Back to School

Cornell Alumni Magazine asked if I would follow some of their students down on spring break. While some college students run off and party, others spend their spring breaks volunteering. These students volunteered to come to an elementary school and help teach.

Part of the program is sponsored by Harris Rosen and his hotels Rosen Hotels and Resorts. Rosen is an alumni of Cornell.

While I was there he showed up to see how the college students were doing. Some might think this was a publicity stunt, but you could tell he was no stranger to the elementary school kids. Many of the children called Rosen by his name or at least waved to him like he was a regular there.

He showed a passion in helping these children that I would love to see more of with people in positions similar to his. It's great that he's trying to pass this down to the college students who volunteered their spring break to help these kids. This gave me a great respect anything that he manages including his hotel chain.

On another note, Cornell Alumni Magazine did a great job with their choice of images and then use of the images. The entire spread looks fantastic!

Gulf Coast Baseball

It's nice to have editorial clients because they keep me busy when other things are slow and mix things up that I'm photographing. I had a chance to go shoot the Gulf Coast League of Florida minor league baseball for one of them. In between the project I was working on for them I took a chance to relax and make a few images for myself.

Rosen and Cornell students give back to the community

Cornell Alumni Magazine asked me to photograph Rosen, an alum and the owner of a hotel chain including Rosen Shingle Creak, and a group of Cornell students who came to Florida on their Spring Break to give back to the community. Rosen puts a lot of time into helping out underprivledged children in parts of Orlando and he offered this group accommodations at his hotels and an elementary school to help out.

Rosen seems like a very sincere person, and I could tell when we walked through the classrooms and all of the children knew who he was. Another example, while we walked through the halls he talked about having his chefs prepare a healthy pizza to be served in the cafeteria. A lot of times when you get to the top, you can forget about the people on the bottom and it's awesome to see him give back not with just money, but his own valuable time.

The magazine asked me to spend the day with them, and it was fun! It's always interesting to see how kids are being taught different from when I was in school. I'm sure it will change even more when my kids are in school.

Girls Weightlifting Regionals

Girls in male typical sports always seems to be a big topic, and it should be! Girls can do anything guys do and I look forward to seeing them beat guys at the stereotypical men's games.

The Orlando Sentinel was working on one of those stories about a sport that is probably the man of man sports; weightlifting. One of the biggest myths is that you won't look feminine if you weight train, and this is probably why it is thought of as a man's sport. They also asked why these girls do this.

It was a nice article to see done and I'm glad I had a chance to hang out with this awesome group of girls.

Vocce Couture in Orlando

The Orlando Sentinel recently did an article about a new fashion venture based in Orlando. Vocce Couture is a great story about two Orlando women, Norma Allen and Thuy Nguyen, who met at a belly-dancing class in 2007. Five months later, they launched a small fashion design business together. In February 2009 they took their collection to Couture Fashion Week in New York.

Brooklyn Wallace was our model and she was great to work with. The shoot took place at the Enzian Theater, although the Sentinel wasn't looking for too much of the theater, so we made use of the great foliage around it. Brooklyn really did a great job making use of the surroundings and making my life easier.

I hope I get a chance to work with all of them again.

Covering the Races - Daytona's Speed Weeks

For six years I had covered the Daytona 500 and I thought this was
going to be the year I didn't.

Lately I've been focusing on telling the
story of weddings and not NASCAR, but I got a phone call a
couple weeks ago. My roots are still in editorial and I still do quite a few of those assignments when they roll in and I don't have anything else. My old newspaper had credentialed me so I could help them out.

Like every other speed weeks, that I've covered, this one kept things
interesting. For the first time ever I had a chance to cover the pits during the race. I even had a chance to get up close to Keith Urban as he gave the media room a two song concert.

It's nice to mix things up every once in a while, it keeps me fresh.

Headed to Daytona!

When I grew up I knew what the Daytona 500 was, although I didn't know that much about it. Even when I interviewed for the job at the Daytona Beach News-Journal, I didn't put two and two together until Sam Cranston started asking me about race car drivers. Now that I have been here for six years I haven't missed a 500 and I can slide my way through a conversation with the die hard NASCAR fans.

I thought this would be the first year I was going to miss the race, but then I received a phone call the other day. The News-Journal told me I am credentialed and hired to help them with the races.

