b-Cleaning - Turning your Digital SLR into a Pinhole camera

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.

http://www.camerahacker.com/EOS_Pin-Hole_Lens/index.shtml

moved to "Photojournalism - Photo Tips"

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

B-Cleaning - Hollingsworth Photography

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.)

http://www.hollingsworthphotography.com/

Put in my 4 Star Photographers folder

UPDATE (Thanks to an anonymous posting):
Apparently Hollingsworth has a Flickr account. Check him out also at http://flickr.com/photos/johnemofunk/

Wall Street Lofts in Daytona Beach, Florida wedding of Kurt and Tressa

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.

b-cleaning - The Smithsonian Photography Initiative

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.

http://www.spi.si.edu/

Moved to "Research Archive"

b-cleaning - PDNs Top Knots Wedding Photo Contest

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!)

http://www.topknotscontest.com/

moved to "Photo Contests"

Isleworth Country Club in Windermere, Florida wedding of Summer and John

I teamed up with Val Becker (His Photos from the Day) to shoot a wedding on Saturday at the the Isleworth Country Club in Windermere. Megan Miller joined us to
assist.

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.

All of the right people came together to make this happen including
Flourish Floral Productions, Bake Me A Cake and the staff at
Isleworth.

A Slideshow

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.

B-Cleaning - Zunafish

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.

http://www.zunafish.com

Going in my shopping folder

Contest Season is Upon us!

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.

B-cleaning... Pandora

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.

http://www.pandora.com

Going in my Toolbar folder

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

Palin and a lion tamer showed up to halloween

I set up a few lights to do a photo booth with some friends who came over for Halloween. Needless to say, we had some fun.

This is just a sneak peak. There are a lot more on the way.

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.

B-Cleaning - Bridal Armoire

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.

http://www.bridalarmoirecompany.com/home.html

Going under "Wedding" (Yes I still have a folder of bookmarks from our wedding)

Also related bookmarks nearby this one -

http://www.goldleafgalleryandframing.com - A local downtown DeLand, FL framer

http://www.screenused.com/?sectionID=miscellaneous&subsectionID=custom-displays.cfm - These guys frame movie props and create custom displays. This is much closer to the contemporary design I was looking for. Just imagine a wedding dress in one of these.

http://www.diynetwork.com/diy/co_displays/article/0,2033,DIY_13741_2276282,00.html - Do it yourself framing.

http://aic.stanford.edu/ - Everything you needed to know on preservation

http://dept.kent.edu/museum/staff/care.html - More on preservation

ALL of this will go in "Wedding" sub folder "Dress Preservation"