Stealing a soul

I just watched a documentary that made me think about a few things. The documentary was about a music group called 'Heavy Load' and i believe the title of the film shared the name. It is a film that follows the trials and tribulations of a British band that is comprised of mentally handicapped and not performers. There was one ongoing theme or line in the film that made me think about everything that I have done in my line of work. "The camera steals your soul". I am not sure what this line means, I have taken a lot of photos in my day and shoot even more video, I have never once thought I have stolen someones soul, I am not even sure what that means. I like to think that with the camera you capture something, it is impossible to capture everything, but for a moment in time you have captured a person(s). You aren't stealing anything. This is a photo I took of the Cash's for their wedding. The photos sat on the tables as an indicator of the table number, hence the number.

Why didn't I do better...

I have a few regrets in life, more then a few, but I don't like to live in the past. All my past experiences have shaped me into the person that I am today. Many of my regrets, I look back and think of them as learning experiences, you learn real quick that a glass plate can get extremely hot in the microwave, you live and learn. But probably the biggest regret I have is not paying enough attention in school when it came time to spelling, in the past two days I have screwed up. I caught one of them myself this morning, but last night I was informed by a young kid that I can't spell after I screwed up this sign. Restrooms, follow the bricks I won't even say how I screwed that up, it is a little embarrassing.

Fun with Photoshop

Photoshop is an amazing tool and mastering it can make you a better photographer and artist. Learn the basics in photoshop and you will benefit. The nice thing about it is that there are tutorials all over the web and they teach you amazing stuff. Here is my recent creation. The first is a raw photo, and then a collect of rendered images. The little guy hangs out in my front yard, sometimes he will come on the porch and say hi.

The Olympics are near

More info to come...I have to have a meeting of the minds.

My Theory

I have this theory on photography, and i am going to share it with you all. Most photographs and photographers don't capture anything. I like to think every photo can tell a story, and the really great photos do tell a story. Think of a photo you would take on a trip to Arizona. You will probably want to hand your camera off to someone and have them take a photo of you standing in front of a cactus. This is what i called a posed picture. There is nothing wrong with a posed picture. But you would look back on your trip and probably just glance at the photo, and when you share that photo with co-workers you can say "yup i was in arizona, and here is me standing in front of a cactus, here is another in front of a restaurant we ate at, and here is one in front of the hotel we stayed at," nothing to great.

I think the real art to taking pictures is to capture something real, a candid of someone looking at a cactus, some one enjoying a meal at the restaurant or enjoying the sun sitting by the pool at the hotel. My one overlying problem with all posed pictures is they never capture any emotions, people always seem to smile when you stand them in front of something and they are ready for the photo. The challenge comes when you try to think outside the scope of a posed picture, trust me they tell a better story and they are more fun to shoot. If you can capture just that right moment, you will have a great photo.

The storms in the past few weeks

A few weeks ago I planted a tree and then post the tree. I said I would keep you all updated on the progress of its growth. Well, after all the rain we got the most magical thing happened, the ground produced these beautiful flowers. Now the tree has friends. It is surprising how a little bit of rain can produce the most mysterious things. There is no other way to explain how these flowers got here other than magical.

Summertime in kentwood

I can always tell when it is summer time in the neighborhood. The biggest indicator is the sounds, you can hear the kids playing, the bikes criss-crossing the street, and most notably the annoying songs coming from the numerous ice cream trucks. I have noticed that we have about 4 different trucks that cruise by. I am almost sure they sell narcotics, but we have yet to determine that, even thou our neighbor tried.

A while back I mentioned that WKTV needs a new truck. We are having a car wash on June 28th at Go Go Car wash located on 28th street just west of Byron Center. We are trying to raise $100,000 to purchase a new vehicle and some new equipment. The way it works is for a 4 hour block on the saturday afternoon we get to use the car wash. We are taking pledges for the cars that may get washed that day. My job in all of this is to get as many cars as possible there that day. I say if you get a free car wash you should at least donate to WKTV the cash it would have cost to get that car wash and why not throw in a little more, it is for a good cause. I also get to design all the graphics for print, web and tv promotions.

opps

I just realized I have a rerun on this site, the last photo added was a one that first appeared a few months ago. I apologize. Seeing as I have so many fans and don't want to disappoint I will add some new ones....A brief about these photos, I was contacted a day or so back wondering if i had any stock photographs of either food, table sittings or cooking utensils. These are all i could find in my library.

Think Spring?

On my way into to work today I drove by a sign that said Think Spring. Typically that wouldn't bother me much but the sign read 'March Specials' just a few days ago. So I know they are not to concerned with their sign. Seeing that it is about 80 degrees outside and very humid, I no longer have to think spring, or even think summer. I am going to just do summer, I don't need to think about it.

The beach

I was out on a photo shoot this past weekend. It was an enjoyable time. I hardly ever do portrait work, I have my reasons, but this was an enjoyable time. I won't post any of the photos I took of the lovely couple just yet, but maybe later. We did travel to the beach and found to our surprise people actually laying out and playing in the water. And what a trip to the beach be with out a trip to see the light house and a trip down the pier.

A weekend to remember....

After much anticipation I have posted some of the pictures from the memorial day weekend spent up north. We did not let the high gas prices stop the crew from taking the trip up to Silver Lake, or Mears if you want to be accurate. So the weekend was filled with some unforgettable memories that will keep us busy talking about until next year. Visit my slide page for more pictures of the weekend.