Bob's Photography Blog

What a Week! Christmas has come and gone, and as we reflect back on 2016, we are humbled and amazed! Before highlighting back, let's just look at the 5 days since waking up Christmas morning. After opening presents to one and other, Julie opened her email to discover that she had been featured in an article " 20 Fabulous Tree Pictures  " by Gurushots – the competition site that they both compete on. By Wednesday, Bob was working his magic in a competition on the site for "Inspiring Architecture". Suffice it to say that it was a long night and by the wee hours Thursday morning, Bob was in 1st place. Over 4900 photographers competing with almost 18,000 photos boiled down, as he had predicted, to a photo finish (Pun intended).  Bob won his 1st international photo competition by 15 votes! Shortly after the competition ended, Julie received another email from Gurushots indicating that once again, she had been featured in another...

It's always a good day when you get notified that your work is appreciated.  As a photographer, outside of getting that order for mulitple large prints, that day usually occurs when we get an email informing us that we have either been chosen to have our work on display in an exhibition, or featured in an article. When that happens on Christmas day, you can't help but feel a little better yet!  Julie Everhart was pleased to get that email about an article from Gurushots on Christmas Day!  No, not the big print order or the exhibition notification.  Click the following link or the photo to see the entire article.  It truly will inspire you! 20 Fabulous Tree Pictures- To Inspire You To Grab Your Camera And Head For The Woods Frozen in time This infrared photo, taken near her home, has been one of her most favored photos.  When it is selected by one of the largest photo competition sites in the world as the #2 featured photo, that is someth...

After our day in Dover, we headed West.  Before leaving town, we had to stop for one last series of shots that would be somewhat of a hallmark practice of our trip.  You would think after all the walking, we would be ready to just drop and sleep (especially after the jet-lag had set in).  Instead, we stopped at the Dover Castle! After completing our shoot, we did load up and head West, arriving late in Crawley, just South of the Gatwick Airport.  A wonderful B&B,  The Oakhurst  provided us a warm welcome, wonderful accommodations, and a very good nights sleep!  We woke up and prepared for our breakfast - the traditional Full English - and were again refueled and ready for a full day on the go!  Great job Jon! Before taking off, we found ourselves fully engaged in an impromptu photo shoot with two wonderful models!  A mother and daughter team, these two were too beautiful to ignore! Of course, we came with different in...

We travelled from Sunny Florida to London, Heathrow to begin our journey to photograph as much as we could in the18 days we had available. This is the resulting map showing the approximately 2000 miles that we travelled. Imagine, having never driven a car from the right side for the first time.  Now imagine driving a 6-speed manual and shifting with your left hand, also for the first time.  Now imagine doing that after being up for almost 24 hours.  Add to the experience by realizing that the car rental is immediately going to dump you out onto M-25, the "Beltway" around London.  Now, just for a little added excitement, let's do this at rush hour on Friday Morning! Welcome to the life of two landscape photographers that want to maximize their trip and get the biggest bang for their bucks!    After being up for 27 hours, we arrived at Dover, home of the famed White Cliffs and the UK home to the Chunnel.This is also the location where many brave (de...

Since our bags were already packed and sitting by the door, we couldn't let a little storm like Matthew prevent us from taking a trip over 6 months in the making, could we? Of course not!  Through some very careful juggling of remaining vacation time at the phone factory, Bob was able to put together November 3-20th. While working to restore the phone, TV, and internet service to those affected by Matthew, Julie worked her magic and together they have in less than 3 weeks time made the necessary home repairs after the storm, put in almost 200 hours at AT&T, and managed to book a completely new itinerary. Due to the proprietary nature of the trip (read as "Julie wants to surprise everyone") we are unable to disclose the details at this time.  Pay close attention to our Facebook pages though.  We are dropping a few subtle hints here and there, and will be posting photos and updates once we are under way.  I (Bob) will tell you that most every location we wil...

Have you ever planned a trip for months, saved, bought your tickets, planned your itenerary, contacted people and arranged meetings only to have a category 4 hurricane bearing down on you only 36 hours before departure? Trust me, it's not something you want!  Julie and I have done just this - not in the past, but right now!  Hurricane Matthew, currently boasting winds of 145MPH (Category 4) is currently sitting just SW of Haiti with a constantly changing projected path that now places our home well within the "Cone of Uncertainty". We have pets that are staying home, and have a service to take care of them, along with great neighbors that are more than happy to help out anytime, day or night.  All that having been said, would you leave for over 2 weeks with a storm of this magnitude "MAYBE" hitting your home? That is our predicament now - do we cancel a trip almost 6 months in the planning, and stay home to protect our property "Should" Ma...

