Tampa Taxi Shots

Trouble with TypePad...sometimes

My connection is sometimes to weak at home to access my TypePad account. That is why you should visit this shadow blog of five years www.tampataxishots.info This is on Blogger and I have no problems with it. I  have kept this blog since 2007 and it has much of the material that this blog has. Blogger is constanly updating its features. Sadly, Typepad does not. 

Godaddy offered me the URL above of www.tampataxishots.info for only 69 cents with an email. How do you turn that down?

When I can't afford to pay for this blog and it is down for a week or two, go to the 'info' blog and you can keep up. Thanks for your understanding.

Tim Fasano

Tampa Blogs

People often ask the taxi drivers questions. They want to know what time you started your shift, how long you have been driving a taxi and what is the most interesting thing that has ever happened while driving a taxi. I do not know if they think it is a romantic adventure, but they sure seem to romanticize cab driving. 

People always enjoyed my stories, and they were not hard to think of. Just about every day something happens that probably does not happen to the average Joe. Where else can you go from taking a physicist downtown to a Relativity conference and five minutes later picking up an urban drug dealer? Stimulation occurs all day long.

Cab drivers also like stories. When we would sit on stands waiting for the next call, we would tell the other drivers what happened on the last call, or the one yesterday that everyone had heard about. You would think this was just about taking people from point A to point B, but it is not. It is much more than that. 

Often, people would suggest that I write a book about all that. Most people seem to have seen the HBO show Taxi Cab Confessions and think that is what happens to cab drivers. Yes. That is what happens to most cab drivers. 

I had thought about doing a book, but never really knew how to approach the task. In the last twenty years, I had written nothing more complex then a grocery list. Then I heard about something that seemed exciting. 

In 2005 a new phenomena was taking off on the internet called web logs - commonly called blogs. At that time, these online journals were growing exponentially in just a few short months. In addition, cool software was available to the average person, so anyone could start a blog. 

I never thought what I did was very important but starting a blog would allow me to communicate even the most trivial of things instantly to anyone on the web. I came up with a name called Tampa Taxi Shots.

Originality is important to me and I did not want to copy what someone else was doing. The concept of taxi driving experiences was now going to hit the web and I was hoping people would visit my blog. I was correct on that.

There was a growing online community of local Tampa Bloggers. They were growing in numbers and putting out great content. They were reporting on local matters ignored by local newspapers. The St. Pete Times began to notice. 

They did an article in TBT about the local blogging scene. In fact, that article inspired me to get into this. It validated that anyone with a keyboard could get started. In fact, I still have that TBT. 

Unfortunately, many of the blogs profiled in that article are not published anymore. Sticks Of Fire was the biggest casualty. I guess life moves on and people move on.

Blogs are now a source of information that we can access anywhere, even on mobile devices. There is no telling how many there are now. 

I know that I miss some of the early ones. I kind of wish they would come back.

 

In The Florida Jungle

Followers of this blog know that I like to hike in the remote areas of Central Florida and bring my video camera with me in case I encounter the Florida Skunkape or Bigfoot. I like the exercise and the fresh air. For over the last year it has been a hobby of mine.

It has been a good hobby. My YouTube Channel called fasanotampa has over 347 subscribers and a Blogger blog I started is getting steady traffic. However, it is getting difficult to try and make daily post for eight different blogs when Tampa Taxi Shots has been my longest running and most successful blog ever. I just need to consolidate and make this the Official Tim Fasano Blog or website. 

I don't know if you have a YouTube channel or not but you have to admit the flaming that goes on is beyond the pale. I have really lost my interest especially that someone has started a blog just to bash the videos I, and a few others, put up. Crazy if you ask me. 

Everyone has their own interest, and I have mine. This is a commercial site. Like I get paid to do this blog. I get a monthly check from advertisers and that pays for my blog. Simple, I got my reasons for this. 

