Awesome Austin in Atlanta

A freaking awesome shot of my freaking awesome son, Austin.  We were in Atlanta for a few days and went to Centennial Park twice.  That place is awesome!!  I mean, it's not much.  Just some fields and a few spots to goof off, but for a 6-year old boy. . .and a 10-year old brain stuck in a 35-year old man's body. . .it's dreamy!!!

On the day I took this shot we went to a huge hill and I took pictures of Austin rolling down it.  He was hesitant at first because it was a pretty big hill.  Probably the biggest one he's ever seen, and definitely the biggest one he's ever rolled down.  Anyway, after I called him a girl for not wanting to do it, he finally caved and decided to do it then for 20 minutes he had the time of his life.

After rolling down the hill we went to a playground. . .that was pretty fun for about 8 minutes.  Then we went to this Fountain of Rings.  I think that's what they call it.  Two or three times a day they do this water show that kind of goes with some music they're playing.  It's pretty cool.  But while the music isn't playing you can just run around in the water.  Austin had the time of his life.  The water will stop for a second, and he would run into the middle where there's no water.  Then he'd try to run out again while the water wasn't shooting up.  He got grazed a few times by some water jets but he did pretty good.  At the point when I took this picture, he's celebrating because he made it into one ring from another ring without getting hit by the water.  Ahhh, to be a kid again.  I could sit there and watch him do that all day long.  I took a ton of pictures of him doing this and they're all freaking awesome!!  The look of pure joy on his face just makes my heart smile.  He's awesome.  I tell him that's why we named him Austin, because he's awesome.  I'm not sure when I'll break it to him that I wanted to name him that because it's the live music capital of the world.  Well, that and the fact that my great grandfather's name was Austin.

Which, by the way, some family members found some old family pictures so I'll probably be posting a few of those here in a few days.  There's a picture of my great great grandfather in there.  Pretty cool.

Thanks for listening!!

I'm back!! (I know you were worried)

Okay, there's a reason it's been almost a month since I posted anything.  Austin got sick, I got sick, Erika got sick, then she got even sicker and was in the hospital for 3 days, then we all went to Atlanta for 3 days. . .we just got back from that. . .it's been a long 3 weeks for us around here.  But we're all here, we're all healthy and we're getting back into the swing of things now.  Of course, Austin is on Spring Break this week, so my chances of getting an hour to sit at the computer aren't very likely.  But I'll try.

So my photography is about to start picking up here in a few weeks.  I'd love for it to pick up right now, but I'm so lazy I don't even update my facebook status for my photography page.  I mean, it's free promotion and I use it about once every 2 weeks.  Awesome.  I'm a marketing genius.

Thanks!!

Amelie Ruth

I love shooting newborns!!  I can never get them to stay asleep but they're so clueless as to what is going on, it actually makes taking pictures of them quite a fun thing.  There are times when I just keep the camera on them and wait for them to move a certain way or give off one of those little smiles. . .it's so fun!!

Beautiful Amelie Ruth in quite a pensive pose for her newborn session.

Amelie's mom loves this picture and so do I!!  This was one of those moments where I just kept the camera on her and just waited on something to happen.  A lot of times they'll move their hands around and if you snap at just the right time it almost looks like they're using their hands to communicate.  In this one, I was lucky and got the hands along with a little smile

A sleeping baby. . .does it get more beautiful than this?

You gotta love that the flower in her head is actually bigger than her head!!

She's looking at me thinking, "are you still taking pictures of me?!?!?!"

I love these mother-daughter shots.

You just can't describe the joy you get from looking your baby in the face. . .there's nothing like it!

And possibly my favorite shot!!  The look on Amelie's face is priceless!!

Heather's maternity session

This is exciting!!! My first post on my blog that is actually about a photo shoot. . .I've seen photography blogs that kind of post pictures while telling the story about the photo shoot, so I'll do the same here. . .

Heather called me (thanks to Elizabeth!!) about taking some maternity pictures.  She didn't think she wanted to do any but well, she realized she's quite pregnant and that if she was gonna do them, now was the time.  I think she called me on a Wednesday, and we took these pictures on Thursday, the next day.

I'm used to doing maternity sessions inside people's homes.  They're more comfortable there, she can take a break if she needs it, they've usually got some toys or blankets they want in the pictures. . .it's just usually easiest at their house.  Well, Heather and her husband live in Oxford, but agreed to meet me somewhere in Hernando so we could do these pictures. . .outside.

Anytime this is the first picture you take, you know it's gonna be a good shoot.  Heather is beautiful and having that belly just makes her that much more stunning!!  I know you women sometimes don't feel like it when you're far along in your pregnancy, but I PROMISE, this is an absolutely beautiful look!!  I love that pregnant "glow" that you ladies get.  It's awesome!!

And this is just a great shot. . .men always hate having their pictures made but Chris was quite a sport about it.  Always smiled, and didn't complain the whole time.  That's rare for men by the way.

Along the same fence line as the previous 2 pictures, but how can you not take 100 pictures by this fence?  Old, torn up, wooden, molded fence?  Hello?!?!?!

Then we drove down a little ways and I saw this really old building and when I saw Heather in her all black against this white wall, I had a vision.  This shot is that vision. . .I love this picture!!!

Awww. . .

Moving on to the next location we found a tiny gazebo that was just right for some pictures.

Wow, I couldn't resist taking this shot!!  Thank you so much Heather, for letting me take this!!  I love it!!  "THE BIG BOLD BREED". . .it doesn't get any better than that!!

Classic!!

It's neat to me how all that space on the right makes this shot interesting.

And the last shot of the day.

