With so many pictures of other people on my blog, I thought it would be time for you guys to see some more of me.  After all, that is what the world needs right… joking.  Anyways, I thought I’d take a more personal note to this blog post for a number of reasons, but mostly because I’d like to talk (brag) about how awesome my girlfriend, Allison is.  Here are some little known facts about Allison and myself:

1. We enjoy nachos 100% of the time.  We even reserved two domain names (www.deleriouslyfull.com and nachobuzz.com) to blog about our affinity for nachos.  You’ll see we have yet to actually post anything there.  Our goal is to eventually get free nachos from restaurants in order to review them.
2. Allison has a funny thing about arm spasms.  Sometimes she likes them and says things like “my arm is spasming again… that’s my workout for the day”.  Other times she wants to destroy her arm because it bugs the crap out of her.  My goal is to get one of these reactions on video
3. I love the temperature in the car a bit colder than she does.  In fact, I think she just likes it blazing hot.  I believe her quote was, “I don’t turn down the heat until my eyes are dried out”.  Yup, that is how hot she likes it in the car.  Whenever she drives, I always roll down the window for hopes of retaining some sort of normal body temperature.  This inevitably ends in her rolling up the window and me trapping my arm in it.  I always lose the debate over temperature and have learned not to wear any coats in the car.
4. There are many debates I actually always lose to Allison and my married friends say to just get used to it and that the quicker I learn the better.  The one debate I will not give up, however, is the usefulness of the iPhone.  Allison is sort of a purist and tries to make fun of me for using my iPhone all of the time.  I think she believes that phones are for talking and texting.  Part of me thinks she is just jealous of the superior Bejeweled capabilities.  In fact, whenever I leave the dinner table, or walk away from my phone at any time, I always find her attempting to, and eventually completing the task of beating every high score on every game.  It drives me crazy how she beats all of my high scores so quickly.  Here are some examples from Doodle Jump and Bejeweled (all of my games look like this): 
5. Also, make sure you check out Allison’s Etsy Store to buy some awesome crocheted hats.

Now to explain a bit of what I did on Valentine’s Day.  It was basically a very random and very fun hodge-podge of events that included a speed dating challenge, target shooting with a .22 rifle, catch phrase, squash carving, poetry/acrostic competition, shuffleboard competition, and a few other challenges.  Take a look at some of our date:

After a late night adventure up to Rocky Butte Viewpoint in Portland, Oregon Allison and I decided to return at 6:00am the next morning.  Here are all of the photos we took on Valentine’s Day as well as the next morning.

During the blistering winter storms along the east coast, the left coast was filled with sunlight and warmth.  I was watching my twitter feed (@Onephotonerd) when @DaleChumbley chimes in with the idea to go on a photowalk.  Here are some of the shots from our photowalk:

My Fav:

I’m sitting at my desk looking down 2,600 images from one wedding, 1,500 from another, a TTD (trash the dress) session, and preparations for two more weddings this weekend when I realize… I have not had any “me” time!  This happens frequently and just as frequently as it happens, Daniel Wood is always there to save me from #facemelt.  He mentioned ice cream which sounded good but what is the one thing that is better than ice cream you ask? Homemade popsicles!!!  Allison gave me the idea last week and I had forgotten about them in the freezer.  I thoroughly enjoyed my popsicle but Daniel broke his popsicle stick (stir stick from Starbucks) and then we just filmed his popsicle melting for a cool HD time-lapse.  Check out our office shenanigans!

My first video.  I’m still learning the software but I’m loving video stuff!

http://www.focusdesigns.com

These.

are.

so.

much.

fun.

Seriously.

I have the priveledge of working near this guy, Daniel Wood.  We both occupy the same building, VERTO, which is a business incubator in downtown Vancouver, Washington.  There are many other really cool people here, Logan Thompson of Blinksource is our newest addition and he has helped me with the new design of davidmartschinske.com Thanks Logan!  Also included in VERTO are Indelisa Montoro who I partner with as a wedding florist.  She has delivered some of the most amazing displays of flowers! not to mention that they smell amazing.  Check out her company, Belle Jour.  If you end up ordering from her, tell her I sent you and she’ll give you $100 off!

You may not know it if you’re new to Camas but EVERY citizen knows (or should know) about the Camas Lily Fields.  As you walk around Lacamas Lake you fill find them located on the upper-most part of the trail. It’s a great place for taking your dog.  Once we let Tucker off of his leash he ran all over the place!

My original goal for taking Tucker to the Lily Fields was to do some promotional work for Camas.  99.2% of Americans agree that Camas is the best place to live in the world.  The other .8% live by the Mill.  Actually, I have heard from a few different people that the City of Camas is particularly interested in photos showing off what there is to do in Camas.   Here is round 1 of what I dub The Camas Promotional Tour.

Meet Tucker, he likes fetch on the Lacamas Lake trail!

Here we are in the Lily Fields, Tucker needs a quick breather.

He may or may not have tried to eat the Camas Lilies at one point.

I think he’s rather studious.

By the way, my dog is single and I’m looking to breed him. Any purebread yellow labs out there?

Also, my brother is single. He would really like a girlfriend.

Quick! Before Tucker eats his head!

Here’s a macro of some lilies

I don’t know what these are called, I just call them buttercups.

And now wrapping up a day with the dog…

For this night lighting setup things did NOT go as planned to say the least. Here was the lighting setup:

We had to use a few unorthodox methods for this lighting setup for a few reasons:

1. I ran out of sync cables for my Pocket Wizards
2. I did not have enough Pocket Wizards
3. Did I mention that I would like another Pocket Wizard?!

I had to trigger my B800 with a plastic bag (GHETTO stylin’) because the optical trigger was located in the rear of this unit.

