Good Looks

My nephew, Sean , does a flip off the side of the pool as my niece, Josie looks on.

Happy Easter everyone!

Today was an interesting day for me as a photographer.  I gave up my photographer duties to my young, eager to learn nieces.  One has been helping me shoot weddings and the other has been asking to get involved with photography (notice how I say “get involved with”?  It is after all a relationship that one can never seem to walk away from).

There are two things I learned today.  One.  I need to put the fork down ASAP. When I am not shooting the pictures, images of me seem to turn up in Lightroom and man am I fat!  There is nothing that motivates me more to exercise than to see images of how people see me.

The second and more important thing I learned today was that there is nothing like the look on a young persons face when they are handed an expensive camera and asked to “go get some shots for me”.  Their look is priceless and the looks they get from their peers is even more priceless.  My nieces captured some images I only wish I could have captured.  They caught the pure and unbridled emotions of a family coming together for a holiday way better than I ever could have hoped to.

I think I learned a third thing just now.  Trust your gut.  I had a gut feeling come over me that said to let them have some fun and see what they can do left alone and uninstructed.  My gut said they would kick ass and they did.  Now my gut is telling me to go get some ice cream.

Check out the images at my personal Facebook page.

Spiritual Photography (Life 2.0)

This week while photographing several different locations I found myself having some sort of spiritual experiences.  It first started while I was photographing the moon the other night and was moved to shoot it in HDR style and found “The Eye of God” looking back at me.  I don’t always feel It watching me, but that night I did.  After this I started to wonder about some deeper issues besides just surface level images.

This led to the second experience which was while I was shooting “Anonymous Property” here in Center Hill, FL.  Once again I found myself, after seeing a pre-WWII Time magazine, slowing down and just taking in the property which is pretty much preserved as it was in the 1940’s and recalling some of the owners stories and life observations that he shared with me earlier in the day.  Soon I was laying on the ground, like a kid, looking up at the clouds and drifting back to those much simpler times.

The third experience just happened now on my back porch steps while I was photographing “Dennis Grasshopper”.  I’ve been messing around with him all week and tonight he finally behaved long enough for me to get the image I was hoping for.  I had to look into his eyes as I was shooting him and I got very sad as I know he will be dead in a couple more months.  I learned this earlier in the week because I had to look some facts up about his species on Wikipedia and the Internet.  I discovered in the process of keywording his images that his life cycle is only early spring till about November.

So, what I think I learned this week is: A) The Spirit of The Universe sometimes looks in on us.  Not in a bad way to see if we are behaving or not but more like the way I was watching Dennis Grasshopper tonight; with amazement and joy and also some sadness at It might know somethings about our life that we’re not aware of and or just enjoying and appreciating the moment for just that…being a moment not cluttered with It’s own bullshit thoughts.  B) Appreciate the era and times we live in now as it seems even thought our lives are getting less and less hard, the world is getting more and more complicated.  It sure is a faster paced, complicated and confusing world we live in now than 1940 Center Hill, Florida.  After talking with the 80 something year old “Mr. Smith” I came to really appreciate all the things his generation survived through, moved past and created for us.  And last but not least, C).  Live in and enjoy the moment.  Life is short and one should really appreciate the little things like stars and grasshoppers and old, country men telling stories.  We’re not going to be here forever.  Just ask Dennis Grasshopper. I think we’re put here to live and enjoy what we have, not what we don’t.  Moving forward, I plan to even more than before!

I am grateful that photography can give me these “spiritual” lessons all by slowing down and taking a closer look at life through the lens.  Thank you, God, “Mr. Smith” and Dennis Grasshopper for reminding me about some of this lifes most important things!  I will miss you guys when you go and can’t wait to catch up with the three of you on the other side – Life 2.0!

Back To The Future With Modern HDR Photography

I was blessed again today to spend the afternoon photographing my secret, frozen in time, location.  I consider myself a modern-day renaissance man, but, as I continue to photograph the location, I keep wondering if we don’t live in a very overwhelming & confusing era.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my Facebook, Twitter & (obviously) WordPress, but, this information age is a bit of a load on the old information processing system – the brain.

Today I found myself time traveling back to Center Hill, FL to about 1940.  What triggered the quantum leap was finding a Time magazine, dated June 10, 1940 on the property that had a very haggard image of President Roosevelt on the cover.  This was 6 months before the US entered WWII.  I had to kick back on the dusty floor of the home that was built circa 1909 and page through to see what we, as a country, were dealing with back then.  Lines that caught my eye where things like:

> “Producer Jack Warner was said to have banned the German language on the Warner lot. The studio declared this was obviously untrue since it would be impossible for many employees to communicate with each other.”  (So we were still a nation full of prejudices)

> Charlie Chaplin was reported to have halted work on The Dictator “until such time as there is at least a change in the European war situation.” The Chaplin publicity department said this could not be true because Chaplin was hard at work cutting the film. (So we were still concerned with the lives of celebrities rather than real world issues)

>”Walt Disney  has moved his entire staff to a new studio at Burbank, dropping some 400 people, about a quarter of his payroll, on the way.” (So we were still concerned about jobs and lay offs)

> “In the past fortnight the Federal Communications Commission has handed down two momentous decisions, one releasing Frequency Modulation broadcasting from the confines of experiment, the other locking television tight within it. By awarding FM the number one television sending band (44,000-50,000 kilocycles), FCC opened the heavens to FM broadcasting. Including the band it .had previously been allocated experimentally, it now has 42,000-50,000 kilocycles, will presently be able to spot stations all over the land. Meanwhile, television must plainly label television experimental, must readjust its transmitters in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles to one of its other bands. Bubbling with confusion, excitement, hysteria, the radio industry, feeling the hot breath of revolution on its neck, last week gazed fitfully into the future. Some of its visions were sad, some glad.” (So the federal government was still sticking its fucking nose into the homes of private citizens)

But most of the magazine was focused on raising money for a national defence, defence contracts and the Europen war theater. (Some things never change)

After I put the magazine back where I found it, I went outside and laid in the grass by “Grandma’s Well Pump” (see image below)…looked up at the sky and looked at the bright, fluffy, white clouds and listened to the wind blowing through the Spanish moss-covered oak trees and day dreamed about life back then – pre-Facebook, pre-MySpace and pre-Twitter and oh ya…pre-FM radio.  The US was on the brink of war but it still was a much simpler time.  A quieter time.  I wonder if the “Smith Family” knew how good they had it.  I wonder if they ever laid in the grass and listened to the wind blow through the trees.  Something tells me they did.  There was no air conditioning back then and Central Florida in August is as hot as it is humid.  I doubt being inside was much of an option!!

I am grateful to be a photographer in 2010 as it allows me to travel all over the world and today it allowed me to time travel to Center Hill, FL – 1940.  Well, back to the future…

Below are the images I captured with my digital camera and manipulated with Photoshop with the modern, post FM Radio, HDR technique.  I wish I could have lived back then and still had my MacBook, Nikon DSLRs and of coarse…my iPhone…the rest of 2010 you can keep 😉  Check back soon for more images of my secret time capsule location 🙂