So thanks a ton to Heather & Chris for using me to take their maternity pictures.  She was hesitant to even go through with taking them, but I think after seeing these, she'll be glad she did.  I hope so anyway.  And hopefully they'll call me when it's time to take some newborn pictures ;) ;)

Thanks!!

a sincere apology

just a little quick note to apologize to all you faithful followers out there.  I can honestly say I haven't been lazy, I've just been busy.  And I probably won't have a chance tomorrow (today actually) to write again either. . .Maybe around midnight again tomorrow I'll set time aside to do this blog thing.  I swear, I was so good at doing it during the month of January before I even told anybody about it.  I don't deserve your friendship, but trust me, I've got a few shoots booked, and things are about to pick up and I'll be posting more soon.  Real soon.  And more pictures too. . .none of this one picture per post crap!!

Thanks!!

before & after

This is a typical example of what I would do to "fix" a picture.  Sometimes I change colors and add effects (watch for my next post), but generally speaking this is what I do. . .

I usually brighten the picture a little bit, boost the saturation, brighten the eyes and whiten teeth.  Sometimes I make dark spots under the eyes a little lighter, and sometimes I remove a wrinkle or blemish here and there.  I don't like to do too much to the eyes because a person's eyes define them, and changing them too much makes them look like a different person.  The wrinkles and "bags" that people have under their eyes generally can't be removed.  I mean, I can physically do it in photoshop, but it just doesn't look right (in my opinion).  Babies have these so called "bags" under their eyes.  Also, the skin below their eyes is a little darker than their cheeks.  So that's totally normal.  When you remove all that and make the skin under the eyes look just like the rest of the cheek, it just looks goofy to me.

So if you hire me, and I tell you that I'll "fix up" a picture or whatever, this is what I'm doing.  The picture on the left is straight out of the camera.  The picture on the right has been edited just a tad.

Thanks!!

just maybe

Sorry for not having a picture today.  And I'm also sorry that I posted almost every freaking day in January and I think I've only done 3 in February so far.  What a loser.  It's weird that L-O-S-E-R is loser, but P-O-S-E-R is poser.  I've got a million of them (thanks in most part to Gallagher).

I've been slacking really hard in the photography world lately.  I've got a shoot this weekend and I couldn't possibly be more excited.  When the weather picks up, hopefully business will pick up and I can use this blog to post what's actually going on in my photography world.  I'll be posting pictures of what I'm shooting instead of random pictures from 2005.  And maybe if I make a little money I can get some new business cards.  Maybe those business cards will have the address for my blog them.  Then maybe people will start coming to my blog (not that I don't totally appreciate your being here!!).  Then I could become more and more popular.  Then the promise that I made to my entire extended family at Christmas may come true.  What promise?  That's for another post sometime later.

Thanks!!

splash dynamics

It's funny the way water moves.  When you freeze the motion of water in a picture, it looks weird because that's not how we see it with our eyes.  When you slow it down with a slow shutter speed and blur it, it looks weird that way too.  Because that's not the way our eyes see it.  This morning I'd planned on taking pictures with a buddy of mine but it was raining.  I told him I'd decided not to go and he said he was gonna go without me, so I changed my mind.  I went.

So here we are in my truck ripping holes in Wal-Mart bags to poke the lenses of our cameras through.  It actually worked.  Only the very end of the lens was getting wet.  And it was kind of just sprinkling anyway, so it wasn't that big of a deal.

It was nasty out there though.  No sunshine, very cloudy, rain, cold, it was actually hard to find some inspiration.  We went walking around with no clue what we'd end up taking pictures of.  So we walked down a path around this pond. . .made it to the end and neither one of us had taken a picture yet.  We turned around and were headed back to the truck and came up on this puddle of water.  So I put my camera (in the Wal-Mart bag), down in the water and snapped away.  I had to take several shots to get a good one of a splash.

The interesting thing about this picture is that it shows what water does after it splashes.  The drop comes down, hits the water and makes the classic crown shape splash.  After that, the water raises up and crashes against itself.  This picture shows that when it splashes against itself, it evidently hits hard enough to shoot up in the air.  Now this little bubble looking thing is maybe the size of golf ball.  So it's splashing up maybe 6 inches.  But what we see is a drop of water falling from the tree, hitting the water and the water splashing.  Our eyes can't catch the action of it causing this little miniature explosion after the original drop hits the water.  I love it!!  I went out not having a clue what to even take a picture of, and I came back with a better understanding of splash dynamics.  I'm a better person.  You're a better person if you're reading this.

So next time you're thinking about going out to take pictures, or to sit down and write a song, or to paint a picture, or do anything, try not to look for an outcome.  Just the the outcome come out.  HA!!!  I made myself laugh just now with that.  Awesome.  Sitting at my computer at 3:24 in the morning laughing at myself.  I'm cool.

Thanks!!

live music

I like this one.  This is Katie Marlier of "Rocky 4 Phoenix".

Trying to take pictures of musicians is hard.  The term "photograph" can kind of be translated from Greek to mean, "drawing with light".  So, photography is basically the art of capturing light.  All the settings on your camera and film are based on light.  How much light is hitting the film, how long should that light be exposed to the film, how sensitive is the film to the light. . .light, light, light.  So when you're at a concert and you're trying to get a good picture of a musician, it's super hard because the lights are constantly changing.  Constantly.  The musician is rarely standing still, so that makes it even hard to get a good composition, and if you get the composition right but the lighting guy decides to change the lights right when you take the picture, it's ruined.  Long story short (not very short actually), it's hard.  There's lots of bad shots for every good one you get.  Well, for me anyway.

Last night I was the photographer at a benefit, Concert For The Cause.  There were several bands, so I had plenty of opportunities to get cool pictures of all the musicians.  I'm not sure this is the best shot I got all night long, but when I was just going through them (really fast), I passed this one, then went back to it and stared at it for a second.  That's usually a good sign.  Even though sometimes I don't know why I'm staring, as long as I'm staring, I think someone else out there might also stare at it, which means no matter what the reason, it's a good picture.  So here you go, one of about 2000 pictures I took Friday night.

