Where is Ben?

Exploring Dubai

I've made it to Dubai after crossing eleven time zones and spending over 20 hours in flight.

Today I went on a jeep trip through the sand dunes, rode a camel and had dinner in the desert along with a belly dancer.

The shot below is my buddy Charlie having a beer.

Yes, I know that I've been using my fisheye lens quite a bit lately. Both of these photos were taken at ISO 3200 on my Canon 5D.

Digital Fine Art Nude Class

I have a Digital Fine Art Nudes class coming up at the Lepp Institute on May 12-16. This will be a great combination of theory (how to think about capturing a 3D subject in a 2D medium), shooting (both studio, outdoors, under natural and artificial lighting) and Photoshop (how to enhance your results to bring them to the next level). You'll learn how to interact with the models, how to make sure the lighting is flattering, how to pose them for dramatic effect and special techniques for making sure you end up with an image worth framing. I'm really excited about the class since this has been a passion of mine since I started college.

We need a few more signups to make this class a reality, so please let anyone you know that is interested in the subject matter know about the class (I'd really appreciate it). You can see some examples of my nudes after the jump (if you're offended by nudity, please don't click). I have many other examples that I am not allowed to show on-line since the women pictured don't want to be able to be recognized. This class is about fine art nudes, not anything raunchy.

Heading to Dubai

I'll be flying out to Dubai tomorrow morning and will be back in just under two weeks. I'll be speaking at an event called Gulf Photo Plus. This should be a fun trip because, unlike last year, this time around I have at least three full days off to explore (last year I only had a half of a day). There will also be a bunch of friends at the event, so it should make for a grand time.

The photo above was from last years visit to Dubai.

Tucson, AZ to San Diego, CA

I drove the bus to Mexicali, CA yesterday and then continued on to the outskirts of San Diego today. I really should give myself more time between international trips since it doesn't look like I'll get around to doing simple things like laundry this time around.

Back to Quito, Ecuador

I've made it back to Quito after spending about a week exploring the Galapagos Islands. I had a great time and shot many gigabytes of photographs. I'll be in Quito for another day before heading to Orlando for a night and then Phoenix for a night before jumping in the bus and heading toward San Diego, which is where I'll fly out of for my next international adventure.

The photograph above was taken with my Canon 15mm fisheye lens. It's a bracket of three shots that were shot hand-held and merged into an HDR image (as described in my HDR DVD).

I'll be marking all my blog photographs with obvious copyright notices since people have been steeling the images and using them without crediting me or linking back to this site.

Lazy Blogger Update

Since my last post, I've driven the bus to Tucson, AZ. I then drove my Jeep to Phoenix and shot an abandoned mine with my buddy Jim and looked into a 1950's bus as possible future vehicle (it's just research, I haven't made any decisions or changes yet).

I just finished speaking at PhotoshopWorld in Orlando and I'm now exploring Quito, which is the capital of Ecuador. I'll be spending a few days here before exploring the Galapagos Islands with a group of photographers.

When I return, I'll have about a week to get the bus to San Diego before I fly out to Dubai for a while.

The image above is a shot of the type of bus I looked at in Phoenix (yes, it's the same kind that was used in the movie RV). I'm considering having one restored and using it to promote a future book on Route 66. It's just a dream at the moment and would take a lot more research before I'd know it things would work out.