Constantine Manos with Magnum starts this piece - "In everything beautiful there is something strange"
I usually find myself too busy to watch a lot of multimedia pieces, there are so many amazing ones out there and I just can't find the time to watch them all. I watched this piece from beginning to end and took notes.
I have been trying to redo my website and I was looking for direction. Manos hit all the right emotions. He talked about images being a kaleidoscope, strange and surreal, bizarre and finding offbeat places. A quarter of the images were made within a 20minute drive of me!
This piece is inspiration, and it not only gets the blood flowing to redesign my site but it makes me want to run out the door and make some images right now.
WNYC has some great pieces sometimes. In this piece they look at 6 amateur street photographers and give others the opportunity to enter a street shots challenge.
I am a HUGE fan of street photography and I am always curious to see how others work, even amateurs. I still need to spend some time looking through these six three minute clips, but one of them looks at a woman who uses her iPhone to make street photos more than she uses her 20D. Another looks at a man who talks about shooting from the heart and not even lifting your camera to your eye.
I realize that Christmas just passed, but New Years and Valentines day are still coming up. Sometimes you need to find a gift for your significant other and one of the places to go check out is "Wine and Kisses."
They have some different categories of gifts including grab bags, romance goody bags, soaps and candles and more. The site does seem a little thin, but it's not a bad starting point.
Also be sure to check out the newsletter they have up. They have a nice wine pairing guide.
I finally put an RSS feed on this comic strip a few months ago, but my unsorted bookmarks are so old that this was still in the folder. "What the Duck" follows a duck who happens to be a photographer. He's been every type of photographer that you can imagine from a portrait photographer to a photojournalist.
Many of the strips touch WAY too close to home, but this is what makes them even more funny. I wonder how someone outside of the industry would even know some of this stuff.
If you remember back at the end of October (boy time flies) I put up some Halloween photos. After a VERY busy November I have finally finished toning the rest.
We have over 200 kids come to our house on most Halloweens. We love to see their costumes and hand out candy, plus we hate to be the spoiler house that turns out the lights for trick or treaters. We love getting dressed up too, so why waste it. We threw a party for our friends!
I have never setup a photo booth before and I thought Halloween would be a good opportunity. I brought out all of my lights, put up a drop cloth, tossed the camera on a tripod and tethered it to my laptop. I tried a bunch of things I have been meaning to experiment with to see how they all work.
Things not only worked, but they worked awesome! At a couple points I just had to pull the camera off of the tripod and get the great action shots of the characters my friends were portraying.
A witch, a horned yoga instructor, an African drummer, eyeball soup, a lion tamer (Or is she a ring master?), a horned Sarah Palin (Gotta love an Obama sign as a prop when you have Palin on set!), a black angel, our two little devil dogs, and a remote wielding photographer. Enjoy!
Did I mention what an amazing engagement photo shoot I had with Paula and Ron! You saw the sneak peak here, well this is the final slideshow!
We went to the Debary Hall Mansion, where we will be going back to in a few months, and I'm excited! We had James, their dog, out with us and we made some fun pictures of all three. After taking James back home, we moved on to this amazing springs. I have wanted to shoot photos at these springs for a while, but I didn't realize how awesome they were until we started exploring.
Since the age of LCD screens on the back of digital cameras we have had "chimping." In this oldy but goody, Robert Hanashiro explores "chimping" and those that do it in two videos. It will give you a good laugh and a better understand of chimping if you aren't familiar with it.
I had a ton of fun with Paula and Ron. There are still a few more days before I get a chance to edit all of the photos, but I just had to get one online because the engagement shoot was so amazing.
First we did a few at the DeBary Hall Mansion. This is where they will be having their wedding next year year. Then we moved to this AMAZING park. I took photos of this park before it opened and this was my first opportunity to head back there.
The park was more amazing than I remember it. Paula, Ron and myself had a TON of fun running around this place and making cool pictures.