Thanks!!

brown, brown, and more brown

It's always fun for me to get to take my camera places that I've never been.  This was in California.  Of course, I did quite a bit of photoshop manipulation to this one trying to make it look a little bit like a painting.  Here's what's interesting to me about this picture. . .

It says more than it actually looks like.  I can't remember exactly where it was taken, but I know it was on the way back to Bakersfield from Tehachapi.  It makes me wonder if the people that live there even appreciate its beauty.  What do they think when they're driving down this road and look out their window and see this?  Do they see how beautiful the blue sky is contrasting the brown earth?  Do they see all the shades of brown represented in this one little frame of a picture?  I hope so.  When I drive around North Mississippi where I've lived all my life, I see cotton fields.  And I love the sight of it.  We don't have hills, or mountains, or oceans, or vineyards.  But when I drive around and see a huge field full of cotton, I often stop and stare–and realize how freaking beautiful it is.

It's really easy to get used to the things that you see all around you every day.  Sometimes you should stop and look–realize that what's in front of you is absolutely beautiful.  The expression "one man's trash is another man's treasure" kind of applies here.  People in California may drive by this and see a big brown blob and wish for a change of scenery.  I drove by and wanted to stop and take a hundred pictures of this brown blob.  Some people that live around here (North Mississippi) probably don't like the look of a cotton field.  Just look at it.  Turn the radio off and stare at it.  We've got our own little art museum right here in front of us.  And the pictures are HUGE!!  And BEAUTIFUL!!  And admission is FREE!!  What more could you ask for?

Thanks!!

Old, ugly boats

This boat was a picture waiting to be taken.  Had I been alone and lived in the city where this was, I would have hundreds of pictures of it.  It was blue, but due to the fact that I was rushed to take the picture, I overexposed it a little so the blue was a really light blue.  On top of that, I only took 2 pictures of it.  This is the first of the two.  It was the middle of the day, sun beaming down (all generally bad for photography), and I had to keep up with my wife, kids, and in-laws.  So I snapped the 2 pictures and moved on.  When I went back to look at them, I was pissed!!  They were slightly overexposed and the composition was just. . .blah.  Like I said, if I lived there (this was somewhere in California. . .I wanna say around Pismo Beach somewhere), I would get there at sunrise and go back at sunset and I would probably do that about once a month.  I would have HDR versions, awesome sunrise versions, all kinds of stuff.  But instead, I'm stuck with this cliché, quite plain version of an old boat.  Don't get me wrong, I love the picture, but like songwriting, what I envision before it happens and what I get after it's happened is 2 different things.

I guess next time I go to California I'll look for some old ugly boats and be there to take pictures at sunrise.

Thanks!!

2050 followers by noon!!!

I've only got a few more minutes before it's February 1, so I'm gonna make this quick.  I'm trying to get a post in every day in January just to keep me busy, then when the photography picks back up (when the weather gets nice), I'll probably cut down to 2 or 3 a week.  Maybe 3 or 4, but I don't know. . .what if I get carpel tunnel syndrome and it hurts me to type?  What if I win the lottery and start paying somebody to type these for me?  What if my computer fries and I decide to go Amish?  I'm thinking that last one is sounding pretty interesting right now.

So, I'm announcing my blog tomorrow morning.  What do I think will happen?  Well, my facebook friends will see, 98% of them will click on it, 94% of those people will read at least one of my posts, and 93% of those people will subscribe.  Since I've got 2,395 friends, that means by noon tomorrow, I should have about 2,050 followers.  Awesome!!

Thanks!!

the new layout

WOW!!! I updated my layout finally.  It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.  Of course, I pretty much just used one of the templates on the blogger website and changed a few colors.  But I think I like it better now.  Of course, you're reading this now, so you're not seeing what it used to look like.  It was pretty much white and boring.  Now it's so much more engaging (sarcasm).  Maybe over time I'll actually learn how to totally customize the layout.  There's a thing I keep hearing about called WordPress. . .no idea what that is.  I think it's the blog equivalent of an html editor.  I'll look it up.  If it's not free, I probably won't be using it.  HA!!!

So with the new layout and all, some of the colors might clash or be wrong or whatever.  If there's anything that looks funny, please let me know.

Thanks!!

My kids

my ridiculously perfect kids  

Me & Erika try to refresh all the pictures in our house about once a year.  She's kind of into scrapbooking so soon after the calendar year is over she usually goes through all our pictures and picks out about 50 or 60 to put in a scrapbook for the previous year.  Now that I think about it, she hasn't done that in a few years, so I think she still needs to do 2010 and 2011.  Anyways, when she (normally) does that, we print out enough to replace all the ones that are framed in our house.  We've got several that we like to keep up but there's frames all over the place so there's usually about 50-60 pictures we have to replace.


Well, I'm a photographer but we never have photo sessions with the kids.  The day I took this picture, I tried to dress the kids in something that would contrast all the leaves really well.  I'm terrible at dressing the kids.  If Erika doesn't set out an outfit for Addison, she's gonna leave the house looking like a man dressed her.


So I took the kids out to this field over here by our house and basically took pictures of them playing in the leaves.  I think this is my favorite one.  I printed an 8X10 of it and we have it in the center of a big wall that I call the "Wall O' Frames".  You'd think the center picture would need to be of all 4 of us.  Well, that one is at the top as an 8X10.  I'd actually like to put a 16X20 of us in the middle. . .this post isn't about me rearranging the Wall O' Frames though, so let's move on. . .


To see this picture as an 8X10 in a frame is awesome.  And yeah, they're my kids, so if you saw the picture, it wouldn't have quite the same effect, but the reason I'm posting it today is because I freaking LOVE this picture.  I have a fairly recent picture of the two of them laying on their stomachs smiling and looking at each other and it's awesome, but this one is so. . .loving.  They love each other so much.  And Austin is such a good big brother.


