2009 was an interesting year full of ups and downs for pretty much everyone. We were (are) facing a massive economic crisis, unemployment was at an all time high, people were loosing their homes, on going war, yet we all are continuing to battle on and continue to live life doing the best we can with inspiration from stories of courage, charity and love. 2009 brought a lot of people together with great collaboration projects from artists who wanted to give back (Help-Project is a great example) and while photographers are doing their best in an environment that is changing against them, we are all coming together to bring new ideas and innovations.

2009 for me was a life changing year. Faced with the economic crisis, I, like many, lost my job. I saw this as an opportunity and took off with my wife on a road trip across country to take some time to think about where to take my career next and really concentrate on what really made me happy.

2009 saw me slowly fading away from design work and more into photography and at times, combining both elements together for my clients.

So I figured the best way to sum up 2009 is using pictures. Click on each photo for a very quite sentence about the photo.

So how was your year? Leave me a comment and let me know!

Canon 5D mark II
Tamron 70-300mm F/4
Cokin 0.9 Grad ND Filter
0.4 second, F32

From FXGuide

“We understand that EOS 5D Mark II users desire additional frame rates and we’re preparing a firmware update to allow the camera to shoot at both 24P and 25P,” said Chris Macleod, Brand Manager – EOS, Canon Australia. “The upgrade to 24P and 25P will broaden the usage scope for this popular camera to include cinema and broadcast applications, respectively.”

Canon expects the firmware update to be available in the first half of 2010 and will release more details as they become available.

Probably the best Canon news of the evening for me (don’t forget the 1D mark IV was announced!). But seriously, first half of 2010?

About the picture above?

Took an evening trip to watch the sun go down at Great Falls Park and did a small hike to the water side to watch some kayakers. I set up my tripod and as the sun went down, the sky turned pink and I felt like it was winter already!

Luckily the clear skies picked up some clouds to add a little more to the image. Unfortunately, the Grad ND filter I used really made the purple/pink seem a little too much/distracting than it was in real life. I may fix it in lightroom one day.

The road trip we took back in 2006 was amazing in so many ways. The things we saw, people we met, places we went, and I managed to get some really memorable photographs from the journey. Now I am a big believer in the “it’s not the camera, it’s what you do with it” saying but I also can’t help but think the camera does help. This year I will be traveling with a Canon 5D mark II which replaces my Canon 40D which in turn replaced the old Canon Digital Rebel XT I used back on the 2006 road trip. The camera was perfect for me as it was my first introduction to dSLR’s. It did everything I wanted and produced some great images that have done me pretty well over the past few years. But it’s no Canon 5D mark II… Full frame, the extra resolution, greater dynamic range, better noise levels, movie mode are just some of the things I will fully take advantage of on this trip.

But there were certain things that, back in 2006, held back the photos I really wanted to capture. And this wasn’t to do with the camera I was using…

Hit the jump to read more!

Firstly, I had no zoom lens. I only had a Tokina 12-24mm and the 18-55mm Lens Kit that came with the Digital Rebel XT. This was quite the limited arsenal to shoot some of the most spectacular landscapes in the USA. This time I am better prepared. My kit includes:

• Tokina 12-24mm F4
• Canon 24-70mm F/2.8 L
• Canon 70-200mm F/2.8L IS
• Canon 50mm F/1.8
• Canon 100mm F/2.8

While I would love a super telephoto, I do plan on doing some major hiking on this trip, and this is already a hefty bag!

But there were other things holding me back a little. I had a really old tripod I bought from Jessops (in the UK) for £20 that would not even hold the weight of the Canon 5D mark II. Since then I had upgraded slightly to a slightly better tripod, but one that didn’t really suit my style of work. Now for this trip I have purchased a Manfrotto 055XPROB tripod (see below photo) with a Manfrotto 804RC2 Pan and tilt head (see above photo).

This is a great tripod for the trip. It was reasonably priced and included the famous Manfrotto-patented horizontal center column which I have always been a fan of. It’s weight is just about right for some hiking and should be heavy enough to hold down my equipment safely. The Manfrotto 804RC2 Pan and tilt head is not really the ideal heal for this tripod as they don’t balance each other out perfectly as the tripod can hold much more weight that the head, but it is enough for the 5D mkII and the hefty 70-200mm F/2.8 L IS. I opted for the pan and tilt over ball head as I felt the panning and tilting on this head would double up for taking videos with the Canon 5D mark II than a ball head.

Another missing piece to my photography kit on my last trip was some decent filters. I have a tendency to create a graduated ND filter effect in Lightroom 2 to my landscape shots (regardless of the time of day the photograph was taken) which I think helps balance out my usual over exposed skies – thus loosing detail. Obviously this is what Graduated filters can help with.

I decided against screw in filters and went with Cokin ND Graduated Filters #121L, 121M, 121S along with with a P Series Filter Holder. These make the world of difference to your tough lighting situations you can have when shooting landscapes. I do own a few screw in filters (mainly as lens protectors) which can help my images especially circular polarizing filters.

