First, sorry for the late post, but apparently you have to hit the publish button. Which I failed to do.
Secondly, and most important, I want to thank all my followers and those who randomly land at my blog. With out you, this blog would be a waste of time.
Here are my favorite/best from last year 2012:
Actually, there is more, but it is hard to edit down to 12. And to boot, I am sure I’ve missed a few.
I’ve picked 6 to elaborate on and then there is a slide show at the bottom.
1. Kru Katherine:
I’ve been working with Total Confidence Martial Arts for a bit covering the events such as belt promotion and trainings. I had a vision of the owner/instructor Katherine putting on her hand wraps. So I pitched the idea and we spent about an hour. I was reasonably pleased with the result. I converted the image to B&W as the wraps was a bright yellow. It just looks better in B&W.
2. Cascade Clouds and Silos: 
One day while driving to pick up my wife from work, I saw these white puffy clouds against dark blue sky over the northern Cascade Mountains due east of Bellingham, Wash. I wanted something more than just the clouds, city streets, and sky. So I drove to an area north of Bellingham. As I was driving, I had an epiphany: Convert to b&W and use a red filter to get the sky dark and add overall contrast. I think it works. I am going to try this again with Mount Baker, which at the time was covered by the clouds. Then I got lucky and saw this barn and pair of silos.
3. Locust Beach Pilings:
It’s something serene I like about Locust Beach even during a stormy day. It’s a small hike down to the beach. But these pilings have drawn me ever since moving here to Bellingham. This day, I wanted to shoot a nice sunset, but on my hike down, the clouds rolled in. Bummer. I kept hiking down. After I got to the beach, a few kiteboarders were having fun on the choppy water. So I shot a few of them having fun. As I was walking over to the pilings, the clouds parted to the west. Unfortunately, the sun was down by this time, but was lightly painting the clouds with a slight red hue. I set my camera on my tripod, used a ND64 neutral density filter on y 17-35 f/2.8 Nikkor lens and shot about a dozen frames. The exposure was 30 secs at f/22 at ISO 200 on my D300s.
4. Big Sun and Little Boat:
I was out one evening with my wife Heidi and as we were watching the Sun set, I liked how the thin layer of clouds slightly obscured the sun as it dipped below the horizon Past the Lummi Reservation across Bellingham Bay. I had my D300s with 80-200 on but couldn’t get the sun to be big enough. So I put on my TC-14E 1.4x teleconverter to make the sun bigger. As I was shooting, the boat came into the viewfinder and I fired a few frames. The image was cropped to about 1/4 the original size.
5. Working His Magic:
In May, the Seattle SmugMug Users Group held a 2-day charity photography session for cancer survivors for the Virginia Mason Medical Center at the Baroness Hotel. During the second day, I had time to walk around and document the behind-the-scenes happenings. I saw Antonio Cejuda of CoCo & Company applying makeup to the participants. I like the window light on his and his subjects face. I also like the blank wall as a background to keep the photo clean. So I began shooting. I didn’t like the original angle so I dropped down to the floor to get a really low angle and clean the image even further. I underexposed by one stop what the meter said so I would not overexpose the highlights. I used my D300S with my 80-200 f/2.8 at 2.8 to keep the depth of field at a minimum. I then converted to B&W and used a slight sepia tone.
6. Nap Time:
One of my strengths is feature photography and finding moments in the everyday situation. I was out and about with my wife Heid, father-in-law Todd, and mom-in-law Roxanne one hot summer day. It was an unusual spread of 90+ days of sunny weather here in the Pacific Northwest. As we were walking along the Boardwalk at Boulevard Park in Bellingham, Wash., I saw the man in the hammock. I made my way down to the shore and began shooting photos. I discovered he wasn’t really napping, but reading a book to the sound of the incoming tide.
Here’s a slideshow of my favorites from the Year 2012:
My Best from 2012 on Pablo Conrad Photography
Thank you for stopping by and reading. All comments are appreciated.
Paul “pablo” Conrad
Compositions of a Rambling PJ 
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