Halloween, it's got to be my favorite time of year! I've finished up all the edits from our zombie - pole dancer - pinup shoot with the lovely Lyric Allure and Katrina Lovebug. We had a seriously fun time shooting in a very unusual environment. I found an abandoned ships hull that has the right amount of graffiti and grunge to make for an amazing background (once the bottles, needles, and broken glass were mostly cleaned up). Here are a few of my favorite images...
Our trip to capture the Bumbershoot Music & Arts Festival in Seattle over the Labor Day weekend with only my Fuji x100s was for the most part a success! I did at times find myself wishing for the big glass on my Canon, but all in all I was most impressed with the images I was able to capture with the little Fuji's fixed 23mm lens. It was a wonderful weekend filled with great music, film, comedy, art, zombies, and of course the festival goers themselves! What a blending of age, race, and culture; with everyone there for one reason, to have a good time over a beautiful weekend in a magical setting. Take a few minutes (a little over 8 to be precise) and enjoy some of the images I've put together in this video slideshow with music by Watsky.
A video slideshow from our time at Bumbershoot 2013
Finally it's arrived! After a three month wait, my Fuji x100s arrived from Amazon just in time to get a bit of practice with it before leaving the Canon gear and L glass behind as we document the Bumbershoot Music & Arts Festival in Seattle at the end of the month.
If you are not familiar with the Fuji x100s, it is a small retro
looking mirrorless camera with a fixed 23mm focal length lens (35mm
equivalent) which means that you cannot change lenses. What’s on the
camera is what you are going to have to live with. Having shot with a
dslr for many years, I had already come to the conclusion that a fixed
focal length lens, such as the 50mm or 40mm, was the key to experiencing
more growth as a photographer. Not letting the gear get in the way can be both very liberating and very satisfying. The smaller size of this camera should add
to this sense of rediscovery. I'm so exited to finally get some hands on experience with the new Fuji!
My prediction: this will be the personal, auxiliary camera of many a working photographer and photojournalist. Shoot, it'll be the prime body for many, as this is a camera you could build a career on. David Alan Harvey spent several decades toting around just an M6 and a 35 Summicron.
I'll be updating often as I work and learn my way around the Fuji as well as posting what I hope are grand images from this small camera.
Here's the inner geek in me coming out... I just want to show my love for all those involved in putting on Trek in the Park for the last five years. This is the end of their five year mission to bring free theater to Cathedral Park under the St John's Bridge. It's culminating in one of Star Treks' classic episodes, "The Trouble with Tribbles". Do yourself a favor and check it out before it's gone. Show up early, the best spots on the lawn fill up quickly.
The Bridge
Tribbles!
Beam me up Scotty!
Boldly Go!
Here's a video slideshow from Deviants Car Club's Big Shindig 2013 held in Vancouver, WA on July 6, 2013. Music by Julia Haltigan.
I spent some time this past weekend downtown Portland. Among the activities on the agenda was a tour of the Portland underground and the Shanghai tunnels.
The "Portland Underground" tunnels, more popularly known as the "Shanghai Tunnels", were basements of buildings that connected to other buildings through brick and stone archways that were intersected with tunnels that connected under the streets, linking block to block. These "catacombs" or "tombs", as they were sometimes called, created a unique network of passages and thoroughfares that were used by unscrupulous individuals called "shanghaiiers" or "crimps", in addition to "white slavers" who grabbed women and sold them into prostitution.
This was an illegal maritime practice where able-bodied men --- sailors, loggers, cowboys, sheepherders, ranch hands, construction workers, and vagabonds, in addition to other hard workers who were either employed or who frequented the waterfront, were grabbed or kidnapped and sold to sea captains who forced them to work aboard their ships for no pay. Portland was unique because trap doors (known as "deadfalls") were used to drop the unsuspecting victims into the "Portland Underground", where they were forcibly held in cells until the ship was ready to set sail. From 1850 to 1941, the so-called Victorian-refined Portland was known as the "Unheavenly City" or the "Forbidden City", due to this shocking practice. And, during "Prohibition", the saloons literally went "Underground" and occupied a portion of this so-called "Underground City", creating an even greater opportunity for men to find themselves aboard a ship bound for the Orient.
There are still many people in power who would rather you not ever find out the true history of Portland. I encourage anyone interested to go check it out for yourselves. If you don't want to take the tour yourself, check out the images I've added to my portfolio. I think they're quite interesting.
An opium den in the Portland underground.
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty ~ John F Kennedy
Fort Vancouver Barracks Cemetery, Vancouver WA
I find myself sitting here this rainy Thursday morning feeling quite grateful for all that I have. Considering all the tragedy that has occurred around us in just the past 30 days, you won't hear any complaints from me. I just want to take this moment to thank my family and friends for all the support and encouragement in pursuing this dream.
Take a moment, look around, be grateful for all the good in YOUR life, and visit http://www.redcross.org/charitable-donations to help out those in need right now. You can even Text REDCROSS to 90999 to give $10 to American Red Cross Disaster Relief, which helps people affected by disasters such as hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, wildfires and tornadoes.
I'll get off my soapbox now...
I've updated the site with new images from our photo walk/hike around Silver Falls, Oregon that we made this past Sunday. What a beautiful place less that 2 hours from the city. One of my favorite things about living and working here in the Pacific Northwest is the ability to travel only an hour or two and be in the mountains, at the beach, or hiking a trail in places like Silver Falls or throughout the Columbia Gorge.
The updates aren't coming quite as often as I had hoped, but I'll work on that. I wanted to briefly mention that I've added some new photos to the portfolio as well as updated my storefront to offer prints in several different styles from aluminyzed or canvas prints to simple framed or unframed options.
As well, we spent a great weekend downtown Portland capturing several great images from the local distilleries as well as some great moments of city life. These will be uploaded in the coming days. Stay tuned...
What began last Sunday as a short road trip to Elma, WA to photograph the abandoned Satsop Nuclear Power Plant ended up with a wonderful bonus. There is an app available on the iphone called Roadside America that shows offbeat roadside attractions in a given area, or using your GPS location, what's nearby. It showed the Kurt Cobain Memorial Park in Aberdeen, and that sounded worthy of checking out. Once we finally found it, it seemed like a nice memorial in a small park by a bridge where he liked to spend time when he lived there. There is an interesting concrete guitar, a plaque, a bench or two and a nice view of the river. The best part, that wasn't mentioned in app's description, and which I would have overlooked had it not been for a friendly golden retriever leading me down the river bank and under the bridge, was the most wonderful graffiti tribute to Kurt and his music I could have ever imagined. As I found myself immersed in the artwork, I didn't even notice the dog leave, but I will always be grateful he was there to show me the way! I'm working on the images now and will be adding another page to the portfolio dedicated to this amazing artwork tribute.
A little over a week and I'm pleased with how this endeavor has turned out. It'll always be a work in progress, but I'm happy with the layout and overall appearance. I still need to work on the "store" and figure out how to incorporate all the different sizing and style options.
The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4.4 update includes these enhancements:
Improved demosaic algorithm for better raw file support on cameras with X-Trans sensors. This includes the Fujifilm X-Pro1.
Additional camera support for 23 cameras including the Canon EOS 1D C, Nikon Coolpix A, and Samsung NX300.
Corrections and bug fixes for issues introduced in previous versions of Lightroom.
I have high hopes... Looking for more speed!
This really rings true for me: Which of my photographs is my favorite? The one I’m going to take tomorrow. – Imogen Cunningham
I want to thank my lovely wife Mandy for all her support and inspiration in this endeavor!
One doesn’t stop seeing. One doesn’t stop framing. It doesn’t turn off and turn on. It’s on all the time. – Annie Leibovitz
As of 4pm today my site is live! Looking forward to adding content as time permits.
Today marks the launch of my website and and a leap into uncharted personal waters.
