. But there is no substitute for real world experience.

The Swan: this putter has since been updated to the Swan 2. They added a slight bit of depth for a little more stability. I’ve personally been putting with the original Swan for about a year and I love it. They are extremely consistent and they have rewarded my time spent practicing with a solid ability to hit my puts within 40 feet. Obviously the further out, the more I miss, but that is due to user skill, not the disk. You can throw them as far as 200′ but the understable nature tends to flip and roll, so I use the solely for putting and not for long approach shots. The plastic is grippy and rubbery. It’s a special blend they call eco1 and I haven’t seen a lot of discs jumping out of the chains, so its doing it’s job. My personal assessment is that this putter is the perfect blend of stable (for consistency in release) and understable (for soft landings and chain gripping flexibility.) One note: like a lot of discs, when putting into a headwind, the disc floats easily and it’s easy to miss high. Conversely, with a wind at your back, the putter will drop out of the sky as it loses speed, so it’s easy to miss low. It’s a common amongst almost all putters, but I thought I’d point it out. Feel free to comment on the putter you love or relate your experience with using the Swan.

Next review: The Northman. (Coming soon!)

Swan

Be our guest, put your patience to the test… (Or so the lyrics went this afternoon.)

Everyone that knows my wife (more than a little) knows that she’s a Disney expert. She can take you through the park and point out all the hidden knowledge, tips and facts that hide beneath the happy, sugary surface. Mmm… tastes like churro!

So, our roomate, Danielle, being the sweetheart that she is, bought Rochelle the collector’s edition Lumiere this last Christmas. Upon pealing back the wrapping paper, she lit up brighter than the Christmas tree when she saw what she had received.

Unfortunately, it seems that 4 year olds have an innate and rather magnetic draw to those things which we value.

From the report I was given via Makenzie; she decided hitting the floor with our jaunty friend seemed like a good idea. I never got a good reason why, other than she was upset with him. It could have been ill-fated make-believe or perhaps frustration with his light being too dim? I don’t know. But she showed up holding his fractured body and looking sorry. I found myself speechless. I stammered, “Oh no” several times and tried to collect myself. Mostly because I felt responsible. I had left her alone long enough to ruin something, and as the Dad I was partially to blame.

It was the same feeling I had when my little one walked in to reveal that she had given herself a “Princess Haircut.” (It was brutal. Bangs chopped to the scalp and over into the side area. I’m still living that one down. It was an utter car wreck. My wife cried when she saw it.

I’m glad to say that I didn’t blow up or yell or swear, though I wanted to do all three in those first moments. We talked through the concepts of value, carefulness and justified consequence. Makenzie is still figuring out the nuances of what qualifies as an “Accident.”

So… we grabbed some epoxy and super glue and I’ll be working on putting Humpty-Lumiere back together again. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be able to re-wire the light. I’m hoping I can at least find a matching metallic gold to touch up the cracks from re-attaching his arm and hand. I hope she breaks something cheap and invaluable next time. Does anyone have a James Taylor record or a Biden bobble head doll that my little girl can beat on?

It was a long time coming. I’ll be honest, I’m pleasently suprised with how quickly it’s come together. In just a weekend I’ve moved my site to a WordPress Theme based design. Worked through all the quirks that come with learning something completely new and put together a good bit of content as well.

That being said, there’s a good bit more work to finish up.

I need to include new galleries, new photos, new posts and get the word out. But I am not daunted! I shall press on. Please come back often. Check out the progress and the new posts. This will be an ever evolving site. That was a big part of moving to something that’s completely built from a blogging standpoint.

Some of the old posts are below, but I’ll be updating often. Let me know what you’d like to see or hear and I’ll incorporate it.

Cheers!

Scott

Matt and I go way back. We’ve been acquaintances ever since Awana’s Club in Escondido. We were just a couple of tykes trying to balance bean bags on our heads while running in circles. Those relays were a brilliant remedy for sugared up hyperactive kids such as ourselves.
Even though our circles collided as youngsters, I can’t say that we were truly friends till we found ourselves in the same Friday night poker game. The way that I remember it goes like this:
Matt was wearing a 5 gallon cowboy hat and chewing on the end of an old stogie. I had on my good suit and my pocket watch. He lifted his head just enough for the light to catch his eyes as he growled out the words, “All in!” through the teeth that clenched his ratty cigar.
I stared him down for a good 20 seconds and watched as he sat head down and motionless. Suddenly, his thumb twitched.
“I CALL!” I said with conviction… having yet to even look at my cards.
His head came up and he peered at me with wide eyed disbelief. “You’re such an idiot!” he spit at me as he flipped over aces.
“Damn! I muttered quietly as I turned up my cards to find a 2 of clubs and a 4 of diamonds.
To make matters worse, the flop came out 8, 9, Ace, giving Matt a set of Aces and all but sealing my fate. The turn wasn’t much better, just a 5 of hearts.
Matt reached forward and started to scoop the mountainous pile of chips his way. But the dealer, Josh, halted him and said, “Hang on there buddy, wait for the river.”
He quickly burned the top card and flipped up the river slowly with purposeful antagonism. And as he saw what was about to hit the board he compulsively laughed to himself.

The 3 of spades.

Dan burst out laughing like a hyena and Father Paul tilted back in his chair and whispered the 6th letter of the alphabet while his smile gave way to more laughter. Meanwhile, Jeff crinkled up his face and dryly studied the card as if he didn’t understand what had happened. A second later he blithely pointed out, “Hey, Scott made a straight!”

Matt! Stunned and humiliated, soaked in the laughter of his table mates and the bitter disappointment till he was drunk with rage.

