Brian C. Parks Photo+Design

I’m super stoked that one of my photos won first place at the 9th Annual Garden & Arts Center Photography Exhibit in the Landscapes category. All of the photos at the exhibit are meant to showcase City of Lubbock parks. There are some great photos on display through the 25th of May, so go check [...]

9th Annual Garden & Arts Center Photography Exhibit

Brian C. Parks Photo+Design

I promised this review to Tim Hsu, inventor of the Carry Speed straps, a long time ago, but I really wanted to get some use out of them before writing anything. Since I got my CS-Double (this link will take you to Amazon, as the CS-Double isn’t available directly from Tim’s website anymore) from Tim [...]

Review: Carry Speed CS-Double Strap

Brian C. Parks Photo+Design

It was a great weekend filled with wine, hamburgers, an abundance of sunshine, and numerous visits from the local swallows that have taken up residence in our complex. We started off the weekend with a bang by attending the Burgers Meet Ham•Burgundy event at CapRock Winery. There we met the self-proclaimed Hambassador, Rick Vanderpool. The [...]

Wine, Burgers, and Sunshine

Brian C. Parks Photo+Design

Clapp Park was the destination of my first photo walk with the Lubbock Camera Club. Being relatively new to the camera club, it was nice to see some of the members in action (you can learn a lot just by watching them shoot). Here are a few of the photos I took at the park…

Clapp Park Photo Walk

Brian C. Parks Photo+Design

I swear it’s taken me at least a thousand hours over the last three days, but the new website is up and running in all its virtual glory. This has been a labor of love since day one (day one being last Friday night) and it is a culmination of the genius of at least [...]

Brand spankin’ new website design

Brian C. Parks Photo+Design

Drop what you’re doing! Go outside! It’s snowing out!!!          

Snow Day!

Brian C. Parks Photo+Design

I attended my first First Friday Art Trail here in Lubbock (though hopefully not my last). There was much to be seen and heard this night and it was great to finally see some Lubbock nightlife. Surprisingly, Lubbock has a large art population, and the turnout was quite impressive. Unfortunately, the unfamiliar cold drove me [...]

Lubbock First Friday Art Trail – February

Brian C. Parks Photo+Design

This is just a test to see if the Sharepress plugin I just installed is working correctly. If so, this post should be picked up automatically and posted to my Facebook wall. Let’s keep our fingers crossed. I’ll even throw in a picture, too.

Sharepress Plugin

Brian C. Parks Photo+Design

Just joined the meetup for the Lubbock Camera Club! I’ve got a lot of trips lined up this year, and I already know I’ll miss the first few meetups they have scheduled, but hopefully I’ll get to do some photography field trips in April!

Lubbock Camera Club

Brian C. Parks Photo+Design

Been looking for a travel tripod for quite a while now, and finally settled on one. I could’ve gone with something more expensive, lighter, carbon fiber, etc., etc., but that would have shot my bill up by at least a hundred bucks. I read reviews about the Gitzos and others that sounded pretty amazing, but [...]

Travel Tripod

Brian C. Parks Photo+Design

So I’ve recently started taking Trey Ratcliff’sHDR Tutorial and have been itching to get out and take some photos. We’ve been having some gnarly weather here between the cold and the extreme winds, but I braved the elements this evening to venture out and snap some shots of the technology building across the street. Keeping [...]

Photo of the day

Brian C. Parks Photo+Design

It’s that time of the year again, when the dead rise from their graves to plague mankind with their insatiable hunger for brrrrrrraaaaaaiiiiiiinnnnnssssssss! At least, that’s what the founders of Zombie Walk Houston are going for on this, their fourth annual walk of the undead. This year’s walk was to benefit a great charity, the [...]

They live!

Brian C. Parks Photo+Design

I’ve added a new section to the photography dropdown, high dynamic range (HDR) photography! I’m really excited about this section because I’ve been waiting for a while now to try shooting some of these (although, to be honest, the shooting wasn’t so much the holdup as the processing). High dynamic range photography deals with taking [...]

New Photography Section: HDR!

Brian C. Parks Photo+Design

So I finally got around to buying Joe McNally’s book The Hot Shoe Diaries: Big Light from Small Flashes and have been reading it religiously (that is to say, not often enough). Joe’s got a lot of experience, a great sense of humor, and tons of practical tips (if you’re lucky enough to be a [...]

Porch fun!

Brian C. Parks Photo+Design

UPDATED! See here. For those who don’t know, Nikon doesn’t make battery grips for its lower-end DSLRs. The advantage to this? The pricetag is a lot lower on a third-party grip. The problem? Well, there are a few issues one wouldn’t expect with an official product from Nikon. I got my “professional vertical battery grip” [...]

Review: Battery Grip for Nikon D3100

Brian C. Parks Photo+Design

Okay, so this test comparison might have been even more flawed than I thought. I just discovered something interesting about the S2. Apparently, because of its “Super CCD” it can actually record image data that will result in a 12-megapixel final image. Weird since it’s only a 6-megapixel camera. Anyway, after some testing, I noticed [...]

Fuji’s Super CCD can produce 12-megapixel images when shooting in RAW format with the S2

Brian C. Parks Photo+Design

Lately, I’ve been messing around with a new camera I was given (thanks Susie!) that has some interesting features, despite being a few years older than my other cameras. Behold! The Fujifilm Finepix S2 Pro! It’s a beastly thing (though not as gargantuan as my D90 with the MD-80), but it’s still got that Nikon [...]

Camera Comparison Test

Brian C. Parks Photo+Design

Here’s a portion of my review of Tokina’s 11-16 mm f 2.8 AT-X 116 Pro DX Autofocus lens for Nikon DX-Format DSLRs that was recently posted on B&H Photo Video: I had originally bought this for an upcoming trip to Copenhagen, but I can’t believe how much I’ve used it already. It’s a great lens [...]

Lens Review: Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8

Brian C. Parks Photo+Design

Holy crap, I just discovered there’s a light meter app for the iPhone. Best of all, it’s FREE. Amazing.

Best app EVER.

Brian C. Parks Photo+Design

So the wildflower season has started here in Texas, but things are looking a little sparse this year. Unfortunately, around Houston the pickings are pretty slim. Usually there are some great spots around Independence inbetween Brenham and College Station, but as of a few weeks ago, zip. Finally found a good spot around Memorial and [...]

Wildflower Season