The other day we were at Wal-Mart and I forgot to get a jacket for Addison.  That's about typical.  I think what happened was me & Addison went to pick up AUstin from school and I didn't plan on going anywhere else so I didn't get her a jacket.  But Austin had his, so when we got to Wal-Mart, he let her wear his.  And he put it on her.  It made both of them happy.  So freaking awesome.  People without kids are probably reading this thinking I'm a weirdo.  And maybe I am.  But for a different reason.  My kids are awesome, and I thank God for them EVERY night!!


Thanks!!

announcing my blog

DANG IT!!!  I've gone 3 days now without posting.  It flew by!!  In the meantime I've started another blog.  It's called "Fatty Fatty 2X4" because that's what I am.  But I haven't spent much time on that one either so that's not why I haven't posted here in 3 days.  I can't explain it.  I don't deserve your friendship.  I feel like I've let you down.  I have let you down.  I'm sorry.  On top of that, I don't have a picture to post.  I could look through my collection of about 50,000, but that would take too long and Austin wants to have a family game night tonight.

So I've been posting in this blog since January 1 and haven't told anybody about it.  Well, I told my family and a few close friends, but I've been waiting on February 1 to announce it.  Announce. . .ha!!  Like I'm gonna have a press conference or something.  Anyway, I'll put it on my facebook page and I have a feeling my followers will shoot from 3 straight up to like 7 or 8.  And I'm so excited about that.  So I thank you in advance.

Thanks!!

It's in the details

Here's an oldie but goody.  I love the detail.  And this was taken almost 7 years ago with my crappy lens.  I gotta go back there sometime.  Somewhere around Greenville, MS.

Thanks!!

I'm broken.

MyFitnessPal - Nutrition Facts For Foods

I hate admitting to anybody that I exercise.  Here's why. . .this may get deep. . .First of all, for some reason I feel like having to exercise is like admitting that I've already lost.  I can't totally explain that, but it makes sense in my head.  If I have to exercise, that means I'm not currently happy with myself.  There's something wrong with me.  I'm broken.

Another reason is because every time I get excited about a new workout or a new exercise or a new running thing or whatever, I tell my friends and family about it, then a month later, for whatever reason, I'm not doing it anymore.  So, by telling people, I'm setting myself up for failure.  I'm not gonna workout forever.  I'm 35 years old, 5'11", and weigh 200 pounds.  If I get down to 180 (my goal weight, given that it's proportionately distributed), I'll probably stop.  I'll at least stop killing myself (that's hilarious because my current "workout" is about 20 minutes).  I kind of enjoy jogging and want my kids to pick up on that, so I'll probably at least try to keep doing that until I can't do it anymore.  My point is, right now I'm working out with a goal; to lose 20 pounds.  When I lose those 20, what will I do?  I don't have an answer to that.  

People always talk about working out giving them energy and relieving stress.  WHAT?!?!  It stresses me out and makes me tired!!  Granted, I don't fuel my body with the right things to be energized, but no exercise has EVER made me feel energized or relieved any of my stress.  Well, I don't get stressed, so that's a whole 'nother blog post.  

This post is to say this. . .I don't want to admit that I'm broken, but I am.  I'm overweight and out of shape and uncomfortable with the current state of my health.  I've always been fairly athletic, but due to my outrageously ridiculously terrible eating habits, things have to change.  My metabolism has finally calmed down a little and slapped me in the face.  It's like all the interest from one of those 0% interest things. . .if you don't pay it over the 0% interest period, they add it all up and tack it onto your bill after that period is over.  That's kind of what my weight has done.  I've gained about 2 pounds a month for the past year.  Pretty slow, but steady and significant when you realize that in a year, I've gained almost 25 pounds.

So I'm starting this myfitnesspal.com thing and I'm gonna try to be pretty accurate inputing the foods I eat and the exercise I do.  I've added the weight loss badge to the top of this post and the side of my blog.  Hopefully one day, it will say "20 lbs lost"!!  If it does, then I've succeeded.  If I gain weight, hopefully their algorithms don't work for that and it won't show up. . .

So, wish me luck, and I'll probably post a thing here and there whining as much as I can about my "workouts".

Thanks!!


**update** I started a new blog about my weight problem and how I'm trying to combat it.  It's called "Fatty Fatty 2X4" at thebathroomdoor.blogspot.com

HDR & Crape Myrtles

I don't know why I like this picture.  I took this in Richmond, VA in May of 2004.  I was there for my best friend's wedding and after the rehearsal dinner we were waiting on some folks so I snapped a few pictures while we were waiting.  We also looked for 4-leaf clovers in the grass that I was standing in when I took this picture.  Fun.  I've always had a knack for finding those things.  It's weird.


Anyways, this was super early in my digital camera days.  I took this with my first digital camera, which I got in February of '04, so at this point, I'd only had it for a few months.  Evidently it was also early in my photoshop-using days too.  This shot would have been a perfect candidate for HDR.  It would look awesome if you could see details in those trees but with a blue sky behind it.  Oh well, I didn't know anything about HDR 8 years ago.  I still don't, really.


I guess it's the composition that I both like and dislike about this picture.  I can critique the crap out of my pictures.  I like the empty bench, maybe it would be better with a person, I don't know.  I like the way the crape myrtles frame the entire shot, but that big building in the middle kind of gets on my nerves.  What do you think?


Thanks!!

Blog Layout (or not)

Ok. . .changing the layout of the blog will be more difficult than I thought.  All of the templates that this website has are no good.  I mean, I want it simple, but not too simple.  But I want to be able to customize it too.  I know this site offers some simple layouts that are customizable, which may sound perfect, but they're not.  I didn't like any of them.  I'm gonna have to do more research on this blog stuff.