We are going into the Memorial Day Weekend which is significant in Bigfoot History. Memorial day 1996 was the day of the famous bigfoot sighting in Washington State which was featured in the Hisotry Channel special Bigfoot Where Legend Meets Science with Dr. Jeff Meldrum.  Here this interview of him on Coast To Coast AM Radio.

DEMON CAT FOUND IN TAMPA!

They say he prowls Tampa looking for a meal...He found one, in the dumpster at Stoney's Bar And Liquor in Palmetto Beach.  When I pulled up at sunrise, this cat jumps out of the dumpster licking his chops.  Forget about Fancy Feast, he wants garbage bins.  A cat is a cat.

Notice the chewed off ear.

He then looks at me with green, demon like eyes.  It was really the effect of my flash unit on the camera. 

He did have a fine meal from what he found in the can.  Hate to think of what that might of been. 

He did better than I did, I ended up with some cold Cuban breakfast sandwich from a roadside diner.

PHOTO SHOOT VICTIM OF ECONOMY

I used to attend a photo shoot twice a year in Arizona called the Arizona Shootout sponsored by Dave Hall a professional photographer from New York.  This event allows aspiring photographers and professionals alike to get killer images and shoot Playboy models that would not be possible under ordinary conditions, such as the beautiful Anna I photograped to the left.

I have recently been going on his website to find out about signing up for the event, but it has not been updated in a while. I fear the worst. I hope it is not another victim of the bad economy.

Dave has not made any public announcement that I can tell, so I can only conclude it is the economy that has done this event in, temporarily I hope.  Perhaps I am overreacting and the event will still go off as usual.

As an aspiring photographer I find this event very useful for upgrading my skills and improving my "book" to show agencies.  I also have a website, and this event was useful in acquiring new content.  I also enjoyed the social aspect of this event and many of the participants have become friends of mine.  I hope the event will back soon.  If anyone has any info, let me know.

I have been looking at Bob Anderson's event in Cabo Mexico in October.  It is very expensive but it is a Ujena catalog shoot.

HERE COME THE STEELERS!

I was waiting for one of my "specials" to finish her audition at the doll house.  She was an out of town dancer that has used me several time so far this week. (I have a few so far that call me, I guess its my chivalry they like).  While I was waiting two unmarked police cars blocked the east/west traffic on Cypress crossing Westshore.  At first, I wondered why, then south bound on Westshore I could see a police motorcade and several buses.  Since the AFC Champion Pittsburgh Steelers, who are playing in the Super Bowl here in Tampa, are staying at the Intercontinental Inn at Westhore and Kennedy, and it had been media day, I knew it had to be the football team. The batteries in my camera were very low so I could only get off one shot.  I had to crop it a little.

I felt like Abraham Zappurder standing on the side of the road shooting the motorcade.  I truly believed that someone would give me some shit aoubt being there because I was behind the policed off area.  They weren't letting anyone in the area. It worked out OK. 

Who Took This Photo?

Whoever took this photo was a professional.  I don't believe some astronaut dude with a hand-held did this.  I mean, do your vacation photos rise to the level of NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC or SMITHSONIAN?  No. This one does.

I was In Borders Bookstore today looking at some coffee books.  (You know, the ones that you buy for your friends but not yourself).  They had one on exploration and it contained a series of images taken on the moon during the landing 1969-1972.

Something struck me as weird.  I am a photographer, and I am always looking for the perfect image.  That was the problem, these images where perfect!  Look at the photo above. 

What struck me was the composition and lighting.  The symmetry is awesome and it follows the classic "rule of thirds" that make for pleasing and inviting imagery.  The astronaut is to the left, the LEM is in the middle with the lunar rover to the right and the mountain in the back, with a two/thirds slope.  An absolutely stunning image.  That's the problem!  The photographer that took this was a professional, not a guy who's photography skills are of taking snapshots at backyard picnics.

