Author Portrait: create a black and white portrait, at twilight, of an author for use in promo materials

Artist Portrait: create a portrait of an artisan in their workspace for an ad

CEO: create a portrait of a young hip CEO for a magazine article

Kitchen Composite: Shoot a kitchen then shoot a studio portrait and composite them together for an ad

Country Music Singer: create a composite of a country music star with a beautiful background for promo purposes

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1- White on White
This was my favorite image of the quarter and also the first one I shot.

2- Something Shiny

3- Mixed Lighting (mine is strobes mixed with sunlight)

4- Three Light Portrait

This one is my roommate Shaun. He kissed a moving car while riding his bike a few days before this picture was taken.

My critique panel seemed to like these images and the head of the photography department sent me an email saying

“Great critique! You’ve made some long strides this quarter. The panel was impressed with your lighting for 2nd quarter. You have a good sense of what’s good and what’s not. You didn’t try to sell us something that wasn’t good and we appreciate that. I loved the white on white!”

I’ll post the pics from my Environmental Portraiture class tomorrow!

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The one below is some of my friends from school, (LtoR: Stewart, Sam, Missy) working on a poster project many many weeks ago. You can see my laptop in the background with a pretty picture on it. Yeah I did that on purpose!

The next three are from Lighting Class. The first one is in our studio at school, and the second and third are at a studio here in Atlanta where we sometimes have class!

This one is just a random shot of one of my studio setups for a photo I took. I’ll eventually post it online, but for now, just know that I had somebody sitting in that chair and I got a great portrait of them!

The one below is from my illustration class called Perspective. It’s pretty interesting!

This last one is my friend and classmate Monica. We were out shooting on location and I was standing in as a model while she set up the shot, I just shot this one from the hip without looking through the viewfinder and was pleased that I actually got a halfway decent shot!

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It was moderately interesting, but my favorite part was definitely tasting all the variety of drinks that the Coke company manufactures. They have over 60 options available and you just walk around and try as many as you like. I tasted about 12-15 and that was plenty.

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So anyway, I snapped a few pics when I was in town last month.

You can look at the whole gallery by clicking here.

Or you can find more pictures and a lot more information, including available kittens and prices by checking out her cattery site: www.hopescircle.com!

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The above photo is Leigh Anna, my classmate in our Location Portraits class. The photo below is my class (taught by Joel Silverman- center, red shirt, big camera) in Wynn Park learning a little about natural light portraits. I like this class a lot and look forward to really getting some good portrait practice.

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Luckily she only had minor injuries to one knee, but the car couldn’t be driven. I was close by so I went to give moral support while she waited for the tow truck. Now she’s dealing with insurance companies and doing that whole routine. No Fun!

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Luckily no one I know was hurt, although there were some fatalities and serious injuries associated with this storm. Hopefully that was the last of the spring storms and we can start enjoying the sunshine!

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She convinced me to stop and try to get a picture of it. So, as soon it saw us approaching it ran away and we chased it through the neighborhood, finally catching up to it in this scary yard.

The couple who lived there gave me permission to roam around in their yard to try to get a shot of the peacock. I was able to get a few shots but he was pretty camera shy!

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The one above is actually one that I submitted for the assignment. The assignment was to explore motion using natural light.

The one above is another one shot for an assignment called “Shaft of Light”. I ended up taking another shaft of light picture because I didn’t want to have two images from the aquarium in my critique portfolio.

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This one reminds me of how I feel when it snows!

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What amazed me about the pigs was how muscular they were. I guess it makes perfect sense, but I always thought of pigs as fat. These pigs were ripped!

I liked their ears!

My favorite shot from the day! This pig got a bath before his judging!

And this cow got a haircut before being judged!

This cow wasn’t happy with his score and went on a rampage!

I don’t know if this sign is for the animals or the owners…

What a fun day!!!

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Inside the building were all these old canisters labeled Civil Defense Carbohydrate Supplement. Some were rusted out and empty.

Some were still sealed up and not rusted. So I was pretty curious about what a Carbohydrate Supplement was, so I busted one open to take a look.

Turns out, it’s hard candy. I ate one to see what it tasted like and it tasted the same as any other candy I’ve ever eaten.

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The Steak & Shake franchise is celebrating 75 years in business and in a clever marketing ploy (or desperate?), they got nostalgic and decided the best way to draw attention to the long history of the restaurant was to lower the price of a burger to the original 1934 price of 15 cents.