This is a nice little video for first time Holga users. There are also some good pointers for those who have been using a Holga for a while on improving some of the functions.
I love my Holga, but have no way to scan film (Medium or 35mm) at the moment, so I've avoided using it.
Anyone who has caught This American Life, or is a regular listener, on NPR knows how great it is. These people are truly the best story tellers in the business. They bring the weird, the cool and the interesting onto their show. Like the guy who travels in a Superman costume or the one who laundered illegally made money buy giving it away in items at a garage sale.
This is a guide directed at Newlyweds, but it can be really useful to anyone. They look over the major types of insurance that you might need and explain it in simple terms. This would even be good if you just moved out on your own.
I highly recommend that everyone looks at the article on life and disability insurance, if you don't already have it!
A cool article on how to turn your digital SLR into a Pinhole camera. There are also a bunch of other cool "hacks" listed at the bottom of the page.
This used to be a bookmark about how to turn your digital camera into a Holga, but that link seems to have disappeared, and I am not sure how similar this method is to that.
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.
John E. Hollingsworth has an interesting style, but I feel like his site doesn't show enough work to really allow me to get a feel for it. There are only 12 people images and the rest are focused on inanimate objects.
One of the objects he focuses on is putting a couch in places you just don't expect to find a couch.
Some of his portraits have kind of a smugness about them, like it was right before the subject wanted to stick their tongue out at me. Others images seem to have a surprised look, like they weren't ready for the camera to click at that minute.
I like his stuff, but I really want to see some more. (I did a google search and found work where it really shows some goofiness getting into his photos. I love images like this and the weirdness of them just makes them that much better.)
It's not often that I get a chance to go to a wedding on a rooftop during the sunset. Some of our good friends, Kurt and Tressa, just got married and had a simple wedding on the roof of their apartment complex, The Wall Street Lofts, in Daytona Beach.
Their were a few clouds in the sky and the sunset played off of them with beautiful pink, yellow and orange radiance.
Kurt and Tresa wanted to pass on some of their love of discovering new wines to their guests, so they asked my wife to put together a tasting of under $20 wines. Liz is so passionate about wines and fell into job with such ease. She spent time looking through the many wines that she is already very familiar with and the hard job of trying new wines. She came up with 9 amazing wines to recommend.
If you are looking to do something different at an event, add a wine tasting. Liz has decided that she enjoyed this so much that she wants to do it for others. She is talking about the selection of wines for this wedding on her Don't Spill Your Wine blog. Maybe you might find a surprising wine or need some help planning your own tasting.
The Smithsonian and photography were both created around the same time. They now take an opportunity to open their doors online and explain how photography has affected history.
In my mind this is one of the best wedding photographer contests. I have watched this contest for a long time before I even decided to step into wedding photography full-time. (Oh and this years deadline is December 1st!)
John, the groom, told me that the first time Summer, his bride, and him set eyes on Isleworth Country Club their minds were made up on where they were having their wedding. I totally understand why! This is where Tiger Woods lives and the Country Club is beautiful.
Surrounded by arches, In the center of the clubhouse, is an atrium with a fountain. A few stories up is a skylight letting gorgeous light in. All around the clubhouse are giant sculptures. The uneven roof was lined with towers and Spanish tiles.
The architecture had a feel of a cross between medieval times, old Florida and new Florida. The dining room where the reception was held was no exception. The floors were a darker red wood and hanging from the ceiling was chandelier that looked like it was made of candle lanterns.
Wonderful Weddings, of Winter Park, helped John and Summer with the logistics of it, but they are a hands-on couple.
They both did such an amazing job. Summer decided on the colors (chocolate, modern green and ivory), the cake, found the vendors, and had a vision that she made happen down to the last detail. John jumped in to make awesome save-the-dates and pick some really cool cuff links (which were the spinners from wristwatches) for the guys. All of these characteristics and the ambiance of the candlelight matched the elegance and splendor of Isleworth. It was amazing what a great match this all was for the venue.
