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Category: News

I’m Back!

Hey folks, sorry for keeping quiet for so long. I vanished for some R&R a few weeks ago and when I got back, the gods of work made me pay for it and I’ve been swamped (that’s a good thing – we’ve got to pay for our adventures somehow). I’ve tried a few times to muster up something to write here between the cracks, and after a few failed attempts I decided to just go ahead and say hello as a start. I also wanted to share some photos of Hogwarts, well, Universal Studios “Wizarding World of Harry Potter” that I took on our first stop of our vacation. I actually haven’t even gone through all of my vacation photos but I did manage to sift though these so…

These shots were taken in the morning, but since I had a clear sky at the time, I was able to drop the blue channels during B&W conversion to make the sky black, which I think makes for an ominous castle picture. Later on in the afternoon, the clouds made an appearance, so I used a different approach to keep the ominous feel, but with a more stormy effect:

Well, I’ve got to run out to work again, but I will be sharing some more photos and I have a new HDR video iPhone app I wanted to demo with video I shot in Hogsmead, so check back soon!

Change For Change Art Show Recap

Last night was the Change for Change Benefit Art Show at the Music Farm. It was the first show of this kind organized by Young & Free SC. The rock club was transformed into a DIY art gallery and was showing some of the Charleston area’s coolest underground art.

The art show focused on attracting the college-aged youth of Charleston and introducing them to what the local art scene is producing and offering a lot of it at affordable prices.

And the art wasn’t just on paper, it was in your ears and mouth as well. The Music farm exploded with the sounds of Heyrocco…

Next up, Meet The Sky took the stage:

I also had a blast hanging out with photographer buddies Robert Donovan and Jonathan Stout, who have proven to me that the best photographers have great senses of humor. Here’s a shot of BadJon Stout getting ready to devour some meat perfection from Hello My Name Is BBQ:

And Robert Donovan shows off his “Hey Ladies” pose for the camera here:

I’ll update this post with more info on how much $$$ was raised for Water Missions last night – It was for a really good cause and the organizers did a bang-up job on their first swing at this.

As usual, I took a bunch of photos which you can view in a set on my Flickr Stream.

Change For Change

*UPDATE* Photo Essay recap of the event is right here – we had a blast!

So what are you doing on Thursday night between 7:30PM & Midnight? Why not come see some local art and photography in a cool atmosphere? What about live music by Meet the Sky and Heyrocco – maybe you’d like to hear JeffET spin some music for you as well? What was that? You don’t have a lot of cash this week? It’s free admission!! You have no excuses – bring the kids too.

So, what is Change for Change you ask? From their press release:

For the months of March and April, Young & Free SC is working hard to raise $25,000 for Water Missions Intl – a locally based, international organization. We’re raising the money to put in a water purification system in a community in Africa.

To wrap up our fundraiser, we’re hosting an art show at the Music Farm on Thursday, May 5th. Artists from all over, of all different genres, will be there. Artists will donate artwork to be sold at an affordable price. All proceeds from the donated art sale will go straight to Water Missions Intl.

Here’s a video about Water Missions:

Water Missions Promo Video – Haiti 2010 from Water Missions on Vimeo.

I will be there showing and selling my work – if you like the stuff I do, this is your chance to purchase some of it at the cheapest prices ever!

Here’s the list of confirmed artists:

Jason Smith
Patch Whisky
Matthew Foreman
Robert Donovan
BadJon
Niamh Ellen
Proton
Kristy Bishop
Meta
Joseph Nienstedt
Tim Showers
Leigh Wells
Thomas Bosse
Christina Rodino
Justin Cammer
Jason Alan Layne
SHT!
Sarah Frierson
Christopher Murphy
Phillip Hyman
Joshua DelMas
Stephanie Stein
Vik Hart
Adolfo Hernandez
Trever Webster
Jashun Fairstudios
Jennifer Callicott

So, I’ll see y’all there on Cinco de Mayo! I’ll be the guy with the Tequila shot in hand 😉

Food Truck Rodeo!

We were sitting around eating brunch at IHOP, which lets face it – the food is barely edible, when the discussion of the Food Truck Rodeo came up. Darn it, why didn’t we think of that before we sat down to our egg substitute and Go-Gurt topped excuse for a meal? One of the vendors at the Rodeo was Happy Camper Snoballs, who the kids & I remembered from Kulture Klash 7. We could at the very least stop by the event for some sweet cold goodness as dessert!

We couldn’t believe how many people showed up at Mixson community development in the Park Circle area of North Charleston. Parking was scarce, but the walk was well worth the treats that lay ahead. We hopped on line to grab some fruit infused snowy heaven in a Chinese take-out container.

While on line, we saw local photog Jonathan Stout taking some video of the lines. He’s got a cool art show coming up called “The 3 Amigos Ride Again, For the First Time” with Meta Sapient & Proton Factories at Local Coffee Bar on May 13th.

