News – Page 15 – JWNPhoto.com

Category: News

Art Is Hard

A couple of weeks ago my daughter picked out a cupcake costume at the costume shop. Unfortunately, it was way too small and they were sold out of the larger sizes. No problem, we thought – we’ll just find it online. Little did we know that this particular costume is a new item and is very hot this year. We couldn’t find it anywhere (with the exception of eBay where people are selling it for about 3x the list price). So, knowing that my daughter had her heart set on this costume, my wife became determined to make one even better than the store-bought version she couldn’t have.

She started out by Googling cupcake costumes looking for ideas. The results she found were less than desirable to say the least. She decided to go to the local hardware store and browse around with the hopes that a light bulb might go off in her head and a solution would come to her. She came home that night with a couple of pieces of PVC tubing, spray paint, and some poster board. Pretty soon she had constructed what looked like an upside-down pink lampshade. I took two dog leashes and made a pair of suspenders out of them and we had the cup portion of the cupcake.

The really tough part was figuring out the icing top. After a few days of going back and forth, my wife decided to use poly-fill at the icing. Unfortunately, there was no easy way to attach it. We thought about getting a giant over-sized shirt and gluing the fill onto it, but it would have looked more like a mess than a scrumptious treat. Then I had an idea to mimic our favorite cupcake shop in Charleston, appropriately called “Cupcake”, who uses really thick icing in a giant swirl to top off their cupcakes. We could use quilt batting and sew it into a tube stuffed with the poly-fill and twist it around my daughters body, just like a cupcake from Cupcake!

After another trip to the store to get some hot glue sticks, yarn, and a giant sewing needle to assemble the icing so that it would stay put, my wife managed to make what looked like a giant pastry! We glued little colored pom-poms to the icing to look like sprinkles, and then my daughter made one big pom-pom into a cherry that she glued to a headband as the finishing touch to her pink wig. This is the final result:

She got to show it off for her Girl Scout troop this evening at their Halloween party and she won the prize for cutest costume! Surprisingly, the costume is still in tact for next weekend. My wife should be proud of what she made for my daughter, because it is so much better than what had inspired it in the first place. It took a lot of hard work and determination, a few curse words, and a couple or bloody fingers. The same is true in any artistic endeavor – if you don’t go out there and do something, even if you know it will be really hard, nothing will ever happen for you, which is even harder to deal with in the long run.

Pro or Amateur?

Tonight, the family came with me to drop off my prints for the 2010 Coastal Carolina Fair photography contest. As I was filling out the entry forms, the inevitable question came up that I didn’t want to answer. “Are you a pro or amateur photographer?” Oh boy, that’s a tricky question. Last year it was easy for me to check the amateur box, but this year I feel I’ve grown a lot (especially since I completed my 365 project). If you go by the definition of amateur, I fall right in to that title. As I write this, photography doesn’t support my family, my other career does. I love photography – it’s what keeps me sane as far as being an outlet for creativity. But in my mind that doesn’t make me a professional, because it’s technically not my profession for now.

So, it sounds easy, right? I’m still an amateur by definition of my true profession, so I can check off the amateur box. Unfortunately, there was this clause on the entry form under Division 1, which is the pro division, “This division is open to professional photographers (those who work full or part time in photography) and accomplished amateur entrants who are capable of competing at the Division 1 level”. Ugg. Why the hell did they say that? Division 3 is for students, and it doesn’t have a clause that says amateurs who read a lot of books and photog blogs can compete in the student division, so why allow amateurs in the pro division? I’m not complaining because I think its wrong, I’m complaining because I don’t want to have make that decision! If it’s cut-and-dry, then cool – I don’t have to think about it. Now I have to stress about it, which is silly, I know.

I asked my wife and she said without a doubt “Division 1”. Then she looked at the work of some of the other amateur photogs in line and said, “whoah, they’re really good”. OK, well that makes things difficult all over again. I finally decided to man up and make my own decision. It was not something I should worry about, but here I am venting about it on the web for all to see. In the name of honesty, I’m sharing my insecurities about my own skill and vision.

