Justin Cary Photography

Canon 5D 50mm f/1.4 (shot at ISO 1000 f/1.8 1/320)

OK, so it’s a little known fact that I’m a full-time photographer for one company, StraightLine HDD.  You can see a lot of my commercial stuff on our website at www.straightlinehdd.com.  I get to shoot some amazing stuff for this company and it pays off day after day.  StraightLine is a family owned company, owned by my father, Don Cary, which makes doing my job here so much more gratifying!  It’s awesome to see him excited about something and, from time to time, I get him excited about what we do here.  I took some really killer shots today and I wanted to share one of them with all of you!  Enjoy!!!

- Justin

WOW!!!!  That’s all I really have to say.  Thanks to everyone that was a part of Sleiman and Megan’s wedding.  Everyone was so nice and accommodating.  The wedding was absolutely beautiful!  That Friday morning on the 19th my sister Jessica and I headed up to Lawrence, KS at about 6:30am.  We arrived at the hair salon at 8:30 just in time to get the day started… and the rest is history!  I will write a bit more about what went on during the day, but I’m tired and excited that Kayla wants to watch a war movie tonight, sweeeeeet!  Enjoy!!!

- Justin

I’ve been thinking about integrating my camera to sync up with Lightroom for some time.  I’d never really given it much thought until I found a real need for it.  I shoot a lot of commercial product photography and typically shoot far too many frames.  Digital has made me lazy.  I have the, “just take as many shots as it takes” mentality now and that’s a bad habit to get into.  The more images you shoot, the more time you spend editing and wasting time.

Now I have my camera transferring my images straight into Lightroom for my assistant or the art director to view on the fly.  When I hear the magic words, “that’s the one!!!”, I know I’m done and can wrap up and head to the bank.  I’ve been studying photographers that use this method for sometime, it’s well worth it!

Here’s how I did it:
Use these two links for Canon and Nikon shooters alike.

Nikon Setup
Canon Setup (with a strong reference to the above link to get Lightroom set up.)

Enjoy!!!!

- Justin

So, we only lasted to the end of the 3rd quarter… anything after that sucked anyway, so we heard from the parking lot.  Gotta love the Chiefs.  They play killer all game and let the Chargers get back in it under 2 minutes!  Oh well, we had a blast.  We couldn’t feel out limbs but that’s no big deal… right?

La... freezing, but stickin it out for me!

Here come the Chiefs

Otis | Clay

La and I... had enough, headin home

The crew, minus a few

Tyler, Kayla, Alisha and Christopher

Clay and Brittany

Otis and Alisha

Still in control, for now

Clay and some weirdo

Freaks of Nature | 15 Degrees?

Clay, Brittany and some family

See Santa Exists!

All you non believers out there can officially shut your mouth!  So what if he drives a Nissan every other day of the year, I’m sure his sleigh will be up and flying on the 25th!

So Jace is only 16 months old but we started a tradition last year of taking his photo in front of the Christmas tree.  Count them out… this is his second Christmas session! Yayyyyy.  So here is one of my absolute favorites.  I’m really stuck on this retro theme right now so bare with me, it’ll go away sooner or later.

- Justin

That’s not really a title but we’ll roll with it.

I received my lenses today and WOW, impressive.  The shear size was enough for my eyes to pop out of my head.  Here’s the noticeable differences I’ve seen within the first 30 min. of getting my hands on these babies.
1.) Sharper Image - No not the retail store.  The images are amazingly sharp.  Prime is always the way to go especially if you can afford the L series glass.
2.) Amazing Focus Response - When I first started shooting with my 1Ds MKII I was very surprised at the speed in which it focused.  I had to teach myself to have a very light shutter finger as I was finding myself accidentally snapping off shots before I was done framing, woops.  I’ve since mastered that.  Now, with these L lenses, which are different than my 70-200mm 2.8 L IS, in that they focus so fast.  It’s truly amazing how fast they respond to the touch.
3.) Obvious Aperture Love! - I’ve been shooting with the 50mm f/1.4 and the 85mm f/1.8.  These lenses are both amazing by the way, but now I have an even wider aperture to shoot with.  For those of you who are more beginner this means the lenses let more light in than your typical non L lens.  I shoot weddings for a living… I have to shoot in dark places, these lenses are perfect for that.

I will be posting images I’ve taken soon.  I hope to do some testing as the blur with a shallow Depth of Field looks very beautiful with the 85mm… even more beautiful than my f/1.8!

Tah Tah for now.

- Justin

New Website - Coming Soon

For those of you who know me, you know the following things:

- I love doing things on my own (Control Freak)
- Perfectionist at heart, not in execution
- I love my computer and spend too much time on it (sorry Kayla!!!)
- I am currently on the 458,813,440 revision of my website

BUT….

this time is different.  I know you’re thinking to yourself, “yeah right”, but I’m serious!  I’ve finally allowed myself to let go and give control over to my new partner in crime.  I still get to design the site, he gets to do all of the stuff I don’t understand, that he’s so damn good at!  I will let you know when the site is 100%.  I’m really looking for feedback on this site as it’s going to be the site I use for, well, a while :-)  I’m so excited to start giving photography my full attention and that starts here, on the interwebernet!  I’m working on some photo posts so check back soon… oh… my lenses from borrowlenses.com are coming to day, soooooo exciting!!!!

Peace,
Justin

So, I’m speaking a little soon about this experience as I haven’t even received the two lenses I rented but I am so impressed I’ll probably have to write about it multiple times…

Borrow Lenses is a company in south San Francisco that rents lenses to photographers like myself that would love to own every Canon L lens available but just isn’t financially possible.  Today I rented a 50 f/1.2 L and an 85 f/1.2 L.  I rented the lenses for 2 weeks.  The total cost came in around $270 which is a killer price for $3000 worth of glass.  If you’re a photographer and are dying to get your hands on some of the high end glass you have to check these guys out.

I will keep you updated on my experience.  Oh, I wrote this to let you know, I rented the lenses today, received a confirmation email from a human being named Jeff from the company and was sent a FedEx tracking number all in one day.

Happy Shooting!!!!!!

- Justin

A good buddy and business partner and I are working on the new justincaryphotography.com… If you’ve noticed www.justincaryphotography.com simply directs you to www.cary-studios.com, this will no longer be true. cary-studios will be shut down and have only a link to direct you to the new and improved site. I’m happy to announce that I will be taking on more photography jobs in 2009 as I’m going to slowly seperate myself from all of the other distractions that keep me from shooting full-time.

So, with that being said, have a happy holiday season! See you on the flip side with new and improved webby goodness!!!

Justin

Oh yes, noone can see this but me… well, technically you might be able to find it in cyberspace.  This will soon be home to the ranting and ravings of me, Justin Cary.  I’m a photographer and designer.  I am the proud owner of a fictitious company called Pixelous Design.  Fictitious for now anyway.  I am teaming up with a very very talented Web Programmer, Bill Knechtel of endikos.com fame, to form a duo that will bring professional media to the Wichita area.  We do have a building, it’s a shell, but it’s a building nontheless.  Soon there will be apples, photoshops and aptanas flying around the inside of an incredibly designed space.  We will keep you updated with photos and stories of making this dream come true.  In the meantime I am going to try my best to help anyone who’s willing to listen with photography and design.  Feel free to drop me an email and ask any questions you might have.  No question is a stupid question… except the one that isn’t asked… I think that’s how that goes.  Peace and stay tuned.

- Justin