Well they certainly got my attention. So I grabbed my roommate and we headed to the location on Northside Parkway NW to check it out.

Doors open at 8:00am and we pulled up at 7:45am to find a line of about 60 people.

A group Georgia Tech students even had sleeping bags and lawn chairs and obviously had been camped out for quite a while. Shaun Byun had been waiting since 2:00am. “Yeah it was cold but it was totally worth it. It’s very gratifying.”

As it turns out, the first 75 people through the door got a membership to the VIP club which allows for one free meal per month for a year. When we walk in there is a good vibe floating around the room and everyone is really excited about the occasion.

Most of the tables are already full but we manage to grab a booth and our server Dominique Haynes is prompt to take our orders. Of course it doesn’t take long for us to decide what we want because we are working off a special event menu with the special pricing.

We both order two burgers at 15 cents each but I add cheese to my burgers for an extra 39 cents each. We also get coffee for $1.49 each. Dominique brings our food and he seems genuinely surprised about how excited the customers are. “When I pulled in and saw the long line, I thought maybe I shouldn’t come to work today. It’s going to be a crazy day!”

I could talk about the taste and quality of the food, but to be honest, does it really matter since I’m only paying 15 cents for the burgers? It could be the worst meal of my life and I would still be getting a great deal.

Our combined tab is $4.71, but here’s the thing, even though we are getting burgers at 1934 prices, Dominique and the rest of the staff still have 2009 bills to pay. So this is one of those rare times when the tip is higher than the tab!

As for eating burgers for breakfast… I think I’m okay with another 75 years before I do it again.

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I was doing some research for possible locations for photoshoots in Atlanta and I read about this old abandoned prison in Southeast Atlanta. So I grabbed a couple of classmates and we had a great time poking our cameras around in these old buildings!

I encourage you to click here to watch a full screen slideshow of the images on my flickr page. They look better big! Or just click here to look at the whole set which is 28 pics.

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I’m loving it so far!

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Here he is teaching us something.

I have to shoot everyday as the sun comes and as the sun goes down. Subject isn’t that important but the lighting is very important.

Here is me walking around in Atlanta looking for good light.

Here’s another one of me taken by me classmate Lauren.

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This is my good friend Jeremy. He is a very interesting guy with an incredible personal story. I don’t have time to go into it all now, but he is writing a religious book called ‘Rockstar Devotionals: Lifestyles of the Sinners and Saints’. He shaved the cross into his chest as an every day reminder to stick to the plan God has laid out for him.

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My parents bought a little fixer upper house in the Historic District of Fort Smith last year and have been fixing it up. The plan is for my mom to have her office in the house and my dad will have a little photo studio in the house as well. The picture above shows the fresh paint job, while the picture below shows how much work is left on the inside!

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This was taken from the window of my friend’s apartment. She’s on the 9th floor.

This is pretty much what it feels like to drive in Manhattan. Kinda stressful and fast. But I got the hang of it pretty quick.

This is where the World Trade Center used to be. (kinda motion blurry because I was driving!)

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This is Allen. He worked at the Maine Media Workshops as the Digital Service Bureau Manager and we shared an office space. We also were roommates at the cabin. He’s a cool cat and possibly the best photo printing ninja I’ve met. He now assists for John Paul Caponigro. He is one of my best friends from my time in Maine and I look forward to following his blossoming career.

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I was playing with a tilt-shift lens awhile back and shot these two pics of my coworker from The Maine Media Workshops, Dave. It was really tough because I had to use a shutter speed of 1.6 seconds (which is a long time!), camera balanced on my knee, adjusting focus and composition by trial and error.

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I took this picture in January of 2007 as I traveled around the country with Jeremy Brown as he promoted his just released book “Branding the Brand: Life Inside the Electric Rodeo“. This is part of bigger project I’m working on, but I came across this one and decided to post it!

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But it’s different when it comes to writing and publishing. It gets much more difficult to write when I know the content will actually be read by people. For the last year and half my public writing (this blog) has definitely been censored and sometimes even cryptic as I dance around the things I really want to say. That’s because I know people read it. That is both a blessing and a curse. I love having an audience. Who wouldn’t? (I wish you all would comment more, but I read blogs a lot and rarely comment, so I know how it is.) But knowing people (certain people) are going to read it has definitely changed what I publish. Writing is therapeutic and I find it very helpful to write when I’m feeling strongly about something. I’ve got about 25 finished posts sitting on my hard drive, that I wrote and at the last second decided not to publish them. But that’s okay. I know I write for myself a lot and since it does help me, they’ve served their purpose. I’m OK with those posts just sitting there forever.

