Under the gun…
My friend Steve ownes and oprates a firearms training school (Michigan Defensive Firearms Institute) I’ve taken a few of his classes and found them to be worth while. The link provided is worth a click.
Steve is a retired Sheriff’s Deputy from Wayne County Michigan, and generally knows his poop. He is a large individual with all of the graces and subtlety of a 400 pound ballerina, and has about as much tact as a 3 year old, but there are few people on the face of the planet that can out shoot him.
He is pictured here bird dogging one of his students.
Michelle
I’d rather shoot portraits than anything else.
Ironic considering I don’t care for people much….
Self
When I have nothing else to photograph, I photograph myself.
…suppose I could have dragged a razor across my face first, though, huh?
Desert of Maine
Yup, there is a desert in Maine….look it up.
The happy accordion.
Shot this one during the World’s Longest Breakfast Table in Battle Creek this past Saturday.
Once a year, the city closes down main street, and a tables are lined up end to end all through down town (about a mile long), and Kellogg’s and Post cereal companies buys the whole city breakfast. Event lasts about 4 hours. There are musicians up and down the street, as well as different cereal characters like Tony the Tiger, Sugar Bear, Snap, Cackle, and Pop (though this year, I only saw Snap)
This gentleman was one of the street musicians. His vest and accordion were a god awful orange that just didn’t translate very well in the original photograph. But I figured everything looks better in Black & White, and everything B&W looks better with a tad of contrast.
…womanly.Anticipation
This is the second (actually the first) photograph of the diptych I submitted to the West Michigan Art Exhibit…the one that was not accepted.
After
I managed to get this one into the West Michigan Art Exhibit last year. It was part of a diptych, but the second half was not accepted.
I missed out on the exhibit this year due to financial restraints. Kinda bummed about that, too because the juror’s preference was right up my alley.
I coulda been a contenda…
A piece of Emily
I’m not sure why, but I really enjoy photographs with a lot of negative space, and this one has a pretty good dose of it.
The negative space itself becomes part of the subject matter. It competes for attention. But, not much can take attention away from Emily. I really like the curve of her arm as it blends into her torso and leave the bottom of the frame.
Alternative Process Wedding
Have I mentioned how much I love film?
Weddings aren’t my favorite thing to shoot, but hey, it puts food on the table, and most of the time, they are actually fun to shoot. They aren’t my favorite thing to shoot because you roll the dice each time you do and pray you don’t end up with Bridzilla.
Anyway…no Bridzilla for this shot. One of the things that makes me unique (at least around here anyway) is that, on request, I’ll shoot film for bridal portraits. No, shooting film isn’t special, but shooting large format film is.
This photograph is a copystand reproduction of one of the portraits that was commissioned during this wedding. The bride liked the look of the lith printing process, so here it is.
She was a little slow in placing her print order after the wedding (like 9 months slow) and I had made the lith print right after their wedding in anticipation of their order. So this print was riding in my portfolio binder for 9 months. Everyone to whom it was shown fell in love with the print, so when the bride finally placed her order, I was very nearly tempted to refund to her the price for the print and just keep the lith…
Take a spin
Reaching into the way back machine once again. This is from my very first photography assignment in my intro to photography class.
The assignment was about perspective. When we pull out our point and shoot cameras, or flip open our camera phone, we all get the exact same perspective. We see the point of view of a 5’8″ person (or however tall you happen to be, I picked 5’8″ because that is the national average..shush). This assignment was supposed to get us to think critically about how we see the world around us.
Taking a photo of a dog or a child? Don’t point the camera down at them, take a knee and get down on their level, or even get down lower and shoot upward.
For what it is worth, I was laying on my back when I took this photo of the ferris wheel. I got a lot of weird looks from the other Balloon Festival attendees.
Your move.
The king is cornered again.
..ain’t that the way it always goes?
Emily’s online moniker is “Stars.”Can’t get enough…
I’m still sifting through pounds and pounds and pages and pages of negatives for scanning, yet Margaret’s photographs keep coming to the top of the pile for priority scanning….I’m sure you can see why.
End of the road…
Figurative & literal.
Perpetual Motion
Emily has a lot of energy. She is a joy to photograph, but she wears me out. Either I’m getting old, or Emily has ADD, and a sugar addiction.
She can hold a pose, but not for long. Good thing I don’t use her for long exposure work…
This is another one of those ‘in between’ moments. I was reloading the camera while she sat on the floor. She was fidgeting and twisting about. I didn’t bother to say anything after the camera was loaded. I just fired off a few shots before she realized that she was on the spot again…this, happily, is the result.
(click image for larger version)
Bathed in beautiful light
I spent seven hours this afternoon scanning film negatives. 35mm, 2 1/4 x 2 1/4, 6cmx7cm, 4×5, and 8×10 film. I barely put a dent in what needs to be scanned.
I rarely post any of my film work because the scanning is such a chore. Sometimes I’ll put a print on a copystand, especially if it is an alternative process print, but not so much with the film.
I love film. I absolutely adore it. I just don’t dig on the scanning…I prefer the darkroom. But…yay…now I have more work to share.
I’ve posted digital images from this shoot, but none of them looked as beautiful as this 35mm negative. Only niggle I have with this is that I’ve clipped one of her feet, but I love the way the light falls on her here.
In between moments.
Sometimes you’ll spend hours trying to get the right shot and get bupkis.
This one happened while Margaret was waiting on me. I was changing lenses and she was waiting for instruction from me. I didn’t say a word and snapped this one off while she wasn’t paying attention.
My “first model”
This is Donna…well, this is Donna’s back.
Donna is the very first person to model for me. She & I were dating when I first got into photography. She is a photographer as well. In the summer of ’06, I suggested that we take a photography class together. She was a hobbyist photographer, but had not taken any formal classes.
I didn’t give a rat’s ass about the class, I merely suggested it as something for us to do together. The rest is history.
Donna and I are no longer together, but I still photograph her from time to time. this one, is actually from the At Sem project from last semester…
From the ‘unamed nude’ series. (pt 5)
I posted one of the shots from this series already. These are from my failed Art Seminar series. The images themselves aren’t a failure, but the project dealt with still images and video…it just didn’t coalesce for me….so I’ll show the pics and trash the video.
From the ‘unnamed nude’ series. (pt 4)
I posted one of the shots from this series already. These are from my failed Art Seminar series. The images themselves aren’t a failure, but the project dealt with still images and video…it just didn’t coalesce for me….so I’ll show the pics and trash the video.
From the ‘unnamed nude’ series (pt 3)
I posted one of the shots from this series already. These are from my failed Art Seminar series. The images themselves aren’t a failure, but the project dealt with still images and video…it just didn’t coalesce for me….so I’ll show the pics and trash the video.
From the ‘unnamed nude’ series (pt 2)
I posted one of the shots from this series already. These are from my failed Art Seminar series. The images themselves aren’t a failure, but the project dealt with still images and video…it just didn’t coalesce for me….so I’ll show the pics and trash the video.
From the ‘unnamed nude’ series.
I posted one of the shots from this series already. These are from my failed Art Seminar series. The images themselves aren’t a failure, but the project dealt with still images and video…it just didn’t coalesce for me….so I’ll show the pics and trash the video. 
Efergoh 