Portrait: Willie

I shot these a week or two ago with Willie at the local Coffee House. Midafternoon (2pm) made for beautiful light and a relatively uncrowded space to work in.

I surely won't win any awards for these photographs, but I went into the session knowing what I wanted and I came out 120 frames later with something close. 

It felt good to shoot a portrait again after focusing so heavily on cars for the last 5 months. Not only a portrait, but a natural light portrait. No extra gear, just me and Willie and the camera and some great window light.

Until next time...

Productivity

Sometimes I post things that are completely unrelated to photography.

This is one of those things.




Scott Hanselman on productivity. As a plus: nerd humor.

Zoe Keating

random cellphone photo...

So you know how Rodrigo y Gabriela sound like an entire room full of guitars, and it's just the two of them?

Zoe Keating sounds like a concert hall of nothing but cello, but she's only one woman making some very powerful music.



I discovered her through Chase Jarvis Live, which, if you know me, is something I can rant and rave about all day. I'll spare you that lecture, and simply insist you listen to "Escape Artist" above. Get yer good headphones or turn up the speakers. Worth it.

BTW, that link is to the Grado Labs SR60 headphones. Arguably the best headphones you can get for under $100.

Portraits from today coming soon, hopefully along with images from my recent roll of 35mm slide film.

Birthday: 22

I was recently told by one of my loyal readers that I have been neglecting my blog.
True.

I have also been neglecting my photography.
Shame.

So, I give you a random assortment of photographs and such from recently.

The Flagstaff Extreme Adventure Course is awesome. They are set to open to the public on Friday May 4th, but they spent the last two weeks doing free soft openings to select groups of people. Namely, they put the word out on Facebook. As soon as I saw an opportunity to try the ($42) course for free, I jumped on it! For good measure, I dragged Amanda and Ryan along with me, cuz it's my birthday and I do what I want!

After a brief introduction/safety/training session, we were set loose on the course for about three hours.
Step 1: climb rope ladders to obtain altitude.
Step 2: enjoy awesome obstacle course up to 65' above ground.

to show scale...

yours truly

Final step: kiss the ground and hug your friends! You survived!

After our epic tree-hugging adventure, we held a small get-together at the house to celebrate the fact that I somehow managed to make it to 22. There was drinking involved.

people hanging out and enjoying themselves...

the next morning

Camaro: Fail

A shoot I'm not particularly (at all) proud of. Up and downs are part of the creative condition. This shoot didn't quite come out how I would have liked, but I'll get it next time for sure.

Yup.

In other news, I am now 22 years old and my birthday was epic. That's another post for another time though.

Sea Level Sucks

A few weeks ago I was contacted by a Flagstaff startup company called Sea Level Sucks. They're launching a clothing line dedicated to living life at 7,000 feet and higher-than-sea-level in general.

The owners, Martina and Dan, are two super awesome people. They've decided to keep all their business local in Flagstaff, and they found me via the Google. Yeah. The Google. Cuz I can.

Sunday was our photoshoot day, and everything went as smooth as you could ask for. My crew showed up on time and worked hard all day. The client showed up on time and ALSO worked hard all day. The images came out, none of them got lost or deleted, and the client is happy as can be. This being my first moderately large commercial shoot - I'm both surprised and supremely pleased that it all came together without any difficulties.

Step 1 was working logistics. Taylor Mahoney was my first assistant and did a fabulous job wrangling gear, client, shirts, and my other two assistants all day. 

Taylor's self portrait

Breakfast and lunch were catered by Steel City Deli and Grill. Can't beat that. The client pre-ironed all the shirts, so all we had to do was toss them on the model, frame it up, wrangle the creases and shoot.

Step 2 was setup. Preston Traucht of Highline Photography helped out Taylor and Jon while I set up the tethering system and schmoozed the client, who showed up just a little early.

Preston helping me get the light right

Jon Matthies of Jon Matthies Photography making sure we color correct correctly.

Step 3: SHOOT!

We did the front and back of each shirt on a model, then the front and back of each shirt in detail for the website. Also: hats.

Crew

Crew and Client

Sea Level Sucks will start taking orders online soon - but if you can't wait, go to their site now and give them your email address so that when they do launch, you get a coupon for discounted product!

Yours truly...

Standing Desk v3.0

For those of you know know me, you understand I have a rough time doing *anything* the conventional way. I like to try new things and play with ideas I find interesting.

About a year ago, after reading an article in LifeHacker, I switched to a standing desk in my home office. I got sick of tripping over my chair and sitting on my butt all the time. A standing desk seemed like a perfect solution.

V1.0 was just my regular desk with a bookshelf placed on top. I swapped the bookshelf out for a metal shelving unit after a while for added stability.

V2.0 was slightly more artsy. I created it out of snap-together metal cube things... This desk was less stable than it's predecessor, but allowed for more awesome configuration of materials

V3.0 is the current version and it took me most of yesterday to put it together. I've scrapped the sketchy-unstable setup in favor of building the silly thing directly into the wall. I purchased a rather large piece of wood, sanded and stained it in two pieces for installation into the wall with shelving bracket materials from Home Depot.  This version is MUCH more stable than the previous setups, and provides me with WAY more desk real estate.

Desk1 : home

Desk2 : Office

I was also able to keep the metal-cube-things for hard drive storage and cooling solutions along with all the extra crap that exists in my office/bedroom.

Overall, I highly recommend standing desk setups, especially since it gives you an excuse to be on your feet AND use your brain to design/build it.

If you're looking for ideas/inspiration/reasons to give it a try, check out the following links.
The inspiration for my desk: http://lifehacker.com/5874352/build-your-own-standing-desk-for-40
The How/Why of it all: http://smarterware.org/7102/how-and-why-i-switched-to-a-standing-desk
Another one, just cuz we can: http://lifehacker.com/5190734/save-your-back-and-some-cash-with-a-diy-standing-desk

One important thing I've noticed in working at a standing desk both at work and at home: Get some kind of pad for your feet. Gotta have it. It keeps you moving around provides a more flexible support than standing on the ground.

Coming soon: my experience with Sea Level Sucks