Speaking of that, I'm still only subscribed to two blogs–my wife's and Chase Jarvis'.  I don't look at blogs.  I guess I should start doing that.  I find it hard enough to find time to actually write in my own, much less pilfer through the 50 billion that are on the Internet (I feel stupid capitalizing Internet, like it's a person or something)


And my new band has some gigs lined up at the end of February so I've got to start learning these songs YESTERDAY!!!  AND I'm at an all-time high weight right now. . .not gonna divulge that number because honestly, I'm embarrassed.  And yes, there are people that are fatter than me.  There are people that are more out of shape than I am.  But I don't like not having control of my weight.  I went through a jogging spell about 2 years ago and got down to a very comfortable weight.  Then I quit jogging and the pounds just started flying on like freaking flies to a turd.  That's gross.


So I've got to start exercising somehow, sometime.  I went tonight and just did a little interval training thing on the treadmill for about 20 minutes.  It said I burned 300 calories, which is a Mt. Dew.  So that's good.  HOWEVER!!  There's 3500 calories in ONE pound.  So I've got to do that thing EVERY DAY of the week to lose THREE pounds a MONTH.  And that's not really including the fact that I don't plan on changing my eating habits.


And there lies the problem.  My Dad told me this 20 years ago. . .I don't eat right.  So I've known it since he told me when I was 15 years old and I've known it as I've grown older and realized how crappy my diet is.  The worst part is. . .I've passed it down to my kids.  It's sad, really.  


Wow, this blog is really getting me to open up.  I'm glad I've only got 3 people following me because I'd feel bad for whining to more than 3 people.  Anyways, this post was supposed to be about me deciding to keep my current (default) blog layout because I didn't like any of the other ones.  It kind of made a shift to some things a little more personal.  Which reminds me of something else. . .I'm not gonna focus on putting a picture up with every post.  This is my blog and it will be photography-based, but I'm realizing that it's more than just putting a picture up and telling a story with it.  It's gonna be kind of a release for me.  I'm actually looking forward to writing a little bit more.  A lady friend of mine once told me that I should try to write.  I made fun of her for it because I've never written anything and to be honest, I've never read anything.  So why would I write?  Well, she was right, I was wrong.  There.  I said it.  So shutup.


I look forward to boring you with many more useless entries in the future, most of which will have pictures attached.


Thanks!!

Tiger Woods in 2012

I'm gonna go ahead and make my prediction about Tiger Woods in 2012.  4 wins, one of which will be a major.  If you have anything to say about that, leave me a comment.

Thanks!!

UCA Cheer

So I went to a cheer competition yesterday.  I have 2 nieces, one of which is the one in the middle of this picture with her mouth wide open.  She's 10 right now and doing this competitive cheer thing.  I was instructed by my sister-in-law to be there at 9:00 to take pictures.  I wasn't necessarily looking forward to it, but in the end I had a good time.


Sports photography is always tricky to me, mostly because I've never shot whatever is it is I'm shooting.  I don't do sports.  Not because I don't like to but because the opportunity doesn't come up very often, and when it does, I realize I need one of those $5,000 lenses.  It's always a challenge.  I enjoy it.  Going into the cheer thing, I wasn't ready for what was about to happen. . .


Their thing was about 4 minutes long and I took almost 300 pictures.  I focused on Amber about 95% of the time.  A few times I zoomed all the way out to get the entire group.


The point of this post. . .I like action photography.  Sports and action and anything moving. . .stuff like that is really fun!!


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Normal?

Another picture I took with the Hipstamatic app. . .


Today I had to drive out to Collierville (not a huge deal, but it's about 40 minutes from here) to pay a ticket.  I got a ticket for expired tags back in December and was supposed to call either pay it over the phone or agree to go to court.  Well, I didn't see the bit about calling until I was on my out there.  So I drove all the way out there to spend about 3 minutes at the courthouse to pay a $40 clerk fee.  It was dismissed and didn't go on my record. 


All of this story and driving around just so I could sit Addison on the steps in front of the courthouse and get this freaking awesome picture.  I love it!!  As you can see it was windy and cold, but when I said, "will you sit right here and let me take your picture?", she said, "yes sir!" in an excited voice.  She's so awesome.  I'm not looking forward to when she gets tired of me taking her picture.


Austin (6 years old) is already tired of it.  I never get good pictures like this of him anymore because every time I point the camera at him, he does some karate move or makes a goofy face or dances like a crazy person.  And don't get me wrong, I take those pictures of him being a goofball, and almost encourage most of the goofiness that comes out of him.  Like father like son.  There's no pictures of me as a kid being "normal".  I guess we define our own version of normal, huh?


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una rosa es una rosa

I don't like flowers.  They stink.


And I hate the fact that I didn't spend more time fixing the background. . .that wrinkled spot under the rose is killing me!!!


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There are no rules

Here's the story of a picture that shouldn't work.  Meaning, it defies a few conventional "rules" of photography.  I call this one "Soulmates" because it's 2 trees growing together, kind of becoming one (awwwww).


I've mentioned before that I'm in a band (at the time of this picture, it was a full-time band) and we travel a little bit.  Not a whole lot, but maybe 10 weeks a year we go out of town.  Every time we do, I take my camera with me and usually just drive around and/or walk around taking pictures of things.  Sometimes I have an idea of where I'm going but most of the time I just go places and pull off the road somewhere and get out and walk around until I find something interesting.


This particular morning, I woke up and left the hotel early enough to catch the sunrise the morning of this picture.  I drove around trying to find a good spot to get the sun coming up above the horizon but because I really had no idea where I was, I couldn't find a good spot, so I missed the sunrise.  I was quite frustrated.  I'm never up early enough to actually see the sun coming up over the horizon, but made it a point to get out and get somewhere early enough to see it.  Not to mention it was cold and windy.  The temperature was somewhere in the 20's (if you're not from the south, that's cold down here).