Speaking of skill and vision, in case you didn’t know, I’m doing a photowalk at this very fair on its opening night, which is Thursday, October 28th. I’ll be trolling around the photography/fine arts building at around 5:30PM so we can get a little pre-sunset action before the big light show in the sky. You can get all of the details right here. It should be a lot of fun, so I hope you can find the time. I found out that the local photography club is also having a photowalk on Saturday, Oct. 30th, so if you can’t make Thursday, you can be sure that a lot of local photogs will be there on Saturday to keep you company.

In conclusion, my wife thinks I ultimately made the wrong decision. Unfortunately for me, she’s usually right. Next year, I know which box I’ll be checking for sure 😉

2010 Coastal Carolina Fair Photowalk

***Update #2 10/28/2010***
The weather looks good and the clouds right now are awesome – I’m leaving for the fair momentarily. See you there!

**Update 10/28/2010**
If the forecast is actually correct, today is going to be a messy day, but if you look at the time we’ll be photowalking, the storm should be moving out, which usually mean spectacular cloud formations for the sunset! As of now, we are still on!

*Update*
I’ve been informed by a friend that the local photography meetup group is having a photowalk on Saturday, October 30th. The details for that walk are here.

–Who: Anybody with a camera and the will to use it
–What: A Photowalk at the 2010 Coastal Carolina Fair
–When: Thursday, October 28th 2010 at 5:30PM and if there is bad weather, the rain-date will be Friday, October 29th 2010 (check this site for confirmation)
–Where: We will meet at The Photography/Fine Arts building at Exchange Park, 9850 Highway 78, Ladson SC
–Why: Because sunsets at the fair are awesome, as well as motion capture shots of the rides, the colorful backdrop of concession booths, rodeo action shots, cute animals, flowers, musicians, etc. and whoever makes my favorite photo will win a 1 year Flickr Pro Account!

View Larger Map

What is a photowalk you ask? A photowalk is made up of a group of people who go to a location and take photographs. It’s mostly photography enthusiasts who like to get the chance to learn from each other or just enjoy the company of other photographers. Anybody is welcome, and there is no need to worry about your skill level, what kind of camera you have, or anything like that. Nobody has to see your pictures if you don’t want to share them!

Here are the details for the contest: Photos must be submitted to the 2010 Coastal Carolina Fair Photowalk Flickr Group to be eligible for the contest. If you don’t use Flickr already, you can sign up for a free account and then just join the group to add photos to it. You can submit up to five photos. I will pick one photo from the group that I like the most (it must be taken on the the night of the photowalk, so make sure your Exif data reflects that – film users will just have to be honest) on Monday, November 1st. You can change your submissions at any time prior to the end of the contest, but when Monday rolls around, the group will be locked. The winner will get a 1 year Flickr Pro Account courtesy of JWNPhoto.com!

You can shoot in any style you like, and you can use any technique you like as well. HDR, split-tones, and creative filters are all fine by me. It doesn’t mean that it will make the best photo though, so keep that in mind! I’m looking for my favorite shot – not the most technically correct shot, so it will be quite subjective to whatever makes me think, “Wow, that’s really cool/good/cute/amazing/different!” I won’t know ’till I see it.

Feel free to ask questions in the comments.

West Farm

I wanted to quickly add this post as an addendum to yesterday’s post. I love taking photographs of my kids, and as they get older, it really sinks in that there are only so many of these types of family activities left like this. My daughter has grown so fast, and it’s a matter of time before she thinks it’s soooo not cool to be going through corn mazes with her little brother or way too lame to let kids bury her in corn kernels. My son still has some time left in him, but unfortunately he will progress earlier than her because he’ll try and follow her example. I’m excited to see them grow up, but it’s hard to let go. I’ll be sure to capture as much of this fun age as humanly possible!

West Farm is a little farm up in Moncks Corner, SC who’s claim to fame is their 6-acre corn maze. The theme for the maze this year was oceanic, with a giant crab as the centerpiece. They also added a mission to complete while in the maze (as if trying to find your way out of one of these things isn’t enough), which was a Clue style who-done-it mystery that involved finding clues at check-in stations throughout the maze.

The kids had a blast, and they got to paint pumpkins as well. Here’s a shot of Kegan’s pumpkin. It started out like this, all cute as can be. By the time he was done, he turned it evil by adding a uni-brow and covering it with bats and spiderwebs. I thought he should have left it simple, but alas, the boy has to exorcise his creative bug on his own.

You can view the rest of the shots I took at the farm here. Have a great week!

Everybody’s Working For The Weekend

I spent this past Saturday with my family in typical fashion. We are on a mission for a specific Halloween costume for my daughter that seems to be sold out everywhere, even on the internet (with the exception of eBay sellers doubling the price of the outfit). After checking out 3 different Halloween shops, we called off the hunt and broke for lunch. We then had to pick out a present at the local toy store for one of our little buddies who was celebrating her 6th birthday. When we got home, we found this little squirrel burglarizing our bird feeder. I grabbed my camera and quickly captured this mission impossible moment.

We wrapped up the gift and then headed to the bowling alley for the birthday party. The kids had a lot of fun and I don’t think the six-year-olds had any concept of scoring or even who’s turn it was half the time. Does it matter though with bumper bowling? As long as there were smiles on their faces I think it was very successful! Here’s a set of photos from the party.

After that the kids went to a jump party and the wife and I went to see “The Social Network”, or as I like to call it, “The Pirates of Silicon Valley 2”. It was a very well acted and directed movie – At no point did I find myself thinking they should have called it “Facebookland” after seeing Jesse Eisenberg’s previous acting roles.

Today should be more of the same, with pumpkin patches on our radar. Have I told you how I think October is the best month yet?

Free, As In Kittens

I was doing some work at the Vet today, and as usual, I got asked if I wanted an animal (or three). The first time they asked me, I walked out of there with a Pomeranian! Since then, I guess I’ve been labeled because I get asked all of the time to rescue an animal from them.

These little kittens were found on a boat. Their mother was killed in an accident with the boat’s motor, and the owner of the boat found these little ones stowed away. They are still quite young, but are ready to be adopted. It would be nice if they could be kept together, but they will separate them. If you are looking for a new kitten and can make room in your home for even just one, they would be very grateful. If you’re in the Charleston area, you can call Veterinary Specialty Care at (843) 216-7554 if your are interested.

The photo of the kittens were taken with my iPhone using it’s new HDR feature. They were being very typical kittens, meaning that they would not sit still for a picture. I could have gone to the car and brought in the DSLR, but the moment would have been lost. A minute later they were all in that box napping! Even still, I think the iPhone does a terrific job of capturing moments.

Here is a shot of my other dog, Jackson, relaxing on the couch. He was a rescue dog that came from the pound. He’s such a good dog (although he took a long time to house break). I took this using a new flash bracket that I ordered for some beach portraits I’m going to be taking tomorrow. It let’s me move the flash off of the camera while still using the hot shoe, which for outdoor portraits is very important because I can get a very fast sync speed when shooting in TTL.

Don’t forget to check out the new store, I even added Canadian and UK services yesterday!

The Store’s Open, Come On In

Today marks another landmark for this website – It’s the grand opening of the JWNPhoto.com online store! There is a new link entitled “Store” in the menu bar of this site.

I’ve selected sixteen photographs that I would hang on my wall (in fact, a few of them already do). I’m very excited to share these with you as I have put my heart and soul into this craft and without you as an audience it has little meaning.

A professionally printed photograph is a lot more than the stuff you get at the local CVS or WalMart. These are printed on premium papers using state-of-the-art processes, as well as good old fashioned human skill. Each photo is color corrected to give you a precise representation of my vision for the medium you choose. All prints are inspected by a photo lab technician who is skillfully trained before they are shipped out, not some guy who rings up your milk and cigarettes and is pining for the next coffee break. The shipping rates are very reasonable and the turnaround time is amazingly fast. I can’t stress enough the night and day difference a good photo lab makes in printing photos. I’m proud to say that the photo lab I have chosen is Mpix, which is the online division of Miller’s Professional Imaging. The shopping cart is powered by Zenfolio, who is a trusted and secure e-commerce platform that makes ordering and customizing the art in a way that works for you a breeze.

I believe I’m pricing these prints at very reasonable rates. I have also limited the sizes to only 3:2 aspect ratios to keep the original integrity of the images. Because of this, it would be wise to purchase a frame (which I’m offering with absolutely no mark-up above my cost) directly from the store as they can be difficult to find in your local stores. I have also noted on each photo my suggestions for the type of paper to use, and I urge you to add the “Lustre Coating” option at checkout to all of your prints. It’s a small fee to protect your purchase and will not change the aesthetic of the print. I am a big fan of the standouts – they are amazing products and I believe they are worth every penny. I recently displayed some at the Kulture Klash Arts Festival and I think they compliment my style of photography.

You will notice that there are watermarks on the photos in the gallery – they will not be printed, they are just there to protect me from theft. I’m not usually a watermark kind of guy, but the whole reason I put this store up is to make sure that the printed product is up to my standards, and if someone were to reproduce one in a half-assed way, it takes away from vision I’m trying to convey. Therefore, watermarks it is.

I really hope you can find something that fits in your home or office, or maybe as a gift for a loved one!

On a completely separate note, when my wife came home from dropping my daughter off at her Girl Scout meeting this evening, she spotted a tiny little tree frog on the front porch. I took that as my cue to slap on my 100mm f/2.8 Tokina Macro Lens, mount my camera on a tripod, and start clicking in the quickly fading light.

Instead of using a remote, I used the timer and set it to take 3 shots in a row. The exposures were a little long as I set the ISO to 200 to keep the image as clean as possible, but I also wanted to make sure I got it as sharp as possible. The depth of field was quite shallow, but I didn’t want the exposure to be too long as the frog is breathing, and that might look blurry over a very long exposure, so I kept the aperture pretty open at f/4 which called for a 2 second exposure time.

I noticed that I’ve taken a good number of shots around my home lately – I think it’s great to explore your own backyard for possible images. Have you found something interesting to shoot near home lately?

Happy Columbus Day!

Here I thought that on a federal holiday like today, nothing would get delivered. I was happy to come home to a box full of shiny (well, actually more of a matte finish) new business cards. Thanks UPS, now if only you delivered them by this past Saturday, I could have actually handed them out to people at the arts festival! Oh well, it’s my fault for using ground shipping anyway. I’m extremely happy with how they came out, I use GotPrint for my business cards – I got 1,000 double-sided full color cards on their premium paper for $20 plus about $10 P&H. They look great and you can’t beat their prices.

Today started off a little strangely for me. I went to get in the shower this morning and was startled by a knocking at my bathroom window. Pretty strange, since it’s on the second floor. I peered out the window and looked up to see a red headed woodpecker pecking away at the roof of my house. Now I love having birds around the house, but this is just plain offensive. Thoughts of loading up my 10/22 came to mind. I then came to my senses and knocked on the window to shoo Woody away. It flew off to a tree in front of my house and then I saw its nest in a hole right at the very top.

I ran downstairs to grab my camera because, well, I have problems. At that point I heard it pecking away again. This time it was knocking on my neighbor’s roof. I quickly put on my 55-300mm zoom and grabbed this shot of the interloper:

You know, one tip you will hear time and time again in the world of photography is to not forget to look behind you. I’m glad I did, because I saw this very colorful Carolina Wren perched on the antenna of my car. If I was still doing my 365 project, this would have totally been my shot of the day, and if I didn’t look the other way I would have missed it.

That’s all for now, I’m going to celebrate Columbus day with some pasta and bread – viva Italia!

Recovery From The Klash

Last night was fantastic! Kulture Klash 6 was a huge success, and it was a ton of fun for my family & friends. I’d like to thank Jonathan Stout and Scott Debus for including me in this great event. Of course, I brought my camera with me, but I also had drink tickets so a lot of my shots were fuzzy due to Fat Tire. I spent most of today nursing a hangover, but it was well worth it (especially because I don’t have to actually work today).

During the daytime, Kulture Klash hosted a free art viewing. I brought my daughter Mackenzie along and we ate crepes and drank Japanese soda after looking at some really cool and unique art. It was really a good experience for her to see art like this on display. Kids don’t get a chance to check out alternative art at a professional level on a regular basis, and she ran around from piece to piece soaking it all in.

Here is a display with one of my prints on it. There is a painting on there that got a lot of people talking, as it is either brilliant or extremely tacky. Whichever you decide, it succeeds in creating a dialog which means it is a successful piece of work. It’s the painting on a panel of wood of Kurt Cobain with what appears to be blood and brains exploding out of the top and it’s entitled “Kurt Cobain’t”.