The photographer that took this image had total control over every aspect of it.  One of the problems I ran into in Arizona was trying to control the "side-lighting" effects of the strong sun.  Look at that mountain. Even though the light is from the side there are no shadows or gradations on the mountain.  In fact, the shadows would have been severe enough to ruin the shot.  Looks like more than one light source to me.

Check out this documentary if you dare on Google Video Moon Landing Hoax.   

THIS IS JUST WRONG

THE DRUDGE REPORT has been showing an image of Hillary Clinton that makes her look haggard and old. It is not a true image. As a photographer I put it up on editing software and many things are wrong with the photo. It is underexposed with poor contrast and lighting. I spruced the image up to show a much more pleasing image. Drudge....this is borderline propaganda. It lacks credibility....Don't stoop that low. If you don't like Hillary....Criticize her on POLITICAL matters. If all you have are "Bad Photos" then you must be out of material. I don't like her husband...never have...She might of been elected president if she had divorced his sorry ass years ago.

Recycle Your AA Rechargable Batteries

I bought a really cool camera three years ago. It is a FugiPix s5000, a really smart camera that even looks like an DSLR. It has video and many features you do not get from an amature digital camera. One problem. It will will chew the charge up on the AA batteries very quickly. THE SOLUTION: Get rechargable AA bats. They work great and hold hold 2000mm instead of the standard 800 of store bought AA's. What I did not know was that after a period of time they will stop excepting a charge. No problem, just get more.
What do you do with the old ones. I was about to throw them out, then I came accross this website. They suggest recycle them.

SUMMARY: Don't throw away your old rechargeable AA batteries - they are recyclable.

Have your AA NiMH batteries stopped accepting a charge? If so, you may be tempted to throw them away. Instead of doing this, consider contacting your battery manufacturer, local recycling agency, or waste management center to see if they can recycle your dead battery.

For a location of places you can drop off your rechargeable batteries, you may also wish to visit the following website (provided for informational purposes only). The RBRC has a simple form you can fill out to find recycling points across the USA and Canada.

The Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation - http://www.rbrc.org/

I know this sounds like a good idea but in our busy world today does anyone have the time to do this?

Davis Island And Fiddler Crabs As Pets!

In the cab business, we have the city divided into zones. Each zone has an area that we sit waiting for a call. The Davis Island stand is by the Yacht basin. It is one of the more pretty zones we have. Some Zones are measly parking lots at grocery stores. Davis Island even has wildlife.

The basin is lined with rocks and when the tide is low, wading birds come in looking for chow. I guess they are feeding off of Fiddler crabs and other varmints that are now exposed by the lower water level.

Did you know that you could make pets out of Fiddler crabs. Check out this website that tells you all about it, how to set up a tank and what to include in it and the food they eat. I imagine they are cuddly right?

Talk about food. This guy, I think he is an Egret, is looking along the sidewalk for his next meal. He eventually jumped off and headed down. I guess he found breakfast. 

Davis Island has a lot of nice things to photo like these yachts I saw. That is why I bring my camera with me because you never know when something interesting may happen.

As it turned out, I got a call at the hospital that was to go to the airport. How cool is that. Good crab photos and an airport trip. When I found out I had no credit card forms, I asked them if we could stop at an ATM and they could get 20 bucks. They seemed to balk and did not think that would work. I found out they had been stranded down here and had run out of money. Well do you think that maybe the credit card would of been taped out as well. I don't want to be a skeptic, but with no forms any way I did not take them. I could of called it in for an approval but I did not want to waste my time. Don did hold me out on stand two. Now that was cool.

PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: If you can get a reflection in an image....Do It! Still water will always give you a great opportunity for this. My first shot was just the boats with my telephoto. I saw the reflection and pulled back.

AMERICAN CURVES And The Taxi Man

This is the lovely Kristine. She is a LA model from Argentina. I picked her for a submission I am doing for a feature in American Curves Magazine. She is very exotic and hot. You can find this mag in convenience store next to the FHM and MAXIUM. American Curves features very hot women with "Implied" nudity. This is a skill level that takes a long time for photographers to master. I believe I am finding the right combo.

