Total Lunar Eclipse

So we just had a great Lunar Eclipse the other night and i went out to get some shots of it. It was truly amazing and probably the best that i have seen. Before i get into what i did here is a little information on Lunar Eclipses.
A lunar eclipse is basically the opposite of a solar eclipse. a solar eclipse is when the moon lines up in a way that it blocks out the light from the sun casting its shadow on us. A Lunar eclipse is where we line up so that we clock out the sun and cast our shadow on the moon. During a total lunar eclipse you can still see the moon but it will be a orangish color. This is because although we are completely in front of the sun, the suns light still bends around our planet and travels through our dusty atmosphere which causes a reddish tint to show up on the moon. People call this a blood moon.
 On April 14th at about 10:25 the lunar eclipse started. I had my camera hooked up to my directly to my scope (6" Celestron SC CGEM). I then adjusted my camera and took photos about every 4 seconds throughout the whole event. One of the photos that i took (which you can see below or on my astrophotography page on my site) came out truly amazing. In the photo you can see 3 things happening. One is that you can see the stars behind the moon that are normally blocked out by the glare. The second is that you can see the orangish tint being cast on the moon and the normal lightings on the opposite side. Lastly you can also see this blue tint which i believe is a small reflection from our upper atmosphere caused by the blueness of our seas.
The whole event lasted about 4.5 hours and was awesome the whole time. From about 10:30pm-12:06am we were able to watch as the earth shadow slowly creeped in on the moon. This kind of looked like the moon was starting to disappear as this black shape started to creep across it. Then from about 12:06am-1:15am the moon was completely in our shadow and was a beautiful orange color. Then from 1:15am-3:00am the moon started moving out of our shadow and i watched as the dark shadow started to leave the moon.
If you missed the eclipse do not worry. This year is going to be great as there will be one about every 6 months. The next eclipse will be October 8th at about 3:00am so either plan to stay up or wake up early as you don't want to miss this.

SDCC 2013

My first convention I ever went to was Anime Expo 2013. After that convention I was hooked and could not wait to go to another. I have tried before without much effort to get tickets to comic-con San Diego ( the first, biggest, and best of all comic conventions) but never had any success. After hearing from out expert convention pal Patty who has a table at most conventions, that there is still a tone of stuff to do outside of SDCC we decided to go for at-least one day. We both last second got Sunday off of work and were able to even find a cheap room in a hotel less than a mile away. So we went and she dressed up as this amazing vintage Lolita. We started walking around but had no idea what to do. Eventually this guy came running from out of the building to take her picture. The then came up to me and asked if we were working together. I told him that we were together and decided to come last second. He then asked if we wanted to join him inside. I told him that we did not have any tickets that’s when he said “ill give you some”. I first remembered being warned to not take anyone’s badge or attempt to buy one from someone as it could get you banned. So I told him that we would love it but that unless it was proper and legal we did not want to risk it. It was then that he pointed to his very obvious shirt and bade that said SDCC2013 staff. I immediately said yes and he went off to get that situated. I them thanked amber for looking so ummmm Sexy as she just got us a badge. A few minutes later he took us in past the security and into the badge pickup area and personally arranged for the staff to print a badge for the both of us. He then took us on a tour and introduced us to many great amazing people that most do not get to meet and left us to enjoy the rest. We loved it!!!!!! the only issue we had was all the free stuff he gave us which was killing my back and all the attention that Amber got as we spent most of the time waiting for groups of 100-200 photographers which would surround her to eventually let us go but she loved the attention and I was too amazed at how much attention she got to be upset. After we got home I immediately applied to be a professional and got approved as a trade professional. So I successfully bought my badge and Amber’s and I am in the middle of trying to figure out housing and transportation ( anyone want to help out here lol) So if you were lucky enough to get a badge be sure to look for the Fat Man and Snow White and say heeey Fat Man if you find us.

Amber Arden and soon Amber Yaras

As I have mentioned before my Fiance is Amber Arden. I have been with her now for about 11 years and they have been the best 11 years of my life. We meet in high school and it is one funny and great Story.

I High school I saw Amber around my school a few times but I had no idea who she was or even what her name was. Then one day I needed to get my hair cut so I walked from my house to the salon a few blocks away. I have been to this salon a few times but I would go normally after practice on Saturdays. This time however I was running a day late and it was the best time to ever be late to something. When I walked through the door I saw Amber at the counter instantly reconsigning her from the times ive seen her around school. We started talking and she told me that her mother was a stylist at this salon. There was a long wait so but she talked to me the whole time. It turned out to also be her birthday so as a gift on the spot I gave her a dollar which was the best dollar I ever spent. I eventually got my normal spring time football hair cut of a buzz cut and left. The next day I went to school and made sure that I found her during lunch and would spend most of the time hanging with her (mostly flirting) and getting to know her. I knew right away that this was someone that I wanted to be with. Summer came but we never stooped talking and would meet up as often as we could. Eventually school started back up and so did football and Amber would come to every home game. I was on JV at this time so we could sit together on Friday nights after my game and watch the Varsity team play. One such game a few weeks before commingling I asked Amber to the homecoming dance and thankfully she said yes. The Funny part was that I thought she was there with the people next to us as they would talk sometimes but she was actually there alone waiting for me and after she said yes I went home leaving her all alone for the rest of the game (still sorry about that). Home coming finally came and I must say that it was one of the best nights of my life. We hit it off big time that night (Not in the way some of you are thinking). After that we were in a much more intimate relationship. From that point on you could not get us to spend one second apart from one another. We went everywhere together, we would go to the movies every Friday when there was no more football and would hang out on the weekends. After high school nothing changed we still spend every second with each other. You could say that we were practically married because of the way we were together. She took care of me when I needed help and I would take care of her. She gave me encouragement and I gave her encouragement. She comforted me I comforted her. Our friends were our friends not her friends or my friends but our friends so we could always bee together and no one would be upset. We spend 10 years together and on our 10 anniversary (of the homecoming night) I took her and a few of our friends out to Joshua Tree not just for astrophotography but as a good setting for me to propose. Once I worked up the nerve I finally warned my friends who knew about my plan and I turned amber towards the Milky Way and I took a knee behind her and asked her to turn around. I then attempted to ask her to make me the happiest man in the world but I flubbed it and said something like will you keep/make/jfhfksjdfhdf me the happiest man in the world. After about 30 min of her crying she finally said yes and now we are in the fun great times of wedding planning.