So it looks like I will be covering the Daytona 500 and the Speed Weed races leading up to. It will be the first time I am doing it as a freelancer. I will be available for contract work, that doesn't involve the actual cars on the track, if you know anyone looking.

100908 Seabreeze v Titusville

092608 Middleton v Hillsborough High School Football Gallery

There is a bunch of images that I made earlier this season and I am just getting around to posting it now. For this game I traveled across the state and if the game hadn't been worth it, the half-time show was.

100308 Lake Brantley v Bartram Trail High School Football

102408 St. Cloud v Eustis High School Football (Err Band)

St Cloud won 33-21 against Eustis. It came down to the last few minutes.

091908 Osceola vs Harmony HS Football...band

I have a good friend who is a HUGE longhorns fan. What can I say, he's lived in Texas, I think it's a disease out there. So when I saw the longhorn's on this bands uniforms I was thinking of him and trying to come up with something creative that showed those big ole horns off.

Osceola lost to Harmony 14-20.

091208 Timber Creek v Boone Football (Well mostly the band)

When I was a staff photographer, I skipped taking that many photos of the band because we never found a use for them (Not to say I shouldn't of shot them for myself). For the current company I'm shooting for, they are happy to get photos of the band.

I think I'm going to put a book together of band photos at the end of this season.

Anyway on with the and (Oh and a couple football photos too)

All of the football photos can be found here

Rage Semi-Pro Football in Orlando

There have been a lot of semi-pro football teams that have failed in the Orlando and Central Florida market, but this one has been around for quite a while now and under most people's radar.

The Orlando Rage minor league football team practices at Ward Memorial Park in Winter Park. Chris Morrison is the team owner and also one of the players.

The Orlando Rage started in early 2000s when the minor league football teams, Panthers and Starz, moved to form into one league. According to the website at http://www.orlandorage.com/, the teams goal is to help players move onto the next level. Their ages range from 18-year-olds who just finished high school to guys who just want to play. In 2008 the team won it's first league title.

The Palm Apartments in Orlando, A torn community

090608

Since January 2007, seven people have been killed at The Palm Apartments in Orlando and the surrounding Mercy Drive neighborhood. The most recent were three men gunned down July 30, 2008. Angelica Brown, from Orlando, was one of the event organizers. Brown said the kids need to see the community coming together.

The community wanted an event to bring everyone together so they created A Labor of Love to Stop the Violence

OUC Triathlon

Usually I am running in triathlon's (http://chadpiltri.blogspot.com), but the Orlando Sentinel asked me to shoot one. The greatest thing about waking up at the crack of dawn is the morning light. I can't say enough about the gorgeous light.

The start of the race was at a completely different spot than the end, so instead of running with my camera gear or trusting the events shuttle, I actually brought my bike. I shot the beginning of the race and then road the course backwards.

I really tried to show that this was happening in the middle of the city. I also tried to mix a little bit of street photography with an actual event.

Nic Tautiva (below) would of won the race, except for a wrong turn on the bike which disqualified him. This also meant all of the great shots I had of him were taken a notch down. This gave me a reminder for races where the age groups are scattered (Although, there is no easy way to find out who is first in an age group, unless they are the first person across the finish line. If that makes sense)




All of these images are available at http://pa.photoshelter.com/gallery-show/G0000fv68Ce5kC7Q

My life was consumed.... again...

http://www.pilsterphotography.com is updated...

I like to think that I know design, at least that I have a good idea of what types of boxes look decent next to each other. I just spent three long days redoing my website. It was a grueling pain.

I used a couple tools and took the little bit of design knowledge and html knowledge and pieced it together. I didn't find my old site that appalling, but I had heard enough feedback that I knew it was probably time for a change.

Once again I put together something that I think looks pretty good (except for a few pull-down menus which I'm working on). If you think otherwise PLEASE tell me (or if you like it I'm happy to hear that too, or even if you think it's ok I still am listening!)

I have a designer in the family, he happens to be my brother. He's amazing, he's also busy. Which means that like everyone else, I have to wait for his redesign of my site. Until then let me know if I am going to have to spend another three exhausting days revamping my site or if I can let it stand.

Orphan works bill needs to be stopped!

Next stop is the house. Email or call your representative and let them know how you feel about it (here).

Back to Mexico...

Digging through my images I found some more stuff from Mexico. What a cool place.