Sorry folks, I am not getting any younger and don't want to drive taxi forever and end up like "Tony" who has nothing and is mad at the world for it. There is something about this that is a little more enjoyable than driving a cab. I know this sounds like BS but it is a lot of hard work. You get on location early in the morning and you are there until sunset. To do this right, you must work with the sun. This image was taken one hour before sunset in an old abandoned Spanish Mission outside of Phoenix. The lighting was awesome.

I was also, after hours, able to do an art session with the beautiful and young Tiana. She is only 21 and mature way beyond her years. She is a pro from NY who is a staple with artist and art photographers. In studio you have to adjust your lights to get the shadows right. If you tried to do this with just the flash on your camera, the results would not be to pleasing. I know this image shows a little nudity, but considering how lovely and artistic the shot is I hope nobody minds.

I am supposed to be on vacation, but I was up at 5 on location until 6, shot Tiana till 9, then edited images until 11. Long day and now I am up to go do it all over again.

Kristine told me while I was shooting her that Her brother had been killed in an automobile accident a couple of years ago and that she could relate with what I was going thru with the personal loss I suffered only a few weeks ago. Sounds strange, but even this morning when I woke up I was thinking about Julianne and not the beautiful models I had just spent a day shooting. Go figure.

Ybor Eye...Sort Of Lame

I pick up this dude often. He is a good guy and all I knew about him is he works late night in Ybor. I found out that he is a photographer for a website called YborEye.com. They take photos of partiers on the 7th ave strip. He said the website would have images of hot chicks and all that stuff. I think they use a little digital camera.

I went to the site and all I could find were pics of buildings and stuff. They did have web cams set up at the Cuban Club and Chanalside. You have to be a member to view. I have no idea what you might see on these cams. There are other ones I would chose.

Go ahead and go to the site. I could not figure it out.

My New Studio LIghting Setup

This is really cool. I picked up my new studio lighting setup today. These umbrella and soft-box strobes will allow me to take lighting to a whole new level. Look at the size of those flash guns. They put out a powerful strobe of light fired into the umbrella. That is what "diffuses" the light and makes it soft and appealing, unlike the on camera flash most people use. Off camera flash is exactly what pros use.

The idea of doing location portraiture work is appealing to me, and this setup allows me to do just that, The whole thing can be setup and broken down in a matter of minutes. It can use any electrical outlet and it is very portable. It is sort of heavy, however.

I took this image through a mirror not the best way to take any photo. I was just setting it up and wanted to see what I could do "out of the box." Note the shadowing. Great. Not the greatest model I might add. Oh well, I am stoked.

That light you see on the object on top of my camera is not a flash. It is an infared transmitter that allows the photographer to work without any sync cords. How cool is that.

Can I flash you?

PS. The older I get the more I look like my identical twin broter Tom. How cool is that?

North Tampa Photography Store

I went Xmas shopping today at North Tampa Photography. It is a hugh store with an inventory of cameras, lights, scrims, used stuff and all kinds of gadgets. There is only one problem, every time I go to this place they do not have what I need. That is disappointing.

Today I had cash and was ready to buy. I wanted a Nikon flash head for off camera strobe and directional lighting. THEY HAD NO NIKON FLASH HEADS! Great.

I go to this place about every couple of months and I have yet to buy anything here. That is weird. I wonder what they are really doing in this place. I think it just might be a front for an advanced wholesale, middleman type of operation. Every time I go into this store the help are very inattentive, always on the phone and saying to someone "I'm out of the 1628S but the Sr2014S are in." Then pick up the other phone and say they only have 200 of something but call back in two days and they can complete the order.

This place is not Ritz Camera. They are supposed to cater to the professional photographer. But I wonder how many local pros could support a store like this. There are just not that many of them. They must be doing wholesale but I hope their prices are better than what they offer the general public. Very expensive.