Well, I kept driving around and eventually ran across a golf course.  There was frost all over the grass. . .the fairways and greens were beautifully covered in a frosty dew and I couldn't resist getting a picture of it.  So I drive up to this golf course like I own the place.  I walk out onto the green and get a picture of the lone flag on the frozen green of an obviously unplayable course.  As I walk around a little, I eventually find a water hazard (a pond for you non-golfers) than ran the entire length of what looked like the first hole.  There was another fairway on the opposite side of this water hazard, so I knew at this point I'd be much more successful taking pictures rather than playing golf here.


The water was about halfway frozen.  And by halfway I mean I'd throw a rock out onto the ice and it would slide until it got about halfway across the water then it was fall into the water.  Really interesting that it was frozen that way.  So I took some pictures of that.  None of my pictures at this point were blowing me away.


So it's coming up on about 9:00 and the sun's been up for, I don't know, maybe an hour or something.  I know that with every minute I'm losing my chances of getting something with that magical first few hours of sunlight.  Then I see these two trees.  Well, like I always do, when I see something beautiful, I attack it!!  I took pictures up close, far away, all kinds of stuff.  I got some from behind the shadow of the trees (the sun being blocked by the tree), I got some with the sun to the left, to the right, with the sun out of the frame, all kinds of stuff.  But none of them were really getting what I wanted.


That's when I laid down on the frost-laden fairway.  My goto pose.  Laying on the ground.  Still, nothing was coming off looking what I thought was spectacular.  I got lots of good shots.  How could you take a bad picture of two trees growing up together looking like one tree? I mean, other than the fact that there are 2 trunks, the way the branches are growing makes it look like it's one tree.  Freaking awesome.


Well, eventually I decided to put the trees out of focus.  I focused on a spot in the fairway about 75 feet (it doesn't look that far in the picture) in front of the trees. . .BAMM!!!


So there are a few rules, or maybe guidelines in photography about composition:


1.) Generally speaking you don't want to center your subject.  Giving it room on either side of the picture usually makes for a more compelling composition.
2.) The horizon should never (almost never) be in the center of the image.'
3.) You want your subject in focus (duh!!).


In this particular shot, the subject is out of focus, centered, and the horizon is (pretty much) centered.  So I'm kind of breaking 3 pretty important rules here with this picture.  But I like it.  And there may be a better way to photograph these trees.  But for me, this works.  It might be freaking awesome to zoom out, put the trees in the bottom left corner and just have a huge expanse of sky conquering the middle, upper, and right sections of the frame.  I probably took that picture actually.  But this is the one that I liked the most.


So ne ne na boo boo to all your photography rules (guidelines).


Given the length of this entry, there's sure to be grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors.  Sorry about that.


Thanks!!

busy, busy, busy

I'm not sure I have a photograph to upload today because I'm mad at myself.  I've been busy with some other things lately and honestly, since my (2-year old) daughter is staying home with me now (no more daycare since I lost my job), I haven't really been able to get a whole lot done during the day, so I've missed 2 days of blogs.  I take my boy to kindergarten at about 8:30, and Addison goes down for a nap around 11:30.  Since I'm usually up most of the night, I only get a few hours of sleep before taking Austin to school, so I almost always take a nap with Addison.  Then we wake up around 2:30 to go get Austin from school.  We get home from that close to 4:00, and Erika gets home at about 5:00.


I'm not complaining by any means, because I've pretty much got it made.  This time of year, work-wise, is VERY slow for me.  As far as photography goes, I don't have a studio, so all of my photography is done outside.  Well, it's kind of cold in January, so I don't have any photo shoots scheduled this month.  As far as the music thing goes, January is a notoriously slow month.  But on top of that, the band I've been in for the last 15 years is pretty much broken up.  Instead of playing 4 days a week, which we've done consistently for probably 10-12 years, we're now only playing 4 days a month.  So, that's why I say I "lost my job".


So, I'm pretty much unemployed and complaining that I don't have time to write in my blog.  That's awesome.  I wanted to have an entry for every day in January, but DANG IT!!! Oh well, I don't think many people update their blog every day anyway.  If I can stay consistent with 2 or 3 times a week, I'll be proud of myself.


Oh, I got that hipstamatic app for my phone, so here's a picture I took with it tonight.  I like the way my hand looks.  Almost has an HDR look to it.  And the light from the kitchen is kind of cool too.


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McDonald's makes me laugh

How about this. . .

Square Format

One of my favorite pictures I've ever taken!!  A stunningly beautiful bride, she could not take a bad picture.  I wanted to get the details of that thing on her shoulder. . .the lacy, beady-looking part of her dress. . .but when she looked over, I knew this was a winner.  I love the profile of her face and the detail in her eye (what little bit you can see).


And I've always been a fan of the square format.  I'm not real sure if this is a good square crop, given that her eye (albeit at the top) is in the dead center of the picture horizontally.  The more I stare at it, the more it bothers me actually.


This is a perfect example (again) of getting a shot that I didn't plan.  If I go out looking for a picture, I won't find any.  But if I go out looking for nothing, I'll be able to see everything.  Wow.  That's kind of deep.  But it's happened to me before.  I would go out looking for letter pictures (natural things shaped like letters - www.CreativeNameScapes.com) and find myself not even seeing the other opportunities that were right there in front of me.


On a totally different topic. . .I still haven't changed the look of my blog from the original just all white look.  Here's the problem. . .I'm not about to pay for a blog template, and I haven't found anything yet that I like.  And I don't know enough about it (yet) to figure out how to change all the stuff myself.  I guess that's what I should work towards.  I gotta dig in a little deeper and figure out how to change all this stuff manually.


I'm tired.  Goodnight


Thanks so much to all my followers (at the time of writing this I have 3).  I love y'all!!


