Camera Bodies:

• 1D mk II
• 5D mk II
• 20d
• iphone (had to throw this one in because it is normally the only camera I take on vacation/out to parties)

Camera Lenses:

• canon 16-35mm f2.8 mk II wide angle lens
• canon 24-70mm f2.8 standard zoom lens
• canon 70-200 f2.8 IS zoom lens
• canon 300mm f2.8 IS telephoto lens
• canon 50mm f1.2 mk II
• sigma 105mm f2.8 macro lens
• canon 28-135mm IS zoom lens (this is a great scouting lens)
• canon 1.4x extender
• canon extension tube (for extreme close ups with the 70-200)

Lighting:

• Elinchrom Ranger RX Kit
• Canon 580 ex II Flashes
• Large assortment of light modifiers, reflectors, softboxes

Computers:

• Mac Pro with 24 inch HP monitor
• 15″ Macbook Pro laptop (the old one without the glossy screen)
• 12.1 inch Fujitsu tablet (great for client meetings, note taking, sketching)
• Custom built (by me) PC with windows 7 and a lot of really great parts
• Lots of hard drives both internal and external
• Wacom Intus 3 tablet (love this!)

Programs:

• Adobe Creative Suite 4 Master Collection
• Adobe Lightroom 2
• Final Cut Studio 2
• Cinema 4D
• Microsoft Office 2007 Suite

Web services:

• Fatcow (because godaddy doesn’t do drupal hosting and I need it for a client)
• Godaddy
• Quickbooks online
• livebooks (but in the next month I will be finishing my new custom site)
• Google (use there e-mail, rss reader)
• Mobile Me (greatest program for syncing multiple computers and phones)
• Safari & Firefox

I am hoping that in the next few months I will be getting into not just why I have the gear I have but also how I use it to create images and please clients, if you have any specific question just leave them in the comments and I will try to answer them the best that I can. Thats it for today, I have to get back to finishing some edits and sending some invoices, hurray for working on saturday!

Q. What are you doing?

A. Taking pictures for (insert name of company here)

Q. Thats cool how did start doing that?

A. Well its a long story but basically I had a job as a teacher for a summer camp and one day I brought in my camera to take some pictures of the Kids and staff. My boss glanced at the photos, thought they were great and offered me a position as the marketing/photography/general computer guy. From there I have meet a great number of people who liked my work and wanted me to take photo’s for them. Two years later I have my own business, website and now blog.

Q. Thats a really nice camera, how much did it cost?

A. Thank you, I do have a nice camera, it cost a lot of money, but not nearly as much as the lenses. And to take really great pictures there is a lot more gear that you need. Well thats a lie, not every picture requires tons of gear. In fact some of my favorite photo’s are from a waterproof disposable camera I was playing with on vacation in hawaii. But each job is different and I will be going into gear in a later post.

Q. So where can I see some of your work?

A. My website would be the best place to see my work www.alexthorpephoto.com other then that I have been published in a few magazines, a book, and several websites/online publications

Q. Can you help me figure out how to use my camera/ and or make a recommendation on what to buy?

A. Yep, I will be making future posts on gear. If you have any specific questions just put them in the comments and I will address them.

Thats it for now, I will post more in the coming weeks. Have a nice day