I think I am going to just use the Internet and forget about retail places.

I Used To Be This Cute!

I went to a local petting zoo just to kill some time. It was hot man. This little guy seemed fascinated with his big 'ol Timmy. He kept following me around.

What you want to do in impromptu portraits with children(or friends) is get down to their level. I was sitting down for this one (the goat kept bothering me). Use a little bit of a wide angle and GET YOUR SUBJECT UP CLOSE!

That is all you have to do. The wide angle will make objects in the background a little smaller and make you subject the most prominent thing there is. There will be no doubt as to what you where trying to photograph.

Be careful nowadays when shooting children you do'nt know. Make sure you have spoken with their parants and they are cool about the whole thing. There are a lot of weirdos out there. Have you read the papers lately?

Portraits 101 (A Photography Tip)

Hey, this is me on a photo shoot in the American Southwest. Stark landscapes with predictable weather often make the best locations(I'm not afraid to show off my little belly.I have been trying to lose it).

There are alot of things right about this image. Let me walk you Thur it and if you use these techniques, you can start taking great outdoor portraits. Lets get started!

First of all, "Aida" is not a professional model. She was the friend of one of the girls hired for the shoot I was on. I struck up a friendship with her (got an email from her yesterday) and told her I could make her look good. She followed my direction.

Forget what Kodak has been telling people for all these years about having you friends face the sun...DON'T. Have their back to the sun. Notice Aida's shadow. It is pointing AWAY from her. That is not an accident. She her hair aglow. The sun makes a great hair light! The problem is her face is now in shadow. Here comes the exciting part. Shadow is good. Most people have crows feet and wrinkles they don't want people to see. I used a fill in strobe of 1/4 power with a diffuser on the flash to soften the light. The finished product was spectacular! She looked beautiful because I made her look beautiful. You have to ask permission folks.

Notice the UNITED CAB seal on the back of my hat. Cool. I don't know what good advertising will do out there. But oh well. At least I'm not dealing with asshole cab drivers while I'm out on Safari.

Another tip is to use  open shade. If you position your subject in front of an overhang that is producing shade, and you expose it right, you can make the background look dark. This will highlight you subject. That is good because otherwise you subject may not be noticed. It is helpful for your subject to be noticed. As this shot from the "Tim Fasano Girls" demonstrates.

I would say this is Nice.

Now this is going to sound like bullshit. I really don't like taking these kind of photos. Thats right. There is a lot of work involved, travel, waiting for the light to be just right, dealing with egos, expensive equipment and disruption of normal daily activity. The only reason I am involved in this is because when I first started on the Internet, I had a personal web site with many of my nature shots. I got very little traffic. One day I put up a picture of my former girlfriend in a one piece bathing suit, and the hit meter went off the scale.Hum? That gave me an idea. That must be what people want to see. Well, I don't want to disappoint.

Since I had experience in photography, which I inherited (My Grandfather was a photog for  National Geographic), I thought I would explore this. My web site is taking off. I am generating income. And one day I hope to get rich off of it and get out of the cab business. If people would want to see my nature stuff, I will continue to sell it in Art shows like in Hyde Park.

"Boy Cut" Shorts

What a bizarre scene. This was an out-take from when I was in Arizona at the glamour shoot. The girl standing by the wall looks like a manikin. The lady walking has on what they call Boy Cut pants. I think that means that boys like them. They get my vote.

Strange as it seems we were on location at the "Goldwater" Vulture mine. Barry Goldwater family owned this mine in the late 1800S.  His family got rice providing the infrastructure and the material, supplies for the mining operations.

This is one of the casual shots I got. I was there to improve my book in glamour/nude photography.  I told Larry that I was there to shoot "nature" images.

The only reason I'm mentioning this is because I bought a roll of film today. What? a roll of film. I thought you only shoot digital. I do. But there are still hugh advantages to film.

1) You cannot edit your images. That's a good thing. You must then strive to get it right and not lean on the delete button as a crutch.