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Style

I love this picture.  It's pictures like this that make me want to strive to achieve a style.  Yet, at the same time, you can't plan a picture like this, so you can't really include this with any style.  Maybe "spontaneous" would be the style.  I'm not real sure what it's called but I love getting pictures like this.  I followed this girl around for about an hour and got lots of great shots like this.  I think there's a place for posing. . .there are times when you need to stop and say, "hey, look at the camera".  But for the most part, I think the most moving pictures are the ones that you don't plan.  I think most photographers would agree with me on this.  Going to the right place, putting the subject against the right background and standing in the right place to get the shot may be considered the planning aspect of it, but it's capturing the personality that's the best part.  I'm rambling.  Sorry.


Well, my wife's truck is broken down so I've got to get to work on that, so this is a perfect time for me to stop rambling.


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What is a blog?

That's right!!  I'm doing a search for "what is a blog?".  I know I've already had a few posts admitting that I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing here.  I'm thinking (hoping) that once I get enough posts on here to go live with it (I'm not telling anyone about this until I have about 20-30 posts on here), I'll get a little feedback and that will help me focus my direction a little.  Or maybe I shouldn't change my focus.  But I'm not exactly focused right now.  Hmmm…


I mean, should I just write whatever I want on here?  I've seen photography blogs that will at random post a video about recycling or something.  I mean, if I like a certain AC/DC video and want to tell all of you how freaking awesome Angus Young is (guitarist for AC/DC), I can do that, right?  That's what I thought.  I mean, it's my blog.  And yes, it's (mostly) a photography blog, but whatever.


We'll work through this together.  I appreciate your patience.


Thanks!!

Old Glory

Here's the story behind this picture. . .


First of all, I'm very patriotic.  I've been wearing a "SUPPORT OUR TROOPS" wristband thing since October of 2001.  I've had to buy a few b/c they wear out and eventually you can't read that it says that, but I don't take it off.  My Dad was in Vietnam, his Dad was in WWII. . .I'm patriotic.


My old flag was pretty worn out so my parents got me a new one for Christmas.  It's beautiful.  I always forget how awesome a brand new flag looks. . .the colors are bright, you can hear it flapping in the wind. . .it's awesome!!  So awesome that I've been wanting to take a picture of it.  I took one tonight.  I'm not sure if we have a full moon going on tonight or if it will be full tomorrow night, but it's big and bright tonight, so I composed a shot with the flag and the moon.  I wanted to get that star effect from the moon so I had to set my aperture to something small.  I started with something like 6 seconds at f/10.  That was decent but not the one.  The exposure on this shot ended up being 30 seconds at f/18.  I thought I liked it when I saw it on the camera.  Then I got it in photoshop.


WOW!!  I had quite a blast working on this one.  I did quite a bit to it--levels, a photo filter, a CoffeeShop Action (Vintage News), and lots more.  I spent about an hour on it.  So you better like it!!  I like it.


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Man, this is hard!!!

Water is a beautiful thing.  It's also VERY difficult to take pictures of.  I'm not sure I have the right equipment to do it actually.  But I always think it's interesting how much we can't see when it comes to water.  When you freeze a moment like this with a fast shutter speed (or in this case a flash), you can see that there's one big drop first and then several tiny ones right after it.  When you get a picture of running water with a slow shutter speed it looks almost ethereal.  It's a beautiful thing.  I love taking pictures of water.  I don't take enough time to do that actually.  I live in North Mississippi, right below Memphis, TN so there's not really any huge falls or cascades or anything like that nearby.  However, we've taken my daughter out of daycare so she's home with me everyday now. . .I think while she's home with me and I have the chance, we might take a few road trips to go on photography adventures.  Both my kids go crazy when I use the word adventure.  You could be vacuuming the floor but if you call it a "finding the dirt adventure", they'd go along with it.

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¡¡GOTCHA!!

Here's a not-so-sarcastic picture of some of my results from the meteor drip, I mean meteor shower.  The funny thing about this picture is that, when I took it (8 second exposure), I saw that one in the middle of the frame shoot by and I got all excited b/c I knew I caught one.  I didn't even see that small one (brighter, actually) at the bottom until I opened this picture in PS.  So I saw 7 in an hour and a half, but these 2 came within 8 seconds of each other.  Awesome.


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Quadrantids Meteor Shower

Here's a picture I took of the meteor shower last night.  Awesome.  The details. . .

I live too close to Memphis to do long exposures of the sky at night so I went down I-55 about 20 miles to Coldwater, MS.  I left home around 1:30 and got to the Coldwater exit around 2:00.  I don't think I've ever gotten off at that exit so I don't know anything about that area.  I took a left and tried to find a good empty spot away from houses and stuff.  A few turns off that road and I found a mostly empty field that only had one house in the distance.  It's 25 degrees.  I'm getting my tripod set up and trying to figure out the settings and stuff and through a little trial and error I determined that my exposure should be (at ISO 1000) 8 seconds at f/2.8.  That left the sky black but got enough information to capture stars that I myself couldn't see.


There was talk of the meteor shower peaking from 3:00-5:00 (60-100 meteors per hour--about one a minute) but I wasn't sure if that was Eastern time or what.  The moon was setting, so the sky was looking really good around 2:00.  At this point I'm assuming I'll be taking pictures for the next 2 hours and getting lots of "shooting stars".  By around 2:30 I'm getting frustrated.  It's worse than fishing.  I don't have a cable release so I'm standing behind my camera looking up at the sky hitting the shutter release every 8 seconds.  8 seconds, click.  8 seconds, click.  8 seconds, click.  For an hour.  Fun.  At one point one flashed right in front of me right in the middle of my 8-second exposure.  So I knew I got it.  I looked at the picture and the streak was so faint it literally made me laugh.  So by 3:00 I had one picture of a meteorite barely visible.  Barely.  


So I'm a little frustrated and wondering if I should go home.  They're obviously not coming one per minute.  In the hour between 2:00 & 3:00 I saw 5.  So, instead of one a minute, I saw one every 12 minutes.  No good.


