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)

Just shoot...

In this profession sometimes you've just got to shoot. Shoot anything, shoot everything, shoot it again and again and again. It helps you learn your camera, it helps you land jobs, and honestly it can be just darn fun.


(Canon 5D Mark II, 1000ISO, Canon 16-35mmF2.8L@16mm. 1/30th@f2.8 Canon 580EX Speedlight set to 1/16th power shot into a silver reflector to camera left leaning against an unsuspecting Saturn Vue. Photo Location is Fountain Square.)

That's Heather. You've seen Heather before if you've read the blog before. She was the Mad Wo-Man out of this post. During the day she works for the University of Indianapolis as some super computer genius nerd, or something along those lines. At night she has a 5D Mark II in hand, and shoots anything she can gets her hands on. It's Heather's Birthday this week (11/17, Happy Birthday Heather!) and she wanted to go out and do some fun stuff over the weekend. So last Friday night she called me up. Her Husband Andy went to bed early because he had to get up at the crack of dawn for something, and she was itching to go out and do something/anything. Somehow we decided to go and shoot some night time portrait style photos as a little practice. She shoots Canon so I Packed up my canon gear, and off we went. Practice makes you luckier right?


(Canon 5D Mark II, 1250ISO, Canon 100mmF2.8 Macro, 1/40th@F2.8. Single 580EX Speedlight attached to the camera via Off Camera cable to camera left set to 1/32nd power Direct flash zoomed to 105mm Photo Location is facing north on Meridian and New oOrk Streets.)

This was a big thing for me and Heather didn't even know it. It was just as much practice for me as it was for her. I rarely shoot at night outside with very little extra light. Being limited to a single speedlight that had to be connected with a cable to the camera was very limiting, but definitely not impossible by any stretch. It's always good to get outside of your comfort zone while shooting as practice. It's like taking a fish-eye lens to a sporting event instead of your Long distance glass. It's tough!

(Canon 5D Mark II, 1600ISO, Canon 16-25mmF2.8L, 1/40th,@F2.8. 580EX Speedlight set to 1/64th attached to the camera using an off camera cable at arms length to above camera left.Location is on Pennsylvania side of the Circle, downtown.)

We had fun; she and I tried a few things, learned a few things, and shot a few photos. Time well spent. I don't often shoot for the sake of shooting, but when I do I usually do enjoy it. There is a little video of me dancing around like a fool waiting for my photo to be taken. If you're really nuts you can see it here. I had no idea she was taking video, we had just gotten done trying to set up the speedlights with pocket wizards on a two light setup to light up the tree behind me an even crazier firey orange than in the video. Not sure if it worked or not, didn't look, but the video is funny. Either way, it was a fun night, and I'm looking at getting a group together to go out and do something similar again soon I think. Will keep anyone interested in the loop. More Soon.

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.

Picking Fav's...

As I mentioned in the last blog post Roller Derby Season is Among us. As part of that the ladies moved into a new venue where a whole new realm of photo taking possibilities are available. You can view their most recent bout in my photos located
here.



On Flickr I belong to a Roller Derby photo group, and one of the forum questions asked users to post their favorite derby shots that they have ever taken. After looking through the other posts people had made, I decided to participate in this post, and these are the shots that I came up with as the top 5 Roller Derby Photos that I have ever taken. (Presented in no particular Order) (this is the original post on flickr)



The shot above was taken in Minneapolis Minnesota during the North Star bout almost 1 year ago now. I took the shot from 90 feet above the track on catwalks inside the dome of the arena. According to the other team nobody had ever gone up there for bout action before, and the hits to the photos proved it. At the time this photoset was taken, it had more hits to it than any other derby bout I had photographed.


This photo is of a skater named Sweet C. I took this photo back when I had the D2x during season 1. Anybody who knows Cameras knows that the D2x was an Awesome camera, and the Mecca of resolution at that time in camera history. Anybody also knows that this camera had more noise than a broken antenna eared TV that used vacuum tubes powered by a hamster in a wheel. My solution to some of this problem was the use of flash pans in up close action. In this photo Sweet C is celebrating victory by giving High 5's to her fans. The motion blur creates a dynamic to the frame that I feel can easily get lost in sports, while keeping her face sharp and identifiable with the flash gives it personality; as well as the intense feeling of the win.




That shot was taken in North Carolina inside of one of the coolest Roller Derby Venue's I've seen to date. It was an ex hockey arena, that had these cool windows all around the outside. During warmup sometimes I like to take the opportunity to try new and slightly more lucrative photos of the Derby Girls which most often end in my butt being nailed by one of them in a turn like this. Nobody ever gets to see the girls this up close and personal during the bouts, and this seemed like a pretty solid way to so up close and personal what exactly these girls do.


This photo is of one of our jammers. Her name is Katya Lookin, and she's a great inspiration to quite a few girls on the team. That is of course when she's not looking angry enough to be in your derby eating your children. Last year I wanted to do HDR style photos for the programs and so I shot a few of these to pitch to the Art Director. In the end we didn't use them for anything, but the girl who is pictured here loves this photo, and so do I. It shows all the hotness, as well as the fierce undertones that derby has to offer.



Last but most certainly not least is this photograph for the 2009 NRG Calendar of Cereal Killer. This shot was done in Red Rocket Michelle's bathroom with 6 2 gallon bags of Fruit Loop equivilent cereal. Nikki Sutton did the style and the makeup, and good ol' CK just laughed it up for us. It was an awesome time, and a helluva cleanup after-wards. Michelle said her bathroom smelled like milk and cereal for at least two days after that. We only used about a quart of milk too, the rest of it was water which was hilighted by the use of the single 400 watt strobe inside of the tiny bathroom.

So there you have it; the 5 derby shots I have taken that are my favorites. There are plenty of other ones that I've taken and there are plenty of others that I have yet to take which I'm sure can top these. These by far are not the best roller derby photos out there either, in fact; If it was the 5 photos that others have takenin question, than this is a whole other ball game because there are tons of talented photographers out there covering roller debry all over the Country. Tom Klubens, Dr. X, Greg the Mayor, Red Rocket, Bob Scheer, Polina Osherov, and many many more just here in Indianapolis, and all are worth checking out. Roller derby has been a valued experience for me thus far, and has taught me a lot about myself and the way I shoot sports. I only hope that everyone who likes to take photos can find something they are as passionate about. More soon.