Another shot from some of my work on the Washington Coast – more info in the Ruby Beach Sunset post.
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Random Photos
Rain Forest Mushrooms
Posted in PhotoBlog
Ruby Sunset
Sunset from Ruby Beach
We spent a few days last week shooting in Washington’s Temperate Rainforests and as you can see, spent time on the beach. We had been planning this trip for a couple months, hadn’t been to the Washington coast in many years and I wanted to get out of the mountains and spend some time in a place that knows what rain is. Since we spent time in my old home, the Smoky Mountains, earlier this year – we opted for the west coast.
We only had a few days and couldn’t come close to spending time everywhere on my shoot list – rather it was a quick whirlwind trip to reacquaint myself with the area and ultimately so we can make notes and plan an extended trip next spring. It really was a whirlwind tour though – we visited Neah Bay, Cape Flattery (most NW point in the 48 states), Ruby and Rialto Beaches (my two favs), Hoh and Quinault Rainforest and stayed on the beach at Kalaloch Lodge. We almost spent a night at the Quinault Lodge in the rainforest, but I’m glad we didn’t, they were hosting a photography workshop – that would have been annoying. The trip was 99% work and I was so amazingly tired after getting back – but it was nice to be in the land of humidity and more importantly, fresh clam chowder. We’ve got our notes and an extended trip to Washington Coast will absolutely be on the calendar next year.
I will be posting a few photos from the trip here on my photoblog, and in the near future there will be section from this trip on my print gallery.
Posted in PhotoBlog, Photography
Mackie Mixer
I spent last weekend in a sound room/studio that I designed and put together years ago. I used to do sound work all the time, but not so much anymore — Still love it and get asked for help or answer questions on occasion, but I haven’t spent more than a few minutes behind a mixer in several years. Last Friday and Saturday I did and quickly remembered how much fun it is. During a lunch break though, I had a few minutes to take this shot, one I’ve had on my list for almost a year. This shot is of a Mackie sound mixer, one of my favorite boards. I’m not sure when I fell in love with Mackie products, but at some point I did and since then it’s the only brand I’ll happily recommend. Sure, there are other good brands, but there is just something about these boards I really, really like. I recommend them, cause if I ever end up at your venue or studio to help you, I want to run a Mackie. The brand doesn’t matter so much for this shot, in fact, their logo is in about the worst place (photographically speaking) you could put it.
For Photogs out there
I only had my camera backpack with me which just has a few essentials (7D, XSI, 35mm Body, 70-200mm/f4, 50m/f1.8, 10-24mm, 17-55mm, 430exII) — my lighting kit was a few miles across town and my tripod was out in my truck – I only had five minutes. I took a couple test shots at 50mm/f2.8 to get the angle and at a way to high iso I got a warm area in the shot from the goose-neck lamp. I pulled out the one flash I did have, the 430exII, and held it camera left. This blew away what little ambient & warmth I had so I had chose to gel the flash. Actually I needed warmth on the back of the board where the goose-neck lamp is, while maintaining natural color on the foreground faders. With one flash and zero ambient, I had little options. So I pulled out the gels, turned the flash head vertical and put a red gel on top to cover the background. Wasn’t quite the color mix I was going for so I added a CTB gel on the bottom, with a bit of overlap. With this I was able to get the deep color I was looking for and after a couple shots got the flash in the right spot (everything was handheld btw). I had about three minutes in this from start to finish before the folks started coming back for the afternoon session.
Posted in PhotoBlog
Halo: Reach — Combat Refined?
HALO Reach - the latest (and last) HALO title from Bungie is a prequel to all other HALO titles
Some of you may have noticed that Bungie just released a new HALO title — HALO Reach. (video and pics at the bottom)
Reach is a prequel to all the other titles, if you know anything about HALO and the story arc, then you know, we lose this one. Very ambitious of bungee to give us a game in which we lose. So did they do the story arc justice? Blah. …Thankfully the game is great.
The character development and story within a story was pretty good.Where Bungie failed, I think, is in pulling these subplots together and plugging them into the over all story of HALO. You’ll recognize characters and ships from future titles, but they rewrite a few pieces of HALO history — not cool. In some ways it seems like they had the character stories, gameplay and everything else done and realized they needed something to make it feel like it wasn’t a total loss. I expected to feel heartbroken at the loss of human life, they totally missed the ball on this. Sure, we saw a few civilians die throughout the levels – but they totally missed the whole “hey, we’re the covenant, we’re here to kill everyone on your planet and soon, the rest of your planets.” It should have been more emotionally involving. With 1 through 3, the whole game you feel like you’re fighting for something. You have great moments of victory and defeat. At the end of the game you let out a big sigh and sit back a bit amazed at what you’ve just experienced, the story, the characters and oh yeah, the game play — you don’t want to move, you can’t believe it’s over.
Reach missed it. The game was great, the story could have been. Continue reading
Project: Thus Untitled…
I have a new project that I’m about to start. I’m not going to title it yet – as with many of my photo projects, the scope is evolving as I start scheduling and putting plans on paper.
Over the next couple months I need to assemble quite a cast for a photo project in Boise, about Boise. The project focuses on artists, it makes an attempt to showcase them and their work in an interesting perspective. I won’t go into all the details until I have a few of the shots completed and have a better vision of where this road leads, but I’m sure it’s going to be great. We’ll starting shooting the second week of October with people I’ve already contacted and scheduled- I’m starting with the easier locations and saving really tough ones for late in the project, once me and the project has some momentum. If you’re at least mildly interested in being a part of this project, send me an email, I’ll give you more of the details about the theme and the locations.
Here is list of a few of the folks I’m still looking to work with for this project.
- Musicians
I already have a several signed up, but could use a few more, so regardless of the instrument(s) you play – send me a note. Especially looking for violinist, bassist and a small band. Near the end of the project I’ll be looking for a pianist but that will be the culminating piece of the project — And, quite a challenge – not sure I can pull off the location I want – need to work the phones and cash in a few favors
- Painter
Have a couple on the maybe list – wouldn’t mind talking with one or two more. - Potter/sculptor
One of the more difficult shots. - Dancer
Really looking for a ballet or otherwise classically trained dancer. But if you’re a modern/contemporary dancer, feel free to contact me. - B-Boy
Need a master of handstands - Shakespearean Actor
This will be one of the later shots in the project. - Mime(s)
Should have this one covered already. - Martial Arts
May have this one covered already – but feel free to contact me - Any creative/artistic person/small group
I’m open to ideas. If you or your group is of the creative/artistic type and do something that isn’t in this list, let me know, I may already have enough interest in that area that I didn’t list it or I may have totally missed it. Speak up, we’ll see if you fit with the scope of the project.
As you can see, this isn’t a small project. I’ll post more details here in the future but in the mean time — if you fit in one of these categories, please contact me. If you know someone who does, pass this along.
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