  

Cosplay Discovery

For a long time I was only focusing on my astrophotography and fine art photography. My Fiance Amber also had her hobbies and passion which was focused around fashion and burlesque, but we were both geeks and big fans of Disney. One day her Idol Dita Von Teese talked to her on the phone and mentioned that she sounded like Snow White and something clicked for the both of us. I noticed then that she looked, acted and sounded just like Snow White. Her Coworker and BFF Misa Kelly was already a experienced Cosplayer who just happened to have a Disney princes party company, she also pulls off a great Princes Jasmine. After planning out the details we got Amber’s Snow White costume figured out and assembled and did a quick photo shoot and the results were amazing. We then attended Anime Expo to Visit our friend Patty who had a spot in the artist alley and Amber went not as snow white

but as a simple Lolita. The Photographers could not get enough of her. At the same time I brought my camera and took shots of other cosplayers and we both discovered just how much fun and how great people are at the conventions. A few months later Amber finally went to Comikaze as Snow White and this time the photography frenzy around here was almost too much, but the amount of fun we both had was un-describable. During the multiple conventions I met many amazing cosplayers and have had the great privilege to photograph them when they were at their best. Because these cosplayers put so much time money and effort into their characters it is only right that I give them the best picture that I can. Every time the cosplayers see their photograph they are always incredibly grateful and happy with regardless of how many other amazing photos they have. That’s one of the best things about conventions and cosplayers is that they work just as hard if not harder as the photographers but that everyone is grateful, energetic, and they don’t judge you. Conventions are one of the few places that you can live out your dreams and no one will give you crap about how you look or tell you that you are not good enough, etc. That all changes once the photos are up and online so I always remind cosplayers that are new to either not read the comets or try their best to ignore them, because no matter how good you look some ass wipe is going to say stupid ass shit and to those people I say to please go jump off a bridge because we really do not need you in this world if you are going to put others down.

Fat Man Begins

Due to all of my astrophotography and fine art photography that was building up and all the feed back that I was getting from people who saw my photos I decided to start a photography business so that I could offer my services and sell/show my photos. Like any business you need a name and as you can see my company name is defiantly a unusual one. Why Fat Man? That’s simple, my nick name is Fat Man because I am a fat man. The Fat man name started when I was in High School. I was a lineman on my schools football team and when I started I was quite small. The other linemen that I hung out would take great pride in their size and how much they could eat and how strong they were. Eventually I put on the mussel and a little bit more of the fat and was a bona-fide fat man. Asides from playing football I was also a member of the news broadcast system for our school called Apache News (APN). One day one of my fellow fatties said that my lower third should say Eric Yaras AKA the Fat Man. So on one of my reports about a recent game our team had I used that lower third and the whole school loved it (besides a few teachers and sensitive people who found it offensive). Ever seance then I was the Fat Man. So it was only natural that my Photography company share my great title.  

Fat Mans first blog!

Well to start off my Name is Eric and I am the owner and main Photographer of Fat Man Photography. I specialize in Astrophotography, Fine Art Photography and cosplay photography.

I must admit that I never thought about becoming a photographer for most of my life. I thought that I would focus on my work on film as a Foley artist and lighting director. On the side of working on films I was extremely interested in astronomy. Space is just so incredibly beautiful and interesting and the physics of it all are just mind blowing. Every summer I would make frequent trips out to Joshua Tree in California to take advantage of the dark skies to see the beautiful milky way. Sometimes I would bring my telescope and look at nebula's, planets and galaxy’s. One of these adventures out there my friend Ryo Shiina a great DP brought out his DSLR. We took some wide angle shots of the milky way and what I saw blew my mind. I have seen images of the milky way in magazines and articles but I never though that we would be able to create the same shot with such ease.

The next visit we bought a adapter and hooked the camera up to my telescope. The first shot was of Saturn and I was not so satisfied with it. So we pointed my camera at Orion’s nebula and then my jaw doped. With just one 30 second exposure the amount of detail that we saw was amazing. You always here about how cameras and lenses will never be as good as the human eye but with astrophotography the camera is thousands of times better because, thanks to long exposures we are able to capture the faintest details of celestial bodies. That was all I needed to jump start my life as a photographer. After a little practice and research I went out and bought a DSLR and upgraded my telescope then started shooting. Some of the palaces that I would go to for astrophotography had the most beautiful landscapes so before the sun would set I would take my camera around and start shooting. This then led to some nature shooting, macro, long exposure, Ect and before I knew it I was obsessed with all forms of photography.