But what I’m really finding odd is that even when it comes to somewhat random or silly stuff, I am now talking myself out of writing because I think about the response from my audience. “Oh they are going to think that’s dumb” or “this is a waste of their time”…

Yes, it’s true, I don’t normally care what most people think, but you who are reading this, are reading this for a reason. It’s either because you like me or you like the things that I post. Either way, I’m concerned about letting you down when it comes to writing and publishing on this blog. If you look back through the archives you will definitely find a noticeable shift in my writing/posting style about the time I left Arkansas. I picked up new audience members around that time and since then I’ve been a little gun shy.

I am with okay with that though. My life and my personality has changed a lot since then and so what if my blog personality changed too. I think it’s fine.

My life is about to have another major change (as if the last 20 months hasn’t had enough change!), and my goal is to post more pictures and write more often to keep up with the things that are going on in my life. One caveat, because this is a very public blog with some professional peers reading, I am going to refrain from writing about my personal life as much and focus more on my professional development. Of course, these two areas are definitely overlapping right now and for the foreseeable future, so we shall see what comes of it.

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I haven’t shot a show in over 6 months so I feel like I could have done better but below are a few selects from the night. You can check out the entire collection here.

I love the expression on the bass players face in this one!

One of the last songs they performed on this night was a cover song called “Waiting Room” originally by a band called Fugazi, perhaps a legend in the DIY punk rock scene. You can hear the covered version on their myspace page, which I linked above. What’s interesting to me is that it was almost exactly 10 years ago that I saw Fugazi play at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas. The date was 11/24/98. I was already into live music of the rock and roll variety, but this show was one of my first big shows and it only reinforced my love of live music and the energy that comes with it. Here I am 10 years later, trotting around with a camera trying to capture the passion and energy that musicians bring to their craft.

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I spent Thanksgiving 2008 being sick in Maine and didn’t go anywhere or do anything special. I had some generous offers from fabulous friends to hang out with them and their families and I was planning to hang out with my friend Sarah, but I just didn’t feel up to it. I have a cold. My head is super congested and I’m sneezing and coughing on a regular basis. My body aches all over and it hurts just to walk around.

Instead of eating Turkey I had mac and cheese. I put a little tuna in it. Also some salt. Instead of eggnog, I had lots and lots of water. Been chugging the water. I’ve heard staying hydrated is helpful for the immune system.

Of course it is cold in Maine. But I wonder if there is any truth at all to cold weather contributing to catching a cold. Isn’t it germs? Isn’t a cold contagious because of germs? I don’t think people get a cold from the cold. I probably got a cold from the airplane rides on Saturday. An airplane is a great place to trade germs with people. I first started feeling bad on Tuesday night though. Is that a normal time progression?

But I don’t really feel too bad about missing turkey today. Two reasons. First, I’ve got a feeling some leftovers will be brought to my house on Friday and second, I already had a great big thanksgiving meal a few weeks ago. The staff and students still left here at the workshops, decided to have a themed potluck thanksgiving meal before everyone left called “Dranksgiving”. Well, actually there were a couple of themes and you could pick and choose your outfit accordingly. First there was the gangsta option. Then there was the pilgrim/Indian option. And finally there was the ugly sweater option. So inevitably we had pilgrims sportin bling and gangstas wearing ugly sweaters. Here’s a picture of Jeff showing his amazing costume:

photo by Kathleen Guill

So evidently there is a drink from the hood called Drank. This drink was the basis for the party being called Dranksgiving of course. The recipe that was used was cough syrup, dry gin, and sprite. A healthy pitcher was mixed up and most people were drinking it. So about 9:00pm food was finally ready and everyone got busy eating. The food was excellent and the party was rocking until the late hours of 11:30pm.

11:30pm!!!!! Yeah, turns out when they bought the cough syrup they forgot to get the non-drowsy kind. Add the tryptophan from the turkey and it’s the perfect recipe to pass out early. I didn’t have any drank, so I was one the last person to leave the party at 1:00am. We had parties during the summer that didn’t start until 1:00am!

Anyway, So even though I didn’t get turkey today, I’ll think I’ll be ok.

To everyone that I love, I am thankful for your support as I work to achieve my goals. Happy Thanksgiving!

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Lou

Michael

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I needed to post a picture to test something I’ve been working on and this is a picture I already had sitting on flickr, so it got published!

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I grew up in Arkansas which has incredible fall colors, but I must admit, this fall in Maine was really quite beautiful and probably more colorful than most Autumn’s in Arkansas.

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The tilt shift lens is very tricky to use. For the non-photographers out there: basically it gives you the ability to manipulate your plane of focus on an x, y, and z axis instead of just the normal x axis. So you can throw certain areas of the image out of focus. The problem is that the more you manipulate the plane of focus, the more bouncing around inside the lens the light has to do and therefore, the more difficult it is to accurately asses the needed exposure settings. Add to this that this is a very wide angle lens and has a tendency to distort the image at times and you get a situation where it takes a lot of practice to use this lens well.

Anyway, below is a flickr slideshow of some of the more successful images I got that night. If there is no slideshow showing up, try clicking here. Also, 3 of these shots were actually taken with my 50mm prime, but I’ll let you try to figure out which ones!

I’m interested to hear what you (the reader), think about using these slideshows on my blog versus what I usually do, which is just load up all the images one after the other down the column.

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The Executive Director, Charles Altschul welcomes the crowd to the show!

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I don’t claim to excel at outdoor/nature photography, I’ll leave that to my father and brother. But this lens begs to shoot birds, so here ya go.

I approached very slowly and the duck didn’t seem to mind me getting close. I got about 6 or 7 feet away and got this shot without having to crop!

I’d love to have this lens in my bag all the time! Although it is large and cumbersome, it’s really a good one to have for a variety of shooting environments. DPreview has the following to say:

The Canon 70-200mm F2.8 L IS USM is quite simply an excellent lens, which will reward users with quality images in almost every situation.

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Last summer while I was working for the Santa Fe Photography Workshops, I had the privilege of working with Dave. We worked closely together for the whole summer and he was a fantastic source of knowledge and humor. Anyway, he stopped into Maine for a quick visit before doing some photo printing and then heading overseas for some documentary photography work.

We hung out, tried to get into some trouble (very nearly succeeding), and shot some pictures in various places in Maine. I haven’t really had a chance to sort through most of the shots from then, but will post them eventually.

I would post a link to his website but he doesn’t have one. Eventually he will get one and I will link to it.

Here is Dave and the waitress that fell in love with him while she served us.

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We used 3 canon 580EXII flashes for the lighting with 2 pointed onto the makeshift backdrop and the third attached with a 4ft cord to the camera aimed at the subject.

Each photographer got a copy of the pics and is doing their own post processing. The shots below are my ’selects’ from the shoot and I wanted to share them with!

Michael

Kalie

Bruce

Carlos

Chris

Lou

Kalie

Bruce

Lou

Me

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Matt and Kevin

Deb

This is a little semi-private area of the bowling lanes and we took over the whole area!

Carlos

Carlos showing off his hours old tattoo

Bruce

Carlos bowled a spare

Lou

Michael

Matt

Good times with good friends!

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This particular photo took me a few minutes to get because the theater is so dark I have to shoot at a really slow shutter speed handheld which causes motion blur and camera movement. I stood in that spot clicking away waiting for him to do something interesting with his hands but not have them blurry. This was one of three that turned out, from about 25-30 clicks. Some people in the crowd got a little mad at me for distracting from his talking, but I don’t really care cuz I got this cool shot that will probably get used somewhere for promotion of the Maine Media Workshops.

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(I love this shot, but its slightly out of focus… damn!)

Here he watches a short video about him that he shows during his lecture.

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Most of these all could use a little more careful post processing, but this was right before I came to Maine and since then, I haven’t really had time to work on my photography much.

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Took this at costume party at my cabin a few nights ago.

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Camden, ME

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In the harbor of Camden, ME.

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In Rockport, Maine last night.

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These were taken a few weeks ago after coming out of an evening presentation at Union Hall in Rockport, Maine. My friend Tre helped out.

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My sister is pregnant. She’s about 32 weeks along in this photo and at the time of posting she is about 37 weeks. Also today is her birthday. So Happy Birthday Sis!

These were taken strolling around on the beach of the Great Salt Lake in Utah.

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Nice fog on the river when I woke up the other morning.

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It’s much harder than regular bowling. I went with some friends from the Maine Media Workshops and we had a great time. My camera got passed around a bit so some of these shots weren’t taken by me.

Allen and Tre

Tre (possibly not taken by me, not sure who got this shot)

Evan, doing some karate kid stuff

Me. Not sure who shot this, but it’s a great one!

Ryan. He was getting frustrated by the difficulty of the game.

Jenny’s Tattoo! Isn’t that awesome!?

The Dave.

You will notice that there aren’t many pics of the actual bowling. That’s because bowling is about the fun times, not the final score!

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Caught this sunrise as I drove to the airport when I was leaving Salt Lake City. I was running late, so I couldn’t stop, I rolled down the drivers window and held the camera up and took the shot… I do that a lot.

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This is the Morman Temple in Salt Lake City. These are two HDR shots that aren’t very good. I’m kind of struggling with the HDR workflow, can’t seem to get good results and I’m not sure if it is my technique or if I’m doing something wrong or not doing something I’m supposed to be doing. Oh well, I will keep working on it!

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On Antelope Island in The Great Salt Lake.

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That’s my roommate and officemate Allen doing the printing.

Of course I brought Charlie and we got our picture made!

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I got to test out a 10-22 wide angle lens while I was in Salt Lake City a few weeks ago. I loved it. These two shots are of a random dog that I met while I was roaming around taking pictures on Antelope Island.

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There’s a herd of about 500 Bison that live on Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Here are a few. The signs said don’t get off the road, so I didn’t. I really wanted to get a lot closer and I wasn’t afraid of the bison, I just didn’t want to get fined by the Park Rangers.

Click the image for a larger version

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I was on Antelope Island, a 45 square mile island in the Great Salt Lake in Utah, eating lunch with my family when a lone pelican came over to see what we were up to. Somebody threw him a chip and pretty soon about 30 more showed up and we threw out more bread and chips for them to eat. I took a bunch of pics.

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A poker tourney in action!

A girl named Jackie showed me her films on her iphone. Pretty cool!

My buddy Trevor throwing some darts!

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a very old pickup truck on Antelope Island, on the Great Salt Lake, in Utah. HDR

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This is a lake very near where I live, here in Maine.

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Here are a few more shots from my experimentation with an infrared camera.

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Fishing boat in Camden, Maine

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In downtown Rockport, Maine.

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Another HDR from Rockport Harbor in Maine.

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This sunset picture is not really very good. But it was taken when I was with a group of really special people on a really special day in my life. This was taken a few hours before my life changed dramatically.

Here’s another example of a picture that takes me back to a day in my life that was significant. The picture is interesting but not really that great. But the day I took it was a really hard day for me and just looking at it, puts me back in that day. Another dramatic change in my life happened just a few minutes before this photo was taken.

When I look at these photos I’m happy that I have them to remind of my life. That’s the power of photography.

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So yeah, I’m so hip to the scene that I check out gallery openings in New York City in my free time.

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This guy was great. We were hanging out, waiting on the subway, and he had the whole platform singing along to My Girl. One of the girls I was with went to toss a dollar into his guitar case and realized, just a second too late, that she actually tossed in a $20. The guy was very thankful!

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One of my stops in New York was the Hudson Hotel. Very interesting, but took very few pics.

The Hudson is clearly intended to be young, fun, and cheap (the rooms start at $95 a night) but also gorgeous-a reflection of Schrager’s current philosophy that contemporary life is not about how much money you have but how much you know. “It’s like an Ivy League college that’s been invaded by E-kids,” he says. Starck, reached at the Bordeaux oyster farm he retreats to in the summer, puts it more picturesquely: “It’s as if you’re a cyberkid and you go on holiday in the house of your English grandmother, who is a little strange because she takes acid.” In other words, it’s architecture as theater, a series of stage sets for the people Starck calls “our tribe,” those who, whether in New York, London, Tokyo, or Milan, seek out a certain measure of style. (from Vogue)

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So I visited the ancient Mayan Ruins of Tulum the last time I was down in Mexico, but unfortunately I had barely any time to shoot before getting ushered out by the guards. It was almost closing time when I got there.

The Tulum ruins are the third most-visited archaeological site in Mexico, after Teotihuacan and Chichen Itza. It is popular for the picturesque view of the Caribbean and a location just 128 km (80 miles) south of the popular beach resort of Cancún.
Here’s some more info about Tulum.

