Time laps, Joplin, Mo.

A couple time laps shots I took last spring from the roof of the Ridge way Apts.

Its been a while huh?

Mr. Justin Nevins working at his passion and his craft.

Into water.....with equipment

Into water....with equipment

Into water.... With equipment.

Into the water.....with equipment

So, one of the most un-nerving shoots I have ever done, aside from my first wedding, happened recently. I found the experience exillerating to say the least and the shots I got were also about as cold and mood as I was that day.
To get out to the sweet spot that day, was like coming to the red sea, and being trapped between my determination and chest deep water. ( at points) We made a trial run and found the least dangerous route, then returned to dry land to collect the equipment.
Bringing a camera, lenses, flashes, stands and umbrellas was a fun adventure, though tedious.
I learned that when in such bright light that the infrared slave couldn't pick up the light of the commander flash. So we did 98% of the shoot with a white umbrella and flash to counteract the bejillion watt sun.
So dropped Caleb in the water told him to act cool like he didn't care, which is pretty natural for him really, and he delivered.
When all was said and done, we were wet and the equipment was dry. Caleb and i had a victory beer and hello destroyers (www.hellodestroyers.com) have a few new photos.

They were hard at work being limners. . .

Limner

Etymology: Middle English limnen to illuminate (a manuscript), probably back-formation from lymnour illuminator, alteration of lumenur, from Anglo-Frenchaluminer, enluminer to illuminate, ultimately from Latin illuminare

Date: 1592

1 : to draw or paint on a surface
2 : to outline in clear sharp detail : delineate
3 : describe s the frontier life of the settlers>

Society

Pronunciation: \sə-ˈsī-ə-tē\

Function: noun

Inflected Form(s): plural so·ci·e·ties

Etymology: Middle French societé, from Latin societat-, societas, from sociuscompanion — more at social

Date: 1531

1 : companionship or association with one's fellows : friendly or intimate intercourse :company

 The past 10 or so days, I had the extreme privilege of hanging  out with a gentleman named, David Baltzer from the Art group, Limner Society. During this 10 day period 5 artists were working toward an art show at Momentum 8. These brilliant artists spent a grueling 12-15 hrs a day working together on their personal pieces of work. They talked, laughed, got stresses and grouchy, ate together and in the end created some brilliant art work together. 

This is the vision of David Baltzer of New York City who was the head Limner here with us in Joplin. If you navigate to the "about" page for Limer you will find this following statements concerning themselves;

The Limner Society’s Vision is a visual arts renaissance in church and society.

Our Mission is to inspire a visual arts renaissance by edifying the church, creating art in community, and participating openly in the cultural dialogue.

The Limner Society believes that it is important to stand on a foundation of core values while we seek to accomplish our mission. Both as an organization and as individual participants, we want to be:

• Committed to Christian faith that brings glory to God.
• Devoted to truth.
• Dedicated to an understanding of God, especially in context to culture, and sharing that understanding.
• Engaged in collaboration with the Holy Spirit to integrate our art making with our faith.

In this creative situation, I was not a featured artist nor was I even a guest artists. I was the man who was commissioned to photograph the intense and beautiful process the artists embarked upon to create. I loved my time there and I will take many memories with me from being around these great people. The one that will stand out beyond the others was the thick creative spirit that filled the air in that building on Main st. Joplin. I've never imbibed so deeply for such a long period of time the raging freight train of the will power to create and the open mindedness and wiliness to accept critique.

Check these guys out, they're brilliant, and some of the nicest people you could meet. www.limnersociety.com 

Also, the show is still up at Momentum8 at 8th and Main st. Joplin, Mo. 

Here are a few shots from that 10 days of creative bliss. 

Rock Camp

Rock Camp

Rock 'n Roll + Camp = Rock Camp

Ernie Williamson in Joplin, Mo. has taken the two best two things in a kids life, or a kid in general and married them!
They take kids from from their lessons (piano, guitar, bass and drums) and form two different bands.  At the end of two weeks the bands showcase their work in a public location and have a blast!
I had the great chance to go and photograph the greatly talented musicians in a rehearsal one day at the music store and we had a blast!
I've no doubt that we will see a few of these young society rebelling rock music playing sneer wearing vagrants in a quality music group soon enough.

Old school

Here is an ingredient or two from this photo adventure:

Nikon F4

50mm 1:2-18

iso 50 fuji slide film (frozen since 1989 and thawed in 2007 shot in 2010)

sister

back yard

snow

This slide film is extremely touchy, but so fun to work with. Here are a few photos I shot using my sister this past winter in her back yard. 

Thanks slide film
Thanks sister!

light and coffee

About three years ago I had an idea that came upon me when thinking about some over extracted coffee and star tracks.
I was setting in the front room of my old house with my friend Travis Curtice sipping some coffee from my Bialetti percolator. For any of you that use or have ever used a percolator, you know that (or for me at least) over extracting your coffee is pretty easy. When the coffee gets over extracted the oils come out and float on the surface. As I set, talking to travis I noticed that the oils were catching the late noon sun rays coming through my window and where exploding with light. This blew my mind and I knew I could do something really interesting with the oil in the coffee.
A few days before we had many low clouds and high winds. A friend suggested I take some long exposures of the clouds rushing past the moon. So after doing this and being quite happy with the results.
So here is my small story about how the coffee tracks happened.
Lighting the coffee for the 2 second exposure proved to be a little more than difficult. I didn't have an gels at that time and as I look back I realize I might have been able to get more color out of the coffee oil employing a couple. You will see the light ended up burning a couple spots in the liquid, I tried many exposures and angles to avoid this but found it unavoidable. I plan on rehashing this project with the coffee and maybe shooting out doors or perhaps in the evening light. I've also decided that I'll have my friend @JustinNevins make me some great over extracted coffee. I decided since he makes brilliant coffee he can also make bad coffee really well.
Here is "Coffee Tracks"
Also, if you have any lighting suggestions I would be more than happy to hear your thoughts!

This is a new update....

Ok, I know, this is the first post in a month or so. I haven't been lazy really, this month has been wildly busy. I have had much fun this month with a few different photo jobs so I'll be sharing them over the next few days.
This is my friend Justin Nevins (@JustinNevins) and I'll here are two different settings with him. One, we are doing a shoot for a @hellodestroyers t-shirt the other Justin is working his brilliant espresso skills.
The Shirt shoot we did was quasi rushed, we both had ideas that we couldn't quite make happen. Though we were both quick on our feet and found a couple locations we really enjoyed and we are quite happy with the out come.
For our espresso tasting we made my kitchen our lab. Justin pulled about 12 shots and most (as far as I'm concerned) were decent. As far as justin was concerned were wretched. In the end we found that the espresso machine had a wrong water screen that messed up the tamp. Also, the tamp he has was horrible, so @inside_thehub gave justin a custom made tamp, thanks! So hopefully next time we have an espresso tasting I'll have more photos and better espresso!