The Hawks!

A friend of ours recently took me and Demetrius to a Hawks game. We had our cameras with us because we had been shooting downtown and didn't have time to take them home. We didn't expect to be able to get in the stadium with them but we did! We were like two kids in a candy store with our zoom lens on and not being to far from the action to begin with. We got some cool shots and I just enjoyed being able to get close-up shots of the Hawks like that. They have always been my favorite basketball team and I've always loved going to games with my dad and brother, I'm excited to give them some of the shots I took of some of their favorite players! The Hawks won that night to the Wizards with a close call at the end. Their record this season is 10-W 6-L, I know my Hawks can make it to the playoffs this season, let's do it!

It's raining cats and dogs!

I thought you all might enjoy this! This is one of the first images I created using differnt pictures and combining them on photoshop (almost 2 years ago now). The different pictures are the roof, Demetrius, and all of the animal pictures are seperate pictures. I just thought it was a fun idea, and I also see I could have done a little more to it to make it realistic, but i think it's really cool for the knowledge I had of photoshop back then. ENJOY!

Missionaries!

Last year around this time I was photographing my Photo Journalism final four. My topic was Missionaries and I followed two missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I was very interested in the subject and excited and nervous to shoot. It was hard at first because I felt uncomfortable shooting at times such as prayer. Everyone was so welcoming that I was soon comfortable! It was an amazing opportunity and I was so excited to see the looks on their faces when I showed them my images. These missionaries are an amazing group of people and I felt privileged to be able to photograph them.

LEGO graphics

As many of you all know I work for LEGO. Over the time I've been with them, I've observed our boxes many times. I've always been impressed with the quality of the graphics and how they make the LEGO set fit into a real environment. They also add small touches that really help, such as on this box they dirt on the tires and seeing the movement. Through my interest I found out that all the LEGO photographers and graphic designers are in Denmark, so that probably wouldn't be a possibility, but I do truly admire their work.

My Executive Portrait!

I noticed it was that time, for the upper quarter students at Gwinnett Tech to take their executive portraits. I figured everybody would enjoy seeing my executive portrait from last year, which made it to my portfolio. I Shot the head of the Dental program at Gwinnett Tech and this is actually the 2nd shot I took. The 1st one I was going to turn in had his students surrounding him holding fake teeth which was interesting also. But I did this little thing where I tripped over my hard drive and Lost all of my images from 4th and 5th quarter. Luckily he let me re-shoot him and this shot turned out better than my original! I remember this being a great shoot to learn how to shoot on location and under a time limit.

pssstt. don't forget to back-up your hard-drive!

Jim Martin Rally

This past Wednesday Demetrius Freeman and I went out and shot The Jim Martin Rally at the Clark Atlanta Campus. This was one of my favorite shots that i got because of the expression in this woman's face, there's nothing like being able to capture the true emotions of somebody!

There were over 3,000 supporters waiting to hear Jim Martin and Bill Clinton Speak. It took so long for Bill to get there that we were starting to leave, but of course when we did that he showed up and we got to hear him speak. It was a great experience!

"The moment it clicks"

I got the pleasure of first hearing about this book by Joe McNally (An amazing photojournalist who is known for his work in National Geographic and so much more) before it came out! I was at a seminar where Joe was speaking and talking about his photography life, showing pictures and telling all the details about them. I also was very excited to hear about how much detail he described in the book about how he got shots and how they were set-up. I learned a lot from the seminar but what stuck out to me the most is when Joe McNally said "The most important piece of equipment is your attitude" That can be easy to forget sometimes and it's nice to know such an amazing photographer goes by that rule. The book is a great read, because it's such a great learning tool for lighting composure and it's so interesting to hear about Joe's life!

A blind LEGO builder!

Yesterday I got the Opportunity to shoot the creation of a blind LEGO builder. The photo's will be going into a future article in Brick Journal Magazine, to go along with an Article Scott Lyttle wrote about her and how she's able to build without seeing her bricks or creation. It was truly interesting and inspiring to see. I'll let everybody know when the article has been published.

More about my work!

This Is an interview Stephany DuBose did of me where I tell you a little bit about the photography work I like to shoot. It was a lot of fun and I hope you get to know me a litter further from it! Check it out!

It went Great!

So yesterday my group gave our Wedding Toast Speech about my Teddy Bears. It went great! My Teddy bears are actually married now! These are two more images that appeared on my PowerPoint I was showing during my speech about Hubert and Princess. Everybody responded really well to the pictures, actually giving somebody an image to look at while your describing something can make a big difference in a presentation. Also I had so much fun with it, I love being able to be creative and tell a story with images!

Image for About the Author

This is the picture I took of Mimi and her grandchildren, that is in the back of the book Midnight with Mimi for the about the author. It is also on the books website. Marrissa Jonas and Demetrius Freeman were my assistants and we had a lot of fun! It's a little crazy trying to get 11 people to all look at you and pose, but the family was great, I got a lot of really fun shots also and it was a fun learning experience!