There was also a giant 3D piece that was very popular. The artist provided 3D glasses to view it and it was trippy to say the least. I love that it took advantage of the live setting as there really is no other way to take in this particular creation. I tried to take an artsy shot of the 3D glasses with part of the painting in the background, but the depth of field was really shallow when holding the glasses at arm’s length and this really doesn’t show the scope of the piece. I usually don’t agree with the sentiment “The picture doesn’t do it justice”, but this is one of those cases where it’s impossible to do it proper justice with a photo.

The Lowcountry Highrollers were on hand to skate around and eat lollipops. They also did some hula hooping, which made for some cool motion capture photos.

Another cool thing that Scott thought up was a series of carnival style character cut-outs that he invited artists to come in and paint. The theme was to make freaky circus sideshow characters and they looked fantastic.

Brian, Amy, & Mira In A Cut-Out Character

Charleston lifestyle photographer Jonathan Stout had a photo booth set up with a crime scene background and chainsaws, hammers, and axes as props. The man worked his butt off taking shots all night long, and they came out looking fantastic. Take a look at his website to see all of the awesomeness. There is also a shot of yours truly in there.

Here’s a shot of Jon hard at work:

There was also lots of different music from musicians and DJ’s. There were three stages, including an 18 & over burlesque show tent. I took this photo of one of the dancers in the tent, but decided to use an artistic saturation effect on it to create something new out of it. Here’s the original and saturated versions:

The shot at the top of this post is of a dancer who I asked to do some leaps and poses in front of a mural painted by the Mohawk sporting gentleman below. I think his name was Scott as well, but I’m terrible at remembering people’s names so I’m sorry if I screwed that up. You can view the other shots of the dancer as well as the rest of my photos from the event on my flickr set for it.

I hope Mr. Debus keeps this train rolling, because it was such an important event for our culture and it gives people like Robert Donovan and I (and most of the participants I’m sure), who do this for the love of it more than anything else, a place to celebrate our creations with other enthusiasts. I’m so happy to have been a part of this with such great company. Thanks again, and see you next time!

Ambition

When I got home from taking my daughter to piano lessons this morning I had a message waiting for me on Facebook from my friend Brian linking to the video above. What an amazing project to do with your family. Those kids look genuinely excited to be a part of it. It made me think of the question of “why would anyone do this?” The answer is simple. Because they could. It was that kind of ambition that got us to the moon in the ’60s. That desire to do. Do something, anything that will make our existence here a better one. The drive to accomplish a task no matter how crazy it seems and get others riled up for it. Even if the experiment that these people did had failed in its execution, it still would have been a cool experience for them and anyone who hears their story. What’s more, is that they undoubtedly would have picked up the pieces and learned from their mistakes and tried again, which is the true mark of spirit.

Here is an example of going out and doing something random, just because you can. No point other than to be happy and put a smile on other people’s faces. Go for it!

A little earlier this morning I had my own little inspiration (albeit not even a fraction as grand as the one above). I was walking my dog and it was unusually foggy out. It looked like a scene from a Vietnam war movie, if Vietnam had suburban housing developments during that time. I thought it would make a great photo, but I only had my iPhone on me. Luckily, the iPhone is one of the world’s greatest cameras if you know how to take advantage of it. I took this shot and then used an app called Camera+ to add a cross processing effect to make it look more jungle-like. I then posted it to my Flickr page and sent it out via Twitter all while my dog was baking brownies. Instant gratification – no pondering the shot or massive retouching going on. Just see something, shoot it, and share it with the world. That is why I think the iPhone is one of the best cameras a person can own.

A few days ago I shot this photo with my new lens and I keep going back to it. I love the color of the early morning light, and my daughter had just woken up – she was still brushing the sleep from her eyes when I shot this. The whole feel of the photo is “fresh”. Bright colors, bright face, awesome back light.

A little later today I’m going to take my kids to the 6th annual Kulture Klash Arts Festival art viewing. I’m excited for the children to see art that isn’t so mainstream. It should be a cool experience for them. Later tonight, I’ll go to the real party, which should be a cool experience for the wife and I. I hope to see a bunch of you Charleston area peeps there!

« First ‹ Prev 12 13 141516 Next ›