“You son of a…” his words trailed off as he pulled out his revolver and shot me square in the chest.

Everyone went silent. He stood up, still seething and stared down at my lifeless body. “Looks like Scott folded” he sneered.
“Oh, and by the way,” he added, “Can you shoot my wedding?”

Life is pretty funny. You never know when you’ll run into some work.

(Portions of the story may or may not be true.)

As it is, I’m honored to have shot the Thompson’s wedding. Watch for a follow up interview with them. It’ll be much more authentic. They have an amazing history and its worth hearing about.

Swan

There’s no arguing the fact that practice helps with every area of life. Photography is no different. Whether you are perfecting your shooting, lighting or developing techniques; there is no substitute for experience. Practicing your lighting can be a paticularly valuable excersize since time, vision and creativity are so essential when spending time with an actual client/subject.

If you’re experimenting with light, I’d encourage you to start with a simple one or two light set-up. Starting with one light will let you control that element completely. You can take notes on distance, angle and the look you acheive. Then, when you’re shooting in other situations you can refer back to the things you have done and use them in concert or isolation with a confident idea of what you’ll be getting as an end result.

In this instance, I used a flash modifier that I have built myself. If you’re interested in making your own I’m sure you could google: diy ring flash and easily acheive something similar.

Rather than use it as originally designed, I took it off the camera and mounted to a light stand, where I thought it would mimic the look of a beauty dish. It’s not quite as big as a beauty dish, meaning the light would be a bit harder and the shadows deeper. But I kept it pulled in really tight to help combat the apparent light size and help soften the shadows at least a little.

I used my cable release to get out in front of the camera and did my best to pose and crop from in front of the camera. (Which is a challenge at times.) A side benifit of this was seeing how “missing” the perfect crop can yeild very interesting results. I think it will help me be more creative with my cropping the next time I’m behind the camera as well. I like the deep shadows and moody light this gave me. I think bouncing a little fill in there would work well or even a kicker for some rim lighting from behind the subject. That’s for a future shoot though. These 5 shots are all the single light, basically straight on and right above me. I’ll throw in a picture of the light so you can see what was doing the lighting. I hope you like it!

I was lucky enough to spend an afternoon with my good friend Reid Rolls. He’s been a pal of mine since high school, and he’s worked himself into a stunning photographer that I greatly admire. He can take a single light and produce shots that are just gorgeous. I call him religiously to pick his brain and shoot the breeze. I always hang up excited to work and jazzed about life. If you get a chance, check out his work: www.reidrolls.com
If you’re in Nashville, look him up… he’s about as nice and approachable a guy as there is; but I digress…
So what do two photographers do with a free afternoon of hanging out? They shoot of course!
Except that we were shooting darts… Well, it didn’t take too long for us to grab the camera and at least play around with shooting our shooting. Here’s Reider zero-ing in on a bullseye.

You might have noticed my super spectacular shot above, where I actually landed one dart in the tail end of another. Here’s a better look:

This was a first for me, as I’m not a great darts player. I thought it was pretty darn cool… but a short while later, I totally outdid myself!

That’s right! No cheating I swear! Three darts in three throws, all in the bullseye! If you think that I’m bragging… well you’re right! Wouldn’t you!? I have yet to repeat the accomplishment… but I think I’ve got a promising future. Time to tell the wife that I’m quitting photography for darts. I’m sure she’ll understand.

For those of you that don’t know, there is a clever little lens out there that you can purchase that warps and tweaks the perspective of the pictures that it takes. It’s called a Lensbaby and they have a lineup of lenses that give you these effects with varying degrees of control. I spent a night shooting cherry blossoms with one a couple evenings ago and I was really pleased with the results. It’s so easy as a photographer to get caught up in the sharpest, most crisp images available, and for good reason. Most of the time that’s what you want and what you are trying to achieve. This was a wonderful way to step out of that box and to see the beauty in the flaws… the enchanting and magical results that you can get when you purposefully mix a little chaos into your art. Not to mention… I think deep down, we still all like taking pictures of flowers.

Here are a couple of my favorites from the night. (It’s a lot like staring at clouds… they seem to take other forms when you let your imagination wander.)

Fireworks descending

This weekend, I wanted to play with an idea of how to light rings so that they look great and sparkle nicely. I had an idea for a reflector that might help pull a little more of the fire out of my lady’s “best friend.”
I started with the idea that I’d backlight the right with a bare flash. Raking the light accross the wicker to get the texture. That’s what you see with this first shot.
Now here we have the light bounce back into the ring. It lights it up nicely and fills in the shadow and all things considered is a fairly nice shot. But I’m not really digging the highlights that the backlighting is creating. They seem to compete for attention with the ring itself. So….

I moved my light to the right of the rings and just like a warning shot, I fired the flash over the heads of the rings. You can see just how little light is hitting the rings in “rings-3.” All that was left for me to do was to grab my handy dandy reflector and use it to bounce the light down onto the rings. I tried a couple angles and distances and this last one was my favorite.

Now here’s the fun part: The idea behind this project was to get a reflector that would help chop up the hard single source of a flash and turn it into several smaller, more varied points of light that the diamond could catch and reflect back. I had considered building a flash attachment or customizing a ring flash and then I realized that I was overthinking the whole thing. Here’s the “Magical Reflector” that I built. It took about 35 seconds and a screwdriver to kill off this poor pie tin. If you’d like me to build you one… It’ll cost you $10 or $6.95 if Marie Callendar’s is having a sale. I promise to send it right over… just as soon as I finish the last slice. YUM!