Super Snaps.

So my assignment for photo this week is to present the three images that I have created that I would save if I had to get rid of everything else. Also to present images that were monumental in my relationship to photography.

Here goes:
1.

Hopefully it won't be forever, but this is currently probably my favorite image I have ever created. It was taken in the middle of trying to set up for another shot. It isn't staged in anyway. The model was walking to a rock in the river that she was going to shoot on and was trying to keep her dress from getting wet. My favorite style of shooting has since become trying to find the beauty of the moment, seeing 'the smaller picture' if you will. (you had better) Anyway, I love it.


2.

This was actually taken the same day as the image above. My favorite images are those that simply and effectively convey a sincere emotion. I think that Salgado and Nachtwey are masters at this. While the subject matter I have so far shot has been much less dramatic and of much less importance I hope to be able to convey emotion in the same way. This shot is my favorite attempt to do so.

3.

If I may cheat a little here, (and I may) here are two images for my third image. This is the photographic proof of the best night of my life and two of my most personally meaningful images. I have been a huge fan of AFI for years and I was given the opportunity to shoot an extremely small, private show for 400 of their most devoted fans. The mood was extremely personal and informal but the energy was so intense. I tried my best to capture mood of the event for everyone that wasn't there. I feel these images very accurately portray the experience, as well as the feel of the moment.

Other Categories:

My favorite photojournalistic photo:
(Fire at Griffith Park, Los Angeles)

My First Photo:

This is the first photo that I ever set out to take artistically. I had a father with a camera and a friend who had asked me to take a conceptual picture of her before her wedding. It was my first experience with lighting, composition and art direction. Almost everyday I wish I had lit the candles, but what can ya do?

a severe case of consternation

Some oversights seem plausible. We THOUGHT there were WMD's in Iraq. At the time OJ seemed possibly innocent (that's a stretch) etc.. but this one is just killing me. Bathroom doors without locks. There is absolutely nothing that I am doing behind a shut bathroom door that isn't going to be seriously awkward, or at least a health code violation to share. There are few things as unsettling as realizing you are going to have to conduct your business at the porcelain altar in a strange and unfamiliar commode salon. Then to make the situation all the more dire one discovers some 1950s door paper thin and unable to keep out a stiff breeze let alone a would be potty partner. I realize times have changed but was this seriously never an issue 50 years ago? Were times so proper that one would send an advance telegram or a greeting shout to warn any possible occupants? I'm sorry but if you have eaten that certain special six cheese, pinto bean, guacamole, wild mushroom, asparagus bisque, mango chutney, long grain rice, cool ranch omelet you can approach the disposary with a certain haste. It is no more pleasant to discover a fellow parishioner of the porcelain than it is to be discovered. Let us all band together to rid the land of this unfortunate get-to-know you opportunity.

The serious moustache

So I recently encountered this article from Esquire Magazine:

"Although society had been flirting with the return of the mustache for years, we'd remained unconvinced. It had become a trifle, a mockable prop—even to those sporting it.

But sometimes the truth comes at you unexpected. Like maybe riding down from the rooftop bar of a fine New York hotel, after an evening of drinks, in a paneled elevator crowded with not a few beautiful women, some of us yobs from the office, and, in the middle, a single man standing tall, in a dark suit, wearing a mustache.

The space grew quiet, then one of our people—the one who'd had the most to drink—started in: "The mustache. Are we okay with the mustache?" A response came without hesitation or rancor. "Oh, yes, you should try it yourself," the man with the mustache said. "It's empowering." The accent was Merseyside. He sounded like a bodhisattvan Ringo Starr.

But we weren't done with him. "Really? What about maintenance?"

"There's less to do. You don't even think about it."

Our own guy hesitated, paused, and confessed: "The truth is, I have thought about it, but don't know if I could pull it off."

The man nodded. He understood. "You can. It's a declaration. Try it. Set yourself free."

With that, the doors opened and he disappeared into the night. And we were believers. The serious mustache is back."

--esquire

I frankly couldn't agree more. With that in mind I would like to offer some glimpses of the 'serious mustaches' today's lip whisker enthusiast has to offer: