Last week I went down to Dynasty Studios in the Pike Place Market area of Seattle to shoot Friends Like Enemies as they record their first EP!

This was the first time I ever seen, let alone shot, a band recording an album. Music has always been a big part of my life, so this was a real treat for me, and I had a blast doing it! It was really neat to actually watch and see how a record is put together.

Kevin, the drummer, played barefoot, which he apparently does at all his shows!

Mixing the studio magic!

Sean Farmer, the band’s manager making sure everything runs smoothly.

And it’s an immutable law that all photographers dislike people taking their photos, but I had to take at least one shot of Christina who was also shooting that night!

I recently did another fashion shoot with one of my favorite models, Becky Franklin while she was back home for the holidays from college. We wanted to go for several different looks including a fabric-blowing-in-the-breeze look, a more straight-up fashion editorial look, and an out-in-the-rain look. A friend of mine, the wonderful Colleen Willhight had yards and yards of this wonderful white fabric left over from her son’s wedding and she kindly let us borrow it for the shoot. I’ve been wanting to capture motion a lot more, so this seemed like a very nice and elegant way of doing it. Her brother, Pat, helped out a whole lot on the shoot and was great to work with. He helped me carry lights, toss fabric, and generally be awesome.

We shot these down on the University of Washington campus in Bothell where they’ve got a great little nature preserve area. I catch the bus that stops here to and from work every day and I’ve been dying to use it as a back-drop. The textures and colors are amazing and create a wonderful backdrop for this sort of work.

Next up was our more classic fashion editorial look and found this pathway with a nice little board-walk area that created a nice environment to work with.

Lastly we wanted to do an in-the-rain look. Unfortunately the weather decided to be uncooperative and it was overcast but dry. I brought along a spritz bottle so we used that to create the wet look, but could not create an actual rain effect as the droplets from the spritz bottle are just too fine to “read” as rain. I still really like the look and definitely want to explore it more.

My wife, Sarah, just joined a brand new roller derby league in the Seattle area, One World Roller Derby and they had their first scrimmage match a few weeks ago. I brought along my camera and decided to try my hand at something new; sports photography. It was so much fun to shoot, and the ladies did a fantastic job as for many this was their first scrimmage match. The two teams walked away hugging each other and having a blast, which is really what it’s all about.

I’ve got to say that that experience gave me a lot of respect for sports shooters. You’ve really got to know the sport, know where to be, and have pretty sweet gear in order to get premium shots. I was pushing my gear as far as it would go, and I’m only mildly pleased with the results. This is one of those times when the gear really does make a difference.

Mostly where I ran into the limits of my gear is the the low-light performance. My 3-year old camera tops out completely at ISO 1600, and it’s a very noisy 1600. This basically means that I couldn’t get my shutter speed over 1/160th of a second, and for fast-moving subjects, like women on roller-skates, you’re going to get some motion blur. Also, the low-light auto-focus of that camera is not spectacular, and the body did not have a continuous auto-focus mode where the camera tracks the subject as it moves. Thankfully I’ve since upgraded my camera to the new Pentax K-5, which means much better low-light performance for both the auto-focus and also means I can get a better aperture and shutter speed to stop the action with less noise.

I can’t wait to shoot their first bout at the end of January. January 29th to be specific at the Skate King in Bellevue. Grab your tickets here!

I was listening to this interview with cabaret singer Barbara Cook on the way in this morning and this woman is my new hero. She’s an 84 year old singer whose voice has dropped from a Soprano to an Alto. Instead of being defeatist about her new limitations she’s embraced the new possibilities of her voice and is simply continuing on. When she was originally interview at age 75 she said:

I think my approach to a song has gotten deeper and deeper and deeper. I think I sing a song better now then I did 5 years ago and I think I’ll sing a song better 5 years from now then I do now. Because I’m really a work in progress, there’s no question, this is not the finished product here.

I want to be an artist that never settles and always looks for the next ledge. I want to always say “I want to be better next time”. Thanks for the inspiration, Barbara. You’re an amazing woman and my artistic hero!

For more info on Barbara Cook, check out her website, http://nowheremanphotos.com/blog/?p=974

Hey, all! For the last few years I’ve hand-made these calendars to give away to close friends and family, but I’m hoping to raise some money for a good cause this year with them. I’m going to sell these calendars for $10 a piece, with 100% of those donations going to TeenFeed, a local charity that helps provide food for homeless and at-risk teens in the Seattle area. If you’re interested, just drop a comment to this post and I’ll send you off a calendar!

First one to comment gets an extra calendar to give away for free!

A friend of mine brought it to my attention today that local news station King 5 had picked up the story on the ad campaign that I shot for the Seattle Atheists and that one of my photos was shown on the news. On the one hand I’m thrilled to see my photos being used on the news. That doesn’t happen very often and it’s pretty gratifying I must say. On the other hand, there’s the comments.

