Week 3 EOC: Where are you now and where are you going?

Often in life I have to ask ourselves where am I and where am I going? I had to ask myself this same question almost three years ago when I was laid off from my job. The construction market was on a terrible down turn and things didn’t look like they would be getting better anytime soon. So I prepared for the worst, luckily I had some money put away it wasn’t much but it got us through that first year as I looked for work and decided to go back to school. The next year hit us even harder and I had to give up quite a bit more than I thought I Ire going to have to. I turned the vehicle I had that had a monthly payment back over to the bank and declared bankruptcy. One thing I thought I would never have to do.  Even though I was working fulltime it was still hard to keep up with things while going to school full time.
So that is where I’m coming from, so where does that put me currently? Well it puts me almost done with school, still working fulltime and going to school fulltime. I have finally managed to make ends meet for the most part by taking on a better position with the job I have as well as working to build my own cliental for my own business. Little by little I will be trying to put money away for that rainy day as well as start again a savings for retirement. I plan to again buy some stocks and bonds using a mutual fund like I have had before. This will give me a place to stash away some money for retirement each month in a place where that money can earn interest and grow.

BOC Week 2: Crime Scene



With only a week to come up with a concept for a crime scene I began to try and figure out some ideas. This photograph of a crime scene is not the typical crime scene with tape and photo markers. This is more of a crime scene you would find before the police got to the scene. I wanted to make the viewer think of the different possibilities and scenarios of what could have happened. Could this be a murder in the snow? Not being able to see the figured upper body it can let the imagination tell the story. The sled in the foreground covering part of a chunk of wood also lets the mind wander could this be the murder weapon? Not all crime scenes have blood and guts all over the place. The lack of blood could indicate that the body has been in that position for a long period of time frozen and preserved until it was uncovered of found.
This image was shot on a sledding trip up near brain head ski resort. Sometimes you plan for these types of things with a specific goal or image in mind and sometimes things present themselves and you have to be ready to catch the shot. This happens to be one of those times the person in the photograph is a friend of mine who happened to be building a snow tunnel as I watched him climb and crawl in and out if this little cave I began snapping some images trying to find the best way to illustrate my idea. When going through the images when I got home I saw this one and knew that I had capture the shot I was going for. Accident or just being able to recognize an opportunity when it’s presented well I guess that is for you to decide when you view the final image.

Week 2 EOC: Sacrifices

What personal sacrifices would I be willing to make for a professional career? This was something I had to ask myself before going back to school. By making the commitment to go back to school for my bachelor’s degree in photography I had to sacrifice time with my wife and children to do so. I work full time and go to school full time so that does not leave a whole lot of time left over to do family stuff. To some this may not seem like much, but to someone who loves to be with his family it has been difficult. Some moment in life pass by and you never get a chance to relive those moments, moments like my youngest son learning to crawl and taking his first steps. Now I haven’t had to give up or sacrifice those moments 100% and yes I have had to arrange, and then re-arrange my schedule so that I could be around for as many of those moments as possible. I have also had to sacrifice some classes at school because of working full time and here in the near future I will probably have to sacrifice a good job so that I can finish school to be able to work and have a career in photography which is my passion. I will also be sacrificing a sure paycheck for a career that will only be as lucrative as I make it by the sweat of my brow and my hard work. Yet when I am able to do the things I love and support my family doing it, all the sacrifices will be worth it in the end. The hard work and sacrifices I am making now while I am in school will also prepare me for any I will have to make after I graduate.

Week 1 BOC: Self Portrait

What do you think of when you think of a single image that defines yourself, well for me it is my 68 mustang. This car is not in pristine condition nor is it currently running. It is you could say a work in progress; I wanted to use this symbolism for my assignment. I did not want to do the traditional self portrait of myself and figured this was the perfect way to describe myself in a single photograph. I like this car have been a little bruised and worn over the years, yet with a little elbow grease the car and myself can and will be right as rain again one day. It also represents how you can take an old car and turn it into something new again, like myself having gone back to school to get a degree in a totally different field than I was working making myself new and improved again.
The lighting I used for this shot was a simple two light set up with a long exposure. I chose to shoot at night to be able to achieve the look I wanted. In the non edited photo this image does not look like much and I do not believe in a lot of photo manipulation with my photographs. The effect comes from adding a filter in post to lighten the shadow areas and to enhance brighter areas. I am a fan of the old aged look in photographs as well as black and white photography, so in this the final image I wanted to bring out the details light in a black and white photograph while making it look somewhat aged.

Week 1 EOC: Haute Couture

What is haute couture? “Haute Couture is a French phrase for high fashion.  Couture means dressmaking, sewing, or needlework and haute means elegant or high, so the two combined imply excellent artistry with the fashioning of garments.” (http://www.fashion-era.com/haute_couture.htm#What Is Haute Couture?) Haute Couture is not something that I am familiar with other than with what it looks like when shown in movies.  This style of fashion is for the ultra rich, those individuals that have money to pay for the exclusive handmade clothing. “A model haute couture garment is made specifically for the wearer's measurements and body stance.” (http://www.fashion-era.com/haute_couture.htm#What Is Haute Couture?) For this reason haute couture is known around the world, shaping fashion to the current trend over the years.
So it is easy to see how haute couture has not only changed fashion but shaped it over the years, so why is this important to me as a photographer? “Since its inception in the 1880s, the fashion photograph has generated criticism. Some photographers consider it too commercial, an impure application of the art form. It has sometimes been dismissed as frivolous and criticized for promoting negative stereotypes. Yet it has generated some of the most widely recognizable, provocative, and enduring imagery of our time.” (http://zoomonme.com/main.php?g2_itemId=394) “Today many fashion photographers, such as Mario Testino (b. 1954), are as famous as the celebrities who pose for them. The cult of the star fashion photographer began in earnest in 1966 with Antonioni's cult film Blowup.” (http://zoomonme.com/main.php?g2_itemId=394) Haute Couture continues to set the trend in high fashion and in photography; this is why it is important to me as a photographer. It is important for the fashion photograph to know where he came from in order to know where he or she is going.

Week 1 EOC: My Voice

As a young boy I can remember picking up a national geographic not for the wonderful stories inside, but for the magical images within those pages. Seeing those images I was hooked on photography, wanting to be the next national geographic photographer, to be shipped all over the world exploring distant lands with only a backpack full of essentials and a camera. This of course sparked in me a passion of and for outdoor and nature photography, I also have a love of shooting people photography in its many different forms. Photography is an art and its medium is light, light comes in two forms nature light and artificial light. Being able to see the way light creates, defines, or takes away from an image what defines a photographer and as a result it reflects in his or her work.  I am somewhat of a purist when it comes to my photography, while I know it is not always possible to get everything 100% perfect in the camera that is my goal each and every time I shoot. I have come to appreciate photo editing software more I learn how to use the different programs. Yet I still believe that a photographer must first capture the image correctly in the camera with proper use of that camera. If you take a crappy photo and edit it to death in photoshop no matter what the outcome or how nice it looks afterwards in my opinion you still have a crappy photo. If you take a beautiful photo and then no matter what you do to that photo you still have a beautiful photo.