It has been some time since I last updated the site. The holiday season has been a time of reflection and concentrating on re-prioritizing as well as re-organization. When certain things happen in your life that bring to light both your loved ones and your own mortality, things like updating a website seem to take on little importance. Some of you may remember that in November I had started working on a portrait project. The idea behind the project was to find 20 or more volunteers to be willing to participate in being subjects for a video essay of sorts.

Like most of my ideas it was stuck in my head and releasing it seemed impossible. I turned to my local camera club and asked the membership for their help. The response was amazing and I ended up photographing 28 volunteers. Initially I only needed 20 people to create a 20 image essay. But in the next few weeks I will be creating an extended version that will incorporate 28-30 total people.

The following video is the result of about 3 weeks of work. The first week and a half was dedicated to travelling to each of the subjects homes to get to know each of them for an hour while I set up my lights, photographed and then packed up. The experience was immensely enjoyable and each of the people I photographed were a joy to spend time with. The following week was spent searching for the perfect music and then production. The music was found on an amazing site called Jamendo, and the song I eventually settled on is called Parade by AKAJULES. It has been shortened to 2.5 min for the 20 image essay but will be used in its entirety for the extended version.

I wish to thank everyone who helped in the video’s creation by volunteering and their enthusiastic support. Please enjoy!

I was asked do put together a slide show of some of my work for a presentation. This is the result.

It has been quite the exciting week and half. I have been engrossed in a personal project that popped into my head that is built around the idea of a 20 image essay. 20 Images that are related in some way to each other. To achieve my vision I needed 20 faces of people both male and female at various age stages. Yesterday I finished the actual captures and ended up with far more than 20 faces so an extended version is also in the works. The best thing about the experience was meeting new people. More details about the project will be revealed early in 2010.

In the process of driving around to each location I missed posting last weeks Lensbaby of the week. Here is this weeks a little early, called ‘cornered’.

Within each photo that a photographer takes lives a spirit. You just need to look carefully and the spirit within your photography will show its face.

Mushroom Nymph

Full frame of a mushroom mirrored and flipped to reveal the nymph.

Today I had a photographer friend message me, asking why he was getting a black stripe at the bottom of his pictures. I knew immediately what he was talking about, because I know he recently bought some flashes and wireless remotes and is in the process of experimenting with them. This made me realize how many new photographers may be using their cameras and taking awesome pictures but they may not really understand how their camera works. Why is this important? Because if you do not fully understand how your equipment works you are limiting your creativity. An artist who creates images using paint and brushes will paint better pictures if they understand how colors can be mixed to create new ones. It is the same for a photographer if you understand the tools you use to create your images you open yourself up to much wider creative freedoms.

One of the first things that is necessary to learn when using flash or off camera flash with your photography is how your camera shutter works and the relationship it has with x-sync or sync speed. The video below is probably one of the best beginner videos I have ever seen when it comes to explaining this concept. Mark Wallace (@jmarkwallace), at Snapfactory.com has made this video which is the first in his amazing collection. Visit his video series here.