The theme of the day was "light." Sometimes it was gorgeous and sometimes it was outright DIFFICULT. Candle light was one of the main sources of light during the reception. This brought out a brilliant ambience, but on other hand made it difficult to light.
Did you buy a DVD thinking you would watch it forever, and then decide you can barely stand watching it to the end. Zunefish gives you an opportunity to trade CDs, DVDs, VHSs, and more with anyone else on it. Definitely a great concept.
The Atlanta Photojournalism contest deadline is in a few days. Usually this means it's time to start digging through everything you shot in the past year, pull out your best, stick it on a disk and drop it in the mail. This is the first major-national-photojournalism-contest of the year.
By sorting through your images in November, when January comes around (And about 5 more MAJOR photojournalism contests), it should be a snap to get your images together.
Although this year most of my images are already together. I have been going through all of my best work over and over, within the past few months, as I've been building my website and trying to market myself. Looking through my old stuff has become nostalgic.
It reminds me how much I enjoyed shooting for a newspaper. It was relaxing and I was very happy. It was really like losing a part of me. When I look back on the images that I made while I was there, it brings up memories of those good times. I don't think newspapers are the same anymore, and after talking to former colleagues the happy times at newspapers may be over (At least in the short term.)
Life right now is chaotic and stressful. I am scrounging for assignments, developing a brand for my company and marketing myself. I am starting a brand new company from almost nothing except my experience. I went from a place where it felt like everyone knew my name, to a place where I am just another bright star among trillions. I feel like I moved from one universe to another and I need to find a way to shine brighter than the rest so I'm noticed again.
My work has taken over my life in the past few weeks and even getting out the door to find time to run has been difficult.
Things are starting to slowly turn. This next week will be the second week, since I left the newspaper, that I have enough work to survive financially. I hope to see this continue. I hope to get back to some normalacy.
When next years contests roll around it may be a new experience for me. My focus in photography will probably shift away from the contests that might get me noticed by others at the newspapers. I need to find a whole new set of places to display my work to my peers and have them judge it.
Some will argue that contests mean nothing, but that is a discussion for another day. I am going to leave you with my entry to the Atlanta Contest.
Pandora is like having radio customized to you. You choose a song or a band and then it finds music similar to that. You tell it if you like songs or don't like songs and it works even better. This is great for finding bands you've never heard of with amazing music!
Like Pandora'a box, you just never know what is going to come out of it.
I am not sure where they are at now, but when record companies wanted to tax internet radio, Pandora was at the front of it. Pandora is free and very light on the ads, and the record companies wanted to charge them some astronomical amount for every song they played. Since they are still around, I'm guessing things have worked out.
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.
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)
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.
Away from the photography and into something for the brides out there. Wedding dresses are amazing, for all of that effort that goes into finding, wearing and eventually storing it, you only get to see it one day (Unless of course you are reminded of it through pictures ;)
Well I was looking for a way to maybe display my wifes wedding dress. and I ran across the Bridal Armoire. If your home has a more classical look, it would look great. Unfortunately our home is more contemporary. I was originally thinking of framing the dress, but then how do you show both sides of it. This is a possible solution.
They started in 2004 to highlight good photographers. You give them your images to apply and they edit them down and make an e-book. You retain the copyright.
There are book after book of excellent photography. Their eventual goal is to become a open library for e-photo-books in the internet as well as a database of free information and research into contemporary photography.
I am not sure why I had this site bookmarked, although currently the main site is down. I looked at the blog, and I realize blogs are to show what is in progress. This photographer has used it to show some of their wedding and portrait shoots.
Some of their portraits are nice, but this is about what I would expect from a decent portrait photographer. With as many bookmarks as I have, when I go to a website of someone I don't know, their work needs to be comparable to other top photographers I have. A lot of the photographer websites I keep are for inspiration, and this wasn't very inspiring.
I also looked at some of their event photography from Pride 2007 and found it very straight forward and bland.