A TeddyBear Wedding!

I'm currently in a speech class an have to do a Special occasion Speech. So my group decided to do a wedding toast and not just any wedding toast but one for my TeddyBears Hubert and Princess. During my part of the speech I am showing pictures of them together while they dated, this is one of the many I took, this was such a shoot and I loved having an excuse to carry my TeddyBears around!

A favorite

I've gotten a lot of great feed-back about this image. I spent a lot of time in photoshop working on it to make it the image I wanted and I feel I definatly did that!
It's two pictures, 1.) an old church 2.) a brown paper bag. and I mostly messed with the opacitiy of each and used some other techniques also.
The church in this photo was the church that my boss grew up in and she took me here to take pictures. She actually hadn't seen this image until last week. I was so excited to show her and she completly loved it. I love how much it means to her and can't wait to give her a copy! It's also a favorite of Johns and one of my best friends dad Steve, everyone tells responds to it differntly and I enjoy hearing what everybody thinks.

A little encouragement

Yesterday John and his wife took me, Marissa, and Demetrius out to dinner(it was supposed to be the other way around but we weren't fast enough). We just wanted to thank him for everything he's done for us. This guy is AMAZING. I have to say I have no idea how I would have gotten through the photography program if it wasn't for John! He always made sure we were taken care of, he'd stay for late labs, always made sure we had the equipment we needed, and always made sure we were going in the right direction. He always encouraged me and pushed me to do my best because he truly believed in me. I'm so glad he's been a part of my life and I hope he realizes how truly blessed I feel to know him. We all need somebody who truly believes in us and won't give up. I hope I can be that person to somebody one day, I feel so lucky to have gained a true friend.

Interview with Sam!

This is an interview I did of Samantha Magroski, A current photography student at Gwinnett Technical College. It was a lot of fun and I was excited to get to know her further!

A Tribute to Polaroids!!

So I was thinking today about how much I'm going to miss my ability to use Polaroids for my 4x5 camera. I love using my 4x5 and have never really used it without Polaroids. I can't really imagine not using them and getting the exact exposure and scence I envision for Chromes. I only have about 1/2 a box left and my realities already here. Its just makes me sad because it shows that digital really is taking over and people are almost forgetting film even exists. I know people are adapting to not using Polaroids and i'm sure I will, but I will never forget you Polaroids..NEVER!

I know your wondering

I know a lot of people have seen this picture and wondered the story behind it because well I know its a differnt side nobody has seen. Well here it is, I took this image about 9 months ago. It was to express a lonely time in my life when I was trying to get over an old relationship. It was therapy to put an actual image to my feelings. It explains how I felt alone, vulnerable and curled up into a little ball where nobody could reach me. I took this for my personal use and never expected to use it for anything, especially not my portfolio where everybody would be seeing it. One day I decided to show my instructor and she feel in love with it. It's been interesting to show people because it's so personal to me and it also shows another side to my photography.

MEGAPIXELS!

Am I the only person who finds it crazy that there are point and shoots with 10 megapixels and more? as much as our DSLR's? How does that make any sence. Theres no way the use for those cameras need that many megapixels for their use. Heres a one of the many articles I found about it. Yes megapixels matter but it has gotten rediculous, don't forget about the other factors that help produce a nice image.

Looking for a good midrange camera

Recently my friend Rue asked if I could help her find a good camera that was a little more than a point and shoot but not as advanced as my camera (an SLR), and it be in the $300 range.
Here's what I came up with:
The Canon SX 110 IS- I liked because it's known to be fast and it's ISO range is 80-3200. 9 mpix

The Canon SX 100 IS- The older version of the 110 doesn't have as wide of range for the ISO. 8 mpix. Both have the 10x optical zoom, but the 100 is currently cheaper than the 110.

The Canon s5 IS- has a 12x zoom and a feature I really enjoy is it has a hot shoe adapter for a flash. 8 mpix
After looking at only Canons because Those were the ones she wanted me to predominately look at I decided to compare some other brands.

The Fujifilm Finepix s2000 HD- has a 15x zoom and a 100-6400 ISO range. 10 mpix. But also had something none of the Canons had a reduced power usage! All four of the cameras I mentioned take AA batteries witch is no fun replacing, but with reduced power usage and a cheaper price tag, I would consider the Fuji.

Of course I had to throw in a Nikon Camera so I looked at the Nikon P80- With an 18x zoom and a Lithium Ion battery pack. Both great features. 10 mpix, but this camera is a little more expensive than the others.
Overall I would recommend any of them for my friend and think it depends on what features you want, and how much money you want to spend, overall they all compare pretty closely.

A fun idea!

For my 20th birthday I set-up lightes outside of my house to photograph all of my guests. It was so much fun and this is just one of the shots I got. Here you can view others from the shoot. Photographing guests at a party is a great idea to play with things such as lighting plus your guests will all love having their own photo shoot!