So, there are some new toys I am looking forward to playing with on this trip. I can’t wait!

Sitting on the edge, originally uploaded by tony.eckersley.

I am going to be doing a huge day-by-day review of my road trip. I have a few aims of this mega post; 1 – for me to remember the amazing time me and wife had, 2 – to inspire others, 3 – to inspire me to do this again in the future!

So lets start right at the beginning – the story/planning.

The Year is 2006. I had been with Danielle for 14 months and were about to go to the UK for a year to complete my under graduate degree. I had finished my job with Mediastudio in the states after 17 months of constant work. This is the perfect excuse for a ROAD TRIP!

We spent a month living in the back of a 95 Dodge Dakota truck and camping at as many national parks as we could! It was a fantastic experience and one I think everyone should try and do. We saw so many incredible things and cannot wait to do it again.

Hit the jump to see and read more about our route!

Map of USA Road Trip 2006, originally uploaded by tony.eckersley.

Me and Dannie spent months and months with a Road Atlas of North America planning our best route. I had an idea in my head of the ideal Road Trip USA that I wanted to do which included visiting places like the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone, Arches and a big bunch of other National Parks that I had wanted to go and photograph for years. Luckily, all these places seem to have been summoned over on the West Coast in close proximity with each other(well, relatively in Road Trip terms) and seemed to create an almost perfect loop. While I say it’s lucky that they are relatively close, we just so happened to live on the opposite side of the US, in Virginia! Regardless, I had my mind set on all these fantastic west coast national parks. So, with this in mind, our first real stop we figured during the planning stage would be Badlands national park in South Dakota. That meant our first stop would be 1700 miles away! Once we had gotten over the shock of a 1700 mile trip only to stop and sleep until we got there,there we were golden – our route planned itself! We could hit the Badlands, drive to Yellowstone, continue down to Grand Tetons, drive south through Salt Lake City and head west through Nevada over the salt plains and hit north California around Lake Tahoe where we would head south towards Yosemite, then start our journey back east through Vegas, hitting the North and South rim of the Grand Canyon before traveling up to Bryce Canyon and Zion and continuing east through Arches and Canyon Lands which would lead us to our last real national park of the trip – the Colorado Rockies, before we would race back to Virginia to catch a flight to the UK!! I apologize for the lack of periods there – I felt it was necessary illustrate how frantic and awesome our trip would be!

So the route was set in stone – and it had to be, Dannie had already applied a sharpie to our route in the map! Initially, I had hoped to spend a day or so in San Francisco, and kept it as a maybe throughout the trip, in case we had time, but realistically, we knew we would rather spend time else where and travel to SF another time in the comfort of a flight as apposed to 3500 miles driving. I also had an end date for work, the date we planned to head West – August 12! We had planned to Dannie’s uncle’s Nissan Titan, however, those plans fell through at the very last minute meaning we had to take Danielle’s trusty old 95 Dodge Dakota. I have to admit, I was skeptical it would survival 9000+ miles in a month, but I was assured by it’s trust owner, the future wife, that it would be fine – I mean, why would I doubt that! Because of this last minute change of plans, we decided to set off on the 13th, real early in the morning, and get a good start heading north. That was ok though, as it gave us an extra day, you know, to add a back window (yes – a back window, or else we would have to content with a large breeze for the whole trip), and give it some much needed maintenance before a big trip!

Oh, but you should have seen her all set up! It was almost too perfect. Plexiglass windows and dents aside, of course. We managed to fit a single mattress in the bed of the truck for those nights we couldn’t be bothered to set up a tent. We used the small rear seats to hold our big cooler for our food and drinks and to hold our our camping gear, spare clothes and washing stuff! We were truly ready – We had no GPS, only a road map showing all the camping areas across the states including national parks. Looking back, these maps were not great as they had very little detail! But whatever! How hard can it be?

To be continued

I love this camera.

So, here, have an insight to my day…

The Family, originally uploaded by tonyeckersley.

USA mum, Dannie and I took a trip down to Fincastle, VA where we spend some time with the USA family, aka the Crockers – Rob, Wanda, Cynthia, John, Kim Nanny (aka Mildred) and the kids, Page and Sam. This was quite a fun trip. First, on Friday night, me and Danielle were treated to the Honeymoon suite at Acorn Hill in Lynchburg (a pit stop to see Rob and Wanda before hitting Fincastle) which happened to be fantastic. We had a beautiful view, spa-bath, bed and balcony all to our selves. This was a very nice treat as me and Dannie had been meaning to stay there for a while. It was actually nice just to relax after a long week renovating at Mediastudio!

After breakfast we headed to Fincastle where we chilled with the full family. It’s funny what you learn about family, especially one as unique as this. Man do they have some serious stories! Obviously I wont go into any detail as I don’t really want to go and blurt this families story all over the intertubes, but it does make great listening! One day Dannie says she will make a script out of her family history. I’m putting 100 bucks down on it being an Oscar winner already.