I'm sure I pulled up this website because I was looking for different ways to tie a tie. There is a link off of the front of the page to four different ways for you to tie your ties. I doubt I will ever remember them, because I rarely wear a tie. Hopefully I will remember that I have this site bookmarked when the next special occasion comes up.
Outside of the four types of tying ties, they have some other general info like how to dress for a job interview (Unless you're a photographer ;) and how to pick out a dress shirt that matches a tie (Polka Dots and stripes don't mix)
I realize I just posted this, but Photoshelter has added a cool new toy that let's me embed slideshows. Let me know how this works for you! I may be posting more photos like this in the future.
In case you missed it this was the wedding of of Chandy to Mike on Saturday, October 18, 2008, in Winter Park. You can see the first half here. The wedding took place at the Knowles Memorial Chapel at Rollins College with the reception at the Winter Park Women's Club.
I was the second photographer to Val Becker and we were shooting for Bella.
I don't want to leave out the amazing Celtic band called the Wyndbreakers play during their reception, plus one of the guys lead them up the aisle playing the bagpipes.
The wedding of Chandy Kime to Mike Kelley on Saturday, October 18, 2008, in Winter Park. The wedding took place at the Knowles Memorial Chapel at Rollins College with the reception at the Winter Park Women's Club.
I was the second photographer to Val Becker and we were shooting for Bella.
I have to say that the Knowles Memorial Chapel is one of the best places to have a wedding. The architecture is a photographers dream. There are many large windows where some awesome light can peak through. There are multiple locations for photographers to shoot from without being unobtrusive including two balconies on the side and the back. There is also a side door where you can get behind the altar without being seen.
The light which is great on one hand, can be difficult to work with on the other. There were many hot spots and auto light metering is constantly thrown off. The best thing to do is to memorize your settings for different spots and adjust accordingly.
Since I was the second, I didn't have many opportunities to hangout with Mike and Chandy, but I have to say that they did an excellent job of putting on their wedding. A bagpiper started the processional and many other Irish themes were thrown in. They even had plans to go to Ireland for their honeymoon.
Also they had this amazing Celtic band called the Wyndbreakers play during their reception, plus one of the guys lead them up the aisle playing the bagpipes.
Congratulations Chandy and Mike, may the luck of the Irish always be with you!
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
Like I said before these are just bookmarks I collected. I don't remember when or even if I met some of these people (I apologize now for not remembering you!). I am trying to come up for a better headline for this, so if you have any ideas, let me know. "Bookmark Cleaning" sounds very boring.
Beth Rooney has a journalistic style, but appears to still be finding herself. Some of her pictures reach outside of the box while others are more straight forward. She may just be finding herself in her portfolio. She probably could do really good with a tighter edit.
She graduated from Ohio, one of the top PhotoJ schools in the country (Somewhere behind SJSU ;), in 2005.
She starts her portfolio off on the Campaign trail.
Then she tosses a category for food right at the top of a documentary portfolio, a portfolio that uses very little lighting and setup photos. Food photos are usually heavily lit and sculpted for the camera. Just pick up Cooking. I wonder if this may be a passion of hers, but it's nice to see her using natural light really well in these food portraits.
On my ToDo list, for many ions has been to organize my web browsers bookmarks. The biggest problem that I have is every time I go to a bookmark I stop to check it out, and then this whole process takes longer than I wanted it to.
I've collected some AMAZING websites! I hope to share this with you as I slowly go through them.
The first up is from Magnum IN Motion. Trent Parke traveled around Australia for two years with his partner Narelle Autio, another amazing photographer, and put together this awesome body of narrated work.
Parke's grainy documentary photos make you feel like you are back in the Farm Bureau days of documentary photography in the U.S. The moments and his style just cry out to you.
His passion and intensity. You really hear it in his voice as he talks through his piece. Much of the photography is just stream of thought. I love it! It makes me want to grab a tent and just go document something!
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)
