Photography is NOT a crime...

It's no secret that I stalk Chase Jarvis's blog, but today he posted an article about a photographer getting arrested while photographing an illegal activity. (The above image is courtesy of his blog). Here's the link to his story, I'd highly recommend reading it HERE.

On one side, I can definitely see where the authorities would arrest the photographer (Jonas Lara in this case) for being at the crime in progress, but at the same time a photographer documenting any event, whether legal or not is their job. The really astounding part is that his lawyer wouldn't use his rights as a photographer as part of his defense! I agree with Chase in that if photograhing crime is a crime, than all of the documentary photographers who cover war, crime in prison, or abuse in any way should be in Jail. I don't think that's right. What do you think? More soon.

I'd Like to thank...

Milling around on the tubes of the internets earlier today I was looking at some photography blogs and I came across website that ranks photography blogs online. For kicks and giggles I searched the page for mine to see if I'd even made in into the plethora of other blogs they had listed, and to my amazement I not only did make it into one of a the many categories; but I beat out a website that I both read and recommend to people daily. Strobist.



The full list of blogs can be found here. The irony on this is that I can in no way compare myself to most of the websites on this list, and for all I know my blog might have more viewers than the list itself does; but either way it's pretty cool. The numbers that I mention as for readership on this blog may be slightly skewed, but I can tell you for sure that I am nowhere close to the 72,000+ RSS Subscribers that strobist has; much less the photographic content or Grammatical quality. If you look past all of those things though, than apparently I've got more Pages per visit.

I think that means how many pages someone looks at an average when they look at this blog. So really whomever does read this will tend to find something of interest; which is super flattering folks. I already know there are people out there that read this that I don't know, like the ladies up at the Carmel Portrait Innovations for example. I don't know you ladies, but I've been told my an ex employee/friend of yours that you read my blog; and I greatly appreciate it. Honestly I only hope that I can continue to find content of interest to write about in my quest to make something out of this somewhat lucrative profession that I have chosen.

Regardless I'd like to thank the people that do read this, and continue to read it. The readership slowly has been climbing which makes me not only feel good, but want to become a much much better photographer, and even writer. This is an incredibly minor thing to get excited about, and that's not even an insignificant enough way to put it. There are hundreds of blogs listed on the rating page, I was just blessed to be on one small part of it. I guess this just means that I definitely have to keep writing here, because it seems to be confirmed that people DO actually visit my corner of the interents. Thanks again everyone, Happy Holidays, and now more than ever: more soon.

Busy as a 3 year old...

So been keeping busy lately; which is all one can ask for in this kind of economy right? Been so busy I lost track of the blog even. Been shooting so much I am surprised I don't have a blister on my little shootin finger. A few weeks ago I did the annual family shoot for my friend Shannon. Her little boy Gabe is awesome, I'll never forget him looking at me, his mom, and his dad and yelling, "Come on guys!" while saving his hand in the direction that he ran off right towards the space between never never land and hot dog heaven...

(Nikon D700, 250ISO, Nikon 50mmF1.4AFS. 1/640th@F2)

That's him, running away from the scene that I was trying to use as a family portrait. It was awesome, seriously. I laughed hard enough that I had to stop shooting while his mom and dad ran him down. I would have to say that he's only slightly less squirrely than I am, but I think that's a function of the fact that he's probably mentally older than I am. He's a busy boy. Looking at fish, flowers, picking his nose, sucking his thumb. He even took command of my D3 at one point and took the first photos of his life. They were a fun family to shoot and I can only wish that someday I'll have the same.

(Nikon D700, 250ISO, Nikon 50mmF1.4AFS, 1/200th@F2)


These family shoots can be a heckuva lota fun because that's what young kids are right? It's a nice change from the hustle and bustle I find myself at the newspaper. Keeps things interesting if you will. Tomorrow I'll deliver these images to the family and I'm sure they will be pleased as I am pleased with them. Busy week ahead otherwise, in fact I've got shoots lined up all of this upcoming week and weekend. Maybe some more ugly Christmas sweaters, possibly some stuff for a band here in Indy, potentially one or two other fun things as well. Like I said before; can't complain about any of that. More soon.


(Nikon D700, 360ISO, Nikon 50mmF1.4AFS, 1/640th@F2)

What a job...