As you can see, this was a little “inventive” and I think Dale must have been thinking, “this guy’s a whackjob!”  It worked out great… the bag caught the key light and set off the optical trigger that is INconveniantly located behind the strobe.  This location makes it difficult to trigger in an outdoor location.  I’m sure there is a purpose behind placing it there but at the time it was frustrating to me.

I would have loved to have used a few more PW’s in order to pull off a hair light but we still had a really fun time! Take a look at our fun:

The two side exposures of Dale were taken by me popping off the 580 EX II while the shutter was still open.

Goodbye Dale…

Noooo! He’s shooting me with a 580 EX II. Mine did not work as planned!

Leapfrog.  This one is actually taken by firing the Alienbees twice.  That is the beauty of long exposures, we had enough time to recompose.  You can tell this s popped twice because you can see grass where his leg SHOULD be.

Hold up! I’m not sure what I was thinking here.

As you can see, I’m loving my G2 SWAG! Thank you G2 Outdoor Living, you guys rock!

As you can see, I love my SBU! Order yours today and use coupon code: dmart140 to save 140 bucks!

I love my dog (yellow lab), and he loves everyone.  When things are slow with photography, I enjoy long walks on the beach… with my dog, Tucker.  Actually, we run together a lot.  He has so much energy it is astounding.  I took some pictures earlier of him playing with Rosie (the golden retriever).  Don’t let these photos fool you, they actually get along very well.  They just like to flair out their teeth a lot.  haha!

Best friends.

Now this is dogfighting… not really.

She always has this face on.

Tucker finally reached the stick. He really didn’t like the water at first but after a while he slowly creeped on in. Eventually he jumped in completely and found out that he is a fantastic swimmer.

You go boy!

My brother, Jason teases Tucker.

Tucker walks on Lacamas Lake

The Camas Washougal Soccer Club ran a training academy for U-11 (10 year olds) yesterday.  It was a great turnout with over 75 kids.  Coaches worked with theser  Special thanks to Colin Amos and Gary Osterhage for letting me take these photos.  I had a great time with them and I’ll just let the photos speak for themselves… as I always do.

Hey, is that Gary Martschinske in his normal soccer garb in the background?

A good coach even picks the hair scunci’s for the girls.

And one of my favorite pictures. You have to click on it to get the larger picture.

They sure liked throwing balls at the photographer on the roof. Previously, they asked me how I got on top of the roof. My response was “I’m your friendly neighborhood spiderman”. That was when they tossed the balls at me. No respect for superheros today.

A little more action for the coaches’ pictures

“Keep your eyes open” – Colin Amos (Current CWSC President)

I love the expression on her face!

And we’ll finish it off with a “kick” into this year’s season.

It’s the ultimate marriage… unicycles and cameras! Who would have thought that photography can be 6.5 times better if you do it WHILE riding the SBU (Self Balancing Unicycle). For those of you who don’t know what an SBU is… GET WITH IT!!! Daniel Wood, who started Focus Designs created this unicycle that balances on its own. No joke. It works similarly to the Segway by Deka but is much more inefficient. Segways require two wheels and at Focus Designs, we feel that in this green society you can’t be wasting your time with two wheels when really all you need is one.  Also, Adam Savage of Mythbusters (Twitter: @donttrythis) will be riding one of the SBU’s in some episodes that will air sometime soon!  It is my understanding that Adam will ride the SBU in an episode dealing with cars and busting the myth of being able to fling someone off of the top, and another episode called Bullets: Dropped Versus Fired.  We look foreward to seeing this soon!  Go Adam!

Anyways,  I followed Daniel with my unicycle and my Canon 5d mk II.  Good thing I did not fall! Here are the pictures…

And how often do you see an electric self balancing unicycle, a dude on a clown bike, and another dude riding a bike with a broken arm? Haha.

Somebody has a fan club!

Smoked by the SBU!

For more info on the SBU check out Focus Designs’ website at: Http://www.focusdesigns.com and drop Daniel and email telling him how awesome his invention is and that you want one. If you beg he may let you test drive one!

Just check it out:

And here is me learning to ride one:

Oh and did I fail to mention that both of these videos were done by Jordan Thompson of Valeo Visual.  He’s the MAN for video… seriously.  He’s won countless awards (well you can probably count them) from the 24 Hour Film Festival (Apple), winner of the National Collegiate Speed Film Competition, Featured in Seattle Times and in the Seattle International Film Festival… Oh and not to mention a Telly Award under his belt!  He’s got skeeelz.

Ok, alliteration much?  Translation:  I have upgraded to a new computer with Jorgen’s help (AND tigerdirect, received my new business cards, and purchased a new desk via craigslist.

The stats (if you care):

• Asus P6T Intel X58 Socket LGA1366 Motherboard
• Intel Core i7-920 2.66 Ghz 8M LGA1366
• 12 Gigs Corsair PC12800 DDR3 1600Mhz RAM
• Seagate 1.5 TB Serial ATA Hard Drive 7200/32MB/SATA-3G
• NVidia GeForce GTX 260 896MB DDR3 PCI-E 2.0
• Corsair TX750W 750W Power Supply
• NZXT Tempest Blk ATX Mid Tower Case

The Shots (because I care):

wow, these power supplies get a faux-velvet case?!

These look cool!

Got Card?

Yes, I got card, “business card!” These came in the mail this week as well from the printers.

Oh, and did I mention that I’m running Windows 7 right now? There were a few issues with drivers saying that the OS is not compatible. So far, Google Chrome will NOT work, nor will Mozilla. This is frustrating for me. It will not load my chipset drivers, and when I try to install programs every now and again it flips out. Hmmm… Otherwise, I think Windows 7 is pretty neat.