At about 3:03 I remembered that I'm shooting with a D700.  A beast of a camera.  It has a intervalometer function built into the camera.  So, I set the camera up to take a picture, wait one second, take a picture, wait one second, take a picture, etc.  So this whole time I've been freezing my balls off I could've been sitting in the car watching my camera take pictures by itself.  Which is exactly what I did for the next 15 minutes.  At about 3:20 I decided to go home. The picture you see above is pretty much what I have 270 pictures of.  Fun, fun, fun.


Thanks!!

Spontaneous pose. . .ehhhh. . .

I'm not sure if I'm supposed to divulge information like this or not. . .


This is a picture of my kids.  Erika (my wife) probably saw this picture idea on pinterest.  Everything she does and says now somehow has to do with pinterest.  I thought it was a cute idea, so I'm snapping pictures and realize both of them are looking at the camera smiling.  I told Addison to look like she was mad and told Austin to point at her and laugh.  This is what I got.  Yeah, if I could get them to mind me like that all the time, life would be a lot easier!  Addison looks truly angry in this picture.  That's why I'm not sure if I should've told this story. . .I think it's a better picture if you think it's real.  But blogs aren't for hiding things, right?  That's why I'm here.  To tell stories.  To be real.  


In case you've been in a cave for the last year, here's Pinterest.


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WWW

I will eventually change the layout of this blog.  Of course, no matter when you're reading this, you won't know which layout (I'm so new that I don't even know if "layout" is the right word) I was using when I wrote this, so I'll go ahead and tell you.  It's whatever it starts off like if you don't choose any templates.  It's white with black text. . .blah blah blah. . .I know, I'm a disgrace!!


Here's a back line. . .In college, one of my majors (HA!!) was Management Information Systems. . .basically computers.  When people in my family had a computer question, they asked me.  And I usually knew the answer.  When my band needed a website (in 1997), I looked at other pages' source codes and learned HTML and made our website.  I was never great at website design and my HTML knowledge was 100% based on other websites that I saw, but I was kind of hip to what was going on.  Then all these pages started having this thing called JAVA.  I was like, "WHAAAAAT!!!???".


By the time I tried to learn XML and java and flash and all that crap, the band was playing about 4 or 5 days a week, I had a kid, a wife, random other jobs. . .long story short, I couldn't keep up with technology and I got so far behind with learning what was new and up and coming and hip that I totally lost interest in learning and keeping up with all that.


People still ask me computer questions and I can still impress them with my answers, but now the answers are all wrong.  It's just me trying to avoid saying, "I quit college to play guitar in a band and I have no idea how to answer your question.  Sorry.".


So. . .


Now the band isn't playing as much (close to none actually), and I'm really digging this photography thing.  However, anybody that's been in the photography business for any length of time knows that a huge part of being successful is being a good at the business side of things.  That's not one of my strengths.  So I've been reading books and watching podcasts and trying to figure out how I can become better at the business side of it.  One of the things I'm having to do is reacquaint myself with all the new and hip internet things.  I didn't know what a blog was.  I didn't know what an RSS feed was.  I'm not about to admit to all the things that I have ZERO knowledge of, but let's just say this. . .I've got a lot of work to do!!


All that was me explaining why I'm gonna change the look of my blog.  WOW.  And I didn't even have time to talk about the picture I was originally gonna upload.  So I changed my mind about the picture.  Given the nature of this entry, I created a funny little picture to kind of go along with it.  The one I was gonna use today. . .I'll just post it tomorrow.


Thanks!!

Exit 74 on I-40

Before I got married and had kids I used to just get in my truck and drive somewhere. . .if I saw a road that looked kinda dead-endish, I'd pull off on that road and take as many turns as I could and at some point just get out and walk around and start taking pictures.  Now that I have a family and jobs and all that, I can't do that as often.

Today me (my wife, Erika and I) were going to Jackson, TN to pick up our kids from the in-laws.  We met up at exit 80 but a little before we got there I saw a big old ugly barn on the North side of the interstate.  It was quite dilapidated.  It was huge, but most of it had collapsed. . .anyway, I wanted to stop by on the way back and get a picture of it.  When we came back, I got off at exit 74 (I believe that's Huntersville, TN) and tried to find the barn.  It ended up being tucked away in someone's back yard.  If I had the nerve, I would've asked them if I could take a picture of it, but I didn't, so I lost out on that.  It'll be there (maybe) next time. . .

So I continued down the road a bit and found another old building. . .took some pictures of it, nothing great. . .I was leaving and pulled into a field to turn the truck around.  It was really windy and I've always wanted to get one of those pictures of grass blowing in the wind.  With a slow enough shutter speed it comes out looking really dreamy. . .Well, I put my ISO on LO 1.0 (the equivalent of 100) and the slowest I could go with a decent exposure was about 1/30 second.  So this is what I got.  Not quite what I was hoping for but again, it gives me a reason to go out and try that again.

So I didn't get the old barn shot, and I didn't get the grass shot. . .there's always tomorrow.

Thanks!!

January 1, 2012

January 1, 2012.  My first entry in my new blog.  Well, actually it's a little after midnight so technically it's January 2, but whatever!!

I'm a little excited and nervous about the blog thing.  I've never been much of a writer.  I've written songs and poems most of my life but I think this will be different. . .a challenge.  I'm excited.  I don't have a clue who will be interested in this, or if anyone will "follow" me, but I'm just diving right in.

As I'm typing this, I don't even know what it will look like when I hit "PREVIEW".  I haven't chosen a template or a style or anything.  I'm being brutally honest when I say this--I've never even seen a blog before.  I know it's 2012 and it's embarrassing for me to admit that but that's all about to change.  So, whoever you are reading this, thanks for stopping by, I hope you don't fall asleep at your computer (again, it's 2012 so I should also say don't fall asleep at your phone), and feel free to comment and let me know what I'm doing right or wrong.

Thanks!!