I've always been young when it comes to rolling through life. When I graduated high school I was only 17, didn't turn 21 until my senior year of college, things like that. I always had to make friends with the older kids, or drop down to the even younger ones meaning that I really was always kind of in this strange spot. Being the youngin, I have always been apt to try to fit in no matter what my situation while trying not to grow up too quickly. A lot of the people that I hang out with are older than me; some a little, and some significantly. I have had clients that I'm positive I would have lost if they knew my age. I've never successfully dated anybody younger than me, and have always been apt to asking out/dating older women. Not all of them seem keen to the idea of dating a younger guy, but as long as they aren't mortified by the original suggestion and don't run and hide building a fort out of sofa cushions afterwards; I've got a shot. (Ideally I want to find a girl who wants to build a fort of sofa cushions with me, but one step at a time.)Being young also means that I take a certain entertainment in my job. I'm a photographer for a living. How cool is that?! Seriously. Some things I've done just to do them for myself, but otherwise I take photos and videos of stuff.....for money. Not only that but I've met some cool people, and done some cool things along the way. This week was no different than that by any stretch of the imagination.


(Canon 5D Mark II, 160ISO, 100mmF2.8. 1/60th@F8. Single Dynalight 400JR to camera right fired by Pocket Wizard at half power through a 6'x4' translucent panel. Single Dynalight 400JR to camera left inside of a 36"x36" softbox set to 1/8th power)

I shot that on Tuesday afternoon as advertisement for Metromix's Ugly Christmas Sweater party on December 4th at Britton Tavern. It's almost straight out of camera as you can notice the dirt on the floor under the girls. I just wanted to show you how pretty the two girls were before all the work we put into them, as this post is just about enjoying my job. Both of these lovely ladies are planning on being in attendance, and both of them were super cool. It was a fun shoot, and by far not one of the worst parts of my job. Elaine is on the left and she is an artist/GoGo girl here locally and Sarah on the right is a designer/website entrepreneur. Both obviously model on the side, and required very little instruction during the shoot which for the record; is freakin awesome.



Several weeks ago now, I shot a cover for an album which is going to be released at a party at Birdy's tonight. Cool bunch of guy's all School teachers who decided to combine their free time activity of music in order to create the band "Youthguard". My buddy Adam Yale did the artwork and I think it looks real good. Nice guys and I'm definitely going to check them out. The image above isn't the Exact final CD art, but it's pretty close. Should be carried in major stores supposedly too, which is what I'm going to wait for I think. Not sure if they will have CD's at the party tonight or not. Even though I've been at this for a few years now, and shot lots of various different activities; I never get tired of seeing things in public. The world doesn't know I shot them but I do. It's freakin cool. Also this shoot turned out well enough that one of the people present has hooked me up to shoot one of the bands from the Warpred tour a few years ago. That'll be neat, and I'm sure there will be more on that here soon. Here's another shot of Youthguard, from early in the production process.


(Nikon D3, 400ISO, Nikon 18-35mm F3.5-4.5@18mm. 1/30th@F6.3. Single Dynalight 400JR above camera right 18' off the floor hard light on the band set to 1/4th power fired by Pocket Wizard. Single Dynalight 400JR about 100' behind the band about 8' off the ground on some stairs set to 1/8th power fired by Pocket Wizard, SB-900 Speedlight suction cupped to the Glass wall camera left using the Delkin Fat Gecko camera mount about 7' up fired by Magic EYE in SU-4 mode set to 1/2 power zoomed out to 17mm. Post Processing by Adam Yale)

I also this week shot another Rollin with Gunner video. This week we went two places: To the Jiffy Lube to determine if the people who change your oil really are cousins of the Travelocity Gnome.....AND we went to the Bob Rohrman Dealership to dispose of one of Don Stuck's 450lb pumpkins.....



Don Stuck and Gunner are hilarious, they are quite the team and I look forward to when this video launches this upcoming Thursday. I of course will have watched it 46 thousand times by then, but I always watch them once they go live just that one more time. The video was shot with several cameras. There was a guy in the back seat with a Canon GL2, I had a Sony HDD HD Cam mounted to the dashboard, this screengrab was from a 5D Mark II with a 200mm Lens, and the little grey box on the pumpkin playing Kamikazi is an old Nikon Coolpix 3100. This video; will be cool.

Where else would I do things like this? I'm doing a video at the Red Room in Broad Ripple tomorrow, and I'm shooting the last and final month of the 2010 Roller Derby Calendar Sunday before the Colts game. All of the tough things about this profession definitely are tough, and thi can be like any other job with the suck from time to time but as my grandmother likes to point out; I do have a job. It's been brought up that maybe I have grown up a little too fast, but maybe I see it a little differently. My mind works the same as it should except maybe now I'm young enough to really get a kick out of some of the things that I do in this profession. Being stuck in the gutter of a Go-Kart track waiting for colts players to come around the turn, standing knee deep in pig poop wearing a hazard suit for the Pork Producers Guide, learning how to build log cabins, carrying Roller Derby girls around a junkyard to not get their skates full of grease...... Weeks like this are the weeks I live for with this job. The weeks where you close your eyes and chuckle while sporting a little smile muttering to myself; how did I get here? More Soon.