But things came up that inspired me. Rob lost his sight temporarily a few years back dub to his diabetes (has one glass eye now) and during his stay in hospital he vocalized some of his memories from growing up in Up state New York, terrorizing his family, getting in trouble and all sorts of tom-foolery along the way. It was such a great read and really made me realize how important it is to document our lives (the main reason I set up this blog). From now on, I am going to try and write down at least one memory a day (and post some here) so I never forget. In fact, I already feel like I am forgetting my childhood a little. It wasn’t until someone set up an alumni page on Facebook for my high school that I started remember what the hell I did at school! That was only 8 years ago!

Me and Dannie also watched Superbad again. Again…

Just want to say, this is the funniest comedy movie pretty much ever. There is so much more to it than I think a lot of people see. Maybe that’s because they don’t have it on in the background 3 out of 5 days a week at work? Anyway, there is so much you can relate too from growing up – and the last scene, where they are really splitting up for the first time to hang out with new people? Fully took me back to the last night I had with my old friends before heading to college. Great times, great film.

“That was like 8 years ago asshole”

“People don’t forget”

Haha

Mini Interior, originally uploaded by tony.eckersley.

I love my new Mini.

That’s right! I am highly impressed with it. Drove over 400 miles this weekend through various trips visiting friends. Needless to say, the seats you see above you got some sitting in!

Dannie and I went to see Kim and Andrew for a surprise visit for Andrew’s 20th Birthday in Fredrickberg on Friday. It was great catch up with them again while we enjoyed pizza, some drinks, and a few games of pool. We also got the chance to properly meet their friends who were nice and accepting to us.

On Saturday morning we headed down to the University of Virginia to see Casey and Dorothy and to see a show that Dor was partaking in (Desdemona). The drive down was quite fun – Route 29 has some great fast sections of road where I was able to unleash a bit of power from my Cooper S, but of course not too much as I am still ‘driving it in.’ We spent the day catching up with Casey (Dorothy was hitting up a matinée showing) with some FIVE GUYS burgers which are always a pleasure to devour. Later we hung out at Dorothy’s place where we met her flat mates (including another Mini owner). I helped prepare some jello shots with Casey headed out to the show which I quite enjoyed. I’m hardly a theatre critique so I will spare you the details, but as the tagline said – “6 girls in corsets, can’t be bad.” Guess that was right. This was their last show too, as tradition has it’s way, following such an event usually comes an after party! This was quite fun, and met some cool people (and some annoying people – “Aweosme” comes to mind for one person). Later the party turned quite wild! Not quite what I was expecting, but quite an insight to the American College party life – not that I was complaining. Unfortunately I have no photographic evidence of any events that happened – sorry!

Unfortunately, Dannie, throughout the night, was deteriorating with the illness that has been doing the rounds. I purposefully didn’t drink as I suspected I may have to take her home at any point as she got worse and worse throughout the night. Basically we went from itchy eyes to full out death! Come 2 am I threw her and a blanket into the Mini and drove 140 miles home. She needed to sleep in her own bed that night. And rightly so – she was still full of death in the morning.

Regardless, we both had a lot of fun and can’t wait to go back!

Dannie in Old Town, originally uploaded by tony.eckersley.

Presidents day meant a day off work! In addition to that it turned out to be a beautiful day outside, reaching 70 degrees at one point. Of Course that didn’t last!

While in Old Town we took a look inside the torpedo factory, and I quote:”The Torpedo Factory Art Center is the highlight of Alexandria’s Potomac River waterfront, attracting approximately 700,000 visitors annually. Visit 82 artists’ studios, six cooperative galleries, two workshops, and the Alexandria Archaeology Museum. Sign up for an art class with The Art League School. Then stroll along the waterfront, shop and sightsee on nearby historic streets, have a picnic on the dock behind the art center, or eat in the area’s many fine restaurants.

The Torpedo Factory Art Center houses more than 165 visual artists who produce artwork in a wide variety of media including painting, ceramics, photography, jewelry, stained glass, fiber, printmaking, and sculpture. The artists invite visitors to join them in their studios and observe their creative processes. You may ask questions, learn about each of their art forms, and purchase original work.”It’s a great little hang out for artists and people alike. Of course I spent most of my time visiting the local photographers. Two that caught my eye were Craig Sterling and James Steele. Both were great artists who had some very inspiring work. Kicked me up the butt a little to start being a little more pro-active with my photography.

Hit the Jump to read more!
Craig Sterling really inspired me. His choice of printing exclusively in monochrome really attests to his beautiful work while he mixes traditional photography with today’s modern means. Some of his pieces looks like he uses a tilt shift lens to really pin point the focus on a particular point. Wish I could afford a tilt shift lens, but for now, I’ll continue to “fake it” in photoshop! Take a look at some of these added to my Flickr account

Mount Rushmore, originally uploaded by tony.eckersley.

Yellowstone, originally uploaded by tony.eckersley.