I Have Spent a lot of time at our transmitter site recently building our new station. These are some shots from my cell phone. Some of them actually turned out pretty good!

White Mountain Snow Storm

The Sun came out for few minutes today. So I got these quick shots. I have been diligent this week in keeping a spot clear for our expedition. I have shoveled snow every morning and every night. I was planning on keeping another spot clear for visitors but gave up on that Idea after Thursday's dump.













This is our road it was completely impassable yesterday but, thanks to our neighbor who rented a bobcat and worked all day yesterday got it clear. He actually started Thursday afternoon but got stuck. The temperature got up to 39 - 40 degrees and melted a lot of the snow that had fallen earlier this week. It made for some nasty conditions. The snow gave way to rain on Thursday night and he got into some deep mud off the side of our road and was buried. we spent most of Thursday night getting him unstuck.

Trip to Memphis for Country Cares - St. Jude

Pictures from our first night in Memphis. Chris Stevens (The White Mountains top DJ - Majik101.7 FM) in front of the world Famous Rendezvous. Home of Memphis Dry Rub BBQ.












We Had Dinner with Steel Magnolia.












The Band Perry












We are staying at the world famous Peabody Hotel. These are shots of the lobby.

Phoenix Suns Trip to Sacramento

Marisa and I got to go on another trip with the Phoenix Suns. This year they took us to Sacramento. It was a blast. My Mom was kind enough to watch the kids for us during our 3 day adventure. Our seats were behind the suns bench. The angle wasn't the best for capturing the action but, it provided a great angle to catch things you wouldn't normally see like what happens during a time out. In this photo Steve Nash stands over the shoulder of Head Coach Alvin Gentry.









This next Photo is of Al McCoy and his broadcast partner Tim Kempton who always has something corny to say to me about how we are cool because I am a fellow Red Head.







Next we have Robin Lopez during the pregame. Just thought the way he was back lit was kind of cool. The Crazy hair helps.















And my favorite shot of the night Channing Frye Gets a dunk! Ideally I would have liked to capture the Ball still in the net. But my angle prevented me from seeing his face at the beginning of the dunk. Fortunately he hung on and swung to where I could see his profile.









And of course the Shoot just wouldn't be complete with out an action shot of Nash.

Crawdad Fishing in Pima

Ahh yes the good ol days of fishing the banks of the canal in Pima were revisited this past weekend. Tyrell and Jordan Blessed there new baby, Carter in Pima on Sunday and the whole family came to see it happen. Saturday night Flynt took all the little ones Crawdad fishing. Good times indeed! You can see more pictures including some close ups of the crawdads. here.

People in Motion

I have been training an assistant to shoot for me when I can't make it to a gig. I have had to turn down 2 weddings this summer because I have been busy with my real job. Training has given me an opportunity to do a lot more shooting. This is a photo of my assistant and her niece and nephew. Click the photo to find out how we created this shot.

Snake!!!

This poor snake didn't make it. My Brother-in-law Jeff ran it over just outside Marisa's parents house. by the way I just up loaded a bunch of new photos to the Fine Art section of my web site. Click here to view.

Tucson Sunset

This Shot is taken from the back yard of my in-laws house in Tucson. Sunsets can be pretty spectacular in Tucson. SB-800 remote fired camera left. Hand held at the end of a mono-pod. The flash is needed to illuminate the foreground while setting the exposure for the sunset. You can order a full resolution print of this photo by visiting the Fine Art section of my web site csphotosite.com or click here.

Single Strobe - Drop of Water

I got some time to do some shooting tonight. We were going to go to the movie UP, but Marisa lost the keys to the expedition. So the families loss is my gain. Tell me what you think of the shot? Click here to purchase a print of it or see my other shots for sale.

Little League Is Over!

I thought it might be fun to show a few of the highlights from the little league season. Kiera made the jump from T-Ball to Coach Pitch this year and learned quickly! She is such a good athlete. So much fun to watch. In the video you will notice that she jumps over first base, something she has never done before. I was confused as to why she did it until I talked to her after the game.Turns out, I am the one that taught her to jump over the base. The weekend before this I was trying to teach her that she doesn't have to stop on first base. I told her she can run passed it.... So she did... I felt really bad!