2) you are forced to take the images that you will one day be glad you did. Instead of getting rid of that photo with the stupid look on your face. You will keep it. And 20 years later you will be glad you did.

3) Film can still be blown up to jumbo size without resolution loss. 100 speed film can be blown up to the size of a roadside billboard. Digital still has trouble with 11x16.

I will shoot my roll and let you know the results. I have not shot film in years. I am looking forward to it.

Photography Tips

OK folks. Many people have asked me what type of camera I am using to take the photos they have been seeing on my blog. It's the Canon Digital Rebel XT. The best camera in the world.

To do what I do you need an SLR camera-Single Lense Reflex. Most of the under $500 cameras you see at Circuit City or Best Buy are what I call "High End Amateur" cameras. There good cameras. But they are severely lacking what a Pro needs. First, there is no view finder, only an LCD screen that you can hardly see. Second, they claim to have big mega-pixels. They don't. Reason? The micro-processor inside is smaller than the SLR. If you want to print anything over an 8X10 you need an SLR.

Canon has the best optics. I don't care what Nikon says. The super bowl is coming up. Notice the photo dudes on the sidelines. %95 of them will have large WHITE BARREL LENSES. Those are CANONS! I'm not making this up folks. ALMOST EVERY PRO NATURE, GLAMORE, JOURNALIST AND SPORTS PHOTOGRAPHER USES CANON. That issue has long ago been settled. Plus, diG this. Cannon is significantly less expensive then Nikon!!!!

Now to the bad news. Knowing what camera I use can not make you a photographer. Knowing what paint Salvidor Dali used would not make you an artist or knowing what golf clubs Tiger Woods uses will not get you on the PGA. It takes something more than that. The good news is it can be learned if you have the eye. Let me give you a couple real examples. Look at this image and compare it to the shot of the HMS BOUNTY photo I took a couple of post down.

See anything similar? You should. First-notice Julie and the Horse (Iwas always afraid of that horse!) Well vertical tight framing was used. Almost always when doing portraits use vertical framing. In the case of the boat to show the mast there was no other way. But most amatures would of used horizontal framing! How did their expensive camera protect them from that. It can't.

Also dig this. In both images there is a deliberate use of a mid-ground object to add scale and perspective as well as draw even more attention to my subject. So that when you look at my photo you're eyes go Immediately to the subject. That is a clear and direct tool that pros use to make "eye catching" images.

If you're not sure what I am talking about look at the little sailboat to the right side of the BOUNTY. Now look at the girl on the horse to the left of JULI. Got it. You have actually been manipulated by a very clever physiological ploy. People though kept insiting to know what camera I am using. It's not the camera.

Now look at the kids at the aquarium. This photo has what I call "theme" going for it. All prize winning images have a theme or in the case of historical images they strike a universal core. They break thru to an unknown archetype of the subconscious. That is the goal of all good or great photographers. With this one you can almost feel the wonder look on the kids faces as they see the fish up close. What I did as a pro was use selective exposure to create a silhouette and add even more drama to the scene.

Another thing. two or more for some reason are always better than one.(Could write a book on this stuff-perhaps I will) I was out at Bayshore and the tide was low. I saw these ducks checking it out. With my camera I could of just taking a "snapshot." But no. Again back lighting was the order of the day. They turned in unison and I got this good one. Sometimes luck comes into play.

Here is an example of WERE TWO IS BETTER.

I was out at clear-water beach and some beer company was having a promotion. OK, it was Sheppard's beach resort. We used to spend a lot ot time there during good weather. They lifted these chicks up in the air with a crane and they began throwing out t shirts for the people below. Somehow I got there attention and they started showering me with shirts. I think I ended up with 5 of them. Well anyway, this is a blog and I do try to keep it under 500 words.

But I do think you can perhaps learn something from all this.

Again, remember vertical "tight" framing. Show your subject. I believe you'll do alright.