I had the opportunity to borrow a great lens for the last week or so from good friend and colleague Al Wood. He was good enough to part with his 12-24mm Tokina so I could shoot some cottage interiors ( they will be the next post) and then I took a little time to play with the lens for fun. Good friends – and having a great kid who is a willing subject for her Dad’s experiments with lights, lenses and other craziness is a wonderful thing. So when I saw her in her “nest” chair and asked what she was doing, I got the answer “Meditating.”
Hey, when you are 12, there’s no sense wasting enegry on extra words – get to the point and get out!
I climbed onto the top bunk, get one of those great “what in the world are you doing looks”…and started shooting.
The light was really weird but I loved the angle and the perspective the lens brought – here’s a couple of the photos.
Breaks my heart but I have to return the lens today.
Bummer! But I do get to keep the 12-year-old, can’t complain about that.
Category Archives: photojournalism
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Willing subject, NH portrait photographer
Winter – still
Took a walk today with my wife – out on snowmobile trail so the dog could have a run and we could get some fresh air after spending most of the day in the basement trying to make some progress in the madness of the chaos.
As we walked by a frozen beaver pond she remarked that it had been a great winter – lots of snow, cold, no slush. It made me think about the complaining I’ve done this season because, you know, she is right – its been a great winter. Lots of snow, cold, no slush.
Made me appreciate perspective and what I’ve got.
The economy may be in the tank but we’ve got it pretty good – as we suffer through the recession, depression, whatever you want to call it, we still have it better than so many other places in the world – its just we’ve come to expect luxury.
Perspective, what a great thing.
Thanks Donna.
George Antoniadis
Yesterday I had the opportunity to photograph George Antoniadis, the CEO of Alpha Flying ( http://www.planesense.aero/ in Portsmouth, NH.
Alpha Flying is, in simple terms, a time share of flying – you buy in and if you need to go somewhere they guarantee a plane within 8 hours. Pretty cool if you’re in the market to go places and don’t want to deal with either commercial or charter services. In this rocky – some would call depressed – economy George is a man with a plan – and as many companies end up belly-up I think Alpha will be a flourisher ( I think I just invented a word, but you know what I mean).
We went into the hangar to do some photos and George, who is very used to being photographer and is in control, struck a pose that really spoke to the confidence he radiates for the company.
The rest is all work in Lightroom and Photoshop.
Thinking Day
Duly chastised by my colleague Roger Ramirez…”Hey Dude, where’s the blog posts?” shook me out of my doldrums and I’m back in the saddle again with the blog.
Yesterday was Girl Scout thinking day…as I said to my daughter, “But I thought everyday was supposed to be thinking day”…that got me an eye roll and that exasperated expulsion of air that leaves no doubt you’ve said something stupid…once again.
Anyway, a few hundred scouts crammed into the cafeteria at Stratham Memorial School and exhibited and preformed about other countries. Maybe Mexico ( homemade wedding cookies and guacamole) and Switzerland ( chocolate, what else) took the unofficial honors as most popular, but without a little bias I think the belly dancing girls from Newmarket were amazing!
Maybe the best part is that everything I’ve learned about the Girl Scout organization is that they teach tolerance and acceptance – we could use a lot more of that message in our world. And you don’t have to be female to be involved – I was the “cookie Mom” a couple of years ago!
The kids in costumes and dress from countries they researched made some pretty cool photos – and one surprise moment of love and tenderness that in an instant spoke volumes about what the day was all about…so here’s some photos of the day.
TJ Wheeler
Amazing blues and jazz musician.
Musical activist.
Guitar and vocalist extraordinaire.
These are all words that have been used to describe New Hampshire artist TJ Wheeler.
After hearing him perform at The Cornerstone Montessori School (http://www.cornerstoneschool.org) in Stratham as part of a week-long residency working with students about the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King and other incredibly important issues – as well as a ton of music thrown in - I’d have to call him just plain phenomenal! The school invited me to shoot the concert – here’s a selection of photos that just cannot do justice to the show he and the students put on. Click on a photo to see a larger version.[gallery]
Recovery!
Fedex brought me the nicest present today – my old harddrive and a spare I had sent in. On the spare was the recovery of my old. corrupted drive. Seems like everything but my applications was recovered – it will be a bit of time before I really know, but the best part was the folder of images from the jazz and tap odyssey were there! I honestly thought they were gone forever.
OK, lession I always preach has been learned – BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP – no, in a minute again and again.
To celebrate I’m posting a few images from the performance – there are still some shows coming up, I’ll post a schedule in the next few days.
Drika portrait
After dealing with a computer owner’s worst nightmare – a major league harddrive crash and corruption – I’m back to posting and writing.
Finding photographs from the various backups I have in place has been a bit like playing hide and seek – guess who was it!
I recovered a lot – and hopefully the rest will be recovered by a data recovery outfit in Cambridge, MA – I’ll let you know in another week or so.
Its funny, you never know what you have till its gone – silly little things like presets for printing and photoshop actions to speed up the workflow – back to reinventing the wheel.
Almost a year ago Drika Overton – one of the world’s great dancers – and I spent a sub zero afternoon along the coast of Maine shooting for a show she was putting together. I really didn’t get the concept then, but when I saw the show I was in total awe. Can you imagine a jazz group, a moderator reciting poetry and prose and tap dancers doing what I can only describe as modern jazz tap…if there is such a thing – all speaking to Rachel carson, the original environmentalist!
Still trying to recover the show photos – here’s the photo we came up for the poster.