Olivia got to pitch in a couple of games this year. She did so good. She got hit by a couple of pitchers too. She is learning to be brave!

Sadly I didn't get any video of Dillon, as I was always coaching, but he and Ashlyn did make the Highlight Reel. By the way, the grasshopper did not die while in our possession. Dillon proudly kept him in a tin can filled with leaves. After a week of abuse Marisa finally convinced Dillon to let him go. He was last seen flying into the forest.

Oh, and the voice of the "proud papa"? That would be me.

Our Latest Addition

Makenzie Colette Smith - Born May 10th, 2009. This photo was taken the day we left the hospital. Life has been unbelievably busy. We are putting in the hours these days. especially Marisa! She stays up most nights with Makenzie. Getting just 2 to 3 hours of sleep at a time, so I can sleep and go to work. She is an amazing woman blessed with some wonderful Gifts. She has total and complete unconditional love for our children. I am so blessed to have such a wonderful wife.

The Kids have been playing little league this summer. It's fun and exhausting at the same time. Our evenings are spent at the Ball Fields. I have been coaching Dillon's T-Ball team. They are doing great. I am making a commitment to do better at updating my blog so hopefully I'll have more pictures to post soon.

Some Fun With Strobes

We had a great time during Christmas making photos. My Brother-in-law Kevin and his daughter helped me make these in fact my niece was the one behind the camera for this one. We wanted a black background with no distractions, so we dialed up the the shutter speed to the max flash sync (250). Then we killed the rest of the ambient light with an aperture setting of f8. Iso 400. We snooted an sb800 flash camera right at about 1/4 power to light up Kevin's face. And fired an sb800 pointed almost straight down over the table to light the balls.

Can you guess how we did this shot?

Christmas at Oma and Opa's!

Thought I would share a few shots from Tucson. We went to Oma and Opa's house for Christmas this year and as you can see the kids had a blast! Oma gave them their own tree to decorate. Here is a picture of Opa and Dillon with Kiera working to make a construction paper garland to go around the tree. We did a photo shoot. Candy is such a fun cousin! She did the girls' hair for the shoot and even posed with them. Here is one of Olivia and Candy. Aren't they so cute?
The Kids had more presents than they knew what to do with. Here is Dillon getting ready to open one of his. Oh and the yummy food and candy and goodies and pies and whipped cream and ice cream and chocolates and eclairs and oh it was all so good. We ate from the time we arrived to the time we left. It was great! Here Olivia gets into the holiday spirit by devouring a candy cane just minutes after we arrived.

Skiing At Sunrise

Last Saturday Marisa and I took Livi and Kiera skiing. The snow was perfect - Fresh Dry Powder. The weather was perfect too. Here is the video. Hope you enjoy.

The Circus Comes To Show Low

A couple of months ago the Circus came to town and I took the kids. The Kids loved it! It was pretty good for a traveling circus in Show Low. They had Flying Trapeze Artists, a Tight Rope Walker, a Bear that could walk on top of a barrel, they even had a round, Steal Cage that 3 motor cycle drivers road around in, all at the same time. It was pretty impressive. Here are some of the pictures. I had to shoot with the available light. It was pretty dark so I boosted the ISO to 1600, opened the aperture as wide as possible (f2.8), and slowed the shutter down as far as I could without losing complete focus.

A Snow Day For The Kids!

As promised here is the video of the snow. It was a fun day for the kids. This was actually the 2nd or 3rd snow of the year but this one brought enough snow to play in, so we'll call it the 1st.

Things of interest in the video. Check out the cool snow suits on Kiera and Dillon. They were donated to us by a Friend that moved to Sedona. Dillon with his favorite toy ever! (Thanks Uncle Kevin and family). Ashlyn with her snot covered lips. (Don't get me wrong she is still cute). And the fight that broke out due to some snow in the face! All and All a pretty fun day. Hope you enjoy.