There was live music, dogs, drinking, and food – a regular party going on! Afterwards we headed over to the North Charleston Arts Festival, which by comparison was like going to a church fair (probably because religious services were letting out in the convention center at the time we arrived). There was some great photography on display by the likes of Kathy Hare and Leah Sparks (as well as a lot of others) at the Arts Festival though. I bet if they had the Food Truck Rodeo at the Convention Center, it would have been an interesting mix of people 😉

As usual, you can check out my Flickr Stream for all of the photos I took today. Many of the photos in this post made heavy usage of the Tonal Contrast filter effect in Nik’s Color Efex Pro because I felt like making gritty high dynamic range style photos today.

Happy Easter 2011

Just a quick greeting from my home to yours. Have fun with the sugary stuff! More photos to come…

Relay For Life 2011 – Sweetgrass Pediatrics Team

Last night was the 2011 Relay For Life of Summerville, SC which was held at Summerville High School. I was participating with one of me oldest & dearest clients, Sweetgrass Pediatrics, as part of their team.

The kids had fun as most booths had an activity that you could donate a little cash for the cause to participate in. Wow – two events in the same week with hula hooping – who knew it was making such a come back?

Team captain Dawn Norris is the person I’d like to thank for pulling it all together for the Sweetgrass Pediatrics team. She’s busted her behind making getting everyone on board and she’s also personally raised an astonishing $685.00 so far! Not to mention David & Dr. Colleen Boylston for their backing of the event. The event has managed to raise a staggering $91,763.01, and it’s not too late to donate!

Check out all of the photos on my Flickr set.

Kulture Klash 7 Recap

How do they do it? The organizers of Kulture Klash, the low country’s festival of art, dance, & music have managed to top themselves again. For the 7th installment of bi-annual event, the stand-out attraction for me was the live wakeboard demonstration provided by Chuck and Chalice to coincide with the festival’s water theme.

OK, lets rewind a bit to yesterday afternoon, when the site of the festival was freely opened up to the public to view the art installations.

In addition to art for sale, the show featured artist interpretations of the quintessential Surf Shack:

This photo is all about BadJon, his framed art, and his giant Alien Bees ring flash:

Moving along outside, as the crew put the finishing touches on the wakeboard pools, the kids and dogs took advantage of the opportunity to get as dirty as possible!

What better way to cool off in the hot Charleston sun than with an all-natural snow cone from Rena Larch and her Happy Camper Snoballs?

Artist and the man behind (and in front of) the scenes at Kulture Klash, Scott Debus presented my kids with the coveted Blue Power Ranger, which also squeaks. I know this because I was woken up this morning to the sound of a squeaking Power Ranger!

The free art viewing was the perfect place to check out local art with your family. The kids were able to run around and be kids, people brought their pets, and the atmosphere was very relaxed. We also had a good vantage point to check out some of the Charleston Air Show, which local photo buddy Montwerx was covering from behind his lens.

Now it’s time for the party! I returned to the Klash a little after 8:00PM to an already packed house.

There was live music, dancing, and hula hoop girls all around! So began an adventure in low and no-light photography.

This works to my advantage, because the best way to tell the story of a party like this is to show the motion of it.

Also on hand was the newly founded Girls Rock Charleston, who performed an interpretive dance to live drumming:

The roar of the guitar and beat of the drums reigned in the alleyway next to Storehouse 10 as the band named Cusses took the stage.

As with past Kulture Klash Arts Festivals, there were live works of art being created during the course of the night, including a giant surfboard and this huge canvas:

Over in the next alley was the Urban Wakeboarding demo as well as another stage. The wakeboaders started out on one end of the alley on the back of a pickup truck. On the other end was a winch that pulled them across two pools joined by a rail jump in the middle.

Needless to say, nighttime action sports photography is not the easiest thing to do! That didn’t stop the throngs of cell phone videographers that lined the barrier broadcasting to their Facebook friends the watersports event of the evening. Sometimes I feel we’re all the stars of The Truman Show. So says the guy with the camera…

On stage was the dub sounds of Charleston’s Dubplates:

It was time for me to depart. The amazing thing was that at 11:00PM, a whole new crowd was coming in through the gate to experience a whole other set of performances. It’s an amazing festival that truly is whatever you make of it, and I couldn’t be more impressed by just how much awesomeness is packed into one evening. I’d love to see everybody’s photos and hear their stories about the evening, so please share!

As usual, you can check out the full extensive set of photos I took on my Flickr Stream.

Kudos To Miller’s Professional Imaging

I wanted to write a post just to share with you the work that I’m contributing to Kulture Klash 7, but I need to first share with you my account of the great service I received from Miller’s Professional Imaging (who are the people behind Zenfolio/MPIX which is who I use for all of my prints).

