Children ride the bumper cars at the 2007 Montgomery County Agricultural Fair in Gaithersburg, Maryland. This is a cool photo that I came across as I was sorting through all my images to upload to the new stock photography site. I think I didn't fully appreciate it when I shot it in 2007, but today, I love it!

Some of you might know that over the past month, I’ve been working tirelessly to launch my new Stock Photography-Image Archive site. It’s been live for almost a full month, but I wanted to get most of my existing photographs up onto the site before officially announcing it.  While it will still take me a while more to finish that upload process, I have more than 2,050 images now posted.  Plus, there are a number of great features about the site that I’m very pleased with:

• Search: There’s a great search engine that for the first time allows viewers to search my entire online archive by keyword, location, date, releases, license type, and even orientation (horizontal, vertical, panorama, etc.)!  Note that not all images are classified in a gallery, so if you’re really looking for something particular, be sure to try the search.
• Low-Res Comps: Viewers can download low-res watermarked comps after creating a free account.
• Online Licensing: Viewers can license images online for commercial use with immediate downloads of the hi-res images upon payment.  Licensing for personal use of low-res and/or high-res images is also available.
• Lightboxes: Viewers can create their own lightboxes.  It’s also very easy for me to share lightboxes with clients, so feel free to let me know your photography needs!
• Fine Art Photography: My fine art photography collections, printed on either standard photographic paper or on metal (yes, metal, not metallic paper!) are now available for online ordering through the site as well.  View information on buying fine art photography here.

Here are a few photo gallery collection highlights to check out:

• Africa
• Architecture+Design
• Fine Art Photography
• NGO & Humanitarian Photography
• Scenics & ‘Scapes

It’s a great site (powered by Photoshelter), and I think you’ll find it easy to use.  If you like it and you’re also a photographer looking for a web host, feel free to use my Photoshelter discount code, which will get you up to $30 off your own website!

So I spent two half-days photographing 25 different people, using a combination of flash, light modifiers, and window light where there were windows.  Much of the office was bathed in a green fluorescent light, which I needed to keep on, as otherwise, much of the office was too dark.  So I had to make sure that my flashes adequately overpowered the fluorescent.  (I did try gels, but there was just a little too much daylight mixed in for it to work well.)  So in most cases (if there wasn’t a window), I used a combination of one off-camera flash (a Canon Speedlight 430EX) bounced into a silver umbrella and one on-camera flash (Canon Speedlight 580EX II), with the 580EX II controlling the 430EX.  I also had a Stofen Omni-Bounce diffuser on my 580EX II.  For the most part, there wasn’t a lot of empty space in the office, so I was limited to a simple light setup, but it worked out just fine.  Also, I used a Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 macro for all of the shots below except for the last two, where I used the  Canon EF 50mm f/1.4.

I lived in South Sudan for two years (though it was like a different country from Darfur) and have lived and worked in Africa since 1995, so I loved the posters and large mounted prints that they had around the office of people in Darfur.  Ending violence against civilians and facilitating humanitarian aid and sustainable development are what this organization lives and breathes, so I thought it fitting to include some of their advocacy materials in the backgrounds of some of the shots.  So I was mostly shooting wide open to get the blurry backgrounds, but I did close up a notch for the few where I needed a bit more depth of field for their advocacy materials.  Here are a few of my favorites (not necessarily the ones they picked, but the ones I like best).  (Click “View with PicLens” for slideshow mode.)

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Guys, it was great to meet and work with all of you – I look forward to working with you again!  Great job – be proud of what you do!  You’re making a difference!

p.s. Speaking of Sudan, I’ve added in a few shots of my own from my South Sudan days, when I worked for the NGO, Population Services International-Sudan, and lived in a tent in Rumbek!  If you’re interested in Africa, international development, humanitarian assistance, or travel photography, you might want to check out my travel-lifestyle-documentary photography website too.

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