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Dead sexy…

If you pick up a copy of Quick currently on stands, be sure to check out my cover image.  It was interesting trying to do a cover shoot while the club was open and busy.  People were bumping into me, dancing into my shot, and making it hard for the model to hear me.  
Even with all the issues, I’m still very happy with the shot.  I think it has all the energy and sex appeal that the story does.  It’s about sexy drinks, and I think my photo is kind of sexy…

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Volkswagens…

I love old Volkswagens.  I’ve owned two, but never had the chance to drive them as much as I wanted to.  I would love another.  Tonight, I was stuck at a shoot on Lower Greenville that was taking forever.  Luckily, I had this beauty to look at and keep me happy:  

I know this post doesn’t really have much to do with photography, but I just HAD to talk about it.  I’ve got Volkswagens on the mind right now…
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Keller’s at night…

Who in Dallas doesn’t like Keller’s drive-in?  I am forced to drive by it almost every night, thinking about it’s tasty, greasy, salty goodness.  Often, I drive past when it’s closed, with only a few lights on and an empty parking lot.  

Last night, around 1am, I decided to stop and grab a quick pic of the burger joint.  It just looks so interesting when there’s nobody around.  So quiet, so peaceful… like something out of another era in time.  
I bet I could get a much better image if I actually went with a tripod and waited for a bold night sky.  This was just handheld at 1600 ISO, 1/50 sec, and f3.5 – so you can’t expect to get a wonderful poster-sized print out of it.  Maybe one day I will go back at night and shoot it right.  The place deserves it…  
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Birthday video…

Here is the other video I mentioned earlier.  It is a documentary short on the 25th anniversary celebration of the Dallas Children’s Theater:  

I have two more videos that were recently finished, but it may be a few days before they get published.  When they are finally up, you can bet I’ll be sharing them with you.  I’m really enjoying the whole video thing.  Hopefully, you are, too.
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Cinco De Mayo video…

I have another video up today.  Actually, I have two new videos, but I’ll post the other link in a little bit when I find it.  In the meantime, enjoy this first video – a Cinco de Mayo celebration at a local high school:  

http://lakewood-dallas.blackwhiteread.com/view/article/10416  

Though I mainly do editorial and advertising still photography, I definitely enjoy video.  It’s still new to me, so I’m not quite at a David Leeson level yet.  But, I’d have to say my little documentary shorts aren’t too bad so far…
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Kids and cameras…

I spoke to an elementary school class today, during career day.  A couple of them said they would like to be photographers, but most of them said stuff like football star or astronaut.  I speak to classes once every few months, though mostly it has been middle school, high school, and college level classes.  It was quite different talking to little kids.  It was definitely fun, though.  

  
Now it’s back to the real world again.  I have a mountain of work to do.  I need to get as much done as I can tonight, because I have three shoots tomorrow…
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You deserve a break today…

Guess who I got to meet while shooting for a client this weekend?  The coolest clown around:  

 
The shoot was pretty early in the morning, so please excuse my less than stellar looks.  However, Ronald McDonald still looks absolutely perfect!  
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Sitting on the dock of the bay…

I was at the Chandler’s Landing Yacht Club the other night for a shoot.  While I was waiting, I decided to take this shot:  

For those of you who like to know technical details, it was at about 8:51pm, hand holding my Canon 5D and 16-35mm 2,8L lens.  Other important details…  ISO – 3200, Aperture – 5.0, Shutter speed – 1/4 sec.  
Since I didn’t have a tripod, I had to go for a maxed out ISO.  This means the full-sized image will be pretty grainy, to use an old film term.  It is very sharp, considering that I did it hand held at a quarter of a second.  
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I feel good!

I should feel pretty bad right now.  I should be close to death.  Well, not literally death, but pretty exhausted.  You see, I started my Saturday by waking up at 6:45am and heading to my first shoot at 7:30am…  my first of three shoots.  

7:30am doesn’t sound that rough?  Well, that’s not the big deal.  You see, I should feel bad because I didn’t stop shooting until 9:30pm tonight.  That’s fourteen hours of work.  Fourteen hours on my feet, non-stop.  I had about thirty minutes of down time in between each of the shoots, so really it was more like thirteen hours of actual work, but you get the picture.  
Oh, and add the fact that I didn’t get to bed Friday night (well, more like Saturday morning) until 2am, thanks to some late night shoots.  Yup, I have had very little sleep and a whole lot of work this weekend…  
Anyway, I don’t feel bad at all.  I feel absolutely wonderful for some reason.  I think it’s due to my post-work events.  After 9:30 rolled around and I packed up my camera, I headed down to Deep Ellum.  A friend of mine – Randy – was having a sort of going away party at the barry Whistler gallery.  He worked at a local newspaper for over thirty years and was recently let go thanks to budget cuts/the economy/bad luck.  
I’ve known him for the ten years that I’ve been freelancing for the paper, and he’s been a great friend to talk to and an influence on my photography.  We share a lot of friends and coworkers in common, so the party was sort of like a family reunion.  It felt so good talking with these people that I don’t get to see very often anymore (thanks to digital photography and the internet, there’s just not a need for face to face interaction with clients these days).  
I wound up staying until midnight, talking with old friends.  I eventually made it back to the car and headed home.  However, I noticed something as I went up Elm Street.  There were four people inside Kettle Art Gallery, even though it closed a couple hours earlier.  I just had to stop and say hello.  
I went inside and talked with Frank and his daughter, and met two new people.  We wound up talking about art, Deep Ellum, music, and other stuff for thirty minutes or so.  I’d seen Frank’s name around town for years…  practically forever.  However, I didn’t actually get to know Frank until last year.  He is such a great guy and it was so good getting to talk with him again.  
I got home around 1am, which made for one REALLY long day.  But, like I said, I don’t feel bad at all.  My feet hurt like mad, but my heart and soul feel so lively and energetic after getting to see and talk with so many friends.  I’m so lucky to be in an industry with so many great peers.  
People Like Randy, Allison, Courtney, Michael, Mike, Rex, Mona, Evans, Frank, Amber, and many others that I got to spend time with tonight – they all make the local creative community here in Dallas so special.  How could I not feel great tonight?!?  
Enough rambling.  I’ll go back to regular blogs about more practical photo topics.  I just needed to point out how great the people who actually make up the Dallas photo community really are.  They make being a photographer fun… even after a fourteen hour work day.