I’m quite the busy guy, with a family to support (I’m writing this post as I tend to my daughter who’s home sick from school today) and another business to run. Although I knew that this weekend’s KK7 Arts Festival was this coming up quickly, I failed to note that the artwork drop off date was today (April 5th)! I had ordered my prints over the weekend and when I got a reminder email from the organizers of the festival about the drop off date yesterday, I had a mini panic attack because I wouldn’t have my work ready in time. I quickly sent an email to Zenfolio’s support people and explained my screw-up and asked if I could bump up the shipping to overnight. Not only did they get back to me quickly, they rushed the processing of the prints and upgraded my shipping at no extra cost! I was prepared to pay whatever it takes and they just took care of me at their expense – In my opinion that is simply amazing customer service that goes above and beyond. I’m so proud to have them as my printing partner for JWNPhoto.

The work I’m showing at Kulture Klash was really not what I had originally planned on showing this time around. I had planned on keeping a musical theme with my photos and to have a relationship between them all. When the organizers announced that the theme of the festival for KK7 was going to be water, I threw out my original idea and started thinking about water themed photos. I have a lot of shoreline photos but I didn’t want to come off as kitschy, especially in this festival’s environment which tends to cater to a more underground art scene. Don’t get me wrong, I love a classic sunset photo and I truly love trying to differentiate myself from the crowd while still creating a photo of the same sand, water, and sky. I thought of some of the common traits in my favorite shoreline photos that I’ve created recently – bold color, portrait orientation, & negative space. I remembered that unlike a photo competition – there are no rules to an art show. I could present a triptych of three different images that share a common theme and make an even stronger presentation.

The images at the top of the post are three 20″x30″ prints arranged intentionally in order and placement by the time of day and horizon. The first image was made from the Pitt Street Bridge of the Charleston Peninsula at sunset. I love the crimson color of the sky and the two cranes that look almost like they’re worshiping the falling sun. I remember a seemingly intoxicated lady who walked by while I was making this shot and she commented that the sunset was not very nice. I guess that’s why they say opinions are like asses… everybody has one. The second photo was made at Shem Creek from the bridge. I zoomed in tightly to capture a very golden sky – I love the contrast of the blue shrimping boat and the reflections of the boardwalk lights in the water. This shot also has a diagonal line formed by the dock and boardwalk that is something I tend to look for in a lot of my landscape photos. Finally, the third photo is of the recent Supermoon. I wanted a simple and bold graphical image of the water and the color and shape of the unusually bright moon. It’s very interesting to note that local photographer Robert Donovan (and a host of other local photogs) were all in the same area taking pictures of the same moon, but with very different results. Robert’s image is very similar in composition, but his focus on the detail of the moon made for a completely different image! He’s exposure is very different, so the colors are radically different as well. It just goes to prove that there is a lot of artistic interpretation going on when you get behind the camera and develop the finished product.

Another piece that I’m showing is this diptych that I made for a Gizmodo.com photo challenge. I wanted to show a picture featuring a person, because I don’t want to be typecast as a landscape photographer. I love the feeling of this photo – The saturation and contrast are very expressive and the Elmo T-Shirt is begging for your eye’s attention, much like the subject’s (my daughter) body language is longing for the attention of the waitress.

I hope to see a lot of friends at the festival this weekend – don’t forget to get your tickets early and save a few bucks!

Cooper River Bridge Kids Run

There was no river and no bridge, but there sure were a lot of running kids! A day before the infamous Charleston Cooper River Bridge Run, the kids get their shot at racing glory over at Hampton Park in Charleston, SC.

The day wasn’t only about the big races – there were games, pony rides, snacks, and weird people dressed up as fruit!

But of course, the real attraction was hundreds of running children…

Every kid got a medal, and as far as I know, every kid finished their respective race. They did a great job, and you can see the looks of determination in their faces (even if they were painted).

Check out the full set of 38 photos on my Flickr stream.

Postcard Portfolio

Front of Postcards

Just in time for Kulture Klash 7, I put together what I’m calling a “Postcard Portfolio”. Inspired by my wife’s need for “Just Sold” postcards that she’s had me designing for her real estate business. I was so impressed with the print quality of the postcards for the price I was paying that I decided to make some for myself.

Back of Postcards

The most difficult thing was to pick a handful of photos that represent what I’m currently doing with my photography. From the mysterious trolly cars in an open field, a simple, yet alternative perspective of a sunflower, to an abstract photo of my guitar, the photos featured on the front sides of the cards are ones that I chose to represent the fine art side of my photography.

On the flip side of the cards I wanted to show people in order to showcase my love for candid, portraiture, and event photography. The award winning shot of kids playing in a fountain in North Charleston, a live performance photo of Less Than Jake, and a recent portrait of these newlyweds.

I decided to keep the printed text on these to a bare minimum – Just my logo and the address of this website. I want the photos to speak for themselves and not to be overly commercialized. Look for these at Kulture Klash as well as any other events I attend – just ask and hopefully I’ll have some on me!

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