Long Lost Cousin Stacie

While I was taking a break from my blog, Stacie (Smith) Downs left me a comment. Here is her very cool blog. And here is her adorable family. Great photos huh? And Stacie I agree with you, it is very cool to be able to keep in touch with the family through blogs.






Hey look at me this is 3 days in a row that I have updated my blog. I know what you are thinking... something must be wrong with me.... But, no I am fine. By the way we got some decent snow last night (3 to 4 inches) and the kids had a snow day. Marisa shot a video of the kids playing in the snow. I will try to post it next time. Marisa is on the other computer and won't let me on, and my lap top doesn't have the software for transferring the video.

Suns vs Spurs in San Antonio

Once a Year the Phx. Suns take their radio affiliates on a trip with the team. This year Marisa and I got to go to San Antonio. Our seats were 7 rows from the floor. Not perfect for taking pictures but, I did manage to get a few good shots. Let me know what you think. I guess I can only upload 5 at a time. So I will do some more in my next post.

Thanksgiving In Pima

OK, So it has been a while. A lot has happened since I last posted. I have a lot to talk about. Last night Jen and Mike watched our kids in Phx. so we could go to the Suns game. Thank you sooo much!!!!! And yes the Suns won. They always win when we go. They should invite us more often, huh?. Well instead of dumping an incredible amount of information tonight I want to try something new. I will attempt to upload a video from our new camera (bought on Black Friday at Wal-Mart for 249$). We were in Pima for Thanksgiving along with the rest of the family and it was a blast. 6 different families, 14 Grandchildren and Flynt and Ambers dog crammed into Mom and Dad's (what once seemed big, but now feels quite small) house. Here's the family picture.

Dillon's favorite thing in the whole world is to talk about, play with, and ask his Grandparents to buy him a tractor. Well Grandpa let him do the next best thing, drive his tractor. Here's the video.

How Do Little Boys Get So Dirty?

Here is a Picture of Dillon hard at play at Oma and Opa's house. If you have ever wondered how little boys get so dirty, this is how. Oh, and he was kind enough to share the dirt with his little sister Ashlyn. He would take turns dumping dirt over his head and then hers. If you are wondering what Dillon would like for Christmas? A pile of dirt and some sticks would do it!

Disneyland Day 2

Wow time has been flying by. As usual every time I take time off I pay for it in the following weeks, trying to catch up with everything I missed while I was gone. It is amazing how things can pile up. Well enough of that. I promised a story here and I will deliver! First - while we were at Disneyland we thought it would be fun to get pictures of as many of the characters as possible so the kids can see them. So the first picture is for Ashlyn Her Favorite movie is Winnie The Pooh.
Next we have a picture of the menus at the Blue Bayou. A restaurant that is known for it's ambiance. Here is a picture of Marisa and me at the restaurant. This was shot while we were enjoying the Atmosphere of the restaurant... before we got our food and the bill... you can tell because we are still smiling. The food is way overpriced and not very tasty. That is pretty much true about all the dining at Disneyland. It would make the place so much more magical if you could get a decent meal at an affordable price.

And finally here is a shot from inside the Haunted House. It is themed from the movie "The Nightmare Before Christmas", a movie that is getting a lot of screen time at our house lately.

I shot all of my Disneyland picture's on my Kodak Point and Shoot. It was fun to try and manipulate it's limited functionality. I spent a lot of time shooting in the manual settings pushing it to it's limits but with some fun results. I will try and post some of the night shots that worked. If you have a point and shoot spend some time getting to know it's manual settings. You may be surprised at just how flexible your camera really is.

Disneyland and Califronia Adventure Trip

Just some pictures of our trip to Disneyland. The first one is Kevin, Candy, Oryan, and Marisa in front of one of the favorite rides at Califorinia Adventure - The Tower of Terror. The rest of the shots, with exception to the one of Marisa standing in front of the largest Candy Corn in the world, are shots are from the Parade. Don't miss the video at the bottom. Those guys were my favorite part of the parade. There were all shot with my Kodak Point and Shoot. I am really missing the Nikon D200. I should have brought it.