MORE PAINTING WITH LIGHT

Beginning Saturday, phone users will have to dial the area code (256) if they want to talk on the phone here -even for the shortest of distances.

Photographer's note: Photoshop was not used in the making of this photograph. Everything is on camera. A laser pointer, a small flashlight, two empty cans, a glass coffee table, black fabric and, finally, two strobes were used in this 30-second exposure.

The editors needed a photo illustration for the next day, but when I left the office at 10 p.m. hadn't been able to do it yet. So, I ended up doing it at my apartment (and finishing at 2 a.m.). This was the set up:

GIFT

FROM A WEEKLY PHOTO COLUMN CALLED "PHOTOGRAPHER'S CHOICE"




Very often, when I'm on assignment, a lot of people look at my camera and say, "Oh, that's a big camera, man! You sure can take good pictures with that!" Some of them even ask, "How many megapixels?" And sometimes I jokingly answer with another question, "Mega... what?" Of course, I more or less know what megapixels are, but the point I'd like to make is that good pictures are not the product of the camera's size.

Any professional photojournalist will tell you this: Good pictures come from hard work. But I would add that, many times, the ability to capture good, intimate moments is mostly a gift the subjects give us when they let us into their lives, tell us their stories and allow us to spend as much time as we need with them.

That's precisely the case of of Carlo and Orlene Gentile, two performers with the Zoppe' Circus, who were in Decatur last year. Zoppe' is one of the few family circuses left in the Country, and the Gentiles, with their two children, Gianluca and Giulia, are "a family within the family." Although I had previously taken pictures of their performances, I really wanted to see how real life in a circus is, and they were willing to have me with them for a whole day.

That is why I was able to capture some intimate moments, such as Orlene breast feeding her daughter, Giulia, between the afternoon and the evening shows, or the "historic family moment" (as Carlo put it) of little Gianluca using the potty in their trailer for the first time.

This is not about my skill to document those moments. I don't even know if these two pictures can really convey what we all felt in those situations. This is rather about the gift that they gave me and for which I'm most grateful.

FIRST ATTEMPTS WITH A (BORROWED) LENSBABY

A CITY MANAGER FOR DECATUR?

Some days ago, I was asked to do a photo illustration for a story about the city vote on a change of government in Decatur, from a mayoral system to a city manager system. After thinking about it, I came up with the idea in the picture above.
This is the first time I've used photoshop to combine two different images. I usually do all my photo illustrations on camera: it's more challenging and, therefore, more fun. But obviously, I couldn't do this idea on camera. Anyway, it was a challenge to find the right spot to photograph part of downtown, find someone and photograph him in the same light (which was impossible since the clouds disappeared one hour after shooting the first picture), and then putting everything together. And, in the process, I learned from my colleague Gary Cosby Jr. some photoshop stuff of which I had no idea.

By the way, 2 days later, the majority of citizens voted YES to change the form of government, but I don't think my picture had anything to do with that...

A GREAT PROJECT

Today, Easter Sunday, the Decatur Daily published a project that my coworker Gary Cosby Jr. (pictured above with his late son Reece in the center of the cover) has been working on for months. I'm not going to write anything about it. I'd rather just provide a link to Gary's blog and you'll take it from there. It is absolutely worth checking. All you have to do is CLICK HERE

WATERCOLORS

A rained-out baseball game led me to mess around for a little while before driving to the next assignment.

LIGHTPAINTING

Sloane Bibb creates multimedia art using a wide array of materials, from old magazines' cutouts to speedometers, old car parts to you-name-it. In this image, he's seen with his latest work-in-progress.



Some days ago, I was reading in Jim Richardson's blog the behind-the scenes, or "making-of", of his photographs for the story about the Hebrides islands published in the February issue of National Geographic. When I saw the images in the magazine several weeks before, I thought he had used strobes in his picture of the stones of Callanish. Instead, he writes in his blog, he used the technique known as "painting with light." Then I said to myself, "dude, you haven't painted with light since that assignment for Rita Reed's class in 2006!" Suddenly, I felt the urge of doing some lightpainting as soon as I found a subject that lend itself to this technique. Little I knew that, on the very next day, I'd have the opportunity to do it. One of my assignments for that day was to photograph a Decatur artist who was having a solo exhibit in Santa Fe, NM. I didn't know anything about him and had no time to research before going to the photo shoot. But when I arrived at the warehouse where he works and saw all the cool things he does, but arranged (or, I should say, "disarranged") in absolute chaotic fashion, it dawned on me: if I could sort of isolate all the clutter by pointing light at specific things, I would get something more interesting and, even more, I could portray an artist by using an "artistic" technique. Went back to the car to get a tripod and a flashlight (or "torch" for those more familiar with the British term) and arranged the scene. The selected frame was my fourth and final attempt. I wish I'd had more time to perfect the portrait, but Sloane had to leave to pick someone up, and I reluctantly settled with whatever I had. Thanks to Sloane for playing along and not moving or breathing for 15 seconds, and thanks to his 6-year-old son, Calwell, for turning the lights on and off. Also thanks to great photographers like Jim Richardson who lead the way and, by sharing their knowledge with the rest of mortals, inspire and teach us.

For those with technical curiosity: this is a 15-second exposure, f/6.3, ISO 100 and focal length of 31 mm.