B-Cleaning - Democratic Books

What an amazing site!

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.

http://www.democraticbooks.org/HTML/books.htm

Going into "5 Star Photographers"

Bookmark Cleaning - Luxography.ca

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.

http://www.luxography.ca/

Going in "The Trash"

Cleaning Bookmarks - Men's Dress Furnishings Association

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)

http://www.shirtsandties.org

Filed in my "How To" folder

part 2: Winter Park Women's Club in Winter Park, Florida wedding of Chandy and Mike

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.

Winter Park Women's Club and Knowles Memorial Chapel of Winter Park, Florida wedding Chandy and Mike

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!

The Palm Apartments in Orlando, A torn community

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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

Bookmark Cleaning - Beth Rooney

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.

http://www.bethrooney.com

Put under my "3 Star Photographers"

House Cleaning Bookmarks - Trent Parke

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!

You can watch it here http://todayspictures.slate.com/inmotion/essay%5Fmidnight/

Going into my "5 Star Photographer" folder.

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

Green Elephant

Don't know where this green elephant was headed, but I love when I see crazy things like this on the road. I would of followed it, but I was on my way to a Thursday night football game. The game was an hour delayed due to weather.

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.