INSPIRATION AND PUSH

I was looking at Paolo Pellegrin's portrait series of Hollywood stars with my colleague Gary Cosby, a guy I admire a lot, both as a person and as a photographer. We were trying to figure out the type of lighting and how Pellegrin used it. Looking at good stuff like that can really bring you down when you consider how far you're from that level of photographic quality, but it can also inspire you and push you to try new things.
Right after our discussion, I went out to photograph Macey Warren, 18, and Jerry Reed, 86, the youngest and oldest Red Cross volunteers in the Morgan-Lawrence County chapter. While I was driving to the Red Cross office, I thought, "Well, they're not Hollywood stars, but this is a portrait and I'm going to push myself to do something new today." So, I completely changed what I had in mind and looked around the Red Cross office to see what I could do. The final results are a far cry from Pellegrin's stuff, obviously. Also, one thing is what you visualize and another what you actually get, but I'm glad I tried. As Gary told me once, if you don't push yourself and try something different in each of our more than frequent portrait situations, you're dead...


Volunteer Jerry Reed, 86, is reflected in a Norman Rockwell poster at the Red Cross office in Decatur.


Volunteer Macy Warren, 18, outside the Red Cross office in Decatur.

NET

I don't know why, but usually I try hard to avoid the net when shooting tennis. This time I decided to include it, and... it's not too bad.

LEFTIES

This season Hartselle has seven left-handed pitchers, from left, Hayden McCaghren, Chad Girado, Houston Cleveland, Josh Chop, Luke Bole, Trace Austin and Ryan Joy.

FINALLY, MY DOCUMENTARY ONLINE!

It was aired by KCPT (Kansas City PBS) on January 29, 2009. Since then, a lot of people have asked me to put it on Youtube, but I was looking for something a bit different and not so overcrowded. At last, I came across this website, "Openfilm" (thanks to Derek Frey, though he doesn't know it) and after sending the file for approval, they put it up yesterday. They got rid of the letterbox format and, because of the ratio conversion, some of the still pictures have been cropped, but other than that it's OK.
TO WATCH THE DOCUMENTARY CLICK HERE
Suggestion: Press "pause" and let it upload for some minutes, otherwise it gets jumpy and freezes from time to time.

CLEANING UP

A Cullman County Jail inmate cleans up after a long day of basketball regional finals at Wallace State College in Hanceville, AL.

EX-TEACHER, JANITOR, COWBOY (I)

Besides the daily assignments, I'm also doing a project about Collis Crayton, a former teacher who now works as a janitor at a high school in Decatur. I met Collis while shooting a basketball game at that school. Besides his formal job, he's the president (and a bit of do-it-all) of a quarter horse club.
Maybe I should narrow my story down to either his work as a janitor or as a horse carer-breeder-lover, but for now I'm doing both. I just like the contrast...

I'm posting here a few of my first images. Any ideas/suggestions will be very welcome.

SURPRISE CONCERT

The other day, I had an assignment that wasn't very clear (at least for me). There was supposed to be a youth meeting at a church in Decatur. So I went and then found out that it was actually a concert by Fee. I'm told that these guys actually are one of the hottest Christian Rock bands of the moment. I thought that would be good for an audio slideshow, but I hadn't taken the recorder with me. So, during a break, I went backstage and told the band leader, Steve Fee, my idea. He called the road manager and he gave me a CD and the permission to use their music. A couple of days later, besides the photo package in the newspaper, we put this thing on the website: AUDIO SLIDESHOW: CLICK HERE

I had a great time shooting this, and was thinking all the time, "I'm being paid to do this... how cool is that?"