Wounded Warriors: Jumping for a Purpose Event Photography

Hey everyone, a couple of weeks ago I was at Jumping for a Purpose, a charity event organized for Wounded Warriors to go skydiving at Suffolk Skydive. I was there to help Eric, the awesome photographer who owns http://www.rgbimaging.net. My main goal was to get some great photos of the warriors and their jump partners as they landed. Each jumper had an incredible story to share and I met so many great people that day. I got so many great photos, but here are a few of my favorite. Be sure to also check out http://www.woundedwear.org/ a great non profit dedicatd to helping our injured veterans. 

This is Bob VandeLinde a Korean war vet who was excited to jump out a plane for the first time that wasn't being shot down. 

There were a number of double amputees who got to jump and that special harnesses were used.

 They even let me up in the plane, but I was sadly without a parachute, so I had to come back down the boring way. 

It was actually a pretty exhausting day, running around trying to capture what I could. I'm really glad I'm able to help out in my small way and I respect everyone involved, the warriors, the sky divers, and the community who all pitched in to give back a little. 

And here's some more on my Flickr Gallery. 

Here's some links to news articles that covered the day. 

Local ABC Station: http://www.wvec.com/home/Wounded-warriors-experience-freedom-in-the-skies-127692868.html

Local NBC Station: http://www.wavy.com/dpp/military/wounded-warriors-sky-diving?ref=scroller&categoryId=20000&status=trueWounded Warriors go sky diving: wavy.com

The Virginian Pilot: http://hamptonroads.com/2011/08/injured-warriors-go-skydiving-suffolk

The Blog! It's Alive!

March and April really flew past me. I've been extremely fortunate so far in my photography. Today I wanted to share an illustrative still life piece I did for a magazine. The concept was to show E-commerce. The assistant editor and I discussed what would show it off, and we thought of a typical grocery bag but with computer elements in it. With Donna's help we were able to stabilize all the elements inside the bag and get it lit properly.  The extra space on the right is to fit copy. Check out the results for yourself. 

E-commerce BagCommedy Section of this Post because you gotta have fun. Bubo, my wonderful pet ferret, became curious. It's an animated .gif, so give it a sec to load. 

Can It be both New and Improved?

This site is going to go through some major changes in the coming weeks as I establish myself and my business. The focus is going to be on commercial photography, I want to provide the local businesses of Hampton Roads with all their photo illustration needs. I am going to use this blog to show off both finished pieces and works in progress. So please, keep your eyes peeled because it's gonna be awesome!

C.R.E.A.M Dollar dollar bill y'all

2010, a brand new decade, is upon us. This coming year is going to be an ambitious one for me. I am starting my own photography business. Those of you who are reading this are probably not surprised by this announcement, it has been in the making for some time now. In the past couple of weeks, I have done a variety of assignments.

Here are some examples of stuff I've done recently. Christmas, turns out is a great time to prospect for retail business.

This family really liked this shot and looking back, I need to dial down the light to lower the ambient on the back wall and hide it a bit. The kids were starting to get antsy and wanted the pictures to end, so that was something to overcome. This is inside their home.

These kids were all over the place, they were bouncing off the walls. The only thing that keeps them in one spot and smiling is you inflict pain upon yourself. I wore an elf hat with a jingle bell at the end, my wife just kept smacking the bell into my head and the kids loved it. Children are so masochistic. This was taken in a convention center lobby. The walls are really that orange.

This was a corporate Christmas party for a local business. I went the whole night hoping to avoid a group shot. Just as I was about to make my goodbyes with the owner, he asked for one. The group sort of . I think I did pretty good. I only had time to take 3 shots and this was the middle one. 

Photo Assignment: Lumberjacks and Night Clubs

Photography has been such a great thing for me. Not only is it a great way for me to be creative, it also gets me out of the house. This past weekend I went to Mt. Trashmore to see the lumberjack competition and a friends bachelor party at a local night club.

 I found out about the lumberjack competition from my dad. He gave me a call the day before to tell me about and told me it would be good practice for action shots. In my mind, I figured I was already pretty good with action and timing. I should listen to my dad more often because it was tough, really tough. I had no idea what I was looking at and the action was really quick. These guys are like machines taking out these logs. I now know just how hard photojournalists must work when they get tossed into a new situation and have to make interesting pictures that explain what is going on. I could not get the depth of field I wanted and could not de-clutter my backgrounds. Overall I took one hundred and fifty shots including some of the event tents and spectators. Of those I felt only three or four were any good. I had missed focus on a few critical shots because the wood was disappearing faster than the camera could lock onto it. 

The best shot of the day was not of any lumberjacks, but of a family and their kite. Donna and I were walking down the hill and I turned around to look at some kite fliers. The sky wasn't too dramatic, but the silhouettes looked really interesting. I knew what I wanted and concentrated on the final image in my mind, brought the camera to my eye and waited for the right moment. I was a proud papa when I got home and saw it on my monitor. I really had captured what I wanted. There was no fussing about whether I should keep it or send it spiraling into the pixel netherworld. 

Later that day, I met up with some friends for a bachelor party celebration. We decided to go out to Central 111, a real cool looking night club in a very unassuming shopping center. Inside they play techno/house/mashups, serve hookahs, and have people dancing all over the place. The lights are low, the music is loud, and the strobes are, strobe-y. My primary objective was to have a great time and dance to some techno. Second thing was to make everyone look really cool and awesome in my photos. Thirdly, push the technicals to the back of the brain and "see" the end result to have one unified look of the night. I think I accomplished all three quite smashingly. I went with a muted high contrast style. 

Bonus of the night was to try out the typical shutter-drag-swirly-light-club photos of a dancing girl. I showed some previews from the camera and gave her a mini-moo card. I was surprised to see her pose for me. Initially I thought I'd get kicked out of the club for taking pictures of the girl. They turned out pretty good for a first crack at this style. 

I am still working very hard on getting it right in my head before the shutter ever opens.