City Stages 2008

So, I got on a few stages this past weekend, and it was friggin awesome. I finagled my way onto the stage with the likes of Al Green, Diana Ross, and one of my favorite bands, The Flaming Lips. I told a couple of my friends who aren't as into the Lips as I am that even if they can't appreciate the music, they would be amazed by the show. I still haven't heard the end of how great it was.

A week or so before the show, I was awaiting backstage passes from a guy I knew from high school who plays guitar in the band Beyond Me. I headed down to the local camera shop, Cameras Brookwood just to look around and lust over equipment I would love to have for the show but could never afford. Long story short, I got to talking to a wonderful gentlemen named Paul, who upon listening to my whining/ expression of my desire to have some better, faster glass for the show - agreed to let me borrow his personal 80-200 f/2.8 lens. Yeah, score, I know.

The show itself was magical, and being on stage was inspiring. Needless to say, I was more than pleased with the results, which after talking to another photog at the event I felt the need to watermark.

Oh, and I met Wayne Coyne (lead singer) after the show, and he was one of the most genuinely kind human beings I've had the pleasure of meeting. I could tell he sincerely enjoyed what he was doing during the show - he was just having a blast, and putting on a great show. And during the set, there were a couple of times when he looked right at me when I had my camera up. I could go on and on...

Edit: I'm sorry, I can't for the life of me figure out how to properly arrange/format the text with the pictures in posts.

Vroom...

Blogger (at least on my computer) hasn't been working for me lately, hence the lack of posting. I know all 5 of you have been on the edge of your seats, but I haven't had time to mess with it. Nevertheless, I'm back in business, and I'm out on spring break for the next week. Whew, party! Not really, I'll be doing a lot of boring stuff, but hopefully I can take some cool pictures.

Anyway, I had to go out to Barber's Vintage Motorsports Mueseum a few weeks ago to shoot some motorcycles for a guy who's creating some kind of website for a particular brand of bike. I don't know anything about motorcycles, and they scare the crap out of me, but I do love a good Porsche! They were doing the driving school out there that day, and running the track really really fast. I snapped off some shots from the 2nd floor of the museum through the window.

Happy New Year

Hopefully 2008 will keep people from somehow managing to insert Nick Saban's name into the year, I'm so sick of hearing it. Yes, I'm an Auburn fan, but I feel certain I would have grown tired of that phrase being shouted drunkenly by every Alabama fan alive, even if I was a die-hard tide supporter. Seriously, it's played out.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a supertastic, safe new year, I know I did. The morning of New Year's Eve was really, really foggy, and up on Shades Crest Road you could see the entire city covered in a blanket of it. Didn't get to see it? Well, I took a picture for you.

All right, school's done for the semester and I'm off 'til early January. I'll be doing some portraits of friends' kids and family. Here are some shots of my friends little boy Elijah. He possibly might be the cutest kid alive. You can't tell because you can't hear some of the stuff he says, but take my word for it.

"Does that thing have face recognition?"

It seems I link to Strobist in just about every post, but with the wealth of knowledge provided by David and all the readers, I feel obligated. I was watching an interview with Mr. Strobist himself, discussing the development and growth of the blog, and how the internet community has become enabling in ways the world has never seen. There is nothing between us and the information. It is all free.

I really can't imagine if it was 30 years ago, and I had picked up a camera and had to learn everything I've learned through school or from other people. On Strobist, and Flickr, I literally have the ability to communicate with tens of thousands of people who are willing to help and give advice. It really is amazing how much I've learned in the past year, and I wonder how much longer it would have taken me had I not had this gigantic communication platform from which to draw knowledge and valuable information.

That being said, technology doesn't do everything for us. Digital cameras are getting better and better, but it's not like you could give a monkey a brand new Nikon D2xs and expect great results. There is still some talent and skill involved. As I'm sure every photographer has experienced, someone sees your pictures and immediately remarks, "wow, your camera must be great!". This is somewhat off putting to say the least. Was LeBron James in the NBA at 20 years old because of his "super sneakers". No. My pictures don't look decent solely because of my camera's ability. As said in the interview, "a minimum of equipment is required to do the job, but the most important equipment is between your ears." Oh so true...

In one of my favorite analogies on the subject, David said
he used to tell his students something similar to the following when he taught college:
"Say you're in a valley, and on one hill there is a twenty-year old kid with an super-expensive automatic rifle. He has tons of ammo, but little know how or experience in marksmanship. On the other hill, there is an old man with a single shot bolt-action rifle, and he's been doing nothing but this for 20 years. Who are you going to be more afraid of?"

I just love that. Anyway, my super camera had this idea of stitching together 3 shots for a panorama of this nice church. I didn't get it at first, but it turned out pretty bitchin'.

TGIF

Here I am, doing a little holiday shopping, a little blogging. Wait till you see what I got you, you're gonna love it. Me? What do I want? Well, hopefully after this Christmas I'll have enough lighting gear to make the above shot more like this one, hint hint. Hey, they're only SB-26's. They're cheap on ebay. Cheers.