Although many of us were holding high hopes for news on the 6th of September as to the Finalists in Adorama's New TV show Top Photographer, we eventually quit holding our breath.  No e-mails or announcements were received for a few days, and after many of the semi-finalists began tweeting about the silence, Julie had a response from a spokesperson at Adorama to a tweet that to her "understanding that the Finalists have been contacted." And that was it. A lot of hype, suspense, and most importantly support from all of you with best wishes for her in the competition.  We really appreciate your thoughts, prayers, and well-wishes.  We were obviously disappointed in the lack of information considering the efforts made by so many contestants.  Hopefully, Nigel and the folks at Adorama will rethink future endeavors and be just a little more considerate of the contestants.  As I write this, it should be noted that had Julie been selected, we would be in NYC to ...

Stopped In Our Tracks It's mid-September and Fall is just around the corner.  The Pumpkin Spiced Everything is already showing up on every street corner and the recipes for its uses are being shared with the efficiency of a Civil Defense siren in the 60s. Below the dam What else is there to this whole Fall thing?  Well. around our house one would think perhaps Halloween.  Actually, this years Halloween costumes have been finished and hanging in the closet ready for use for over a month now! Of course, that leaves our favorite topic - Photos! Last year, we took off for a 5 week and nearly 6000 mile road trip with 3 cats and our 30' 5th wheel. These are a few of the never before released images I took on the trip.   What are you doing this Fall?  Do you have any favorite events coming up?  Perhaps a weekend Fall Festival, Oktoberfest, Renaissance Faire, or just a drive through the countryside? Roosevelt's Home on Campobello Island ...

Photo credit - Revolution Energy Patch I was reminded that there are only 24 hours in a day, but somehow I always seem to need more! Sound familiar? At least this is a three day weekend for me from the Telephone Factory, so I have been able to get a few things done. Although I would like to say that I have been out flying my quadcopters, taking great aerial footage and stills, And I would love to say that I have been fulfilling many items on the "Honey-do" list, This weekend has been spent so far with a great deal of time clicking away and banging on the keyboard. Surely by now, you know that Julie Everhart and I are the owners and operators of "From Camera to Wall".  One of my responsibilities in that operation is maintaining our website. Your website?  Why yes, our website!  Please take a couple of minutes and visit it, look around the site, and if you are feeling especially giving, leave us a word or two about how it looks. From Camera To Wall...

I have seen a new ad popping up on my screen recently for the Tiffen Pro 100 System, and after looking into it, thought that I should drop a couple of cents - more than a penny's worth of my thoughts. Well, if you are relatively new into photography or never explored creative photography in the days of film, filters have been a key creative element in the artistic design and "flavoring" of your composition.  Although today, most people will simply use Photoshop or some other post processing software to create similar effects, filters are essential in film photography. But what is the Tiffen System ?  Well, I'm sorry to say that from my viewpoint it is a knockoff of the most popular filter system of days gone by.  Have you ever heard of Cokin Filters ?  They are from France, and have been the creative photographers go-to magic for years (since 1978)! Back in the late 70's, (yes, as in 1970's) I used Cokin filters on my old Minolta ST-101 to create so...

Bob has been a very busy boy!  Unfortunately, this blog became a back-burner project for a couple of years. Why?  Glad you asked!  Bob and his wife, Julie Everhart, have been working and growing their photography business.  In fact, part of the original hiatus from the blog was due to Julie having surgery to repair torn ligaments in her elbow.  Any idea how much your arm goes through lifting a 7-8 pound camera to the eye up to 500 times a day? After her recovery (which went amazingly well!), they travelled for weeks at a time, took on new projects and techniques, and, of course, all the time Bob continued his work in the Telecommunications Business.  After all, nothing makes it easier to buy new equipment than to have some serious money coming in! It seems as though all of these efforts are starting to align. Here's a little update on the particulars: 2015 brought a five week RV-enabled Photo-tour of the East coast of the United States, and even ven...