That last one is an unimpressive HDR attempt. I think it sucks, but I’m posting it anyway, just because.

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My friend Madelyn took me to a bar in the East Village called “The Telephone” and they had these cool old red phone booths, so I had to take a few pictures. The pic above was taken by her friend Scott after I set the camera up.

Of course since we were in a bar called “The Telephone” I had to get a pic of a cell phone.

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I came across this demonstration in New York City and shot a couple of shots before moving on.

I really wish I had a wider lens to really get this whole scene in one shot. Oh well…

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An interesting group of people to say the least.

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New York City is a crazy place with a whole lot of character. It’s packed with things to see, smell, hear, and feel. There is so much going on that sometimes it’s hard to find anything to focus on. I had that trouble a little bit as I was roaming around the city shooting things that I found interesting. These are photos of the few signs that caught my attention.

Can anyone tell me what that means?

Is there anyone that isn’t excited about this movie?

Yeah they were closed the first time I tried to go, but I did make it!

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In New York City. Obviously manipulated.

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I have no idea why all these cops are standing around Penn Station. I thought about asking but just didn’t.

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The concrete jungle is what they call it. I think it makes interesting pictures…

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I have a love for street vendor food. I have a pretty strong stomach and can eat almost anything so generally I’m unconcerned about eating ’street meat’. At this vendor I just got some chicken wrapped in Pita bread. It was tasty!

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I missed my exit while on the Jersey Turnpike so when I tried to get myself turned around it took a little time and effort. It was raining and there was a lot of traffic which added to my stress level. I probably shouldn’t have been fiddling with my camera, as that was the reason I missed my exit in the first place!

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This is actually part of a bridge called the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. A very cool half bridge/half tunnel, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel connects Virginia’s Eastern Shore with the Virginia mainland at Virginia Beach near Norfolk.

I’m planning to do a post on deepdisch.net about this with some more pics.

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Special thanks to Angie for sharing her studio time and Lena for sharing her lights! You guys rock!

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UPDATE: Here’s a link to the website of the sale… http://www.growingkidssale.com/

My sister is pregnant, so she and her husband went all out and bought tons of stuff. (My mom took the pic above. I would never take somebody’s picture while they were blinking!!! haha!)

My mom is very excited about her first grandbaby. That’s her in the middle with my sister and her husband.

I’m jealous of the kid who gets this model car! It’s awesome!

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This was a cool model car that came by my table when I was volunteering at the Growing Kids sale in Fort Smith, Arkansas in April.

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I saw this family several times when I was in San Miguel de Allende, last fall. I snapped this one in haste and i’m not super fond of it, but a friend of mine loves it, so I went ahead and posted it here.

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Here’s another shot from San Miguel de Allende. I went to a small circus and this was the clown who ran around trying to sabotage the other performers because he was jealous.

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He hangs out in Angel Tunnel in Central Park and does something he calls “prayforming”.

Check out his website to learn more about him and his vision of the world. http://www.skthoth.com/.

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I got to see one of my favorite bands a few nights ago and as I often do, I took my camera!

Shooting bands is really a lot of fun but it’s pretty hard work both physically and mentally. When I shoot a band, my goal is to try to capture the passion of the band in a photo. Jarris always plays with a ton of energy and passion, so I really enjoy shooting them. It helps that they are all totally cool dudes and their music is amazing. If you haven’t heard them, please check them out on purevolume or myspace.

If the sampling below isn’t enough, I’ve set up a gallery of about 100 shots from the show that you can see by clicking here.

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For those of you unfamiliar with the sport, it’s basically a mix up of various fighting styles. People are cross trained in multiple styles including, boxing, kickboxing, wrestling/grappling, jujitsu, and others. Once you are in the ‘octagon’ pretty much any fighting style can be used. The fight can be ended by either a knockout or a tapout or if needed, a judges ruling after 3 rounds. Usually the fight goes to the floor and one of the fighters is able to get the other one into some kind of hold which causes them to give a quick tapout signal to the referee. Some of these fights last less than a minute.

Here you can see the fighter on top in a choke hold and he is tapping out.

What’s cool about this sport is that a every fighter has a chance against every other fighter. For example, you might be 7 foot tall and be a great boxer but if you get taken to the floor you could easily get choked out by a guy 5 feet tall with great grappling skills. In the photo above, the guy with the tattoos actually lost the fight shortly after this photo was taken.

It’s definitely a lot less chaotic than it looks. The placement of the legs and arms is very strategic and each movement has a very definite purpose.