Now, I know any time there’s a discussion about religion, especially when that discussion is online, there’s going to be some strong emotions and, indeed, some attacks on both sides. I was prepared for that. But there was one type of comment that really stood out for me that I’d really like to have a discussion about. The comment goes something along these lines: “It’s disrespectful to run these sorts of ads at this time of year”. I’m paraphrasing because the comment came from several people who were very respectful in their comments and I don’t want to call anyone out in particular.

I don’t normally solicit comments on the blog in this way, but I’d really like to have a (and I cannot stress this enough) RESPECTFUL dialog about this particular topic with my readers.

Personally I’m baffled by the statement that this is disrespectful. The content of both the ads and the website is, to me, saying “Atheists are a sizable chunk of the population. They’re just like everyone else. And being an atheist does not make you a bad person. They’re just normal people”. They’re not making any sorts of attacks on believers of any stripe, and I feel like their message is one of positivity and not negativity. Now what about the timing of it? People say it’s disrespectful. In response to that I say; “this time of year there is always a lively discussion about what role religion plays in our society. How do we balance the religious and the secular? The cultural with the sacred? What better time for Atheists to stand up and say ‘Hey, we’re here and we’d like to be part of the conversation!’”

I’d really like to hear people’s opinions on this. Please please please be respectful. I don’t want to hear “religious people are idiots” or “atheists are destroying America”. But I’m very interested to know whether you think these ads are offensive and why. I’m interested to know whether you think it’s inappropriate to place ads like this at this time of year (or any time of year for that matter).

I saw this video on the Sorel website the other day and thought it was just lovely. I love so many things about this video from the slow-motion crashing to the vintage musket, to the wonderful mood lighting, to that gorgeous dress she’s wearing.

And for the nerds here’s a short Behind The Scenes Video.

I’m a big fan of doing very small personal projects, really more along the lines of an exercise I suppose then a project. I recently started a new exercise with the hopes of using it for one of my gifts that I give out for the Holiday season to friends and family, and I feel like it would make a good Creative Mondays post. The secret here is you want to come up with a exercise that will expand the way you see, not just give you something to do. This should hopefully make sense when I give you my example.

My project was pretty simple. I wanted to make a collage of images where each image is a letter that I could use to form words a la the classic ransom note. The catch is that I couldn’t take photos of things that were inherently letters. So if I wanted a “B” I had to find an object that was in the shape of a “B” and not, say, a Starbucks sign or a graffiti tag by “Boyo”. Another restriction is that I couldn’t use manipulation tricks on the image in post-production to make the letter. I could only use cropping tricks to create the letters. Dodge and burning or cloning out pieces of a brick wall to enhance or obscure the image to create the letter was a no-go. Also, the subjects all had to be “found items”. I had to use what was around me and not manipulate my surroundings to create the letter. For instance, I couldn’t find two soda cans and a 2×4 and line them up to form a “B” shape and shoot that… unless I chanced along and found those items in that configuration. And I gave myself a further restriction. For each gift I could not use the same image twice. So for instance, if my image was the word “messy” I had to have two separate images for “s”.

So what could I do? I can rotate, flip, or mirror an image. I could sweep away dust or dirt that was obscuring the subject, or rotate it to create a more pleasing light or angle (but not in order to create the letter). I can re-use images for letters that mirror or crop. For instance flip and “M” upside down and you get a “W”. Cut a “W” in half and you have a “U” or a “V”. You can even flip a “V” upside down and use it as an “A”. I just can’t use the same subject in a finished piece twice. So if I were making the word “AV Club” I’d have to use two separate images for “A” and “V”. I also was not restricted to capital letters. So if I could find an “r” but not an “R” that was okay.

This was a really fun challenge. It really forced me to look at objects in a new way. It also forced me to think about typography and letter design. It helps that I’m a designer who works with a myriad of fonts all day long, so I’m used to seeing different letter shapes, but anyone can do it. It forced me to look for patterns and shapes and to really plan ahead and to find a location which would afford me a wealth of different textures and shapes.

Oh, and a tip? Brickwork is your friend! I can use photo above for 10 different letters. Had I shot it a little wider I could add 3 more to that. Just that little meta-exercise is a great tool in itself to training your eyes to see differently!

My friend Si told me about this amazing new camera, called Lytro which essentially takes a photo at every plane of focus and allows you to literally choose your focus point in post-processing! The technology is pretty amazing and exciting and hopefully it will at some point filter into DSLRs.

I’m curious if you can actually control how MUCH depth the photo has. In theory there’s no reason I can think of why not, but the video doesn’t expressly say you can control it.

I’ve been asked to take some portfolio photos for a local tattoo artist, Jibo Barrow of my favorite tattoo shop, Diamond Tattoo in Renton. This is Mike who’s got a fantastic chest tattoo. The swallows up near his clavicle are new and still healing but you’d never tell as it’s healing so beautifully. Totally jealous! I’m plotting some more ink myself, but it’s going to have to wait till the new year, methinks!

If you’re wanting some ink done I highly recommend the folks down at Diamond. They’re all-round awesome people. I’ve got several pieces by Majenta, but absolutely every one of their artists is phenomenal. Tell them I sent ya!