I love this shot…

This guy lost his fight. He was pretty torn up when I saw him a few hours after the match.

This is my only shot from the championship fight. It lasted about 40 seconds before a clean jab to the chin knocked this guy out cold. He eventually recovered, but it was a rather anticlimactic championship fight.

Here is the winner from the championship fight. He barely worked up a sweat! I guess that’s why he’s the best!

Anyway, I learned some stuff about shooting action and sports, which was my goal, and I had a great time while watching the fights. Shoutout goes to Chris and Christian of Outrage Fight Gear for hooking me up with access!

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Muldrow is about halfway between Sallisaw and Fort Smith.

So I get my camera ready for action and I go out and take some pictures, but nothing is really happening yet, although the tornado sirens were going off. I shot this picture of the clouds.

You can’t tell from the picture, but there are two layers of clouds and each layer is moving a different direction and quickly, which means rotation.

But pretty soon, it got really dark and the wind started blowing. I hung by the front door of her house for as long as I felt safe, but once it started to hail, I went inside and hid out in the hallway. The power went out and so we were sitting around in the hallway fiddling with batteries and radios and flashlights.

I’m kicking myself for not grabbing my little video camera and recording the noise, but the wind and hail was about as strong as I’ve heard/seen it. It definitely had the roar of a tornado. I remember the tornado that hit Fort Smith and Van Buren in 1996 had a very similar vibe and did very similar damage.

Once the sound died down and we came out of hiding, we surveyed the damage. It was still raining very heavily so I donned a rain jacket, grabbed my camera and went out shooting!

This shot is a long exposure of a tree that fell and blocked the road. The power is still out at this point and it’s still raining. It was pretty much pitch black out, except for the lightening and people’s flashlights, both of which illuminate this shot.

This guy was in a state of shock. He just sat on the fence not knowing what to do. I was able to touch him and I took several shots of him without much a response. Eventually he did fly away though.

My sister’s house had some damage.

This is in the ceiling of her garage. The high winds blew many shingles off the roof and the rain came right through the attic and dripped out of the electric outlet.

There wasn’t really a whole lot for me to shoot, because it was raining and very, very dark. We knew the damage was pretty significant, but until we got some light we couldn’t tell how bad.

The storms lasted throughout the night and I didn’t get much sleep.

In the morning, I got up and went out to take more pictures. The storm knocked down tons of trees, but luckily none landed on the house.

This one did fall down into the yard and crushed the fence.

A neighbors mailbox

A neighbors house

Another neighbor’s house

So during the night, the constant rainwater dripping through the roof, into the attic, and through the ceiling, caused it collapse onto my sister’s car. Luckily, there was no damage to the vehicle.

Charlie helps me check out the damage. There were shingles everywhere.

That’s the tree from the earlier shot after it’s been cut up and cleared out of the road.

After checking things out in the neighborhood, we decide to go find something eat. There’s still no electricity in Muldrow so cooking isn’t going to happen.

Here’s some shots from around town.

After the tour, I help my sister’s husband put a tarp on the roof and chainsaw up some of the fallen trees.

By the time we finish, the power has been restored and I get to work finishing the edits on the photos from last weekend.

Here is a link to more info about the storm from CNN.com

From CNN:

In far east-central Oklahoma, Muldrow was particularly hard hit, with state officials reporting damage to more than 200 homes and businesses from straight-line winds. The city was pounded with heavy rains, marble-sized hail and sustained winds of more than 60 mph, Officer Jose Flores said.

I have heard that Fort Smith had incredible hail damage with car windows being busted out and any west facing windows on buildings and houses also being busted. The flooding is supposed to be pretty severe too, although at the time of this writing, I haven’t been over to my parents house to check out the damage.

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I used autofocus and a few of these aren’t quite perfect. oh well…

She was a terrible model. She was camera shy and wouldn’t hold still. It was fun though.

These are my sister’s poodles. I had treats to try and get Charlie to pay attention to me and they weren’t about to miss out on the treats!

Daisy!

Maggie!

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A sunrise service in Cancun, Mexico.

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Another shot from the sunrise service in Cancun, Mexico.

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This is during a sunrise service in Cancun, Mexico. About 50 people got together on the beach for a service.

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Another sunrise from Mexico.

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This is a sunrise not a sunset looking east from the coast of Mexico.

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From a market in Mexico.

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